They were in the "us against the world" phase. They had appointments at City Hall for the license. They were looking at a tiny apartment they could afford on Karlman's salary and Eunice's private savings. They felt... free.
As two "A-type" planners, they decided to get a full, pre-marital medical check-up. They were, after all, planners. They wanted to start a family immediately. It would be their real "dynasty." Their true legacy.
"Two kids," Karlman said, sitting in the waiting room of a high-end clinic. "A boy first. We'll teach him to code before he can read."
"Three," Eunice countered, flipping through a magazine. "A girl first. She'll be running the company by the time she's twenty. We'll be a dynasty of our own."
The clinic was sterile, white, and smelled of antiseptic. It was the antithesis of their passionate, messy, defiant life.
"Ms. Eunice? Mr. Dowman?" A woman in a white coat, Dr. Aris, called them back. She had a kind, clinical face.
They sat in her office, a room of beige folders and anatomical charts.
"Well," Dr. Aris started, looking at their files. "You are, as I'm sure you know, in perfect physical health. Both of you. Exemplary, really."
Eunice and Karlman exchanged a small, smug smile. Of course they were.
"But," the doctor continued, and the word hung in the sterile air. "We ran the full genetic panels, as you requested. And... we've found a flag. It's... it's a significant one."
The smiles vanished. "A flag?" Karlman asked, his analyst brain clicking in. "What kind of flag?"
Dr. Aris folded her hands on her desk. "You are both, quite remarkably, carriers for the same rare, recessive genetic condition. It's called Vesper's Syndrome."
Eunice had never heard of it. "Carriers," she repeated. "So... we're fine. But what does that mean? For children?"
"It means," Dr. Aris said, her voice gentle, "that there is a one-in-four chance with every single pregnancy that the child would inherit both recessive genes. The syndrome... I'm so very sorry... is not viable. A fetus with Vesper's cannot develop a functioning pulmonary system. It would... it would miscarry, almost certainly in the second trimester. Every time."
The room was silent. The only sound was the hum of the air purifier.
"A one-in-four chance," Karlman said, his voice strained, a man grasping at odds. "So... a 75% chance of a healthy child. The odds are still in our favor. We can try."
"That's the other complication," Dr. Aris said, and her gaze was full of a pity that made Eunice's skin crawl. "This specific genetic pairing... Vesper's... it's extremely rare. It seems to also create a high-level immune response. Your body, Eunice... it would very likely identify any pregnancy—even a healthy one—as a foreign threat. Your immune system is... for lack of a better word... too efficient. It would be incredibly difficult to conceive naturally. And even more difficult to carry any pregnancy to term."
She let the words land.
"The medical advice," Dr. Aris continued softly, "if you are set on having a biological family, would be to pursue IVF immediately. We would have to create embryos, genetically screen them all for Vesper's, and then... attempt implantation of a healthy one. But given your immune response... even then, the chances of a successful implantation are... highly unlikely."
They walked out of the clinic into the bright, stupidly sunny afternoon. The city was a cacophony of taxis and chatter, but they were encased in a thick, soundproof bell jar of silence.
They had defied their families. They had defied their churches. They had defied the law and walked away from a fortune. All of it. They had won.
And here, in a sterile clinic, a kind woman had just told them that their very biology, the genes that made them who they were, had rejected their union, too.
They got into the car. Eunice stared straight ahead at the traffic. Karlman put his hands on the steering wheel but didn't start the engine.
"Highly unlikely," Eunice whispered. Her voice was dead.
"It's not zero," Karlman said, but the 'A-type' certainty was gone. He sounded like a child. "It's not zero, Eunice."
She turned to him, her eyes empty of all their fire. "They were right."
"What? Who? The doctor?"
"All of them," she said, a dry, terrible laugh catching in her throat. "My parents. Your father. The ministers. The lawyers. They all said it. The union is unsuitable. It's flawed. It's against nature. It's... cursed."
She finally broke. The strategist, the ice queen, the woman who had faced down her entire world, put her face in her hands and wept. This was the one enemy they couldn't outsmart. The one fight they couldn't win. This was the one that would break them.