May 13th, 1891 - Tyb’s Flat

Twenty-five. Elsie had been twenty-five for less than twenty-four hours.

She’d been a mother-to-be for almost three months, best she could figure.

After everything she’d read, and she had read everything the library had to offer; after everything she could estimate based on their pattern of visits and the schedule of her normally quite regular cycle, Elsie knew this time missing her monthlies sealed the deal. She’d written April off as the stress of the shipwreck. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d stressed herself into skipping it. The whole ship fiasco and being stuck at sea was a viable reason; however before this she’d also never actually been concerned about missing it. Before this year, there had been no way she could have been pregnant. Now it was a very real possibility.

It would explain everything; the nausea, the fatigue, even the fact that some smells made her want to wretch. It was… well, she didn’t want to say bad news, but it didn’t fit into their plans very nicely.

Her mother was going to kill her.

First she had to tell Tyb.

Their perfectly planned late-night visit for her birthday wasn’t going to be exactly the evening she had in mind, but time was ticking away and they had to do something about it. Elsie chanced the Floo this time, sneaking out to the kitchen long after everyone was in bed. On the other side she had no concerns; Mr. Hatchitt was well aware of her sometimes-presence in the flat, just as both Elsie and Tyb were aware of Miss Abernathy’s. There was an unspoken little agreement and that was that.

Slipping down the hall to Tyb’s room, she stole into his room and closed the door quietly behind her. She wanted to keep calm for this, wanted to be able to explain it without tears, but she simply didn’t have the emotional courage to hold it in any longer. All she could do was burst into tears and seek comfort from the only person who could give her any relief.

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   Angelica Selwyn, Cassius Lestrange, Tybalt Kirke

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MJ always makes her so pretty

Barring the few days of uncertainty before Elsie had arrived back in one piece from the Santa Antonina, everything had been going well. Perfectly, actually. Everything was finally falling into place: Elsie’s mother had approved - and maybe even liked him a little (or was at least happy enough if Elsie was happy, whatever she thought of him) - so for the last month or two they had finally been able to call themselves courting.

Pleased with Elsie’s plans for the future as she was, Mrs. Beauregard was far less likely to approve of their plans tonight. But he and Elsie had been managing this even before she’d known a thing about it, and it seemed a shame to have to forgo their occasional secret rendez-vous just because they were courting properly. Calling on her at her house to say happy birthday was not quite the same.

And besides the rest of the night, Tybalt was rather proud of himself already, because after countless years of getting homemade birthday treats from Elsie, he had actually managed to return the favour, and had baked something for her himself. With his own two hands! It had taken more practice attempts than anticipated and the recipe for a very simple lemon cake was the only one he’d been able to make sense of in the end, and there was a slight crack running down the top of it, but a cake was a cake. (He’d set it on his desk and covered it carefully with a cloth, too afraid to ruin it by sending it.)

He turned towards his door with a beam when it opened, but the look on Elsie’s face was so far from anything Tyb could have predicted that for a moment he just teetered on the spot, wide-eyed and horrified.

“What’s happened?” Tyb breathed out, darting over and slinging his arms around her in dismay, hoping that he wasn’t responsible for her tears in some way. “Els, what’s wrong?”

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   Elsie Kirke

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Everything from the last couple days came pouring out in a steady stream of tears. She'd figured it out a couple days ago, but had waited just to be sure. Now she was almost positive. They'd been doing so well, finally getting permission from her mother, officially courting. Now the proper little courtship and everything after it was gone.

She collapsed into Tyb as he embraced her, a fresh wave of tears falling as she clung to him. "I-it's all r-r-ruined." She sobbed into his shirt. They'd joked about eloping before, but now they would have to. It wasn't so much the loss of the wedding that Elsie was mourning, that she could have lived without. A whole day where she was the center of attention? No thank you, but just as they gotten in a good spot with her family, this put a huge strain on their efforts. Her mother was going to be furious and it was all her fault.

"I-I'm, I'm," She looked up at him, all splotchy and red from crying, but couldn't bring herself to say it, to loose the words that made everything an urgent matter.

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MJ always makes her so pretty

Well there goes our fun evening out the window, Tybalt considered fleetingly, as she started sobbing into his shirt with no indication of stopping any time soon. This was - this was not good, then. This was nothing he had foreseen, and with every sob against his chest he felt his hopes sink a little further. Ruined. All ruined. No, it couldn’t be - they were so close now - he was still saving up for an engagement ring, not to mention for the rest of their future, and was slowly beginning to look for a cottage with the right garden they’d planned so long ago and that could not fall away now, not for anything.

But maybe there went everything out the window.

