Burn The Ships

JACAERYS, 10; READER, 15; 120 AC

Two years have passed, but the ache in your chest has never quite subsided since you parted ways with your sister and her sons.

"How does it feel? That you get to see our sister anddearest nephews again? It has been what? Two years, has it? Are you excited, wife?"

You exhale hard through your nose, turning your face away from Aegon when you see him leaning over the rail trying to make eye contact with you, a shit-eating grin on his face. You do your best to ignore the way your heart sinks at the reminder of the silence you have faced from Dragonstone.

Aegon, naturally, is always quick to rub it in your face. You turn a half-hearted glare onto him when he pointedly shifts back into your field of vision, but you do not even have the energy to snap a snide comment back . Your chest is weak, and your fingers are trembling, nausea eats away at the back of your throat every time you open your mouth. Even just holding yourself upright is an effort—all you want to do is go sit in the captain's cabin, but your pride refuses.

"Leave her alone, Aegon," Aemond says, leaning on the rail of the ship next to you, looking up wistfully as Dreamfyre trills above the ship, spinning in the air before swooping down closer to the water. "Why do you always have something to say?"

Aegon scoffs, folding his arms over his chest as he looks away. "Mind your business, Aemond" he mutters. "I thought she would be pleased to see them again. It is not my fault she remains so sensitive."

Your eye twitches, and a familiar screech cuts through the sea air above.

Every head on deck turns skyward. High above the ship, Zūgaxes circles lazily through the clouds, always close enough to keep you in his line of sight, pale white scales gleaming beneath the afternoon sun as he follows the royal envoy to Driftmark for Lady Laena's funeral. Sunfyre dives after him, always keen on playing chase with the larger dragon, but Zūgaxes is in no mood for fun today, same as you—the moment Sunfyre comes within striking distance, Zūgaxes snaps viciously at his throat, forcing the young dragon to dive away with an indignant shirek, barely avoiding the bite.

"Your dragon is a vicious beast," Aegon mutters, downing another cup of wine, face a bit paler at the sight of his dragon nearly meeting an untimely end at the teeth of yours. "Keep him away from Sunfyre, would you?"

"You wouldn't have to worry about it if you would concern yourself less with your cups and more with my disposition," you reply wearily, rubbing at your temple. "Zūgaxes only takes issue with Sunfyre when I take issue with you."

Aegon looks up at the two dragons, then back at you. "… Right," he replies, clearing his throat and lowering his goblet. "Then I will take care not to bother you today, sister."

"Aegon the Sagacious," you murmur sarcastically, eyes sliding shut as a wave of dizziness hits you.

Beside you, Aegon grins boyishly and agrees, "Aegon the Sensible."

You find yourself smiling, despite how your hand drifts to your chest as your heart flutters weakly. Above you, Zūgaxes makes a noise closer to croon than roar, coming dangerously close to the ship, and Aemond hesitantly looks between the two of you, offering his arm for you to lean on.

You shake your head and say quietly, "I am fine, valonqar."

He stares at you for a moment, unconvinced, but returns his gaze to the sky as Zūgaxes swoops down lower, trying to remain as close to you as he can.

Over a year has passed since the twins' birth, but your body still behaves as though it had happened yesterday. You nearly died giving birth to them—fourteen years old, and the maesters had already begun speaking over your body as though you were no longer there, debating whether to save you or the children when the bleeding refused to stop, ignoring you when you begged them not to let you die. It was your father who stepped in when Aegon fled to the bottom of a flagon, trembling violently at the idea of having to choose between you and the children. The king ordered the maesters to save you first, voice carrying through the chamber with a fury you'd never seen from him before.

Somehow, all three of you had lived, though you reckon death may have been kinder if this is to be your fate. You tire too quickly now, and your hands shake when you hold the children for too long. Some mornings, merely fastening your gown leaves you breathless enough that your ladies insist you sit before attempting the stairs. The maesters tell you that you should be resting every time they catch you up and about, but there is only so much time you can stay abed before you would sooner collapse on the stairs than remain still.

In the beginning, they give you a general range for when they believed your body would return to what it was, but they stopped with that moons ago—you fear that this might be your life now. Even Aegon had stopped arguing with them, no longer laughing when they forbade you from flying or carrying both twins at once.

You hate it. You feel as though you've lost a part of yourself that you do not know how to live without. You have always been up with the sun, running about the castle long after the moon had risen. You were in the yard with Ser Steffon every morning until your hands blistered and your shoulders burned, and in the sky any other given moment, flying recklessly over King's Landing and the Blackwater with Zūgaxes every chance you got. You spent a year with your uncle, Daemon, perfecting your form and skill so that you could be the best—you were determined that one day you would beat him and claim the Valyrian steel sword Dark Sister for yourself.

When the court whispered that you should be gentler or softer, you would toss your hair over your shoulder and laugh, because you were neither gentle nor soft, and anyone who had a problem with it could face blade or dragon—you would be kind enough to give them a choice.

Now, you struggle to leave your bed in the morning and can scarcely make it to the dragonpit, much less climb atop Zūgaxes. There are days you look at yourself through a looking glass and do not recognize the girl staring back at you. Her face is thin, and dark circles linger beneath her eyes that no amount of sleep can erase—there is always a child in her arms and a shakiness to her limbs. She is a wife, a mother, a princess—all of the things the court had wanted her to become.

Yet, you are no longer entirely certain who you are. Somewhere between the wedding feast and the blood-soaked sheets, all of the endless, sleepless nights, you feel as though you lost the girl who spent entire days racing through clouds and challenging knights twice her size simply because she could. The girl once called hāedar and muña, whose greatest worry had been whether Rhaenyra would get upset with you for sneaking Jacaerys more snacks than he ought to have, had slipped through your fingers before you even knew you were losing her.

And no one cared to mourn her besides you. Rhaenyra had not come to your wedding, and Jacaerys had never come to visit. You sent ravens to Laenor asking if you could join him at sea and gifts to Lucerys from Pentoshi merchants who had arrived with the spring, and they had gone unanswered.

When your belly had begun to swell beneath your gowns, and you sent ravens with trembling fingers to tell Rhaenyra that you were scared, you would go to Maester Orwyle, eyes wide with anticipation only for him to give you a disparaging smile as he told you none had arrived for you. When the twins were born and the maestars whispered that the young princess might not survive the night, you cried every night because all you wanted was your sister.

Every morning for the better part of a year, you found yourself glancing toward the skies before you even realized you were doing it, looking for the familiar gold of Syrax or even Vermax's small green wings crossing the Blackwater, but they never came.

At first, you had made excuses for them. Rhaenyra has duties and children to tend to, and Jacaerys is too young to come on his own. But weeks turned to months and months turned to years, and there came a point where no excuse could rid you of the resentment. Because how could they leave you alone when you needed them most? You would never do that to them. Never.

And you had needed them. Not for the wedding—you endured standing beside Aegon in the sept without them after the two of you downed a flagon of wine together—but when the twins came too early, and the world narrowed to blood and pain and fear. You thought your final breath would be spent calling for people who you knew were not there, and the childish part of you had still waited for the doors to burst open anyway.

