One of the things that had begun to be pushed to the side in all of the planning and prepping for having a baby had been any use of the craft room whatsoever. Hilda had occasionally thought of different styles of jewelry she wanted to make, and even more than she'd wanted to send out, but there had been quite a few obstacles standing between her and actually getting around to doing it. The first was the fact that, for a while, she hadn't felt physically up to making her little necklaces and delicate earrings, the tedious work just too much for her to want to sit and do. The second was that she was trying to limit her time in the outside world, and that meant being unable to go to the store and buy new materials in-person, which had always been her preference.

The third, which was the most important in her opinion, was that she knew if she tried selling anything, she'd get sympathy buyers who wanted to financially support her in a moment of need and she didn't want that. Her dream was to get people to buy her jewelry because they liked it, not because of some sob story behind it, but she was also aware that she was not going to keep a single thing about her personal life quiet whenever she got around to reopening her shop. She decided, one early August (or Verdant Moon) day, that it was about time she got back onto her crafting job and started pulling her weight around the house, because even the laziest of women could do something useful every once in a while.

Claude wasn't home when she woke up, not typical but not unexpected as he'd told her the night before that he was going out with Lorenz for whatever reason, and so it was already settled that the day to restart was upon her. She got out of bed, rushed through getting ready as much as she possibly could, and headed for her craft room, which had never been properly unpacked in the move and still looked like a mess. "Damn, here I was thinking someone would've set everything up for me since I stopped using it," she grumbled, looking at all of the boxes still in the room and the number of materials that had been unpacked but weren't organized in any way. "Guess I've got to do that first, before I get to the fun part."

She'd never particularly liked having to organize her own things, but making the craft room feel like the room she'd always dreamed off wasn't exciting enough to mentally stimulate Hilda. She took several breaks in the process, going and getting food or drink or more food to get her thinking about something that wasn't where swatches of fabric and collections of beads organized by color needed to go. By the time it was mid-afternoon, she hadn't gotten to the point where jewelry-making was possible, and she was growing tired of looking through the boxes for where her tools were.

"Seriously, if I'd known I'd be doing this much work before I got to the actual working part, I would've asked someone to do most of this for me ages ago." Hilda cast a glare at one of the few still-unpacked boxes, resenting the fact that if she wanted to find what she was looking for, she'd have to dig through it and put it all away as well. "I just wanted to make a cute necklace, maybe a matching pair of earrings to go with it, but all this? This is just boring work that I shouldn't have to do."
She rolled her eyes, leaning back against her crafting table that she'd mostly gotten arranged in the way she liked. "If Claude was here, I could've gotten him to do all this for me with just a wink and some batting of my eyes and maybe a kiss or two, where, I don't know! But he's not here, it's just me and I don't want to keep doing this." Heaving a sigh, she reached up above her onto the table's surface, grabbing the first thing her fingers brushed against and bringing it down so she could see it.

It was an unopened package of pink beads.

Pink was one of her favorite colors, and she'd always been blessed with pink hair and a wardrobe that liked matching it. When she made her jewelry, she made it a point to include something pink in some way, whether it was a single bead or the thread tying it together, and it was something that people who bought from her were aware of. The fact that there was a bag of pink beads sitting there for her to grab felt like a sign—whether it was a sign to keep unpacking to craft to her heart's content, that was to be determined.

She wrapped the beads in her hand, closing her fingers tightly just as she shut her eyelids. "I hope that you like pink too," she whispered, as her hand came down to rest on her stomach. "And, more importantly, that I get to spend all of my time making pink things for you to wear and keep forever." Pausing as she thought for a moment, she quickly followed up with, "But don't worry if you don't like pink, I can totally do purple or magenta or fuchsia or something else cute for you too."

It felt slightly silly, talking to someone who wasn't even present in the room and certainly wasn't going to be making any sense of what was being said if they could somehow hear it, but having that conversation brought a bit of warmth to Hilda's heart. She wanted nothing more than to get to raise a healthy baby that appreciated the same things in life that she did, and she certainly preferred that said baby would be a girl so that she could dress her up exactly like a doll. All the frilly dresses, all the cute skirts, all of the clothes talking about being a daddy's girl—because she was going to make sure that any daughter of hers loved to spend all sorts of time with Claude, and she knew that he'd want it that way too.

"Maybe when you're born, I'll have something jewelry-related in your first pictures so that everyone remembers how absolutely spoiled you're going to be," she said quietly, before opening her eyes and being reminded of where she was and how much work there still was to do before she could get to making anything of that nature.

By the time Claude came home that night, bringing with him dinner that he'd stopped specifically to pick up, Hilda had organized the craft room well enough that she knew where most of her things were. There were a few assorted odds and ends that she couldn't locate, but she wasn't too bothered with them now knowing where everything else was. She met him in the dining area, as he was plating the food he'd brought. "Only the best for my favorite woman," he greeted, holding up the lid to one of the containers to show her where he'd stopped. "It was either this or having to make it for ourselves here, so I hope you'll forgive it not being the home-cooked option."

"I forgive, one hundred percent," she replied, sitting down and grabbing one of the unfinished plates, right as Claude was trying to pour something on the food, causing him to spill a small amount. "Oops, sorry about that. All the hard work I've been doing today has me super famished, I can't wait any longer to get to eat."

