Most people walked into a doctor’s office expecting ordinary answers. High blood pressure. Iron deficiency. The kind of news that settled into the background of a life already in motion.

Oliver Reyes wasn’t expecting to walk out labeled as something rarer.

He sat in the cold, too-bright exam room with a folded sheet of paper in his hands, still half-expecting the nurse to come back in and say there’d been a mistake. His annual check-up had been routine—something his mother had always nagged him about, even after losing contact.

But this…

Carrier Gene Detected: MPC-1 Positive.

Male Pregnancy Carrier 1.

A trait so rare it had been dismissed as myth until modern genetic mapping. Some families had passed quiet stories down through generations—uncles or grandfathers who’d vanished from records for mysterious reasons, rumors of impossible births. And it appeared in me.

The truth was simpler and quieter than that: a recessive gene, hidden in the background of human DNA like a soft watermark. Passed down through bloodlines, sometimes lying dormant for two or three generations before resurfacing in someone like Oliver.

The doctor had explained it carefully, probably reading from the same script they used anytime a patient found out.

“It’s not a disease. It’s not dangerous. Most carriers never realize until they take specific tests or… well, until pregnancy occurs.”

Oliver could still hear the tone of voice the doctor had used. Measured, professional, like none of it was supposed to hit as hard as it did.

But it did.

It wasn’t like Oliver had ever pictured himself with kids. At least not seriously.

He was twenty-nine. A little past the point where his friends from school were announcing baby showers and holiday cards with smiling faces. His own life had been quieter. Less settled.

There had been relationships. Enough to count on both hands—

And enough to count as failures.

Six months ago, he’d ended things with Luca after three years of on-again, off-again cycles that left him feeling more hollow than whole. Before that, there had been Alex, who couldn’t quite decide if they wanted to settle down. It was like only bad relationships appeared to Oliver.

It wasn’t even anyone’s fault, really. Oliver had stopped blaming people after a while. Sometimes things just didn’t fit the way you hoped they would.

“But how come I haven’t gotten pregnant yet?”

“… We don’t know how or why it hasn’t worked yet, … there are some who believe you need to be emotionally ready to conceive while others say that your sub conscious protected you from conceiving with incompatible partners. Unfortunately, science is still looking for an answer to this very question. If you used protection during coitus or if your partner was infertile, those can factor in to why you didn’t conceive.”

That did not put me at ease one bit. No matter how many years I had been with a partner, I always used protection. “Better safe then sorry” my mom always said. And to think that saved me from giving birth with toxic partners

Still, walking out of the clinic now, paper folded into his coat pocket like a secret, Oliver couldn’t shake the quiet ache that settled beneath his ribs.

Maybe love can happen after or in my next life.

The thought wasn’t bitter. It wasn’t even sad, exactly. Just… factual. 

He paused outside the building, watching traffic move past. The late afternoon sun painted everything gold and sharp-edged. A woman pushed a stroller down the sidewalk, a baby bundled in soft blue blankets. Two teenage boys chased each other past, laughing too loud.

Life kept going. Always.

And for the first time, Oliver found himself wondering if he wanted to stop waiting for it to happen the usual way.

Love. Marriage. Kids. The complete picture.

Did it really have to go in that order?

Maybe—just maybe—if love wasn’t in the cards, he didn’t have to walk away from everything else, too.

The carrier gene wasn’t just a label. It was a possibility. A door that had quietly existed his whole life without him knowing. 

Oliver pressed his hand into his coat pocket, feeling the folded paper like a steady weight there.

If there was even a small chance he could be a parent… on his own terms…

Maybe it was time to stop waiting for someone else to build that life with him.

Romantic love.

Maybe it was time to skip that step.

Not today. Not tomorrow. But soon.

I can do it alone too. I can create my happiness. My own family.

The thought lodged itself quietly in his chest as he stepped off the curb and kept walking—head down, heart steady, and for the first time in a long time, carrying something that almost felt like hope.