But every raven had gone unanswered, and every nameday passed without a visit. You wonder if something had happened on Dragonstone—maybe Rhaenyra had wanted to come and could not, maybe Jacaerys still asked after you. Or maybe they had learned to live without you—out of sight, out of mind.

"Driftmark!" the captain shouts from the quarterdeck.

You tense instantly. You do not know if you're ready to see them.

Aemond inches closer to you. "Do you want to come sit in the captain's cabin with Helaena and I, mandia? I become terribly seasick during docking."

You do not think Aemond has ever been seasick before, and concern is plain in his eyes when he glances down at how your fingers tremble on the wood rail. It is more for your sake than his, you realize, but he is courteous enough to allow you a sliver of pride, unlike his brother.

"Aemond the Chivalrous," you say with a small, teasing smile, causing the younger boy to flush when he holds his arm out for you to take.

"Aemond the Gallant," Aegon immediately echoes with a sharp laugh, mocking to your sincerity. "You will be a fine knight, if not dragonrider, dearest brother."

Aemond immediately scowls, gaze dropping to the ground, shoulders hunching slightly. You squeeze his arm lightly and say, "Do not listen to him. I fear a fish has more sense than he does. You will bond with a dragon one day, Aemond, that I have no doubt." He gives you a small smile as he looks up at you, but his violet eyes are still riddled with insecurity. You promptly change the subject and ask, "Did Helaena find the spiders she was looking for?"

"There are five," Aemond confirms. "She is trying to determine whether they might be a family."

Aegon makes a noise in the back of his throat, and you know he is rolling his eyes, but he follows the two of you as you make your way across the deck, hovering at your other arm in case you lose your balance.

Your teeth grind in frustration again. Once upon a time, you would have bounded across the deck three steps ahead of them, laughing when the ship lurched beneath your feet and Aegon lost his balance. Now, Aemond shortens his stride without comment, pretending not to notice when your hand tightens around his arm after a particularly rough swell, and Aegon tosses his cup to nearby servant so that he can catch you in case your legs give out.

Just as you reach the captain's cabin, the ship's bell sounds overhead. A voice calls, "Prepare for docking!"

Your step falters, gaze slipping to the side to settle on the pale stone of High Tide in the near distance. You see Syrax on the hill, golden head lifting when she notices Zūgaxes soaring above the royal envoy—she lets out a familiar trill, but he does not echo it the way he used to, the dread you feel undoubtedly weighing on him as heavily as it does you.

Somewhere on the island is Rhaenyra, Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey. You have spent two years imagining this moment. You have practiced what you would say in mirrors and anticipated every excuse you would be given for their absence, but somehow, none of it had prepared you for how much it would hurt.

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You have always associated your sister's smile with warmth. Before she left for Dragonstone, seeing her smile could be the difference between a ruined day and a perfect one. It chased away every lingering stare from the court and soothed every anxiety faced. It reminded you that for all the loneliness of the Red Keep, you would always have her.

You're not sure what you expected, you think later, long after the services for Lady Laena had ended, and you are sitting in the chambers Princess Rhaenys and Lord Corlys had set up for you and Aegon as the sun sets across the sea. Your half-brother is nowhere to be found—likely drunk in a ditch or in some whore's bed—you do not care either way. You are happy to be alone, so that you may finally let yourself feel whatever it is you have been holding at bay all day.

Rhaenyra smiled at you when she saw you step off the ship beside Aegon, and you felt nothing.

You had imagined this reunion a thousand different ways over the past two years. You would throw yourself into Rhaenyra's arms, laughing as Jacaerys threw himself into yours, and you would shout at her until your voice gave out. You planned all of the angry questions: why did you never come, why did you never write, why did she let you face your wedding, pregnancy, and labor all alone? Why, why, why?

But you had only smiled faintly at her back and turned your gaze away.

You could feel her occasionally watching you throughout the services—gaze pinned on you, red and black in a sea of green and gold, the twins, the handmaidens that tend to you whenever your body weakens. The longer she stares, the more frustrated you become. Does she not even care to ask how you've been? To learn the twins' names? What had you done to make her so cold?

As difficult as it was ignoring her, ignoring Jacaerys was harder. You forced Aegon to run interference through use of threat of Zūgaxes to Sunfyre, but it was clear that the boy was angry with you. Every time you looked over at him, he was already glaring at you. His brows were drawn together in a furious scowl that you've only ever seen reserved for Ser Criston, and the moment your eyes met, he would raise his chin until you looked away. It was a far cry from the open adoration that you had become used to years ago.

You do not understand it. You had been the one abandoned and ignored. You were the one who had waited for people who never came.

There is a knock at your door, drawing you from your thoughts. You tense, glancing over to where the twins had only just fallen asleep after hours of wailing, but they do not stir.

"Come in," you call, uncertain of who it might be—Aemond or Helaena, you wager, because Aegon does not knock when he barges in.

Your gaze lifts to as the door creaks open, and you falter when you recognize Rhaenyra. You inhale deeply, shifting to sit up straight on the settee as you say quietly, "Sister."

Rhaenyra hesitates before she motions toward the cushions next to you. "May I?"

You almost tell her no. You stare at her so long that you see her visibly falter, looking uncertainly between you and the door as she considers taking her leave. Before she can, your gaze drops and you nod.

When she sits down next to you, she sits close enough that you can smell the faint scent of vanilla in her hair. Your heart aches—you have missed her. You have missed all of them—her and Laenor and Jacaerys and Lucerys—being near enough again to inhale the familiar scent of her hair oils only serves to make that longing worse.

She reaches for your hands, and you let her hold them.

"I…" Rhaenyra hesitates as she gathers her thoughts. "I confess, I have prepared many times what I would say to you when we met again, but I find myself at a loss anyway. I have missed you, sweet girl. I had… been under the impression that our father would wait to wed you and Aegon until your sixteenth nameday. I did not think—"

She cuts herself off abruptly, grimacing as she looks away.

You stare down at your joined hands, trying to push away the hope that rises, because how does this explain anything? A royal wedding is no trivial affair, and she expects you to believe that word did not reach Dragonstone that the King's secondborn daughter and firstborn son had wed? She expects you to believe that word did not reach Dragonstone when you gave Aegon a son and a daughter? That she did not receive any of your ravens?

It's nonsensical. She had to have known.

"I sent ravens," you say, voice clipped. "Dozens of them. More. I was alone, and I did not know what to do, and I—"

I needed you, you do not say—you do not need to say, because Rhaenyra's expression instantly drops as she shifts closer to you. She does not hesitate now when she moves to pull you into her arms, cradling the back of your head so that you can press your face into the crook of her neck.

You tell yourself that you want to remain strong—you want to question her, you want real answers, not excuses—but the next breath you take in breaks over a sob, fingers twisting into the red velvet of her dress as you sink into her familiar warmth.

"I did not receive them," Rhaenyra whispers, pressing her lips to the top of your head. "Hāedar, I would have come. I would have come in an instant, had I known."