"Hard work you've been doing?" Claude repeated, as he reached into the bag to grab some napkins for sopping up the mess. "What's there around here that you'd be willing to do without me here with you?"

His answer had to wait until after Hilda had taken in several bites of her food, her whole expression making it very clear how blissful getting to eat was in that moment. "Oh, uh, I wanted to make some jewelry to sell and realized I couldn't because I hadn't put my craft room together. So I was doing that all day, and I just finished when you got here. Which, by the way, have you seen my pliers?"

"Love when a woman asks me where a specific tool is, but no, I haven't seen them anywhere. You sure they aren't in any of your wire bins?" She shook her head, which made Claude shrug in return. "Then I'm out of ideas, that's all I've got for you. Guess we'll just have to get you a new pair next time we go…anywhere that sells the pliers you need."

"Or I'll just have Marianne go buy me a pair, she's really good about that kind of stuff."

Claude's lips pushed themselves together, before he shrugged for a second time. "Bet she's been spending a lot of time at the kinds of stores that sell them, so that's probably a good idea. You get any jewelry made?"

"With what time? I literally finished when you got here, it wasn't like I could drop everything and make some earrings while the room was a disaster." That would have complicated matters, as did the missing pair of pliers. "I'll just have to do it next time the creative itch needs scratching."

"Would be nice if it'd be soon, money's starting to get a little tighter than normal."

Already mid-bite once again, Hilda gave Claude a rather expressive look with her eyes that showed how much she didn't buy what he was saying. After she'd swallowed down that bite, and a few subsequent ones, she cleared her throat and said, "It'd be less tight if you didn't keep spending money by going out with Lorenz all the time."

"Whoa there, I'm not spending any of my own money when I'm out with him, he's fronting all those bills." Indignant in how he responded, Claude watched as Hilda's eyes tracked toward the empty food bag that was sitting right next to him, then glossed over all of the containers, his still-full plate and her mostly-empty one. "Ah, you mean on the way home, that makes more sense but you've said it yourself before: you get too hungry waiting for me to get home, and I'm not going to let you starve."

"If you'd tell me when you plan on getting home, maybe I could, you know, try my hand at having a nice dinner ready for you when you get home," she pointed out, before reaching toward one of the food containers she'd seen was still partially filled. "So if you're going to keep buying dinner on the way home, I think you should have to be the one making the money to afford it, not me."

Claude sat in silence for a few minutes, not touching his plate while Hilda easily finished hers and went in for a full second round. "I'm only doing it for you," he muttered, before starting to eat his food, and while Hilda didn't like that he was pushing the blame for their financial worries onto her, she certainly couldn't argue with it.

"Okay, so maybe you're doing it for me, but I'd still cook for you if you'd let me. Maybe. Depending on what you want, I guess." Already it seemed like Hilda was trying to backtrack on what she'd suggested, but she was certain that her offer to make dinner wasn't going to be accepted anyway. "You'd just have to buy the groceries and understand that I'd screw up a lot until I knew what I was doing."

"Didn't your parents teach you everything there is to know about cooking?" he asked, eyeing her as she shook her head, almost like she wasn't happy about the answer. "Then maybe you should start reading cookbooks and watching videos, try to pick up some skills that aren't your specialty ones."

"I'm good at cooking frozen meals in the oven. That's about all I've got."

Laughing as he took another bite, Claude knew that her answer wasn't meant to be humorous but he found it funny regardless. "You can keep doing that then, and I'll still pick up dinner every once in a while on my way home. But you've really got to start selling your jewelry again, otherwise I'm not sure how we're going to manage once the baby's here."

"We'll manage just fine, if all else fails I'll just hit up Holst and have him spot us the money we need for things. He's going to be a doting uncle, we both know this." Smiling, Hilda thought she'd made a good argument for not needing to get back into the jewelry selling, but the way Claude looked at her, unimpressed, told her that she wasn't being as convincing as she would have liked.

"Tomorrow, we'll find your pliers and get you back to work." That was all Claude said, and it wasn't going to be something that Hilda could argue against. She didn't have any leg to stand on there, she was the one of them that had a marketable talent that could make them money when they needed it, and she was going to have to return to her money-driven crafting whether she wanted to or not.

But, she told herself, when she wasn't working on pieces for her shop or for specific people who'd requested and paid for something unique, she could definitely start building herself a collection of jewelry for her baby—and for the other kids born around the same time, as a gesture of kindness whether it was warranted or not.


The days seemed to crawl by, no matter what it was that Hilda did to fill them; she was spending a lot of time in the backyard, soaking in the sun, and ten minutes would feel like eternities as she sat out there, sometimes making necklaces and other times painting her nails. She wasn't enjoying still feeling trapped at home, and no amount of visits from Marianne or time spent with Claude made her feel like she was being fulfilled at all. There was a single time where Leonie came by, but she stayed out in the front yard while Hilda sat on the step by the door, making sure that they were plenty distanced so that neither of them would potentially get sick if the other was carrying anything.

That had been a fun visit, even if it hadn't truly felt like they were even in the same place despite them actively talking to one another. Hilda wished she could've been right there next to Leonie, poking at her and teasing her for what she'd done to herself, despite having gotten into a very similar (yet completely different) situation as well. "I can't believe that you still look amazing, from this distance anyway," Hilda remarked, after having spent far too much time and energy staring at Leonie's toned and tanned midsection, which was on full display thanks to her choice in top. "Anyone pick up on the fact that you've got some guy's parasite growing in there?"

