Chapter Text
Penelope Ann Featherington wasn’t one to pray. Anymore. She’d grown up Catholic but strayed when she left for university. Her mum blamed her friends, but that was complete rubbish. She’d grown up, started understanding what she was saying, making promises of things that she didn’t understand. When she was little, she thought she’d be Catholic forever, that Jesus loved her, and she was going to believe in him forever.
Just like the tooth fairy.
She made promises to old men, confessed her sins, and sat there diligently soaking in every word that the aging priests would go on about purity and obedience. Big words for a small child to learn. She’d sat there many a Sunday with everyone telling her she wasn’t good enough, and that if she wasn’t better, she would go to hell. Eight-year-old Penelope Featherington didn’t want that, so she prayed hard, almost as hard as she was praying now.
She was a good, obedient, child.
This changed, as she got older and developed her own beliefs, she realised how messed up elements of religion where. Like, why would anyone make little girls dress up as brides for their first holy communion, to represent purity. At the time, she felt pretty, but looking back at the photos, it makes her feel slightly nauseous. She’d been thinking about it recently, which is why she was certain that it was the cause of her unrelenting sickness. That was 100% why she was sick, or so she tried to tell herself.
And her boobs hurting was because she was PMSing and they were extra sore. Except, they didn’t normally hurt this much, or for this long. She wondered if the cold weather could play a part in them hurting, she tried to convince herself that it did, and the unusually harsh British winter was having an impact on them, and her mood. That the stress of moving was impacting how sore they were.
Rationally she knew this was pushing the realm of possibility and was complete bullshit.
She’d even told Colin to stop when he’d come over one evening for a quick shag, before he had a flight from Bristol airport for whatever work thing he was doing this time. He did tell her, and she did try and take an interest, but usually at that point, she had one thing on her mind and everything else just passed her by.
God, that made her sound like a slut.
She didn’t want to call him her boyfriend, because he wasn’t. They were both single, both horny, and lived within a close proximity to one another. Or they had, before he got a fancy big boy job that took him away a lot. Now she’d see him when he was in the area.
Which was a lot less than she would like, if she was being honest.
She usually liked the way he would touch her; no man ever came close to making her feel, how he made her feel. He made her feel good, special. The boys that came before weren’t a patch on him. He was different. A good different.
A little too good, clearly.
She wondered how she would explain this to him, how it happened. She had been careful; she was always careful. She’d watch enjoy TV to know that you don’t play fast and lose with your birth control.
Telling Colin would be one thing. What about everyone else. How would she explain it to them.
How would she explain it to her mum and dad, who were already disappointed by her. How would she explain this situation?
Friends with benefits, perhaps?
Fuck buddy.
How would she explain to her best friend that she’s been sleeping with her older brother for two years without her knowing anything. She’d kill her, or rather, she’d kill her once Colin was dead.
Pen was sure that he was the nicest man she’d ever met. Kind, and considerate, in all aspects of his life. Eloise wouldn’t believe they were sleeping together, and that it was all an elaborate joke.
But it wasn’t.
In this moment, she wanted to scream and shout. She wanted to get angry at herself for lacking self-control. At Colin, for doing this.
He may be the nicest guy she knows, but at the moment, he was the root cause of the hail Mary she was in the middle of, when the timer went off. Praying she was wrong, that this is just stress. She’s busy at work, the new flat, everything.
The moment she looked down at the test, she knew it hadn’t worked.
-Bridgeton-
He was gone for eight days.
Four days between her taking that test and his arrival with the pizza she had been craving the week prior.
Four days of texts pretending to him that nothing is wrong.
That she wasn’t pregnant and freaking out.
That she couldn’t even sit up and not feel sick. The myth that morning sickness is confined to just the morning.
Agatha had agreed to let her work from home, when Penelope asked, saying she was having problems at home.
She didn’t ask any questions, but something told Penelope that she just knew.
Four days of wondering how she would tell him that she was pregnant, that she didn’t know what she wanted to-do. She wasn’t a teenager; she was a twenty-seven-year-old woman who had a career.