You tremble in her arms—you have had your half-siblings over the last two years, but it is not the same. There is always a degree of distance between you and them because of Queen Alicent; they are not the woman who raised you, who snuck you snacks when you were sad and shielded you from the cruelty of the court. That was always Rhaenyra, and two years without Rhaenyra—

"I do not believe you," you rasp. "You had to have known. I do not believe you. I—"

"I knew you had wed," she admits, stroking your back and your hair. For the first time in two years, you feel as though all of the weight that has been bearing down on you lifts from your shoulders. You are hāedar, muña, the girl you thought dead in place of a mother and wife. "By the time word reached Dragonstone, weeks had already passed. I was furious with father. I wrote to you that very night. Then another raven after a week had passed. Then another." She shakes her head. "When none returned, I thought… I wondered if perhaps you blamed me. That you no longer wished to hear from me."

Your stomach turns, breath ragged as you press your face harder into her skin. What does she mean? What does she mean that she sent ravens? What does she mean that she only knew after the wedding took place? You sent ravens weeks before the wedding took place.

"I am a fool, sweet girl," Rhaenyra says softly, pulling back to look at you. There are tears spilling over her cheeks, though she does her best to wipe them away before you notice. You suck in a terrible, choked breath, because you know your sister well enough to know that she is not lying to you. "I should have known better. I should have flown to you the moment you did not respond. Someone must have been interfering with the ravens, I—" Her expression twists into one caught between fury and heartbreak. "—I will figure it out. I swear."

"I was so scared, mandia," you dare to say out loud for the first time now that you are back in your sister's arms, lifting your hand to wipe at your eyes messily. "I thought—"

I thought I was going to die, you cannot bring yourself to say, breath hitching as the fear you felt in that blood-soaked bed finally returns. You have pushed it down for months, pretended it did not exist every time your gaze fell upon a maester or septon who was in the room, and suddenly, you were back in that bed, fourteen and crying, drowning in your own blood while strangers tried to convince Aegon that the children's lives were worth more than yours.

"They stopped talking to me," you say, words tumbling out, because now that you have begun, there is no stopping the avalanche of fear you've held in for the last year. "The maesters and the septons—they were all talking over me like I wasn't there anymore. I kept telling them that I didn't want to die, that I wanted someone to send to you, but nobody listened. I thought—I thought maybe it was my fault. That the gods were punishing me."

Rhaenyra pulls back, appalled. "Punishing you? Hāedar—"

"For mother," you whisper. "They cut her open to save me, mandia. I thought perhaps this was the gods' way of making things right. That they had decided a life for a life was only fair. That they would cut me open and I would die the same way."

"Do not ever say that again," Rhaenyra hisses, eyes meeting yours as she holds your hands tight. "Our mother loved you, hāedar. She sang to you while you were a babe in her womb; she could only sleep when she could feel you kicking against her hand. Her death was not your fault. She died because men demanded too much of her—and they demanded too much of you. You were a child, hāedar."

A wail escapes your lips before you can catch it, hand flying to your mouth to smother it—it is an ugly thing, loud and helpless, far from the silent tears and grief you swallowed every morning when you looked at yourself in the mirror. You crumple against Rhaenyra as she gathers you into her lap, like you weigh no more than you did at eight years old. Your fingers twisting in her gown as months of fear, exhaustion, loneliness, and resentment pour out of you all at once.

"I didn't want to die, and I didn't want to get married, and I didn't want to have children. I thought of you every day. I wanted to go to you, I tried, but I couldn't—I can't—"

Your words dissolve into another cry. Rhaenyra holds you for a long, long time—until your eyes start drooping and the wails turn to sniffles and even the sniffles fade to silence. She holds you still after you've calmed, lips pressed to the top of your head, humming the old lullaby she used to sing when you were a babe plagued with nightmares.

Your eyes linger on the cradles across the room. You have never sung to them.

"I hate them sometimes," you whisper after a few moments of silence pass, voicing the wretched words aloud for the first time now that you are safe in your sister's arms. "It is not natural that a mother should hate her children, I should think."

You regret them as soon as they've left your mouth, heart pounding and fingers shaking as you stare at where they are lying in their cradles, fast asleep, ignorant to the words their own mother has just spoken.

"Hāedar…" you hear your sister start to murmur, and you rush to continue, filled with shame.

"I do," you insist, shaking your head violently. "Sometimes I do. When they cry and cry, and my chest hurts so much I cannot even lift them without my arms shaking… when I wake and my whole body aches before I have even opened my eyes. I look at them, and I hate them."

The words taste sour.

"I hate that they took everything from me," you continue, voice breaking. " I look at them, and all I can think is that I used to be someone else."

You do not dare to look at your sister. You rub your face hard, trying to rid yourself of your tears.

"And then they laugh or reach for me, and they are so tiny, and they never wanted me to suffer." You curl into yourself, voice barely audible. "They deserve a better mother. There is something wrong with me, I think."

You almost expect Rhaenyra recoil, but she only gathers you close, tucking your head under her chin as she strokes your hair.

"You are too hard on yourself, sweet girl," Rhaenyra asks quietly. "All I hear is a little girl who was made a wife before she understood what marriage was, and a mother before she had finished being a child herself. It is not your fault, hāedar."

"But I should not think those things."

"You should not have been put in a position where you could."

"I wanted to love them immediately," you whisper. "The way you loved Jacaerys, but I—"

There is a loud noise from right outside your room, startling the both of you. Rhaenyra immediately stiffens, rising to her feet to stand between you and whoever is there.

She demands, "Who is there? Show yourself?"

The door creaks open, and Jacaerys stands there, tears streaking his round cheeks. He is dressed in his nightgown—your heart sinks. How much did he hear? He must have followed Rhaenyra when he heard her leave their shared chambers to see you.

"I—" he starts to say, voice wobbly. "I wasn't trying to listen, I promise. I—"

He is lying. His nose bunches and he cannot hold your gaze, the same he has always acted every time he tried to get away with a lie. When neither of you reply, Rhaenyra's brows knit together in disappointment and your lips parted in anxiety, Jacaerys shifts uncomfortably on his feet, looking between the two of you desperately before his gaze lands on you, brown eyes big and pleading.

"Nobody told me," he whispers so quietly you barely hear him. "I didn't know. I—"

The anger that had clouded his face throughout the funeral is gone, and in its place is only fear. The same fear you had seen on his face when he was running to you through the Keep after Ser Criston had struck him, the fear from the day you left for Pentos, and the fear from the morning you were forced to remain in King's Landing while he left for Dragonstone. The anxiety drains from you with haste as you let out a soft breath,

"Mandianna," you murmur, holding your hand out for him.

Jacaerys immediately rushes to you. Before you can say anything else, he drops to his knees in front of you, arms tucked around your legs. Your hands settle on the top of his head, fingers absently toying with his dark curls as he buries his face into your lap.

"I'm sorry!" he sobs. "I thought—you didn't come say hi. I thought you hated me because I broke my promise, and that's why you never wrote me back." His shoulders tremble violently beneath your hands as you smooth circles on them. You look at Rhaenyra desperately for help, but she only gives you a small smile. "I wanted to go back for you. I asked mother all the time when we would come, I promise. I asked and asked, and she always said soon, and then—" He hiccups. "Then it was never soon."