With a furrowed brow and a frown and the uneasy feeling that she would not be this upset if she wasn’t right that it was ruined, Tyb moved his hands up to her face, brushing off some of the tear-tracks but holding her there to make sure she kept looking at him and was steady enough to say it, afraid as he was of knowing. “Elsie,” he urged quietly. It took some effort to steel himself for this, but he needed to actually hear why it was all ruined, though the mere idea or two he had were enough to see him already chewing on his bottom lip in nervous panic, hard enough to make it bleed. Because it was going to be his fault, he knew it.

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Oh Merlin. She could see the alarm in his eyes as he held her face so that she was still looking at him. Every fiber of her being wanted to close her eyes and pretend this wasn't happening. If only it worked that way.

Elsie took a deep, shuddering breath, tears still streaming down her cheeks as she fumbled over what exactly to say. There really was no sugarcoating it, no beating around the bush; "I-I'm, at least I'm almost p-positive, I think I'm— we're having a b-baby." She finally managed after a few hiccups and slow breaths.

"I did all the research," Of course she did. "And everything fits." It was all going to come spilling out now if she wasn't careful, but she knew she needed to give him a moment to react, to think and so she kept her eyes on him, as if she had another choice, as if she could tear her gaze away now, to see what his reaction would be.

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   Tybalt Kirke

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MJ always makes her so pretty

A baby. A baby. She was pregnant, and they were going to have a baby. (Mouthing the word baby to himself in silent repetition was not making the fact any easier to digest.)

They - they had talked about having children before, so, alright - but that was supposed to be one day, after the house and the marriage and preferably when Tybalt felt like enough of an adult to picture himself responsible for a child, not now, Merlin. He let out a stunned breath and let his hands fall to her shoulders, trying to give her a reassuring squeeze, to seem steadier about this than either of them could possibly be.

“Okay,” Tyb said, although the only thing he was thinking was it was my fault and we should never have done this and we got lucky and then we got really stupid and now you’re right, we’ve ruined this. “A baby. Well, it’s going to be alright, we’re going to be fine -” he started, and maybe by saying these things out loud he might even believe them in a minute, but -

No, no, too soon, he couldn’t do this yet. His hands felt weird and unnaturally shaky in his panic, so he let go and stepped back from Elsie for a moment, shaking them out as if that would clear his head instead. When that didn’t work, he raked his hand through his hair once, twice, five times compulsively, leaving it a complete mess before gave up on that and pressed his hand to his face instead, mumbling a long stream of shit, shit, shit to himself behind it.

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Anything else that had threatened to spill out went unspoken as she watched him panic. He sounded thoroughly unconvinced, even though his words were optimistic; something in her broke a little bit. She crumbled as he let go, unsteady legs threatening to give out on her completely and so she stumbled towards the bed for support.

She couldn't look at him, instead she pressed the heels of her hands to her face, trying to regain some semblance of calm, to try and get her wits about her. Both of them couldn't break down at the same time, they wouldn't get anywhere. Elsie forced herself to take a few deep breaths, running one hand over her stomach, trying to ease the nausea that was creeping up again.

They had to figure this out and soon, but she could completely understand where he was coming from and that he too needed time to process. "I'm sorry," She whispered miserably, chancing a glance at him. They'd gotten bold, careless, and now they had to suffer the consequences. This is what happened when two Gryffindors got over-confident.

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   Amelia Evans

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MJ always makes her so pretty

Merlin, a baby. Tybalt was so in his own head about this that for a long moment he couldn’t pay attention to anything in the room, was just standing there with his hand to his face in frozen shock. Eventually his legs became unparalysed enough to begin pacing thoughtlessly, towards his desk and back, like any amount of pacing could get them out of this predicament.

After a little while in which he felt decidedly no better about the situation for all his dwelling on it, Tybalt’s gaze caught, by chance, on Elsie putting a hand to her stomach. That made it unbearably real. And that - deflated the panic, somehow, just enough to let him pause in place. This is going to happen, he thought, whether or not it should have, whether we wanted it or not.

Okay. Of course Elsie was as scared and stressed as he was, that much was now painfully clear to him; her saying sorry stung him enough that he wished he could rewind time and replay out the last few minutes differently, where he could be reassuring and keep his composure. Because he was usually better than this, when it came to being in a crisis with her. He was the one who was supposed to talk her down, that was how it went. They’d been through enough together over the years - and Tyb didn’t think he had often made her feel worse, before tonight. This was a sorry new low in that regard.

And she was apologising now, so he shook his head fiercely, feeling the hysteria of the moment ebbing away and a dull dismay filling the space it had left. “I’m sorry,” he answered. Brimming with apology, Tyb let out a hefty sigh and dropped down to perch on the edge of the bed beside her, chewing quietly on the inside of his cheek as he tried to think. (Not exactly his forte, but.)