"No, thank everything, but I'm really hoping that I'll be able to keep this illusion that everything's fine for as long as possible. That's all thanks to the working out I've been doing for years, without it I'd…" Leonie trailed off, her eyes slowly casting downward until she wasn't looking anywhere near Hilda any longer.

There were words left unsaid that Hilda wished she'd heard Leonie admit to, and as much as she wanted to hear her admit she'd screwed up in what she'd done, she wasn't going to push for it to happen right there. "You're not planning on keeping it around, are you?" she asked, twirling part of her bangs that were framing her face. "I just can't see you as the kind of person to take care of a kid you didn't ask for."

Leonie's cheeks puffed up as she slowly exhaled, thinking through what Hilda had just said to her. "Nah, I'm going to keep them around, I've got a whole plan figured out for what I'm going to do once they're here. Step one, corner him and tell him he either helps or he pays. Step two, totally dependent on step one, but there're options I've got handy."

"Like having Lorenz help you, I've heard."

"That's, you know, probably plan C or D on the list, but it's definitely on there." Leonie sighed, leaning back until she was laying flat on the grass, her eyes focused on the sky above. "I wish I'd been smarter about this, but we were locked in together, things just kind of happened that we didn't think through until it was too late."

"Yeah, same here," Hilda agreed, putting her hand on her own stomach and feeling the slightly stretched skin underneath her shirt, grimacing at the feeling of how hard it felt to her fingertips. "Me and Claude went from, well, supposed to be getting gifts for getting married to planning on getting gifts for a baby instead. Totally something we didn't quite think about when we were stuck here together."

A lull in the conversation came then, as neither of them were sure of what to say after they'd both admitted how they'd made bad decisions during lockdown, and the only reason they got to talking again was because of Claude coming outside and sitting down right next to Hilda, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her closely into him. "Some kind of meeting you've got going on out here," he said, nodding toward Leonie while speaking to Hilda. "Bet she's over there taking a nap with how much talking you're not doing."

"Please, we've been talking almost nonstop until now, we're just taking a small break." Hilda gave Claude a side-eye that was rather pointed, causing him to chuckle. "But now that you're here, want to tell Leonie exactly how excited you are that she's going to have a kid that can be friends with our kid?"

"There aren't enough words to explain that excitement."

"Hey, there's no need for the sarcasm, I'm sure however this one turns out, they'll be a perfect friend for your little one!" Sitting back up now that she realized that she was going to be spoken to by two people now, Leonie pointed a very judgmental finger in Claude's direction. "In fact, shouldn't I be the one worried about how this friendship's going to work out? What if your kid ends up as devious as the two of you are combined?"

Claude scoffed, feigning hurt from that statement. "Please, that wouldn't stand a chance against the complete asshole-ish nature your child's going to inherit."

"That probably wasn't the most appropriate thing to say to her," Hilda pointed out, as Leonie's face contorted into a disgusted expression, only to stand up and give a very dramatic spin away from the couple. "Seriously, Leonie, he really didn't mean it."

"No, I know he meant it, and it's infuriating because I know how right he is!" Throwing her hands in the air, Leonie shook them around for a moment before turning back around, her face still twisted. "I should've thought this through so, so much better before I even decided that dating him was a good idea, let alone sticking around when lockdown started instead of going back to my own place!"

"Then we're both in agreement that your child's going to be the problem one between these two. But that won't be a problem, seeing as they'll have all of us to keep them mostly in line." Claude winked at Leonie, who softened her expression but maintained her somewhat angered look. "Besides, I'm not even worried about how they're going to interact, it's some of these other kids that'll be sprouting up that have me concerned."

He didn't need to elaborate any further than that, but the way that his grip on Hilda tightened just a bit let her know that her suspicions about who he was referring to were right on the nose. "As if we're going to let our baby spend any time with whatever demon Dorothea raises," she remarked under her breath. "I wouldn't want to subject anyone to that sort of torture."

Having overheard what was said, Leonie's eyes shifted from side to side before she hung her head, shaking it solemnly. "I'm kind of obligated to let mine hang around that kid, seeing as her other mom is kind of lifelong friends with my baby's…hm. I don't even know what to refer to him as at this point."

"Whether you like it or not, he's the kid's father," Claude said, making his stance on that sort of situation very clear, and even though she found it rather silly that it had happened to begin with, Hilda felt the same way. "Now if he starts acting nasty toward you, you can certainly strip that title from him, but he's been supportive so far, hasn't he?"

Her head stopped moving, and Leonie clearly took in some deep breaths to prepare herself for what she was going to say. "I mean, he has been pretty supportive, but he's not happy about any of this. He wasn't even happy with me still being considered his girlfriend when we were stuck together during lockdown, so I don't know how long he's going to stick around through all this."

"And that's why you've been talking to Lorenz, got it."

"Seriously, he's not even my first choice, my first plan is to make things still work out with Felix, whether it's easy or not."

Hearing that, Hilda sharply inhaled, gaining Claude's attention complete with slight concern in his eyes. "I don't think it's worth trying to make something work if you're not happy together, kid or no kid," she explained, speaking words that she knew Leonie wouldn't want to hear but words that needed to be said regardless. "Think of the home you'll be raising that child in, you want it to be a loving one, not one full of anger and hatred."

