Chapter Text
“Gregory if you knock over that cup one more time you are going to your room.”
“No.” The answer was accompanied with his Paw Patrol fork hitting the kitchen table.
The table was the usual madness of a Bridgerton dinner – seven voices trying to be heard by two bemused parents, who were attempting to continue their own conversation about Edmund’s day at the firm.
At the centre of it all sat Kate Sharma. Her posture was elegant - though slightly tense - as she attempted to follow the multiple conversations while fending off a flying green bean that had ricocheted off a spoon. A snuffling Daphne was asking her opinion on a purple jacket while Francesca wanted her to promise to listen to her new piano piece after dinner and Gregory kept squealing her name.
Anthony, seated beside her, had placed a reassuring hand on her thigh beneath the table earlier, murmuring, “I did warn you.”
And she had smiled, murmuring back, I can handle it.” Though no matter how many Bridgerton meals she attended she wasn’t sure she would ever be fully used to the whirlwind of a Bridgerton dinner.
“You’ll never guess what happened at school,” Eloise announced dramatically, pausing with her fork in front of her mouth and waiting just long enough to seize the room’s attention.
“You blew something up again?” Benedict drawled from the other end of the table, reaching for a bread roll with the confidence of someone who knew of Eloise's flair for disaster.
Eloise rolled her eyes but didn’t bother denying it.
In the three short weeks since she had started at Deanbrooke Academy for Girls, she had managed - either through passion, accident, or pure Eloise-ness - to cause no fewer than five minor lab evacuations. The science department had started referring to her as “Hurricane Eloise” in whispered tones, and there were rumors the fire extinguisher had been relocated to a spot directly outside her regular classroom.
“No. I didn’t have Science today,” she said, brushing off the comment like it was beneath her, even as Francesca stifled a giggle.
“Posy Li, a girl in the year above? She was telling us about her sister,” Eloise continued, her voice suddenly hushed with the kind of gravity only teenage gossip could command. It had the desired effect: the entire table began to lean in.
“Rosamund?” Daphne asked, already half-invested, her voice thick from her lingering cold. A crumpled tissue peeked out from the sleeve of her hoodie, and her nose was glowing slightly from constant wiping. Still, she couldn’t resist gossip. No Bridgerton could.
“No. Sophie,” Eloise said with relish, lowering her voice in the way teenage girls do when about to drop a social nuke.
“She’s her half-sister,” Daphne corrected automatically, but her hand had frozen mid-stir in her tea. Her eyes were already wide, leaning in. She hadn’t been at school the past few days so needed all the news.
“Close enough. Anyway, she hasn’t been in school all week and Posy told why,” Eloise said, glancing around like she was about to reveal a state secret.
“Is that bad?” Francesca asked, using her fork to stealthily poke a lone pea closer and closer to Anthony’s plate, never breaking eye contact. It was a well-practiced move, one Anthony caught a beat too late.
He raised an eyebrow. “Do I look like a pea disposal unit?”
Francesca smiled sweetly. “You look like you love your little sister.”
“It is when you’re Head Girl,” Daphne said, scandalized, forgetting to blow her nose with her tissue for once and using her sleeve.
“Even the Head Girl can get sick,” Colin reasoned, reaching for the salt. “She’s just human.”
“True Colin. Everyone needs rest days,” Edmund agreed with his son.
“What’s wrong with her?” Benedict asked.
“She’s not sick. She had a baby.”
A fork clattered to a plate.
“She didn’t!” Daphne gasped, nearly dropping her glass. “She didn’t even look pregnant. She gave that whole speech to us on GCSE choices like last week.”
“That’s the crazy part,” Eloise said triumphantly, basking in the attention like a seasoned bard. “She didn’t know. That’s what Posy says anyway. Just went home Saturday, thought she had cramps or appendicitis or something, and then bam they found her in the bathroom in so much pain she could barely speak. Ambulance. Hospital. Baby.”
The table fell quiet in the way only truly excellent scandal could accomplish.
“Sophie? Sophie Baek?” Benedict asked, his voice lower now, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
There had to be more than one Sophie at the school. There had to be.
Didn’t there?
“Uh huh. That’s the one,” Eloise confirmed, eyes narrowing slightly. “You know her?”
Benedict didn’t answer right away. His expression, usually so wry and unreadable, had slipped. He reached for his water like it was a way out.