“Do you - know how far along you are?” he whispered, a little nervous. How long do we have. He knew nine months was probably already more time than they had - the clock had already started ticking some time ago - and who knew how soon it would be before she started showing or people (oh fuck, her mother) started catching on.

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   Elsie Kirke

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Elsie had curled into herself, trying to will away the heartache and the nausea that was ever-present these days. Everything was falling apart slowly. This was supposed to be a happy announcement, after a wedding, after a house, doing everything the right way. They'd finally gotten started on the right path just to fall off the wagon not even two months later.

Finally she felt him sit down next to her and she turned into him automatically, needing that comfort of him against her. Which was how they'd gotten into trouble in the first place, but she was going to need him now more than ever.

She didn't want him to be sorry, that she couldn't handle, either, so she shook her head too, trying to dispel the unease. They could figure this out; they had to.

"Almost three months, ten, maybe eleven weeks?" She sighed. That was the best she could time it out and based on everything she'd read and the way she was supposedly to calculate it. She was almost out of the first trimester. "I thought the stress of last month was what was causing everything, but I—" She flushed a little; they weren't really supposed to discuss this were they? "There's no denying the signs." She had finally stifled the tears to a little sniffle here and there, but everything was bubbling just below the surface.

She looked up at him again finally as she laced her fingers with his. "It doesn't leave us any time." It was already suspicious, even if they got married tomorrow. She hadn't wanted to wait until the end of the year, but this rush, the urgency of the situation they now faced, well that wasn't ideal either. The list of things they needed to accomplish in such a short amount of time now felt insurmountable.

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   Cassius Lestrange

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MJ always makes her so pretty

He put an arm around her again and tucked her head under his chin, taking solace in the fact that at least if they were going to get through this, it was going to be together. On the bright side, there could be worse timing than this - at least they had been close, at least he was working at the Ministry and they had started looking to the future a very long time ago. Their future together.

Well, they’d always expected there would be children in it. So the future they’d had in mind was going to be a little more condensed than they’d intended, a little more rushed... but this was probably where all their moaning about the endless waiting had gotten them, hadn’t it? They’d gotten their just deserts.

But it was not the worst thing in the world, Tybalt reiterated to himself. He was still alarmed about it - alarmed was clearly an understatement - but the baby itself was maybe not so much the problem. (Raising a baby was absolutely a problem, but eleven weeks was not far enough to make that fear the priority yet -)

“I know.” He squeezed her hand. “We’ll make it work,” he declared, with a touch more calmness now. No, the worst of the problem was the unnecessary blot on her reputation that would bloom from being unmarried and pregnant, or just as well when the baby came too soon after a wedding. And, well - his reputation too, he supposed, but that mattered less to him than the idea that he had technically ruined Elsie. “We’ll just have to...” he trailed off, wincing miserably as he considered the necessary next step. “Oh, your parents are going to hate me,” Tyb whined, mostly to himself. (They still had to do something to fix this - but even once they had, Mrs. Beauregard was not going to take this lightly.)

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   Cassius Lestrange, Elsie Kirke

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Elsie desperately needed his calm to her keep her own as she sighed heavily against him. Having the contact helped too, even if tears still leaked from the corners of her eyes. This was better, she wasn't the sobbing mess she'd been a few minutes ago. They'd panicked and now they had to problem solve. They could panic again after after they made some decisions. It was one step at a time.

Wincing as he mentioned her parents, Elsie rather thought she was going to be in for the worst of it there. "I think we've reached the point where we're going to have to skip asking for permission and go right to asking for forgiveness—" She bit her lip, but had to push on. "After we elope." She meant it this time. This was their problem to fix, their consequence to deal with and she thought it would be better if they were at least married, even if the elopement would make things incredibly suspicious. Not to mention she didn't think she could handle being in her mother's home much longer.

Merlin she just hoped she didn't lose her job over this. They were going to need the income... Suddenly that list of things they needed to handle (and quickly) was growing longer; making this official, finding a place to live, work, telling her mother... Each one a huge thing in and of itself and they needed to do it all.

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   Cassius Lestrange, Tybalt Kirke

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MJ always makes her so pretty

Tyb had been tracing comforting circles on her back with the hand not holding hers, and this repetitive motion was as much a comfort to him as anything. Having her next to him was a comfort too, a centring presence in the room, something to stop him rattling off course the way he had been just a few minutes ago.

This was still a lot, though. And he wasn’t sure if her family would forgive him, when they asked for it - wasn’t sure whether, if not for the inescapable fact of the baby, her mother would have revoked her approval entirely at hearing how irresponsible they’d been. But maybe if they did the responsible thing and made a start on smoothing things over as best they could, they could kick the problem a little ways down the path, and maybe if they got things together quickly enough her parents would not even hate him forever. They could muddle through this. He was very well-practised at muddling through.