"Jacaerys," you start to say.

"I thought you didn't love me anymore," he continues, looking up at you with watery eyes. "Then I heard you saying you almost died, and I—I wasn't there. I should have been there, muña.

You pull back just enough to cup his cheeks. He presses his nose into your hand, still sniffling as you smile at him. You say quietly, "There is nothing you could've done, mandianna."

"It doesn't matter. You don't know that!" Jacaerys disagrees, eyes welling up with tears again as he looks up at you from the floor. "I could have been there. I could have held your hand. I would have told them to save you—" Your eyes slide shut briefly when you realize he heard everything "—I would have made them listen. I knew Aegon wouldn't take care of you. I knew it."

"Jacaerys—"

"What if you'd died?" he blurts. "What if I'd never seen you again? I was angry with you all day. I didn't even come say hi because I wanted you to be sorry, and—but if you had died—what if you had died thinking I hated you? Or that I broke my promise? Muña, I'm sorry, please forgive me."

You lean down to grab him beneath the arms, ignoring the way your whole body aches and screams for you to put him down so that you lift him up to sit him on your lap before he can spiral any further. You wrap both arms tightly around him as he collapses into you. He clings to you desperately, fingers twisting into your gown, face pressed to the crook of your neck, the same way you were with Rhaenyra just moments before.

"I'm right here," you tell him. "It's okay. There's nothing to forgive."

Slowly, his breathing starts to even out. "I don't want you to die," he says at last, sniffling still. "Please don't die, muña."

You laugh lightly and say, "I do not intend to, Jacaerys. Not for a very long time, if I can help it."

Jacaerys sniffles one last time, the tension gradually leaving his small frame as he melts into you. For a long moment, the room is quiet save for the crackling and occasional hitch of his breath, your fingers combing through his hair automatically, just as they had done countless evening before the world ever came between you.

Then, there is a soft cry from the opposite side of the room, and all three of you look toward the far side of the chamber. Jacaerys startles, as though he has just remembered the twins are there at all, and Rhaenyra cannot help the curiosity that slips onto her face as she looks in the direction of the cradles.

"Would you want to… meet them?" you ask hesitantly after a moment, looking between Jacaerys and Rhaenyra.

Jacaerys wipes hastily at his eyes with the heel of his sleeve before nodding frantically. Rhaenyra gives you a soft smile, reaching out to cradle your face briefly as she says, "Of course, hāedar."

You rise to your feet a little unsteadily, feeling a little faint from lifting Jacaerys onto your lap. Before you can take a step, both Rhaenyra and Jacaerys reach for you at the same time.

You tell them with a strained smile, "I'm all right."

Jacaerys's brows furrow as he insists that you hold his arm anyway, so you indulge him, crossing the room carefully with the two of them. You stop beside the cradles and stare down—for the first time since giving birth to them, you are not immediately filled with that familiar knot of dread and guilt.

"This is Maegelle," you say, brushing your fingers against the girl's face, watching as she reaches for your hand on instinct. She is quiet, unlike her brother, who is always babbling one thing or another unless he is asleep, and even then, sometimes. "And this is—"

His name catches in your throat, and your smile falters. Rhaenyra notices, casting you a concerned look.

"Maegor," you say at last, quieter, not daring to look at their reactions to your chosen name for your son.

The name feels different now than it had a year ago. You insisted upon it while still confined to your bed, too weak to sit upright for more than a few moments. Aegon had gone missing after they demanded he choose between you and them, so the choice of name was left to you. The septons had balked immediately, muttering that it was an ill-omened name, cursed by history. Alicent and Otto had looked scandalized. Even your father was surprised, eyes widening in confusion.

But you had not cared—not then, at least. The decision had been born of pure, childish spite—a tiny act of rebellion from a girl who had been denied every greater one. At the time, it had felt like the only decision in your life that had truly belonged to you in a long time, because you had looked them in the eye and, for the first time since your wedding, felt something other than fear and anxiety.

But looking at your son now, asleep and blissfully unaware of the burden his name carried, you feel only regret. You have cursed him to the same fate you have spent your life suffering—the same fate you have tried to shield Jacaerys from—with a single, stupid decision.

Rhaenyra seems to understand, because she always does. She gives you a small smile, leaning down to ghost her lips against your head. She says softly, "It is a strong name. We need not let one man own it forever."

"They are very tiny still," Jacaerys declares. There is an odd expression on his face as he reaches out to touch Maegor's silvery hair—he gnaws at his bottom lip and looks away uncertainly, pulling his hand away. "They are not as fussy as Joff was."

You laugh. "Give it a few hours," you tell him. "When they decide they would rather scream than sleep, you may change your mind."

"Can I help tomorrow? If they're awake?" Jacaerys asks, brown eyes wide and searching as he looks up at you. "Please." When your lips part to tell him to ask you properly on instinct, he corrects hastily, "Kostilus. Kostilus, kostagon nyke dohaeragon?"

Please. Please can I help?

"You've been practicing," you praise, smiling when he preens at the acknowledgment. "I'd like that very much, mandianna."

Rhaenyra watches the two of you for a long moment before she brushes a kiss against your brow, then another atop Jacaerys's curls.

"It grows late," she murmurs. "Lucerys is undoubtedly searching every corridor for his brother by now… Though, I suspect he may not be finding him tonight, so I should go find him."

Jacaerys looks up hopefully.

"May I stay?" he pleads before turning to you. "I'll be quiet, I promise, and I'll help if the twins wake, and I won't steal all your blankets. Maybe some of them."

"Of course, you can stay, silly boy," you murmur.

Jacaerys's face lights up in delight as he turns a questioning look on his mother, who smiles and inclines her head in approval.

"Sleep well, both of you. In the morning, we shall settle this mystery of the missing ravens."

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It is still night when you wake up, and Jacaerys is gone.

One of your ladies in waiting, Lady Melynda Darklyn, sits near the cradles of the twins. She has always been the most dutiful of your companions, checking in when the moon is high to see if the twins are comfortable so that you might get a full night's rest. You push yourself out of bed, ignoring the weakness in your chest, so that you can make your way over to her.

She catches the movement from the corner of her eye and rises to her feet. "Princess," she says, taking a step in your direction and holding out her arm to you, but you hold your hand up to signal for her to stay seated.

"Melynda, did you see Jacaerys?" you ask, an uncertain feeling weighing on you as you glance back at your bed. Jacaerys is a horribly heavy sleeper—you'd once joked to Rhaenyra that the boy could sleep through Doom if given the chance. He has always slept later than you, and you doubt that he has suddenly become a light sleeper after two years apart. "He was spending the night in here."

Melynda shakes her head. "No, princess. Would you like for me to send someone to go search for him?"

"No," you reply immediately, lips pressed together as your gaze sweeps over the large room one last time. "Would you stay with the twins, please?"