“Think I know the name,” he said casually, too casually.
“Sophie Baek,” Colin repeated, mouth full again.
“Please, Colin,” Anthony said with a theatrical grimace. “We don’t need to see what you eat.”
“Doesn’t she play tennis at Green River?” Colin asked.
“Yeah. She was in charge of our group at summer camp,” Daphne said.
“She’s really nice,” Francesca said, remembering the older girl who had helped her at tennis club.
“She’s literally like the perfect head girl. Apart from ending up pregnant,” Eloise said.
“How did she not know?” Colin asked. Eloise shrugged, something she was unable to have an answer for.
“Cryptic pregnancy. Rare, but not uncommon,” Kate said quietly, slipping into her doctor’s voice without thinking.
“Go on, Doc,” Anthony said, nudging her knee under the table with a proud grin.
Kate gave him a look, but smiled despite herself.
“I’ve heard about it. It’s not always visible - especially if the baby’s positioned low, or if the person’s body doesn’t react typically. Sometimes stress suppresses other symptoms, or the signs are mistaken for other issues entirely. It's more common than people think.”
The table sat in stunned silence for a beat, the air taut with a mix of curiosity and unease.
Then Hyacinth let out a sudden, operatic wail, as if the absence of sound itself had startled her.
Gregory clapped his hands once, delighted. “Hy made noise!” he declared.
Colin leaned over to ruffle her curls. “And just like that, peace is ruined.”
“That poor girl,” Violet said, her voice gentle, thoughtful. She turned her glass between both hands like it offered answers. “A baby is hard enough. But to not be able to prepare? To be alone, in that moment...”
Edmund glanced up from buttering a roll. “How are her family handling it?” he asked, curiosity tempered with the soft concern of a father who had raised eight children, all of whom had, at various times, given him heart palpitations.
“Her and Rosamund don’t get on,” Daphne offered, nose twitching as she reached for a tissue. “You can tell. But they’d never actually say so.”
“Her dad’s dead,” Eloise added with clinical bluntness. “ Remember he died not long after they moved here. Posy’s mum is her stepmum. So she doesn’t really belong to any of them.”
Anthony frowned. “What about her real mum?”
His sisters exchanged glances.
“No one’s ever mentioned her,” Eloise said finally, pushing her plate away. “Not once.”
“She’s never come to school events or anything,” Daphne agreed, her brows drawn together in a moment of serious reflection.
Kate folded her napkin, setting it neatly on the table beside her plate. Her mind was already threading details together: absence, distance, silence.
“Could be estranged,” she said softly. “Or maybe… gone.”
“Gone how?” Gregory asked, his eyes wide and a little too literal.
Anthony reached across to tousle his hair. “Gone as in not nearby,” he said simply. “Not everyone gets to have big, noisy dinners like this, mate.”
“Why not?”
“Because not every family is like ours,” Violet said, her voice warm, but carrying the weight of something more.
There was a beat of quiet, softer than before. Not silence, but a collective breath of acknowledgment - of how lucky they were, how rare this kind of noisy, loving chaos truly was.
“Hopefully she had someone in her corner,” Edmund said, not looking at anyone in particular.
Around the table, heads nodded, quiet murmurs of agreement threading through the clink of cutlery and shifting plates. The weight of the conversation began to lift, gently nudged aside by Colin, who launched into a retelling of his latest football injury from that evening’s practice.
Benedict didn’t hear a word of it.
He picked up his fork again, but only to push a single glazed carrot around his plate. The pie – normally his favourite - sat untouched. He’d been looking forward to it all afternoon, but now it might as well have been ash.
The voices around him faded into a distant hum, like radio static through water. Every detail of the story kept replaying in his head - Eloise’s words, the name Sophie, the date, the baby.
His throat felt too tight.
He pushed his chair back slowly. The legs scraped softly against the floor, but no one looked up.
“I need the bathroom,” he said, not really to anyone but loud enough to be heard.
Edmund nodded distractedly.
And just like that, Benedict slipped away.
He walked quickly at first, then slower as he cleared the dining room arch and found himself in the quiet hall. The moment he reached the stairs, he paused, bracing his hands on the bannister like he needed to steady himself.
His head was a war zone.
She didn’t know she was pregnant.
She went into labor on her bathroom floor.
