She was sitting on a low stone wall at the edge of Newbridge, nearly five miles north of the college. The wall bordered the car park of the Newbridge Memo—the old miners' institute, its grand facade dark and locked for the evening. She was hunched forward, her arms wrapped around herself, her coat pulled tight. The yellow scarf—the one she always wore when she wanted to feel brave—was trailing from her neck onto the wet stone.

Peter pulled Vera to the kerb and killed the engine. He didn't slam the door. He walked across the car park slowly, his boots crunching on the grit, giving her time to hear him coming. He sat down on the wall beside her, leaving a foot of space between them. Close enough to matter. Far enough not to crowd.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The sound of the river—the Ebbw, running fast and dark below the bridge—filled the silence. A streetlight across the road buzzed and flickered, its light turning the fog into a pale, trembling halo.

"I don't know how I got here," she said. Her voice was hoarse and very small, like something that had been folded too many times.

"Doesn't matter," Peter said. He kept his eyes on the road, on the fog, on anything that wasn't her face. He knew from experience that looking directly at her in these moments felt like an accusation, even when it wasn't. "Newbridge is a perfectly reasonable place to end up. They've got a cracking chippy, and the Memo does a decent quiz night on Thursdays. You could do worse."

A sound escaped her—not quite a laugh, not quite a sob. Something in between that acknowledged he was trying.

"My hands hurt," she whispered, looking down at her knuckles. In the streetlight, Peter could see the swelling, the faint discoloration. She'd hit something. Or someone. He didn't ask.

"I'll have a look when we get home," he said. "I've got some of that witch hazel Steph swears by. Fixes everything, apparently. Broken hearts, sore knuckles, existential dread. Comes in a brown bottle and smells like a forest floor."

She turned to him then, and her eyes were red and wide and terrified. Not of the dark, not of the cold, but of herself. "Peter, what if it happens when she's born? What if I'm holding her and I just... go? What if someone else takes over and they don't know how to hold a baby? What if they drop her?"

Peter felt the question land in his chest like a stone dropped into still water. He let the ripples settle before he answered.

"Then I'll be there to catch her," he said simply. "And so will your ridiculous Swedish boy, who is probably wearing a hole in the floor of some library right now worrying about you. And Steph. And half the valley, if you'd let them. You're not doing this alone, cariad. You never were."