"Of course,," Melynda tells you, unable to push the concern from her face when she sees how your hand instinctively lifts your chest when you move toward the door, but she knows better than to push when you have your mind set on doing something yourself. "Be careful, princess. It sounded like there was a bit of a commotion coming from the Hall of Nine."

You glance at her over your shoulder, brows furrowed slightly, but then you nod in thanks before pushing the heavy door open to your chambers to step out into the cool hall. Ser Steffon, Melynda's brother and your sworn sword, is nowhere to be found.

You reach back into your room to grab your cloak, sliding it over the nightslip you wear to make yourself presentable before you make your way down the winding hall in the direction of the Hall of Nine. Your body is always weakest before dawn. The maesters say it is because you do not sleep enough—if you remained in bed more and gave your body more time to heal, the weakness would ease—but you have stopped believing them. You have given yourself moons of rest and nothing has changed. You cannot remain abed forever.

By the time you reach the first flight of stairs, your legs are already trembling. You pause long enough to steady yourself against the cold stone wall before continuing onward down to the main level of the castle.

As you round the final corner leading toward the Hall of Nine, you finally hear the commotion Melynda had mentioned.

"He attacked Baela!" / "He broke Luke's nose!" / "They attacked me!" / "He stole my mother's dragon!" / "Enough." / "He was going to kill Jace!" / "I didn't do anything!" / "Enough!" / "It should be my son telling the tale!" / "He called us—"

"Silence!"

"What happened?" you ask quietly when you see Daemon leaning against the door, looking into the Hall of Nine. He tilts his head to the side to look at you, gaze slipping over the cloak you tugged around yourself and the weakness plain on your face. He holds his arm out to you silently, beckoning for you to lean on it; you exhale through your nose as you do so gratefully. "Do you know?"

"It appears your nephews and my daughters have taken the eye of your dearest half-brother," Daemon says flippantly.

You shoot him a wide-eyed look, unsure if you heard him properly, but Daemon only nods in the direction of where Aemond is being tended to by a maester. Your stomach drops at the sight of the stitches running through his eye, and your gaze cuts over to where Jacaerys and Lucerys are standing with their mother, blood running down both of their faces—Baela and Rhaena, too, curled into the dress of Princess Rhaenys. What has happened?

"—legitimacy of my sons' birth was put loudly to question," you hear Rhaenyra say as you focus back on the conversation at hand instead of the blood spilled.

Beside you, Daemon straightens slightly, and your own eyes widen, breath catching as you look from Aemond to Rhaenyra to Jacaerys. Aemond raises his chin as he stares at Rhaenyra and her sons, and Rhaenyra—she looks cornered. Alone. She knows that by voicing this, she will be doing something irreversible, but what choice does she have when faced with a half-brother who has lost an eye and accusations of murder being cast toward Jacaerys and Lucerys? You make a move as though to step forward, but Daemon stops you, shaking his head slightly.

Your father is the first to speak up. "What?" he demands.

Suddenly, all of the fears that have been festering in your gut since you were a child and first realized the whispers of the court had turned on your nephews resurface with a vengeance.

This is what you have feared, this is what you have dreaded—the whispers are about to be given life, and once they are given life, there is no returning to how it had once been. The accusations will haunt Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey for as long as they live and more.

"He called us bastards," Jacaerys says at his mother's shoulder, voice small, expression twisted. He tries to stand tall under the eyes of everyone in the room, but he cannot help the way he shrinks back slightly when the tension in the room triples after the word is spoken.

And Aemond—Aemond, who has walked you back to your chambers every night since the twins were born because he worried you would grow faint on the stairs, who spends entire afternoons searching the gardens for strange spiders because Helaena smiles whenever he finds one, who has sat beside Maegor's cradle reading aloud from histories he knows the babe cannot possibly understand because you were too exhausted to keep your eyes open—smirks as it is said.

He does not know better, you tell yourself, swallowing thickly. He has consumed his mother's poison like milk. He is only reiterating the filth she spews.

You know that your half-siblings dislike Rhaenyra and her sons. You know that Alicent has spent years cultivating that resentment, just as Otto Hightower has spent years whispering in your father's ear. But this is not childish spite—to openly accuse the crown princess's son of bastardy is to accuse her of treason, it is to declare that the heirs to the Iron Throne are no heirs at all.

To speak such a thing before the king—you know your father has spent years turning a blind eye to what the rest of the court knew as truth, but if push came to shove and he was forced to choose between throwing the Realm into chaos by upholding the lie or condemning his grandchildren, you do not know what he would choose.

And if he should choose to protect the realm, Rhaenyra, Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey could all lose far more than just their names—they could lose their heads.

"My sons are in line to inherit the Iron Throne, your grace," your sister says, stepping forward in the direction of your father. "This is the highest of treason. Prince Aemond must be sharply questioned so we might learn where he heard such slanders."

Your eyes widen, gaze flicking over to Aemond, who instantly shrinks at the order, looking wildly between his mother, his father, and Rhaenyra. You feel sick to your stomach, fingers tightening on Daemon's arm.

Alicent scoffs, staring at Rhaenyra in disbelief. "Over an insult?" Alicent breathes out. "My son has lost an eye."

The king turns on Aemond and says, "You tell me, boy, where did you hear this lie?"

You feel light in the head again, all of a sudden. It is always worst before dawn, and worse still when you are under stress. Your hand instinctively finds your chest, eyes sliding shut—not here, not now.

Not while Aemond is shrinking in his seat as his father's demands. Not while Jacaerys stands trembling beside his mother with blood dripping down the side of his face. Not while Lucerys cannot breathe properly with a broken nose and tears in his eyes. Not while Rhaenyra stands alone before the king and queen, forced to defend her sons against accusations that could have them all hanged.

You force yourself to breathe slowly, but the room sways. Daemon's gaze cuts back down toward you, hand settling more firmly beneath your elbow.

"Easy," he mutters. "Not now."

As though you do not already know that, you think viciously and shoot him a look in kind that only serves to amuse him. If you could control when your body was weak, you would never be weak at all.

Your eyes turn back to Jacaerys—he is almost as tall as Rhaenyra's shoulders now, but he still looks so small. Only hours ago, he had buried his face into your lap, crying because he thought he had lost you, and now he stands before his grandsire, the king, trying to hold himself strong because he knows what is at stake. Lucerys does not understand the way Jacaerys does, but he knocks his shoulder against Jacaerys's anyway.

"—Aegon!" Viserys shouts, and your gaze lifts again to your half-brother, your husband, the father of your children, as he flinches under your father's demands. "Tell me the truth of it!"

Aegon does not reply right away, staring ahead blankly as though he is not sure what to say. His gaze lifts, meeting yours briefly, and you shake your head slightly, warning him. Do not do it. Do not say what I know you are about to say.

Aegon swallows and looks away, and then he says exactly what you fear: "We know, father. Everyone knows. Just look at them."

Your heart sinks, eyes sliding shut. You hear Daemon let out a breath through his nose just as you let out a trembling one through your mouth. Ten years you have dreaded the day that these words were given voice and life, and it is Aegon who has condemned them.