Maybe she should have left the friends with benefit situation in the past with the one-night stands and situationships she’d filled her time with as a student. Maybe she should have prioritised having a meaningful relationship with someone, rather than being someone’s booty call (per se, Colin was too nice to call her that).
She’d always been careful then, she thought she’d been careful now.
The test she’d stared at for hours would tell her something different.
It was a moment like this where she wished she could talk to Eloise. She had tried, but Eloise had been too busy with Theo to pick up her call. When she did call back, she’d lost the balls she had momentarily found.
She had lied and said she’d butt dialled her.
Eloise Violet Bridgeton just laughed.
Instead, she was left to her own devices, causing her many sleepless nights. She had never felt so alone, and that was saying something.
She didn’t say a word to anyone, until Colin texted her telling her that he was going to come and visit her that evening, with a sexy emoji.
She spent the rest of the afternoon pacing up and down the one-bed flat she lived in. She tried to envision what life would look with a baby, where everything would go, how it would slot into her life.
How it would slot into his life.
How would she afford to raise a baby, she’d lived in Bath for nine years, she knew how expensive it is for one person. Bring a baby into the mix, she didn’t know how she’d cope. Would her tenancy even allow kids? She’s pretty sure there’s a clause saying no children and no pets. She wasn’t sure she wanted to move again.
She couldn’t predict how he would react either.
She imagined all these scenarios, but she wasn’t even sure she wanted to continue with the pregnancy. Despite the way the world was going, she was still able to have a termination, if she wanted.
It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that she was going to keep the pregnancy.
She loved her life, she loves Bath. A baby would uproot all of that. Odds that, even if in the slim chance Colin wanted the baby, she would probably be a single parent and he would visit on weekends and holidays.
She had planned a whole script, what she would say, when she would say it. She’d decided she’d do it after dinner, she could wait that long.
She’d waited four fucking days already, what is half an hour?
When Collin James Bridgeton turned up at his best friend’s house, he was not expecting her to blurt out she was pregnant.
That was not on the 2024 bingo card.
-Bridgeton-
It took days for the initial shock to wear off for Colin. There was a lot of tears and threatening to phone Durex (yes, Penelope did compare him to Ross from friends). It was the first time the pair of them laughed in approximately 34 hours and 18 minutes.
There was lots of umming and ahhing about what they wanted. At points, it felt like they were going around in circles, over and over again. The conversation about whether they wanted to be parents, what they could manage, how would it fit in with their jobs, seemed endless.
They talked about what the future would look like, if they kept the baby. How life would change if they didn’t. Because, at this point, nothing would be the same. There was no resetting.
He even proposed to her, which got met with her laughing. He tried not to feel offended (because then he’d have to admit he was in love with his sister’s best friend) when she said no.
That one hurt.
The turning point came a week after Penelope told him, eleven days after the first positive test. Colin took it upon himself to get a private medical appointment, as the NHS were being too slow for his liking. His justification was that he wanted to see if she was okay. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something happened to his Pen and it was all his fault.
There was also a small part of him trying to see it as real. He knows that it’s there and it’s making his best friend suffer, which he hates. He misses her usual smile, her laughter. Instead, she’s more exhausted than usual, and is suffering with morning sickness. Rationally, he knows it’s real.
Colin was good with children; he loved his niblings, and they loved him. Everyone knows that if he wasn’t a travel journalist he would be a teacher. So, surely, he should want this baby? He loves the kids around him, and this would be 50% him and 50% of his best friend.
In theory, it sounds perfect. But he can’t help but feel terrified, panic and anxiety washing over him. He suddenly didn’t want to-do this anymore. Even being in the doctors, even if it was just in the waiting room whilst the doctor checks Pen, he suddenly feels a lot worse than he did before.
Going from he needs to see if it’s real, to him wanting this to be a bad dream.
But when the doctor asks if they want a scan, Penelope says yes before he can say anything. A million thoughts plague him, wondering why she said that. He’s not sure he wants to see it, fear rising up again. It’s almost as if she can see what he is thinking, because as he starts to panic, she grabs his hand.
The moment the baby’s picture appeared on the screen; he knew he was going to be a dad before the year is out.