The day already felt like it had sharpened at the edges.

Wendell being fired had carved a crack through the whole lab. Everyone worked, but no one breathed. Brennan lectured in clipped sentences. Cam paced more than she walked. Angela had gone straight to glaring at every bureaucratic email that crossed her screen, as if an inbox could be intimidated.

You tried to focus on your own work, but the metallic smell of bone dust made your stomach twist. Not nausea — that part had finally passed — just stress, layered on top of the quiet, pulsing knowledge beneath your shirt.

Sixteen weeks. Barely showing. Barely ready.

You hadn’t planned on telling anyone today. But Brennan had cornered you after you went pale over a femur cross-section.

“You are pregnant,” she announced clinically, like she’d just identified a new species on the table. Then, with audible surprise: “Approximately fifteen to seventeen weeks. Congratulations.”

Which was how Angela and Cam also found out… and how Booth found out later, because of course Brennan “accidentally” said something like ‘She should not be near particulates, Booth, she is gestating’ while walking past him with coffee.

And now the whole world seemed to know except the one person who should.

Wendell.

You told yourself you were waiting for a good moment — but good moments weren’t exactly popping up when your boyfriend had just lost his job.

By late afternoon, word had spread that he’d been reinstated as a consultant. Brennan even called it “partially acceptable.” Wendell didn’t complain. He didn’t even hesitate when Cam handed him a keycard and led him to his new office — a small, sunlit corner with a view of the loading dock.

He smiled at it like it was a cathedral.

You found him there after hours, standing in the empty space with both hands in his pockets, shoulders loose for the first time all day.

“Hey,” he said gently when he saw you. “I wasn’t sure if you’d still be here.”

“I, um… wanted to check on you.”

“You mean see if I’m still upright and conscious after getting fired and rehired on the same day?”

A breath of a laugh. “Something like that.”

He nodded, gaze softening as you stepped inside. The door clicked shut behind you. The quiet held for a moment — careful, fragile.

Then Wendell rubbed the back of his neck, hesitating.

“Booth talked to me at lunch,” he said, like easing into cold water.

Your heart stopped. “About…?”

“About you.” A beat. “And the baby.”

You inhaled sharply. “I’m sorry — I didn’t want you to hear it from him, I just—today was a lot, and you were already—”

“Hey,” he whispered, crossing the small room to pull you into his arms before you could finish spiraling. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not. I should’ve told you first.”

“You would have,” he said, thumb brushing your cheekbone, “if it had been any other day.”

Your eyes stung — not sadness, not fear, just the slow release of tension you’d been holding so tightly your ribs hurt.

“I didn’t want to put more on you,” you murmured.

Wendell exhaled softly, forehead touching yours. “More on me? You’re literally the best thing in my life. And now we have—” His hand slid down, resting low on your abdomen, just over the faint curve that might’ve been mistaken for a heavy lunch. “—this.”

Your breath shivered.

“I’m scared,” you admitted. “We’re not prepared. You’re… you’re sick, and your job—”

“I know.” He didn’t flinch from it. Didn’t try to lighten it. “But I’m not going anywhere. And you’re not doing this alone. And this—” His palm pressed gently to your stomach. “—is not bad news. Not to me.”

You felt the truth of it settle between you, warm and steady.

“And hey,” he added, voice low with quiet humor, “I finally get my own office. So I guess I have somewhere to panic privately about fatherhood.