Your father shouts, but it is terribly muffled—garbled words spoken beneath water. Your pulse pounds, deafening in your ear, and your head aches. The air that reaches your lungs is shallow, not nearly enough to give you what you need to breathe. Your hand creeps up to your chest again—not now, not now, not now.

"—but I cannot restore his eye."

"No, because it has been taken," Alicent says desperately, taking a step toward your father.

"What would you have me do?"

"There is a debt to be paid," she insists, and you find yourself stiffening before you even truly understand what she is saying. Beside you, Daemon straightens, hand dropping to the sword at his side. "I shall have one of her son's eyes in return."

"Is she mad?" you breathe out as the hall erupts into murmurs. You see Rhaenyra push Lucerys behind her, and Jacaerys presses into her shoulder, looking between her and the king and queen uncertainly. "Do something, kepa."

Uncle.

"Not yet," Daemon murmurs, watching the scene carefully, gaze much sharper now.

"Ser Criston," Alicent says, gaze lifting to the knight standing on the opposite side of the room—far too close to Rhaenyra and the boys. You brush Daemon's hand off your arm, alarm subsuming all weakness as you take half a step forward. "Bring me the eye of Lucerys Velaryon."

For a heartbeat, no one moves, because the words seem too monstrous to belong in the same room as children, and then Lucerys lets out a frightened noise in the back of her throat

"Mother," Lucerys cries, scrambling behind Rhaenyra so quickly he nearly trips over his own feet. His small hands fist desperately in the back of her gown as he peeks around her, face drained of all color. Fresh blood stains his doublet where it had run from his broken nose, and now his whole body is shaking.

Jacaerys's eyes are wide as he looks between his mother and Alicent, reaching out to grab Lucerys's hand despite the fear plain in his eyes, and Lord Corlys is there an instant later, pulling Lucerys further behind him, placing himself between the boys and Ser Criston.

"He can choose which eye to keep," Alicent continues, voice breaking with grief and fury alike, "a privilege he did not grant my son."

She cannot mean this, you think desperately. She cannot.

"You will do no such thing," Rhaenyra hisses, voice cold, one hand instinctively reaching for Lucerys until she realizes Corlys has him safely tucked behind him while the other shields Jacaerys.

"Stay your hand," Viserys orders.

"No! You are sworn to me," Alicent says desperately.

For one terrible moment, you cannot tell whether the man standing across the hall is weighing the Queen's command or the King's.

"He is sworn to the blood of the dragon," you say, finally making your presence known, grateful that your voice is louder and stronger than you thought yourself capable of in this state. You step closer to the center of the room, halfway between your sister and the queen. "To protect and serve. To obey the King before all others. It is curious, however, how readily you expect him to forget his oath in favor of your… whims. It does make one wonder whether there is some precedent in place that leads you to believe that a sworn brother of the Kingsguard would draw his blade on a prince of the blood in the presence of his king at your behest. Does Ser Criston often set aside his vows whenever Your Grace asks it of him?"

The hall silences at the implication of your question, but you stand unrepentant, raising your chin and staring at Alicent, who lets out a disbelieving scoff as she looks over you. Daemon makes a noise in the back of his throat—a laugh, you think—as he peels off the wall to pace closer to Rhaenyra, positioning himself in line of Ser Criston.

"Muña!" Jacaerys gasps, moving to take a step in your direction, but Rhaenyra stops him from leaving out from behind her.

"Take care with your tongue, daughter," Alicent says after a moment.

"Gladly," you reply evenly. "As soon as your grace takes care with her commands."

"Enough," your father snaps at you, looking thoroughly exhausted. You press your lips together and look away, trying desperately not to roll your eyes. "Do not make this worse than it already is."

How does he not see what is plain before his eyes? It is Alicent who poisoned the ears of your half-siblings. Alicent, who has caused this terrible divide. Alicent, Alicent, Alicent. But your father proves blind to her true nature every day that passes.

There is a long moment where you think that perhaps that will be the end of it. You have made your bold commentary, and maybe it is enough to pull the attention off of the boys for the time being—you will suffer for it, surely, when you return to King's Landing alone, because your place is with Aegon now, whether you like it or not, but you would suffer endlessly if it spared Rhaenyra's boys even a little more time.

Then, Alicent says, "Then I will do it myself."

Your eyes widen, turning too slow as Alicent darts forward, pulling the Valyrian steel dagger from Viserys's hip sheath and lunging in the direction of Rhaenyra and Lucerys. Lucerys's scream tears through the hall. Everything happens at once.

Before you even register what's happening, Rhaenyra darts forward to meet Alicent, eyes wide, moving on sheer instinct to protect her sons. Lord Corlys draws Lucerys back behind him and Princess Rhaenys with Daemon's girls, but Jacaerys tries to run after his mother, shouting for her as he reaches for her arm.

You grab him by the bicep hard, yanking him out of the line of danger and behind you, panic flaring hot and fast in your chest when you see Ser Criston running down from the steps. You force Jacaerys to stay behind you as you put yourself between him and Ser Criston, ignoring the way Jacaerys tries to break free to get to his mother, but Daemon steps forward before the kingsguard can involve himself in the conflict, a smirk on his face as he press his hand to Ser Criston's chest plate and shoves him backward, daring him to draw his sword and give him a reason to draw his own.

Jacaerys clings to your cloak now, adrenaline fading to fear, as he stares at his mother and Alicent, then looks up at you. Blood streams down his face, crusted over his temple and jaw, eyes wide with unshed tears. You lift your hand to wipe the blood from his skin, and he instinctively presses his face into the palm of your hand. You catch the tears that threaten to fall with your thumb before they can, turning his face away so he cannot see as the blade cuts through Rhaenyra's arm.

Jacaerys jerks in your hold as Rhaenyra gasps in pain, and the nobles around scramble away. He tries to move toward her again, but your grip on him tightens.

"Stay," you order, and he immediately stills, eyes wide and throat bobbing as he stares at you helplessly.

You want to tell him that everything will be okay, but there is a terrible look on Rhaenyra's face that you have never seen before as she stares at Alicent, holding her wounded arm, and you have a distinct feeling that things have only just begun.

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"You should have woken me immediately," you tell Jacaerys firmly as you clean the blood from his face. He shrinks at your words. "I mean it, Jacaerys. I'm furious. How could you go out there on your own with your little brother and cousins? What were you thinking?"

"You were so tired, muña," Jacaerys whispers. "I didn't want to wake you. I wanted to take care of it so—"

"And look how that turned out," you say harshly, pinching his cheeks between your hands until he squirms and pouts. "You cannot be so reckless, do you understand? We are lucky that all that happened was—" You cut yourself off from saying what you were about to say, inhaling deeply. "You could have been killed. You, Lucerys, Baela, and Rhaena. You cannot be so reckless. Say you understand."

Jacaerys's throat bobs as his gaze drops down to your lap. He says quietly "I understand."

You let out a huff, hardly satisfied, but you busy yourself with wetting the warm rag and patting it lightly to his temple instead, grimacing at the blood still dripping from the shallow head wound.