"That's true, and I completely agree with you on that, but right now, I'm in no place to be raising a kid alone and Claude said it best when he said that, whether I like it or not, Felix is this baby's father and I've got to let him play the role how he wants." Leonie lifted her head, showing them both the conflicted emotions she carried based on the way her lips were held slightly apart, her nose scrunched, her eyes wide with all of the thoughts she'd been going over. "Anyway, I think I've had enough time out here today, can't spend all my time outside getting hot, it might just cook the baby in a way I don't think I really want. I'll talk to you both later, okay?"

They said their farewells and she was on her way out of the yard and back to whatever crazy life she had chosen to lead, leaving the couple sitting on their front step still embracing one another. Talking to someone who'd made even more risky and stupid choices made Hilda feel more at ease with the issues she'd created for herself, but she knew that at the end of the day, her issues were much less weighty given that she was engaged to the father of her baby, rather than just having a fling with him. "Promise me that we'll never let the kiddo know that one of their friends has quite the colorful backstory," Claude joked, letting go of Hilda and standing up, offering her a hand so that she could do the same. "Not like it'd be our place to share that information, but something tells me that their playdates won't be anywhere but with us, so…"

"I think everything'll work out with Leonie and Felix, somehow," Hilda replied, taking Claude's hand and coming to her feet with just a bit more struggle than she'd been used to before. "And if it doesn't, I hope that whoever gets to keep the kid makes sure that they treat the whole situation with respect."

"That's one way to look at it," he said, watching as she stood up with the softest of smiles on his face. "I'm beyond glad that their situation isn't something we're ever going to have to deal with. Seems like nothing but a headache if you ask me."

Those words resonated within Hilda, as she smiled back at Claude, completely at peace with what they had gotten themselves wrapped up in. It didn't matter if it wasn't planned, it didn't matter if they were supposed to have gotten married before they ever started talking about having kids—they were together, they meant to stay together, and if they did things a bit out of order it wasn't going to be the end of the world. Plenty of others that they knew had made a much more serious version of the same mistake and were grappling with the consequences, but for at least that moment, Hilda couldn't be upset about anything she was currently going through.


It was only a few days after that visit with Leonie, which hadn't been followed up with by any sorts of texts or other messages, that Hilda was on her way to what she had planned on being the appointment that completely, definitively confirmed her suspicions on what the baby was going to be. She'd called the office the day before asking if Claude could come with her, and after a lot of debate among the staff at the clinic they had to turn him down, still adhering to the one patient, no visitors rule that had been in place since the start of everything falling apart. That was a blow to what Hilda had hoped for, but Claude took it in stride, telling her that she could just have him on the phone to listen in on what was going on, allowing for him to be there virtually.

"It just wouldn't be the same," she pouted, throwing a fist into one of her pillows on the bed, as she dropped her phone down onto the mattress in defeat. "Now I don't even know what to do when I go tomorrow, I've already told Marianne that I don't want a party of any kind for this reveal, and going back on that word when she's got so many other things she's dealing with right now just wouldn't be okay."

Claude listened to what his fiancée had to say to him, nodding along as she spoke, but once she'd finished talking he was right there with his own perspective. "No one said it had to be some big reveal, did they? We can let Marianne know, she can hook us up with, I don't know, something small but that'll get the job done, and we can find things out that way, then share the news with everyone else. That way, we'll find out at the same time and it's still not throwing some party to tell everyone what you planned on telling them outright."

It was a tempting idea, but Hilda was convinced that asking Marianne for even that much would be overstepping the boundaries they'd set when she'd revealed how overworked she was in all of these baby announcements. That was why Claude told her that he'd handle that conversation, to keep her from stressing out too much, and that she should just go to her appointment and get the information in a hidden form, to bring home and they could find out what it said after he conferred with Marianne. "I just don't know about how well that's going to work out for us," Hilda insisted, looking at him with tear-filled eyes, her dream of finding out painlessly having vanished into smoke. "She's going to say no."

"I'm convincing, I can get the job done," he assured her, blowing a kiss in her direction that made her feel that perhaps, he was right and that he could get Marianne to help them out despite having told her they didn't need her involvement.

Their talk ran through Hilda's head over and over as she drove herself to her appointment, her feet shoved into shoes that she could have sworn fit her better the last time she'd worn them and her entire expression filled with anticipation and worry. She knew that if anyone was going to be able to get things in order, it was Claude, but she really wished that he hadn't needed to do anything at all. He should have been there with her, driving her and talking about what his hopes and expectations were so that she could share hers with him. She was fairly certain she'd done a good job in making it clear to him that she wanted a little girl, and even though he hadn't said either way she was pretty sure that he wanted the same, just because of how much he loved her.

Reality came and smacked her right across the face when she got to the clinic and the sign remained on the door about wearing masks at all times and waiting in the vehicle after checking in to reduce chances of transmission. It had been some time since Hilda had gone out anywhere, the shopping done either remotely or with someone else that she trusted doing the job, and she honestly couldn't remember the last time she'd needed to wear a mask anywhere. Still, she wasn't planning on getting kicked out of the office that had been taking care of her and the baby, so she threw on a disposable mask that was stored in her car's center console (for moments when she forgot a reusable one, as was the case) and headed inside the building.

