"Chalun main jahaan jaaye tu
Daayein main tere, baayein tu
Hoon rut main, hawayein tu, saathiya"
~ Pal: - Arijit Singh, Shreya Ghoshal

~ Late November ~

I noticed the tiredness first.

Not the tiredness of a heavy week in the studio. That kind I knew—it lived in my shoulders and left when I slept. This was different. This settled into the bones and was still there every morning, waiting for me when I opened my eyes.

Then the nausea.

Mornings, specifically. The smell of coffee—which I had never minded, which had been background comfort for over a year—was suddenly, inexplicably wrong. I started going to the balcony while it brewed. Aadyant noticed. He said nothing, which was its own kind of observation.

Then the moods I could not account for.

I cried at a video of a dog being reunited with its owner. I was unreasonably, specifically annoyed by the sound of the elevator. I stood in the kitchen at eleven PM holding a piece of cheese with no memory of taking it from the fridge, not crying exactly but dangerously close, for no identifiable reason.

And then the thing I had been avoiding counting.

My period was late.

Not a day or two. Weeks.

I sat on the edge of the bathroom counter and counted again. And again.

The number did not change.

I put my phone down and sat very still for a long time.

Then I called Aadya.

~

This is what was happening in my head while I waited for Aadya:

You don't know for certain. Don't catastrophize before you have information.

The second thought arrived before the first finished:

But you know. You've known for a week. You've just been refusing to say it even inside your own head.

And then:

Okay. And if it's true—what then?

That was where the spiral started. If it was true, I was nineteen years old in my second year of university with a collection in progress and a Mumbai internship confirmed for spring and a career that was just, finally, beginning to feel real—

And underneath all of that, the thought I had been avoiding most carefully:

What will Aadyant say?

I knew, rationally, that he loved me. I knew he was not cold, not absent, not the kind of person who would make me feel alone in something like this.

And yet.

The old voice—the one I had been fighting for three years, the one Dr. Patel had helped me name and not believe—was very good at finding the cracks.

You didn't plan this. You arrived in his life with nothing and he accepted all of it—the history, the healing, the complications—and now you're about to hand him something else he didn't ask for.

What if this is too much? What if this is the version of too much that finally—

"Stop," I said aloud, to the empty kitchen.

The thought did not stop. It never did when I told it to.

He said all the way. He said together. But he said that about the life you had planned. Not this. Not yet. Not now.

And underneath all of it, the most honest thing:

I am terrified he will be kind about it in the way that has a shape to it that means something else underneath.

I was still sitting there when the front door opened and Aadya walked in.

~

She called at nine in the morning.

I heard it in her voice before she said a word. I put down everything I was doing.

"Tell me," I said.

She told me. Everything. The tiredness that would not lift. The mornings. The moods. The missed period—weeks overdue.

I sat on the edge of my bed.

"We're going to the doctor," I said.

"Not telling Aadyant yet—"

"Not yet," I agreed immediately. "First we know. Then we tell him." I was already standing. "I'm coming to the kitchen right now."

"Aadya, you live in the same penthouse, you don't have to—"

"I'M COMING TO THE KITCHEN RIGHT NOW, KASHVI—"

I was already through my door.

~

The gynaecologist's office smelled like that specific combination of clinical and floral that all medical waiting rooms had, as if someone had decided lavender was the solution to anxiety and committed unconditionally.

Aadya held my hand in the waiting room and said nothing, which was, for Aadya, an act of extraordinary will.

Dr. Mehta was calm and thorough in the way of someone who had delivered this news in every possible register.

After the preliminary examination, she sat across her desk.

"Tell me what you've been experiencing," she said.

I told her. The exhaustion that didn't lift. The mornings. The sensitivity to smells. The moods. The missed period—weeks overdue.

She nodded, making notes.

"Any cramping? Spotting?"

"No."

"Breast tenderness?"

I paused. "Yes. I assumed it was something else."

"How old are you?"

"Nineteen."

"Married?"

"Yes. Five months."

"Any possibility you could be pregnant?"

I looked at her. "That's why I'm here," I said.

She smiled, briefly. "Fair enough. Let's do the test."

The wait was eleven minutes.