"He's right, isn't he?" Jacaerys says after a few moments, shoulders hunched. "I'm a bastard. I'm Harwin Strong's son, not Laenor's."

You sigh, eyes sliding shut. Your head aches too much to have this conversation with him. The exhaustion of lack of sleep and the excitement in the Hall of Nine weigh your body down terribly. You say tiredly, "Jacaerys—"

"I know it is true," Jacaerys interrupts, voice small. "It is obvious, like Aegon said. I have known for a while, I think. Since we left King's Landing. Luke didn't know yet. I tried to keep it from him."

You do not answer for a long while, busying yourself with gently wiping away the blood crusted at his temple, because you do not know how to respond. Your heart hurts at the idea of Jacaerys knowing all along but trying to shield Lucerys from the truth—having no one to talk to about any of this because even just referencing it in passing could condemn his little brothers to a terrible fate. He has always tried to take more on his shoulders than he should, no matter how often you and Rhaenyra reminded him he was only just a child. His fingers are trembling in his lap, so you reach out with your free hand to hold his carefully; he immediately latches onto you, nails digging into your skin.

You finally tell him, "It does not matter."

Jacaerys whips toward you, brows pinched and lips pressed together. "How can you say that?" he demands. "You know that isn't true."

"What matters, Jacaerys, is that you are your mother's son. My nephew. You are fire and blood, and one day, the Iron Throne will be yours," you say, grabbing his chin to force him to look at you. "The Realm will whisper that Aegon deserves the throne more than you because his hair is silver and his eyes are purple, and you will prove them wrong just by being as you are."

"But what if being myself is not enough?" he asks quietly. "They will keep whispering, even after I am grown and am king. Even if I've done good. What if one day—"

He does not dare voice the question you know he wants to ask. What if one day steel is drawn? What if one day dragons fly against dragons? What if, what if, what if?

"Then, we will show them what we are," you tell him simply, stroking his jaw with your thumb. "They will learn swiftly that every man who rises against a dragon is burned by one."

"We cannot burn everyone who speaks out against us," Jacaerys says quietly, looking away, shoulders hunched slightly.

"Spoken like a true king," you tease lightly, and then lean in to brush your lips against his forehead. "You cannot, mandianna. A king must know mercy before he knows wrath. He must seek peace before war." A faint smile tugs at your lips. "That is why the gods, in all their wisdom, gave you me."

Jacaerys cannot help the giggle that spills from his lips as he rests his head against your shoulder. Your eyes slide shut as you lift a hand to cradle the side of his face, absently running your fingers through the ends of his hair.

You must get stronger again. The girl who once spent every waking hour in the training yard until her palms bled and fought her father, the king, because she sought to wield a sword like Visenya herself, the one who could remain astride Zūgaxes from dawn to dusk and dreamed of once taking Dark Sister from Daemon's hand, still lives somewhere beneath the exhaustion and aching in your bones. You know it. You felt her today in that hall, after two years of uncertainty.

There is no room for weakness anymore—not when steel has been drawn and you could not draw your own, not when Jacaerys looks to you with frightened eyes and Lucerys screams after being openly threatened and you can do nothing to ease their fear, not when your sister's blood has been shed on the pale floors of Hide Tide and you could not spill blood in kind.

"I will see anyone who should seek to raise hand or blade against you answer for it with their lives," you tell him quietly, pressing your lips to the crown of his head absently as you stare at where the twins lie in their cradles, ignorant of the conflict brewing around them. What would become of them, you wonder, if mother and father stood on opposite sides of a war? "Anyone who threatens my family, my queen, or my future king will learn exactly why our words are fire and blood."

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JACAERYS, 18; READER, 23; 128 AC

When Jace was six years old, his mother knelt before him and told him that his muña is very lonely and sad far more often than she allowed anyone to see, even though she has become exceptionally good at pretending otherwise. She told Jace it takes a very skilled eye to see when you are pretending, and Jace insisted that he knows you well enough to tell. His mother had kissed the top of his head with a fond smile and asked Jace to keep you company and try to make you smile in her place, when she could not be there herself.

He had not fully understood what she meant back then. Now he does, he thinks, looking back on all of the times he had caught you staring out windows with dull expressions before you noticed him looking and forced a smile. But he knew that you needed him and his mother had entrusted him with the important task of making you smile when you are sad, and that was more than enough.

Jace had taken that responsibility very, very seriously. From that day forward, every frown became an enemy for him to vanquish and every tear a personal failure. If he caught you looking particularly solemn, he would crawl into your lap or tug insistently at your skirts until you paid attention to him, armed with some ridiculous story or childish joke he had spent all morning preparing solely because he knew it would make you laugh.

Then, two years later, his family left for Dragonstone, and you remained behind in King's Landing, and he was tortured with the knowledge that he had left you alone, surrounded by people who did not know how to make you smile the way he did—who might not even notice when you were sad in the first place.

Now, after a decade away, he has returned, and you are nowhere to be found.

Jace stands toward the back of the throne room, jaw tight, hands locked behind his back as Vaemond Velaryon makes his petition for Driftmark, content—for once—to remain unnoticed.

It suits him better this way today. No one pays much mind to him while others argue over inheritance. They are too busy paying attention to Vaemond's accusation and his mother's reaction to realize the dark-haired, dark-eyed man lingering in the shadows is the heir to Dragonstone, firstborn son of the crown princess. So he is well able to overhear conversations that would shift into syrupy smiles and false pleasantries around his mother and Daemon.

Strong. Bastard. Plain. Lord Fossoway. Lady Ambrose. Ser Roxton.

It is about what Jace expected from a court full of Reachmen. More than half the throne room dons green, Faith heraldry has replaced the three-headed dragon wherever he looks. Jace's memories of the Red Keep are hazy, so in truth, he could not tell whether or not it is truly different from what it had been nigh a decade ago, but he does know for certain one thing is missing—you.

Every memory he has of this place begins and ends with you, and it is jarring that you are nowhere to be seen. You reading to him in the gardens until he fell asleep against your shoulder. You carrying him back to his chambers after he had faked dozing off during his lessons, giggling with him as soon as the two of you were out of sight from Maester Geradys. You waiting at the edge of the yard whenever Ser Criston was leading training, because you knew Jace was uncomfortable around him and would step in if things took a wrong turn. You laughing as Jace tried and failed to get Vermax to listen to him, slinking your arms around him when he pouted and pretended to be angry just so you would give him more attention. He has been to every place he once stood with you, and has found you at none.

Without you, it feels—it feels wrong. Unfamiliar. And it is all he can think about, even though he needs to be paying attention to what is being said around him. He tries to remind himself that what is said today could change everything. Vaemond is not just asking for Driftmark—he is asking the court to declare Lucerys no true Velaryon, and in doing so, to admit what half the realm has whispered since Jace was born with dark hair instead of silver.

And if Lucerys can be stripped of his inheritance because he is not Laenor's son, then Jace can be stripped of his for the same reason. Worse, if the court is willing to question the succession before his grandsire lives, Jace fears what they may do once the Iron Throne stands empty. And yet—

His thoughts invariably return to you.

He thought you would be waiting for him.

