His hands were numb when he accepted the water with a small nod of thanks. Everything seemed to be happening around him, apart from him. It was a very disorienting feeling, the world spinning out of control beneath your designer dragon's skin shoes. He didn't like it one bit.

Paris' silence didn't help matters. The look on her face should have been enough to send him jumping from the highest point of the house but he wanted her to say it. Make his fears a reality. It would have served him right, in all truth. Countless indescretions...One was bound to catch up to him eventually. No matter how careful he'd been - lecherousness mixed with heavy drinking never ended very well.

She started to speak and he wished for a chair. Lucius leaned against the opposite wall and hoped that it would be enough. All he could think of was Narcissa. Paris could be handled as could the baby. With enough money (and Merlin knows he had enough of that, even if he was lacking in everything else), there would be no problem. The child - his child - would be taken care of. He would do the right thing.

But how could he dare lie down beside Narcissa every night, knowing that Paris (someone that should have been his friend, someone that proved herself as loyal time and again) had his child stashed away somewhere like the dirty secret that it really was?

Lucius took a sip of water, hoping to calm his nerves as the inevitable began to spill from Paris' lips. And he almost choked.

Relief. Fury. He couldn't tell. A wave of something unknown swept over him and, in its wake, he found himself suddenly wishing that it was his child. Anyone's but Justin's.

Any of the nervousness from before was gone and Lucius crossed to Paris with his jaw set. He reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder only to remember at the last moment about the reason he'd come. He pulled his hand back, not sure how fresh the wound still was.

"Does he know?" A simple question, stated without judgement and devoid of as much anger as Lucius could manage. He wasn't angry with Paris, not yet. Not until his second question could be answered. "Did it happen before...Or did you go back to him?"

~Lucius Malfoy~