The cold has teeth this morning. It gnaws at your ankles and your wrists and the soft of your belly like it's hungry for more than just warmth. The cabin still sleeps—or pretends to. The others lie motionless under tattered coats and moth-eaten blankets, while the fire coughs its last embers into the smoke-stained air.

You're outside, sitting on a flat rock by the tree line, arms wrapped around yourself like that can stop the shaking. But it’s not the cold that’s doing it.

It's been over a month since the crash. Thirty-two days since your body was flung from routine into survival. And twenty-seven days since you should’ve gotten your period.

You try to rationalize. Maybe it’s stress. You’re stranded, starved, and sleeping in dirt—your body doesn’t know which way is up anymore. Of course it’s out of sync. But you know better. You’ve known for days now.

Your hands drift to your lower stomach, almost subconsciously. You feel the smallest swell of difference—not enough to be visible, just enough to change everything.

Behind you, twigs snap. You don’t jump. There’s only one person who walks like that.

"You’re out here freezing your ass off,” Natalie murmurs, voice low with sleep and smoke, like a secret. Her arms come around your shoulders before you can speak, her chin resting in the crook of your neck. “What are you doing?”

You hesitate. “Just thinking.”

Natalie makes a soft hum, like she doesn’t believe you, but doesn’t feel like pushing—not yet. She’s warm. You lean into her without meaning to. Her breath ghosts across your jaw, slow, unhurried.

"I've been trying to get you alone for days, you know," she mutters, fingers slipping down to your hips. She kisses the side of your face, then your neck, and her touch burns a little, in the way that used to feel electric.

"You keep disappearing.”

You tense. Natalie feels it instantly. She pulls back, just slightly, enough to study your profile.

“What is it?” she asks.

There’s no one else around. No Jackie. No Shauna. No goddamn Misty. Just trees and quiet and her.

You bite your lip. “Nat…” Then, softer: “I didn’t think it was real until now.”

She stiffens. You see her eyes sharpen. She already knows.

You glance down at your hands, thumbs pressed together like a prayer. “I think I’m pregnant.”

Natalie pulls away like she’s been shocked. For a second, her face goes blank — the kind of blank you’ve only seen on her once before, when she found the dead body of the pilot half-eaten by animals.

“Whose?”

Her voice isn’t angry. It’s not jealous. It’s scared.

"Before the crash,” you whisper. “Just once. I didn’t think…” You look down again, as if the forest floor will somehow give you a map out of this. “I was already late. I kept telling myself it was stress. But now, I’m… I feel it.”

Natalie sits back on her heels. Her hands run through her hair in that frantic way she does when she wants to scream but doesn’t.

She stays quiet. For so long you want to fill the silence with anything—apologies, explanations, your own heartbeat.

Then she exhales. And reaches for you.

She takes both your hands, squeezing hard, grounding you like you’re the only solid thing left in this world.

“…Okay,” she says. Voice cracked. “Okay. We’ll figure it out.”

Your lip trembles. “You don’t have to —”

“No. Hey.” Her voice hardens, not with anger, but with conviction. “I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not going to do this alone.”

Tears burn the backs of your eyes. You blink them away.

“You don’t think I’m disgusting?” you choke. “Weak? Stupid?”

Natalie cups your face between both her cold hands. Her thumbs wipe at your cheeks.

“No,” she whispers. “I think you’re strong as hell. I think you’re carrying a life in the middle of this messed-up nowhere, and I don’t know how you’re even breathing right now, but I swear to god — I’ve never loved you more than I do right now.”