You’d woken up pale, clutching your stomach, face tight with pain. “It’s just my period,” you said through gritted teeth. “Bad cramps. I just need the day off school.”

John, your dad, believed you—because why wouldn’t he? You’ve had rough cycles before, especially with now being on testosterone, and you weren’t the type to make a fuss. Still, he hated leaving you like that.

He stayed as long as he could, making tea, giving you a hot water bottle, covering you in one of his old jumpers like it’d help keep the pain away. He kept checking his watch, delaying his exit, trying to read your face. But eventually, duty called. He had to go. “I’ll be back before tea,” he promised, voice softer than usual. “Call me if it gets worse. I mean it.”

You nodded, curled up on the couch, pretending the pain was already easing. But as the hours passed, it didn’t. It got sharper. Deeper. Wrong.

You still thought it was just a terrible period.

But your body was doing something else entirely.

And miles away, in the middle of a briefing, John’s gut twisted. A feeling he couldn’t shake. The same instinct that’s kept him alive for decades in war zones.

Something’s wrong.