There was no one sitting at the reception desk when she came inside, but the door back to the exam rooms was open with the usual receptionist standing there. "Oh! We figured you wouldn't be coming due to our talk yesterday," they called out, waving her over with a clipboard, "but we're ready for you now if you want to come on back!"

"Why wouldn't I have come?" she asked, confused about why that would have been the reaction after a rather amicable, although disappointing, phone call. "I kind of really want to get to check on my baby, skipping out on this wouldn't make any sense."

The receptionist opened the door up as they walked backward into the hall, so that Hilda could come right in. "You would think that would be the case for many of the people who've been coming here, but usually when they heard that there's still no guests allowed in they decide they're going to go somewhere else. We are maintaining that rule for their health, but…whatever, right? They're inconvenienced so they're choosing to go elsewhere."

"I guess I can sort of see the reasoning, but my baby's health means more than me getting to bring someone along, I think." Hilda hadn't even considered that idea, that people would be so over the safety measures that they'd simply no-call on their appointments. "Besides, I'm pretty sure most places are still enforcing those sorts of rules, right?"

"I've heard that they're starting to loosen things here and there, but this is a healthcare clinic, we're not going to suddenly pretend like there isn't a life-changing illness going around that could severely harm people we see here." By that point, they were standing in the doorway of one of the exam rooms, the receptionist ushering Hilda inside before saying that she'd be checked in without any trouble and to just get comfortable as she waited for the tech to come in.

The only thing that would have been notable and different about that visit was the fact that they'd be able to see and hopefully determine if the baby was physically a boy or a girl, but when that got brought up Hilda had to reluctantly shoot it down. "I need to know, but I can't know right now so can you keep it a surprise for me? We're planning on having a friend set up a small little reveal for us," she explained to the tech as the exam got underway, all vitals and growth measurements looking perfectly on track. "I really, really want you to just tell me anyway, but I can't ruin the surprise for myself. Claude would totally have my head if I did."

"Then I'll send that home for you, sealed so that he can trust you don't know anything." The tech glanced at her screen, before looking back in Hilda's general direction. "Would you still like to see the little one while you're here, or would you prefer to not do that and run the risk of something being spoiled?"

"Are you kidding? I've been waiting a month for this, I'm not missing out on seeing their little face and hands and feet and all that!" Excitement bubbling within Hilda's chest, she was taken through the ropes of a normal scan, the tech flawlessly avoiding anything that would show off the sexual anatomy that they didn't want to see until Hilda wasn't looking any longer. By no means were the quality of the images being picked up great, but she was beginning to suspect that the kid was going to look more like Claude than herself, which was perfectly fine, she could handle raising a daughter that looked like her father. That would probably make her all the more endearing to her friends and the others who were going to be raising children around the same age.

As the appointment wrapped up, the tech called the doctor into the room and soon there were three people present, two looking at the screen while Hilda got herself cleaned up and redressed to go home. She didn't think too much about their conversation and how it was being held in hushed whispers, until the doctor came over with an envelope in hand, tightly sealed, with a folded bunch of pictures on top. "We'll be seeing you back in four weeks, you'll have to let us know how everything goes in your surprise reveal," the doctor said, as Hilda looked at what she was being offered. "Don't worry, we made absolute sure that there's no hints at all included in the external pictures, and the only thing in the envelope is the one that will tell whoever is putting this together for you what they need."

"Thanks, four weeks from now you'll get to hear all about it." Taking the envelope and pictures into her own possession, Hilda smiled at the doctor behind her mask. "I'm really hopeful that everything's going to end up exactly as I want it, you see."

"Is that so? Would you care to share?"

"No way, you already know the answer, you'll spoil it for me and I don't want to be spoiled ahead of time!" They shared a laugh, the doctor and tech both wishing Hilda a good rest of her day as she headed out to meet the receptionist at the front desk. It was there that she set her next appointment, another four weeks before she'd come in for a simple checkup on the health of her and the baby, no need to see the child again unless complications arose. It hurt a little to hear that, but Hilda would have rather not seen them again until they were born than to think something was wrong with them.

That drive home with the envelope on the passenger's seat was one of the hardest things Hilda had put herself through, because she was tempted at every stop along the way to reach over and open it, her patience already beginning to wane. She still wasn't fully convinced that Claude would have been able to get Marianne on board with helping them, and the longer it took for them to find someone who could get them a fun way to reveal it, the thinner her patience would be stretched. So when she got to the house and Marianne was already standing outside, it was a pleasant surprise and a confirmation that Claude really was capable of convincing anyone of anything.
The best friends met right outside the front door, Hilda offering the envelope to Marianne's waiting hand. "I'm so sorry they wouldn't let Claude go with you, but I've already spoken to him about what I plan on doing for you. Expect it to be taken care of tonight, and with any luck you could have it as early as tomorrow."

"What about everything else you're currently in the middle of planning?" Hilda asked, the quick turnaround a complete shock to her. "Wouldn't you be needing to prioritize all of their parties and reveals and all that? How can you just fit us into your schedule?"

