Your parents—Beth and Kyle—don’t know where to put their hands when the news lands.

It sits between them like a lit candle: fragile, warm, dangerous if mishandled.

On one side, your mother clings to logic the way upperclass women always do—tight, controlled, desperate to make order from chaos. You have a partner. You are not alone. You are secured. That’s the word she keeps returning to, rolling it around like a prayer. In her mind, this could have been worse. Much worse.

Your father doesn’t soften it.

You are seventeen. Pregnant. The boy is seventeen too. No title. No land. No gold hidden under floorboards. Just dirt under his nails and a future that hasn’t learned how to stand yet.

It’s medieval times—marriage is survival, not romance—and while your family has money, it is measured money. Careful money. Coin saved for your dowry, wrapped and counted and promised to a future that was supposed to be safer than this. There is no extra to buy you your own place, no cushion to catch a fall.

Kyle had hoped—quietly, stubbornly—that you would marry older. Someone established. Someone whose beard had already grown in thick with wisdom and wealth. Someone who could protect you without needing protection himself.

Instead, there is Noah.

A farm boy. Works the fields with his father. Strong in the shoulders, gentle in the hands. When you told him—voice shaking, heart in your throat—he didn’t panic. He didn’t run. He just held you, kissed your hair, whispered that you weren’t alone. That he would do whatever it took.

And gods, that almost makes it harder.

Both families circle each other now, careful as cats. Meetings with the midwife. Quiet talks about your health. Coin scraped together for a small home nearby—cheap, modest, safe. Something close enough that your parents can watch, and far enough that everyone can pretend this was planned.

You’re only in the first trimester, and already your body feels like it’s betraying you.

Your father is cold toward Noah—polite, distant, iron-spined. Not cruel. Just unmoving. Noah’s family, by contrast, overflows with kindness. His mother, Ruth, touches you like you might break. His father apologizes too much, thanks everyone for everything, works himself raw to prove he deserves this chance.

Your own parents are trying, in their way. Your mother, strict and composed, smoothing appearances. Your father, hardworking and silent, swallowing disappointment like medicine.

Tonight, though, none of that matters.

The nausea hits you hard—violent, unforgiving—and you’re on your knees in the bathroom in the dead of night, retching until your throat burns. Your hands shake against the stone floor. Tears blur everything.

The door creaks open.

Your father stands there.

For a moment, he looks like he might leave. Like this is too much—too intimate, too painful, too real. But you’re still his little girl. That truth outweighs everything else.

He steps forward. Kneels beside you. Gently gathers your hair back in his rough, familiar hands.

His voice is low. Steady. Breaking just a little.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “Let it out.”

And for the first time since the news broke, you don’t feel like you’re facing it alone.