I know because Aadya counted, aloud, in a whisper, because she could not help it and because I didn't stop her because the counting was keeping both of us present.

Dr. Mehta came back. Sat down.

"Kashvi," she said. "You're pregnant."

Three words.

The room did not change. The lavender smell did not change.

Everything changed.

"How far?" I heard myself ask.

"Based on your last period and what you've described, approximately six to seven weeks. We'll confirm with an ultrasound." She paused. "How are you feeling?"

"I—don't know yet."

"That's completely normal," she said. "It's a lot of information. You don't need to know in the next thirty seconds." She glanced at Aadya. "Good friend?"

"Sister," I said, before thinking about it.

Aadya made a sound.

Dr. Mehta smiled properly. "Good. You'll want people around you. Does your husband know yet?"

"Not yet."

"Tell him soon. Not because it's required—because carrying this alone is harder than it needs to be." She slid a folder across the desk. "Prenatal vitamins immediately. No alcohol, no raw fish, limit caffeine. Come back in two weeks for the ultrasound." She looked at me. "Kashvi—the exhaustion you're feeling is completely normal. Your body is doing significant work. Be kind to yourself."

She stood. "Congratulations."

We sat in the car for ten minutes before either of us spoke.

"I know what you're afraid of," Aadya said.

I looked at her.

"I know what's in your head," she said carefully. "And I need you to hear me. My brother—I have known him for every second of his life. I know his voice when he's managing something versus when he's genuinely happy. And I am telling you: there is no version of him that receives this with anything other than—" Her eyes were bright. "—complete joy. I'd bet everything on it."

"You don't know—"

"I know him." She squeezed my hand. "Talk to him tonight. Don't let the voice in your head have another night with it."

"Tonight," I said.

"Tonight," she confirmed.

~

~Evening~

I was on the balcony when I heard his key.

I had been there an hour. The city had shifted from late afternoon gold to flat grey.

I had sent two texts:

Me: When are you coming home?

Aadyant: Twenty minutes, why? Everything okay?

Me: Yes. Just come home.

Aadyant: On my way.

He came in less than twenty minutes.

I heard the door. Heard him set his bag down. Heard the small pause that meant he was reading the penthouse—the quality of quiet, Aadya's door closed, me not immediately visible.

Footsteps. The balcony door.

He found me at the railing. He didn't say anything. He came and put his arms around me from behind and I held his hands over mine, tight.

"You're not okay," he said into my hair, pressing a kiss. Not a question.

"I'm—I'm not not okay. I just—"

He turned me to face him. Looked at me properly.

"You went to the doctor today," he said.

I went still. "How did you—"

"Aadya can't keep a neutral face. She's been strange since this morning." He held my face. "What happened? Are you okay? Is something wrong?"

The concern in his voice was entirely real.

"I'm fine," I said. "I'm physically fine, I promise you. Nothing is wrong with me."

He exhaled slowly. Something in him released.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. Then tell me what it is."

I looked at him.

The November evening. The city below.

The old voice:

Too much. He didn't ask for this.

And underneath it:

He said all the way. He said together.

I took a breath.

"Aadyant," I said. "I'm pregnant."

~

The words landed.

And then the sentence assembled itself in my brain in the order it arrived and I stood on the balcony and felt something begin in the center of my chest and spread outward in every direction at once.

Kashvi was watching my face.

With the expression of someone who had been braced for hours. Watching for the shape of my reaction.

I knew that expression.

I knew exactly what she had been building in her head all day.

And I made a decision, in approximately two seconds, about what the next thirty seconds needed to look like.

I picked her up.

Just—picked her up. Off the ground. Both arms. Like she weighed nothing.

"AAN—"

"Hold on—"

"PUT ME DOWN—"

"I will. In a second—"

"AADYANT RATHORE I AM STANDING ON A BALCONY—"

"We're three feet from the door, you're perfectly—"

"PUT—"

"Okay okay okay—"

I set her down.

She stared at me.

"What was THAT—"

"I was—" I searched for words. "I was very happy and I needed somewhere to put it immediately."

"You put it into LIFTING me—"

"In retrospect, not my most thought-through response—"

"Not the—"

She stopped.