"Because all I need to do for this is place a pickup order at the craft store. It's not nearly as difficult as you'd be led to believe." Marianne gave Hilda a look that showed she was completely serious, and despite thinking she was underselling her actions, Hilda chose to believe her. "I'll bring it by as soon as I have it, and then whenever you're ready to find out you'll have it handy. How long are you thinking of waiting?"

"No idea, hadn't thought that far ahead yet." Not wanting to come out and say that she wasn't planning on waiting long at all, Hilda had to think quickly on her feet for a better answer than the one she'd given. "I'm going to let Claude decide, since I'm doing it this way for him and all. You think that's fair?"

Marianne nodded, and soon enough she was on her way to see what the envelope contained and get her order placed promptly, while Hilda went inside the house to find that Claude was nowhere to be found. She searched both floors of the home, checking inside every room that he would have any reason to be in and then some, and after finding no sign of where he was but knowing that he couldn't have gone far due to his wallet being on their bedroom dresser, she flopped down on the couch and turned on the TV, figuring that she could watch something while she waited for him to turn up.

The show that she put on must have been rather boring, because she fell asleep sitting on the couch, her hand still gripping the collection of pictures that she'd been given. When she awoke, Claude was right next to her, looking at the pictures one at a time while acting like he hadn't been a missing person for some amount of time. "I was beginning to worry you got lost or something on your way back, but Marianne told me she got here not long before you did and she'd already done the honors of buying whatever she's getting, so I came in and here you are after all."

"Came…in?" Hilda repeated, a tad too tired for that to make any sense to her. "You didn't drive anywhere, did you?"

"Yes, definitely, I drove so many places without keys or anything. No, I was out in the backyard doing some sprucing up for the pictures we're going to be taking. Marianne told you about that request, didn't she?" The words weren't familiar to Hilda, her not recalling any sort of request being brought up when she'd been talking to Marianne, and she made that quite clear to Claude, who raised his eyebrows but continued nonetheless. "She doesn't want to play games with scheduling to be here for when we find out, so she wants pictures of it so it's like she was here after all."

"Makes perfect sense to me."

"Thought it would."

They sat together for a little while, looking at the pictures and commenting on them (Claude thought the same about the general profile of the baby looking a lot like him, even with the lack of detail, and Hilda was glad she wasn't alone in that observation), and could have easily fallen into a night of watching movies had her phone not started blaring with a ringtone she hadn't heard in a while. "Why is my brother calling me?" she asked, shooting Claude a daggered look and watching as he sheepishly shrugged. "Oh goddess, did you go and tell him about what's going on?"

"I thought he might be interested in knowing what he needed to start shopping for," Claude explained, an answer that Hilda accepted but also wasn't thrilled with. "He's probably just going to ask if you know yet, which you know how to respond to that."

He was right, the very first thing out of Holst's mouth when Hilda answered the call was not a greeting but rather a question that she'd been allowed to prepare for: "What's the baby gonna be? Am I shopping for a little dude or a little girl?"

"When I know, you'll find out," she replied without missing a beat, her brother groaning on the other side of the phone. "What? I didn't find out today, we're doing one of those reveal things but just for the two of us to find out, it's not that big of a deal to everyone else."

"It's a big deal to me," Holst replied, sounding rather upset at the turn of events he hadn't anticipated. "This is the first niece or nephew I'm getting, do you really think I'm not going to spoil the daylights outta them? I need to know what to get, and I wanna be one of the first to know, got it?"

That got the gears starting to creak around in Hilda's mind, and she muted herself for a moment to ask Claude, "Do you think Holst can be here when we do this? I think it'd mean the world to him to be involved…"

"If it's Holst and only Holst, I don't think there'd be too much of a problem." Claude's eyes narrowed as he thought over what he'd just said, before nodding to confirm his position on the matter. "Yeah, if he wants to be here I think it's fine, he can be the one taking pictures."

"Since getting a video with him here isn't going to work out, he'll be hollering the whole time regardless of boy or girl," Hilda laughed, putting special emphasis on the last word of her statement. While Claude looked at her with an amused expression, she unmuted and revealed her plan to her brother, who hadn't even realized the phone was on mute until she apologized for doing it unexpectedly. "Hey, big bro that I love oh-so-much, what do you say you get your ass over here this weekend so you can be here when we find out? That way, you're not hearing it from us, you're seeing it happen in real time."

There was a bit of static on the other side of the phone, followed by a crash, which was then followed by Holst yelling something out at a far distance from the receiver. Hilda couldn't make any sense of what he was saying until he seemingly had his phone back in his hand. "I can get there faster than you'd believe, if you really want to have me there for this," he said, sounding slightly out of breath as he spoke. "That'd be one of the best moments in my life so far, if you're being serious."

"I already ran it by Claude, so if you want to be here, we'll definitely let you be here for it, but you have to be here this weekend to make it work. Otherwise, you're going to find out through pictures like the rest of the world." While Hilda was perfectly content with her brother missing out, she was beginning to see how much he'd gotten himself excited about the baby and she didn't want to crush any of his dreams on the matter.

A tentative time was set up for the reveal, all reliant on both Holst actually showing up and Marianne's plans coming together quickly, and after assuring him over and over that she wasn't going to revoke his invitation Hilda was able to get off of the phone, just to see Claude sitting in silence staring at her. "What, do I have something on my face?" she asked him, setting her phone down next to her so they could get back to what they were doing. "I'm sorry that I had to talk to him while we were doing something arguably more interesting, but I'm not that mean of a sister."