The girl he’d kissed all those months ago in the clubhouse.
The girl who had looked at him like she wasn’t used to being seen.
Sophie.
And now she had a baby.
His baby?
He couldn’t be sure. Not really. It had only been once but it could be. God, it could.
Ten was lights out in the Bridgerton house; the latest anyone was allowed to be up, barring illness, or exam deadlines. The rule had been firm since the oldest were in nappies - enforced less by strict parenting and more by habit, routine, and Violet’s unshakable belief that proper rest built proper people.
So when Edmund pushed open the door to his office, intent on sending a final email before bed, and found his second son already there - slouched in his chair, the desk lamp casting a soft halo across his face - he knew instantly that something was wrong.
Benedict didn’t turn when the door opened. He was hunched slightly, shoulders curved inward, one hand absently twisting the tiny Lego mini-figure of Violet in a pearl-pink skirt and gray bun. Beside her, Edmund’s own figure—complete with glasses and a white coffee mug—sat watchfully beside the Lego family dog.
A few more figures stood in a line across the desk: Anthony’s wore a suit and held a phone; Colin’s had a football jersey and a very self-satisfied grin; Eloise’s had a lab beaker in one hand and wild hair; Francesca’s a tiny violin; Gregory’s a cape. A little baby Hyacinth.
And then there was Benedict’s. Holding a paint palette and a brush. Its expression - the Lego standard smirk - did nothing to capture what was flickering across Benedict’s real face.
Edmund leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed but voice soft. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Benedict flicked his eyes upward, then back to the table. He shrugged.
“Didn’t try.”
Edmund nodded, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him with a gentle click. He walked over, pulling out the armchair opposite the desk with a quiet scrape of wood and sat. He didn’t speak again immediately. Just waited.
Benedict turned the Violet figure upside down, then set it on top of Edmund’s, like a totem.
“Ben?” Edmund said gently after a few minutes of watching him rearrange the Lego figures into oldest to youngest, his fingers moving with slow precision - like if he just got the order right, maybe everything else would fall into place too.
“I know Sophie,” he said, quietly. His hand paused over the Lego Francesca, then closed around it like it was something steady to hold onto.
“You do?” Edmund’s voice didn’t shift, didn’t change tone - just a simple, open invitation to continue.
“From Green River. She’s the year below me in school. We played a couple of tennis matches. She was… pretty good.” He gave a small, almost-smile.
“It’s strange to hear things about people you know,” Edmund said after a beat, voice low and thoughtful. “When the picture you had of them in your head gets rewritten all at once.”
Benedict let out a long sigh, heavy and ragged at the edges. He glanced up at his father, then back down at the table again, his fingers now absently spinning the tiny Francesca in place like a worry stone.
“I know her dad,” he said suddenly, his voice low. “Like—know her.”
Edmund didn’t interrupt, didn’t move. Just nodded slightly, once. Waiting.
“I… um…” Benedict’s shoulders tensed. “We… yeah.”
He stopped. Swallowed. Rubbed a hand across the back of his neck like he wanted to scrape the words loose from somewhere behind his skin.
“Benedict. Did you sleep with the girl?” Edmund asked, getting to the main question.
“Once,” Benedict admitted, the word falling out with more weight than he meant to show.
He shifted in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his hands together like he could scrub the memory into something less complicated.
“Remember in February? There was the tennis camp over midterm. I told Mum I was volunteering to build up my UCAS application… but I didn’t care about that. I only said yes because she was going to be one of the girls’ coaches.”
Edmund nodded slowly.
“She was so focused. All business. She told me she didn’t want anything to get in the way of school. Or tennis. Or being Head Girl. I respected it, so I backed off. We talked. We were friendly. I didn’t want to get serious – because of London. But then…” He stopped, jaw flexing.
Edmund waited, not pressing.
“Then that last night, we were the last ones in the staff room, cleaning up. Everyone else had already left, and it was just us. And I don’t even know how it happened but it did…”
Benedict trailed off, his voice rough with the weight of everything he hadn’t said aloud until now.
Edmund tilted his head slightly, studying his son. “Are you saying this baby could be yours?”
Benedict let out a frustrated breath and threw his hands in the air, eyes wide with exhausted disbelief.