Looked at me.

"Happy?" she said. Very small. Very uncertain.

"Meri Jaan." I held her face in both hands. "I picked you up off the ground."

"I noticed."

"That is not the behaviour of a man who is anything other than extremely, completely, embarrassingly happy."

Something in her face—something braced since this morning—started to loosen.

"But we didn't plan—it wasn't—"

"Planned?" I brushed my thumbs across her face. "Was falling in love with you in a parking lot planned? Was moving you into my apartment on a day's notice planned? Was proposing to my wife on a rooftop at sunrise—"

"That was extremely planned—"

"The point is," I said, firmly, because she was going to make me laugh and derail everything, "nothing that has mattered has been planned and all of it has been exactly right."

She looked at me for a long moment.

"You're flirting with me while I tell you I'm pregnant."

"I am doing both simultaneously, yes." I put my forehead against hers. "I'm very talented."

She made a sound.

A laugh. Small and real.

There it is.

"What's in your head?" I said. "All of it. I can see there's a lot."

She exhaled.

"I was afraid," she said. "That you'd be kind about it. In the way that has a shape to it that means something else."

"You thought I'd be secretly not okay."

"You might be reasonable about it. Logically. It's the middle of everything—"

"Kashvi." Very steady. "I'm going to be a lot of things about this. Terrified at three in the morning about things I don't know yet. Overwhelmed, periodically. Maa is going to have to fly out and save us at least twice."

"That's somehow the most comforting thing you've said—"

"But I am not—" I held her face, "—not for one second, in any version of any universe, anything other than completely happy about something that is you and mine and new and ours. That is not kindness with a shape to it. That is just true."

She was looking at me.

Her eyes were very bright.

"Promise me something," she said.

"Name it."

"If you're scared or overwhelmed you tell me. You don't manage it alone."

"I promise. Same back."

"Same back," she said.

I pulled her in. Her arms came around me, tight, done keeping distance. Her face into my shoulder.

"We're having a baby," she said. Trying the words out.

"We're having a baby," I confirmed.

A pause.

"I still cannot believe you PICKED ME UP—"

"I was happy—"

"On a BALCONY—"

"A very sturdy balcony—"

"That is not the point—"

I was laughing.

She was laughing.

Both of us, on the balcony, in the November evening, with something new between us that was warm and terrifying and completely ours.

~

Aadya, whose door had been silently open for the last several minutes, closed it quietly.

Sat on the edge of her bed.

Put her face in her hands.

Cried. Quietly. The way she did when she was completely happy.

Then picked up her phone.

Aadya: I told you.

Kashvi's reply came three minutes later:

Kashvi: You told me.

Kashvi: Also he picked me up off the ground.

Aadya: HE DID WHAT!

Kashvi: On the balcony.

Aadya: AADYANT AADHIR RATHORE—

Kashvi: I know.

Kashvi: He said he needed somewhere to put the happy immediately.

Aadya stared at her phone.

Then:

Aadya: I'm going to be an aunt.

The reply was immediate:

Kashvi: You're going to be an aunt. ❤️

Aadya put her phone face down on her bed.

Cried a little more.

Put her pillow over her face and made a sound that the penthouse walls were gracious enough to keep to themselves.

~

We stayed on the balcony for a long time.

Him with his arm around me. Me with my head on his shoulder. The city going about its evening below.

"Are you scared?" he asked.

"Yes. Are you?"

"Extremely. I don't know how small babies work. I'm going to Google it tonight."

"Don't Google it tonight."

"I'm going to Google it tonight."

"Aan—"

"I need information to be properly scared of."

"That is not how fear management works—"

"I'm a Rathore. We like to know the full scope of the problem."

I looked at him.

"You're going to panic at three in the morning about newborn sleep schedules."

"Probably," he agreed.

"And then you're going to wake me up."

"Almost certainly."

"And I'm going to be very annoyed."

"Understandably."

"And then we'll both be awake and scared and—"

"Together," he said. Just that word. Simple.

Together.

I leaned back against him.

He held on.

The city below was entirely indifferent to the fact that something enormous had just quietly begun on a penthouse balcony in California.

But we knew.

We knew.

~

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