"You got so wrapped up in what you were planning with him that you didn't even think to ask what it was that we're going to be doing." Smirking, Claude watched as that realization sunk in to Hilda's mind, her hanging her head when she fully accepted it. "Don't worry, it's nothing embarrassing that you wouldn't want Holst here for, but what if it was. Imagine if you'd just signed yourself up for some artistic nudity in front of your older brother, or something along those lines."

"I'd hope that you would've stopped me if that were the case, but I trust that whatever Marianne has planned will be perfectly family friendly and able to be shared with everyone in those stupid parent groups." Casting her phone a sideways look as she thought about the reactions their reveal would get from some of those people—especially Dorothea, who would probably chide her for not going all out with things—Hilda considered picking it back up to call Marianne to beg her to make the reveal more exciting. She ultimately didn't do anything, though, because she realized that she had to trust her best friend's process and accept that what she got was what she deserved for saying she didn't need anything fancy.


The manner that Marianne had picked for them to announce their baby's gender came in the form of dual confetti poppers that showed up at their front door in a box that was lovingly labeled with pink and blue hearts that had clearly been repurposed from someone else's reveal decorations. "Seems simple enough," Claude commented after pulling the contents of the box out and examining them, reading Marianne's handwritten instructions for how to set off the poppers, making sure that they were faced away from people and that they weren't used anywhere close to an open flame. "And I do mean that two ways, simple as in easy to get planned and simple as in easy to use when the time comes."

"You think they sell these on the shelves at the craft store, or did someone have to fill these with the right colored confetti to make this happen?" Hilda asked, lifting one of the poppers and looking it over, noticing its lovely pink-blue gradient wrapper and how light it felt in her hands. "Either way, I've seen people use these a lot in some of the posts on those groups I'm in, so they're a popular choice for this sort of thing."

"That'd explain why Marianne went right to having us do it this way." Claude's logic made perfect sense, and Hilda set her popper down to give him a little hug. It was beyond tempting to just shoot one off right then and then do the other with her brother and pretend like they were surprised, but she didn't want to disappoint anyone. Besides, as she thought about it, it wasn't that long until they'd get to do the reveal right and she could be patient for just a little while longer.

Holst was late in arriving at their house on the arranged day, which had been expected but as the couple had gotten dressed up somewhat nicely for the occasion it was a lot of sitting around in nice clothes waiting for their third party to get there. It was during the wait that Hilda voiced her idea to spoil the surprise ahead of time, which Claude reacted to by putting the poppers somewhere that Hilda wasn't going to be able to get to them on her own, higher than she could reach without the use of a chair or ladder. Of course, when Holst did show up bringing with him some drinks (that they had to kindly remind him that his sister couldn't have) and a card for them both, he had to be the one to get the poppers back down as Claude didn't want to risk Hilda tackling him for them while he got them.

That allowed for them to both read the card in the couple moments it took for him to get into the high cabinet and get the box back down. "Leave it to your brother to get us a 'congrats on the sex' card months after the fact," Claude said, having to avert his eyes from the card in question to maintain his composure. "Unless this is some well-thought reference to what he's here for, but can we really consider that possibility?"

"He's a crude guy sometimes, cut him some slack," she replied, taking the card into her sole possession, just to set it down on the table right as Holst came to join them, the box with the poppers tucked under his arm. "And he's useful when he wants to be, like right now. Are you excited about this?"

"As excited as I can be!" Holst handed the box to Claude, who swiftly lifted it over his head so that Hilda still couldn't get her hands on it ahead of time. "So I'm the only one that's gonna be here watching, right? Need me to take pictures for the family?"

"Just make sure that your fingers don't end up in the way of the camera lens, but pictures would be greatly appreciated." Opening her arms for a hug from her brother, Hilda wasn't expecting for him to swoop in and pick her up, causing her to scream after he squeezed her a bit too hard for her liking. "Ouch, seriously? Are you trying to squeeze the baby to death right now, when we're here specifically for it?"

Grimacing as he was scolded, Holst did bark out an apology while Claude looked at Hilda, his arms still holding the box above his head. "Yeah, let's keep her safe and without any bodily harm today, shall we? I'm starting to lose feeling in my elbows, so if we can get this show on the road, I'd appreciate it."

The backyard had been transformed into a makeshift photo studio, with potted plants moved into the area to create a frame for where the couple was meant to be standing for the occasion. Across from it was a table and some lawn chairs, where a makeshift tripod had been created for a phone back before Holst's involvement had been decided on, and he pushed that aside as he took a seat in one of the chairs. "Nice yard you've got here," he noted, looking around before his eyes settled on the area they'd be taking pictures in. "Definitely feels like the yard of a couple that spends time outside. Too bad it's your yard instead, huh?"

"We spend a fair amount of time out here, or at least I do." Claude did spend quite a bit of his time in the yard, often just sitting in the grass and taking in the nature around him, but if Hilda was out there she was usually right by the door to the house so that she could get back inside if she grew bored. "We didn't pick this house for the yard, though, even if it was something that came as a bit of a perk. You've seen some of the space we're working with, you can probably guess why we chose this place."

