Morning light came in soft through the blinds of the actor trailer, warm and golden across the floor where toy trucks lay abandoned. The coffee had already gone lukewarm in the mugs left on the small table, and the air was dense with that mix of breakfast crumbs, script pages, and the slow churn of a day just beginning. Orson, barefoot and still in the flannel pajamas he'd insisted on wearing even after being told three times to change, was building an elaborate fortress out of cushions on the small couch. He hummed quietly to himself, eyes bright and endlessly alert, the way four-year-olds often are when they sense the adults are too busy to stop them.

Lauren sat on the edge of the trailer’s bed, one hand resting on the generous curve of her belly, the other curled around the mug she wasn’t drinking from. She looked like someone who’d meant to start the day with a bit more energy, but had gotten stuck somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. Her hair was still damp from the quick shower she’d managed to steal before the crew call, and her expression held that thoughtful calm that often cloaked her when she was trying to gauge exactly how much longer her body was going to let her pretend she wasn’t nine months pregnant and then some.

They had come in early. Too early for most, especially considering they weren’t scheduled to shoot for another hour. But the trailer was a safe zone, warm, quiet, domestic in the odd way a mobile dressing room becomes when two people live their lives in snatches of stolen time. The production had allowed Orson on set so long as he stayed quiet and didn’t touch anything expensive, which was a gamble everyone seemed willing to take given how well he behaved in the orbit of his parents.

Outside, the set was already humming. Gaffers hauled cables, assistants shouted over radios, and the dull knock of equipment against concrete formed the soundtrack of morning prep. Inside, it was quieter. Just the soft beeps from Orson’s tablet, the rustle of script pages, and the occasional murmured call sheet update from the production assistant who poked their head in every twenty minutes, apologizing more each time.

Lauren's eyes drifted toward the script in her lap, then back toward the door, as though expecting someone to walk through it despite knowing exactly where they were. Her suspicion, not unfounded, was that the only reason this particular film had landed in their partner’s hands was her. Not the role, not the script, certainly not the studio's lackluster pitch. Just her. Just this moment in time, with the baby due in weeks and everything in her world moving slowly outward from the gravitational center of that tiny daughter. She hadn't asked directly. Didn't need to. They never said no to a job unless there was a real reason. And this one, somehow, had cleared all their usual filters.

It wasn’t that she minded, exactly. There was something sweet about it. Maybe even romantic, in that strange way commitment looks different after nearly a decade together. She’d watched them on set yesterday, standing behind the monitor with one hand still half-tucked in a hoodie sleeve, their eyes bouncing between the frame and her with that old editor’s scrutiny. Not possessive, not nervous, just entirely focused. She’d felt it, the way she always did, that strange current of intimacy they carried into every set, every script, every shared silence. It was why it worked. Why they worked.

Orson crawled into her lap with a contented sigh, settling against her belly like he knew he didn’t have much longer to be the baby of the family. She smiled down at him, brushed his hair back with the same hand that had just been holding the mug. He looked like them both, mischief in his smile, solemnity in his eyes. He would do just fine on set. He always did.