Chapter Text
You chose a quiet morning to tell him, the kind of morning where the camp was still half-asleep, fire barely sputtering, and the world hadn’t started making noise yet. Just the birds, the soft ripple of the river, and the occasional snore from someone curled up too close to an empty bottle. Dutch liked the mornings. Said they were pure; the only part of the day that didn’t lie. So you thought maybe, if you told him then, he’d hear it for what it was.
Not a threat. Nor a mistake. Just… the truth.
You found him perched on a flat rock just past the trees, coat still shrugged over his shoulders, coffee steaming in a tin cup between his hands. The light touched his face in soft gold, drawing out the lines near his eyes, the ones you only saw when he let his mask slip. He looked at you when you approached, and his smile: small, slow, and warm, made you hesitate. Because you knew once you said it, that smile would disappear.
And it did.
“Dutch,” you began, heart pounding loudly in your chest, louder than the river or the wind. “I need to tell you something.”
He gave a small, curious tilt of the head. “I can already tell I’m not gonna like it,” he said lightly, teasing. But you didn’t laugh. And he saw that.
“I’m pregnant.”
The words hung there like smoke that wouldn’t blow away.
Dutch blinked.
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Just blinked.
“…Say that again?” His voice was low. Careful. Not like he hadn’t heard you, but like he wanted time to prepare for it.
You swallowed. “I’m pregnant, Dutch.”
This time he moved. A slow shift, one hand running down his face, the other lowering the tin cup to the ground like it had suddenly become too heavy. He stared off toward the trees, and something changed behind his eyes.
Like something switched.
He didn’t yell. Didn’t curse. He just exhaled through his nose, sharp and silent.
“I… Jesus.” He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and stood. Paced three steps to the left, then two back. “No, no, no. Not now. Not now.”
You watched him. Not angry yet, not really, but unravelling. You could feel it, see it in the way he moved, all that barely-controlled panic boiling just beneath his calm.
He turned toward you but couldn’t quite bring himself to look at you. “Are you sure?”
You nodded. “Yes. I waited to make sure. I didn’t want to tell you until I was certain.”
Dutch dragged a hand through his hair. “This… this wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“I know.”
“I had a plan, damn it,” he muttered. “A future. A real one. For us all. One last score. A new life free from persecution. Living in Tahiti. And now…” He trailed off, jaw working, eyes distant.
“And now everything changes,” you finished for him. “I know.”
He shook his head. “Do you? Because I don’t think you do.”
You felt that like a cut, deep and unexpected. “I didn’t do this on purpose.”
“I didn’t say you did,” he snapped back, too fast, too sharp. The wind picked up between you. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t complicate everything we’ve built. Everything we’ve sacrificed.”
You stood very still. “So what now? I’ve just ruined all we’ve worked for?”
Dutch looked at you then. Really looked. For a flicker of a second, guilt flashed across his face, fast, gone almost before it arrived. But you saw it. It was real. “No,” he said, quieter. “I just… I need time to think.”
You stared at each other for a moment longer. You stayed steady in your place, he was already half in the woods with his thoughts.
He turned and walked off without another word.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
You didn’t cry right away. Not in front of anyone. You went back to camp, made coffee, fed the horses, and kept your voice steady when Arthur asked if you were feeling alright. You didn’t say a word to Dutch when he passed by the fire later that day, not even when his eyes flicked toward you like maybe he wanted to say something. Maybe he didn’t.
That night you lay awake in your bedroll, arms wrapped over your stomach like they could shield you from the ache inside your chest. The truth was… You were scared. Not just of the pregnancy. Not just of the long months ahead, or what it meant to carry a child through a life lived between gunshots and wagon wheels. No. It was the fear that twisted deepest was knowing the man you loved couldn’t meet your eyes anymore.
That he’d always been the one talking about freedom, about building a better world, and now that you were carrying a piece of that world inside you, all he could think of was how it ruined things.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
Dutch didn’t leave the camp. Not really. But he became more… absent. He’d sit in the evenings with Hosea, talking plans, eyes distant. He’d share drinks with Arthur by the fire, telling half-jokes, watching the flames too hard. But every now and then, when he thought you weren’t paying attention, he’d look at you. Never for long. Sometimes, in the quiet between chores, you’d catch fragments of his voice near the wagons or by the horses.
“I don’t blame her,” he told Hosea once. “But I can’t stop thinkin’, what if this puts a target on all of us?”
“Or what if it saves you?” Hosea had replied. “You ever think of that?”
Dutch didn’t answer.
He stopped sleeping in your bedroll. Stopped holding your hand on long rides. He hadn’t touched you in over a week. You didn’t ask for it. You didn’t cry. You just learned to carry the silence alongside the life inside you. But it felt like mourning. Like saying goodbye to something that hadn’t finished dying yet.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
One cold morning, you sat by the campfire, staring into your coffee. Dutch came out of his tent. The shadows under his eyes were darker than before. He looked like he hadn’t slept. He stood across from you, stiff and unreadable. “Do you need anything?” he asked. His voice was flat. Practical.
You blinked, surprised. “No. I’m fine.”
A pause.
He nodded. “Alright then.”
And he walked away.
That was all.