"With all those extra rooms and all the space it's got, I better be out here doing this with you two a lot more in the future." The way that Holst started grinning after saying that, while his sister's jaw dropped at the audacity of the statement, made it impossible to tell if he was being serious or just trying to stir things up while he was there.

Hilda looked at Claude to see how he planned on reacting, and when she saw his completely blank stare back at Holst, she knew it was best to keep her mouth and what she thought of to herself. "We'll…keep that in mind," he said after some internal deliberation, before turning his back to face Holst and instead look at the photo area. "Right now, let's focus on the one we've got and worry about anything else that comes later, well, later."

"Sounds like the two of you planned on using those extra rooms for other things and had those plans changed without talking about it first," Holst laughed, and once again his sister was looking at Claude for his reaction. Now he was starting to visibly grow annoyed, based on how one of his hands was beginning to twitch its way into a fist while he adjusted how he held the box of poppers to against his body so that he didn't drop it and he was tapping his foot, and if she'd wanted to she could have jumped in right then and told her brother to cool it with the comments.

But it was meant to be a happy day, and Hilda didn't want to ruin anything by stepping in between the two men and causing conflict. "Claude's right, we should just focus on this one and think about any others later. Maybe when I've forgotten all about all of the stupid stuff I've had to tolerate so far with this one."

Mentally she was already building her posts in the mom groups she'd done a lot of watching in, ready to announce to the world what her baby was. The first group, the one that was more public that Marianne had a direct hand in, that was going to be a post that was mostly thanking Marianne for all of her help in preparing the day, and then talking about the slapdash way the reveal had come together. Maybe even garner some sympathy from other moms-to-be that had to go to their appointment alone, because if that hadn't happened there wouldn't have even been a reveal to begin with.

The second group, the Hot Moms of Garreg Mach group, she'd already drafted an initial version of her post, complete with trash talking at least one other person in the group by saying that her baby would be the cutest-dressed child in all of Fódlan, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. There hadn't been any usage of gendered pronouns in the post, but Hilda had definitely written it following her intuition that she was having a baby girl, and once she knew it to be true she'd adjust that just a bit to make those deeper cuts. There was also going to be a planned denial of her promise to Lysithea about the name thing, because while she still had zero answers about why she was in that group (something about loose lips sinking ships had been said when she'd been approached by it), her heart told her it'd be a better use of her time and energy to just use a completely unrelated name.

While all of this was bouncing around in Hilda's mind, Claude had set the poppers box down and picked the poppers themselves up, offering one to her without a word until he nearly had to force it into her hand, her snapping back into reality when she felt it touch her knuckles. "Whoa, sorry, kind of spaced out there," she said, grimacing as Claude merely laughed it off, even if his laugh still sounded somewhat forced and annoyed. "So how are we gonna do this?"

"We'll stand in the frame, we shoot them off on a count, Holst gets pictures of the lead-up and aftermath, we get to know what we should've known days ago." Nodding sagely as if he'd just spoken some long-winded code and not rather simple directions, Claude looked at Hilda to make sure she understood his expectations and found her flouncing her way to her spot in the middle of the plants. He looked back at Holst. "You understand what you're supposed to be doing today?"

"Pictures, not that hard of a concept," he chuckled, raising his phone and pointing at its back camera. "Go get into your place, I'll handle this perfectly fine."

Under his breath, Claude muttered something about how he wasn't fully convinced Holst was the man for the job, but with no one else to ask to step in and there being no time to try getting another friend to swing by for a moment, he had to accept that at least bad pictures would be something rather than nothing. He went to stand at Hilda's side, her whole body beginning to tremble with excitement as she held her popper out in front of her, making sure that it wasn't going to be aimed at anyone and cause any sort of damage. "It's the moment of truth," she whispered out of the corner of her mouth, hearing Claude give her a soft grunt as his response. "I'm looking forward to seeing what color comes out of these things, so I can finally be proven right."

"Guess there's no point in stalling on this, with how convinced you are," he replied, just as quietly, before turning his eyes toward Holst and seeing a light blink on the outside of his phone, indicating that he was taking pictures. "Count down from three, yeah?"

"Sounds good to me." Hilda readied her grip, remembering the directions for discharging the popper and making sure that her hands weren't going to slip off in the moment. She smiled, anxious for what was about to unfold even though she had zero reason to be so worried when she already knew what the outcome was going to be, there was no way that her mother's intuition was going to be wrong already.

"Three…"

"Two…"

There was a pause, right at the count, and her fingers grew antsy, so that when Claude's mouth had merely opened to finish the countdown, she was already starting to twist at the popper. [By some stroke of luck, or perhaps the guidance of the goddess above, she wasn't able to get it to discharge until at the exact moment Claude did the same to his, and the loud booming sound that erupted simultaneously had them both recoiling, masked behind a flurry of bright blue confetti that swirled in the air in front of them.

Holst was on his feet, hollering and waving his phone around not two seconds after the confetti had mostly settled, the light occasionally going off again to show that somehow, he was still taking pictures. Claude had dropped his popper and had grabbed Hilda, squeezing her around her shoulders as tightly as he could as he was on the verge of sobbing in his excitement. And Hilda, who had been so convinced that she was having a girl but was clearly not, stood in complete shock until her brother had joined her fiancé in hugging her to squeak something out in a small, confused voice—"You mean I'm going to have to name my child after Lorenz?"