“Yeah,” Tybalt agreed, blowing out a long breath and glancing up at the ceiling, satisfied there was no better way to go from here than their pre-existing back-up plan. “I think you’re right.”

At least that would be one thing out of the way. It was not the perfect ending to everything they’d been working towards, but... “We did say one way or another,” he added, mouth quirking up at the corner in spite of himself. “And this is one way to skip your big wedding party, hey?” he teased. That would be no loss in Elsie’s mind, he was sure.

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   Elsie Kirke

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Elsie felt the fatigue and the finality of the situation pressing down on her, every single part of her wanting nothing more than to curl up and go to sleep, but not yet. The panicking and finally letting go of everything that had been stressing her out for the last week had really taken everything out of her.

Chuckling despite herself at his comment about the wedding day, Elsie could only shrug a little; he knew that wasn't the part she'd been looking forward to. "One way or another," She echoed with the tiniest hint of a smile. At least they were on the same page though. They had to be, the next few upcoming weeks and months were going to a long trial. Fortunately, they had some experience with that and had proved their staying power again and again. "I will handle my mother," She said, far more confidently than she felt. Elsie thought that informing her mother would not be pleasant, but she wasn't sure that she could go through with the elopement without telling her mother first, she owed her that much.

"You work on somewhere to stay?" If they could find somewhere temporary to rent, it would at least give them somewhere to be while they figured out finances and everything else that would need to come together. Elsie wasn't so sure Mr. Hatchitt would like her continuous presence in the flat for however long it took them to find something else. "Give ourselves a couple of days to settle that and then make it official?"  This weekend would have to do. The sooner the better, but not tonight. She just didn't have it in her right now.

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   Cassius Lestrange

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MJ always makes her so pretty

He nodded vehemently at Elsie’s remark about handling her mother, glad to hear it - and maybe he would have offered to do something to help in that regard, but he wasn’t sure he was brave enough. Probably best to at least let Elsie break the news to her. (Maybe Tyb should be more gallant and offer to do it instead, but... well, Elsie was better-placed to begin with, he would be there if he had to be for moral support, and he also did not much want to get murdered.)

Not that working on somewhere to stay particularly sounded like much easier a task at such short notice, but if those were the only two options Tybalt would happily take it. It still felt like too much responsibility to give to him, and he was already certain the results were not going to be ideal... but he was sure he could find something, and a couple of days to do it was better than none! (He was scraping the bottom of the barrel here for ‘optimistic thoughts’, but hey, he was still trying.) “Alright, I’ll do my best,” he promised, pulling a slight face at her to properly express his trepidation for the route ahead, but then swallowed and nodded once more.

“We can do this, though, I know we can,” he said with more earnestness, wrapping his arms around her tighter again. Temporary solutions before the long-term solutions, for sure - but there was enough stress on them both now without adding stress on by having doubts about themselves. (For Merlin’s sake, they were going to have a baby.) “We’re going to be fine.”

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Elsie was positive she had given him the easier job, but she also had faith he could handle it. They were going to have to figure out much harder things soon enough.

Snuggling into him easily, Elsie felt some of her trepidation ebb. He'd always had that calming effect on her, thank goodness for small miracles. He sounded more confident this time and so she believed him when he said it. They would be fine. They could handle this. They'd wanted children and now they were going to have one. It was late for her, at her age she was nearly a spinster, but it was early for him, so she could easily understand where he was coming from. They would find the middle ground though.

"We can do this." She smiled more properly now as she looked up at him. Though she still felt unsettled, she did feel better for having told him. Having someone to share in the panic made it more bearable. "I love you." She reminded him gently, because in the end, that was really what it really all boiled down to. That was all that mattered; everything else would fall into place eventually if they just remembered that.

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MJ always makes her so pretty

There was so much to worry about and this was not at all how Tybalt had conceived either the evening or the near future would be going, but at least the worst of the shock was over. His heart wasn’t hammering quite as badly and although his mind was whirling with it, Elsie had stopped crying and had even managed a real smile again and it wasn’t all completely ruined yet, was it? There was a little light in this.

So - “I love you too,” Tyb agreed with feeling, pressing a light kiss to her forehead. “And I know I never really got to ask you to marry me properly or -” do anything properly, really; he shook his head with slight ruefulness here, “and I know you know already, but... I promise this is still everything I’ve wanted and I am terrified about this but I’m glad too,” he grinned, too exhausted to contain the wave of mixed emotions at this point, “because I can’t wait to marry you. And - happy birthday, by the way,” he added, the laugh bubbling up in his chest, because this was a lot for any one evening, for anyone. But whatever came next, he wanted them to let themselves be at least a little happy tonight.

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