“Yes. No. Maybe? Probably? Possibly?” He slumped back in the chair, scrubbing both hands down his face. “I mean, we weren’t together-together. It was one night. We were careful. But careful doesn’t mean certain. And the timing… it fits. And if she really didn’t know…”
“I think you need to go and speak to her,” Edmund said, calm but certain.
Benedict stared at him like he’d just suggested he walk into oncoming traffic. “And say what exactly? ‘Hi, my sister said you had a baby, and I’m presuming it’s mine?’” He let out a breathless, slightly panicked laugh. “Dad, I’d hit me.”
Edmund’s mouth twitched into something that was almost a smile. “Well. Let’s maybe not lead with that.”
Benedict stood up abruptly, pacing to the other side of the room and then back again, like the movement could shake off the anxiety pressing down on his chest. “What if she doesn’t even want to see me? What if I make things worse? What if she’s already told people it’s someone else’s? Or no one’s? What if I show up and she thinks I’m accusing her of lying—”
“Then you don’t accuse,” Edmund interrupted gently. “You ask.”
Benedict stopped mid-step.
“You show up,” Edmund continued, voice low but firm. “Not with demands. Not with assumptions. Just… honesty.”
“I feel like I’m going to be sick.”
“That’s how you know it matters.”
Benedict gave a snort, running a hand through his curls, making them even messier than usual. Edmund stood now too, coming to rest beside him with a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re scared because you care. That’s good. Those emotions make you human.”
“Dad?” he asked, more fragile than before. “Can we… can we not tell anyone about this? Not yet?”
Edmund didn’t hesitate. He just nodded.
“Of course.”
Benedict looked up, surprised by how simple the answer was.
“It’s not because I don’t trust them,” he added quickly. “I mean, I do. It’s just… I don’t even know anything yet. It could all be a mistake. A mix-up. What if I tell everyone and it turns out it’s not mine? Or she doesn’t want me involved? Or I..” He stopped. Shook his head. “I just… I need to get things straight first.”
Edmund stepped closer, resting a steady hand on Benedict’s shoulder again. “You don’t need to explain. Not to me. We’ll take it one step at a time. When you’re ready, we’ll figure out what comes next.”
“Thanks,” Benedict said softly. “For not… freaking out. Or judging me.”
Edmund gave a quiet laugh. “Ben, I’ve raised eight of you. Do you really think this is what’s going to throw me?”
Benedict huffed out a tired smile. “Fair point.”
There was a pause, the kind that carried comfort in its stillness. Then Edmund gave his son a final pat on the back and nodded toward the door.
“Go to bed. Tomorrow will be a lot.”
Benedict nodded, the weight on his chest still heavy - but no longer crushing.
As he turned to go, he paused in the doorway.
“Dad?” he said again, softer this time.
“Yeah?”
“If it is mine… if I’m a dad…” His voice trailed off. He swallowed. “Did you feel like this? When Mum was pregnant with Anthony?”
Edmund gave a soft smile, filled with memories and time. “Worse,” he said. “I thought I was going to faint every time I walked into a baby store. Still did with Hyacinth.”
Benedict gave a weak laugh, then disappeared up the stairs. Edmund waited until he heard Benedict’s bedroom door close before turning back to the desk.
The small, warm pool of lamplight still illuminated the miniature world they’d built together – almost two decades of after-dinner construction projects, half-finished models, quiet conversations while snapping bricks into place. It had always been their thing - a language that didn’t need too many words.
His eyes landed on the row of Lego mini-figures Benedict had arranged. Nine of them now stood in careful formation, a little mismatched but unmistakably them - Anthony with a tiny plastic coffee cup, holding a little Kate with a dog at their feet, Daphne with a mirror, Eloise wielding a book. Colin had a football. Francesca, a violin. Little Gregory and tiny Hyacinth.
Benedict’s was there too. Holding a paintbrush. A small splash of color across his plastic palette.
Edmund smiled, reaching down to straighten it just slightly - then noticed the open space at the end of the row.
It was subtle. Barely even intentional. But there it was.
A gap.
A space left for someone else.
Not out of forgetfulness. But possibility.
Edmund gently picked up a blank mini-figure from the small box to the side - a spare, just like they always kept for building new characters in the little family stories they’d invented over the years.
He turned it over once in his fingers, then set it down gently in the empty space.
Not labeled. Not defined. Just… waiting. Just a possibility.