Shifts continued their familiar demanding rhythm over the following days, though I now navigated each evening carrying this significant secret carefully beneath my usual professional composure. Theo commented occasionally that I seemed somewhat quieter than usual, and I deflected with simple tiredness, unwilling to reveal details about a pregnancy I hadn't yet decided how or when to properly disclose given everything else currently complicated about my precarious circumstances here.
Mara continued offering steady, practical support during quiet mornings together, occasionally raising the subject of my masked stranger and whether I had reconsidered attempting to identify him now that this pregnancy introduced considerably more significant stakes into whatever remained of that anonymous enc