He presses his tongue to the inside of his cheeks as he fights the terrible mixture of frustration and disappointment that has been threatening to consume him since he stepped onto the docks and you were nowhere to be found. Maybe he was being foolish. It has been eight years since he had last seen you at Driftmark for Laena's funeral—ten since you were close enough for him to run to whenever you frowned.

Things had already changed in two—just in the time between Laena's funeral and when they had left for Dragonstone and you had stayed behind in King's Landing. Two years of unanswered ravens and sleepless nights had taught him that wanting someone did not mean they would come. More than once, his mother had let him cry into her skirts because he missed you so terribly his chest hurt. More than once, she had promised, soon, Jace, soon we will go to her.

But soon had become two years, and when Jace had finally seen you again at Driftmark, he had scarcely recognized you. Gone was the girl who had chased him through the Red Keep, laughing as he shrieked that she was cheating. Gone was the dragonrider who was more comfortable in the air than afoot and taught him the basics of swordplay so he would not embarrass himself in front of his father and Cole.

In her place was someone Jace could hardly stand to look at without being filled with rage. He thought, at the time, that he was angry at you. Angry at you for changing, angry at you for never answering his ravens, angry at you for abandoning him.

He knows better now—he had never been angry at you.

It had been he who promised to come back for you, he who promised to take care of you, to keep you safe, make you feel loved, devoted to you the same way you'd been to him for as long as he remembered. Instead, Aegon had married you. Aegon had stood beside you when you nearly died and left when you needed him most. Aegon had watched you become a shadow of the girl Jace had loved with every piece of his heart.

All Jace had done was arrive too little too late.

If so much had changed in two years, how much could have possibly changed in another eight? It has been a long time, he acknowledges. Long enough for people to become strangers. Long enough for memories to become distant. But he has never forgotten you, he thinks bitterly. How could you have forgotten him?

You couldn't have, he rationalizes. You exchanged ravens frequently enough that Maester Geradys grew irate every time Jace showed up with another to be sent. Several times a week, Jace had filled pages with every detail he could think to share, recounting the smallest happenings of his days simply because he wanted you to know them, because he wanted some part of himself always with you. And you had always written back with pages of your own, telling him of your days, your thoughts, the twins, all the little things that mattered only because they mattered to you. He had kept every one of them, read them until he knew whole passages by heart—surely you could not have written to him so often, given him so much of yourself and taken so much of him in kind, only to forget him now.

You could not have forgotten him, you are just—late. You are just late.

It does not quell the all-consuming disappointment. He has imagined his reunion with you so many times that he could recite what he wanted to say to you in his sleep. He had a whole plan that he envisioned, and it fell apart the moment he stepped off the ship and realized you were not there on the dock.

He imagined you would be waiting for him, smiling the moment you caught sight of him. He would cross the docks to you slowly, resisting every instinct that urged him to throw himself into your arms as he once had. Instead, he would take your hand in his and bow his head to press a kiss to your knuckles, watching for the moment you realized that the little boy you remembered had grown into a man in your absence.

He imagined that he would steal you away from everyone else after the feast celebrating their return to King's Landing, pressing his lips to your knuckles as his gaze spitefully met Aegon's. He would let you hold his arm, and he would guide you to the godswood, sitting with you as the sun set as you have countless times before, listening as you tell him about the twins and life over the past eight years. It would be different hearing it from your lips, in your voice, than it is reading it on parchment. He would let you rest your head in his lap, and he would absentmindedly comb his fingers through your hair the way you always had to him.

He imagined that he would stay there with you as the moon rose overhead, until the conversation dwindled into a comfortable silence. Then he would turn his head just enough to look at you, really look at you, and he would wonder if maybe you would look at him for him. Not as the little prince forever following at your heels, or the boy who climbed into your bed after every nightmare—but as a man.

One whose shoulder you could rest against without fear of being disappointed, one capable of taking care of you, one who could take your hand before the gods—one worthy of sharing your heart and your bed.

It is shameful, perhaps, to imagine such things with you, but he cannot help himself.

He imagined that he would be nervous as he reached up for your face the first time, brushing a loose strand of hair behind your ear, thumb lingering against your cheek longer than it ought to, and then he imagined closing the distance between you, slowly enough that you could stop him if you wished. He never imagined you would.

He fights a heavy exhale through his nose as he shakes his head, eyes sliding shut. He would tell you that he has become a prince worthy of standing beside you. That he's no longer the frightened little boy who cried himself to sleep because you weren't near. That if you let him, he could finally be the husband he had promised you he could be.

The doors to the throne room reopen, and Jace has to force himself to be present. He can think of you later. He can wonder why you never came to the docks later. He can mourn the reunion that never was later. He can try to figure out a new plan later. He can tell you everything he has carried in his heart for the better part of a decade later.

If there is a later. Because Vaemond's words are not aimed at Luke alone, he reminds himself. They are aimed at his mother—at him. If Vaemond succeeds today and Luke loses Driftmark—if the court accepts the implication buried within his petition—then Jace's own birthright will be at risk. They will come for the Iron Throne, for him, next.

You had told him once that you would see anyone who sought to raise hand or blade to him pay for it with their lives—do you still mean it? Or have eight years of separation pushed you into the arms of Alicent Hightower and your half-siblings?

He cannot think of this now, skin crawling as soon as the question crosses his mind. He forces his mind away and lifts his gaze to see who had arrived. He expects another courtier draped in green, another enemy who will revel in his family's fall, but instead—

—instead it is you.

The throne room, the nobles, the whole petition—everything falls away. Jace forgets how to breathe momentarily as his gaze sweeps over you.

He remembers his mother weeping a few nights after Lady Laena's funeral, clinging to Laenor as she whispered that your hips had been too narrow, too slight, that you had still looked more child than woman when they forced you into a marriage bed to bear twins. But looking at you now, it is almost impossible to reconcile the woman before him with the frail girl who was leaning upon Aemond's arm eight years ago. Your figure has filled out where it once seemed painfully thin, your face has regained its color, and though there remains a weariness about your eyes, you no longer look so dull.

Somehow, impossibly, you are even more beautiful than he remembered. He has spent years trying to preserve your face in his mind, sketching you absently in his free time, terrified that time would blur it beyond recognition.

It had not done you justice.

Eight years have changed you. You are older now, certainly—the softness of girlhood has long surrendered to womanhood, just as the boyhood has left him. You are taller than he remembers, or perhaps he is simply no longer looking up at you from the height of a child. The gauntness left by illness has filled out with time, gown clinging to your body in all the right places as you sweep forward through the throne room, confident even as all eyes in the room turn to you.

You look… like a woman. Like the wife of another man.

Jace hates the thought viciously as soon as it crosses his mind.

You do not look his way, much as he tries to compel you to look at him without calling for you like a fool before the entire court. Your attention is fixed upon the throne—upon Otto Hightower seated where your father ought be and Vaemond Velaryon standing so boldly before the court as though the matter had already been decided—but Jace cannot drag his eyes from you. He watches as you make your way toward the front of the throne room at an even pace, the sea of green parting instinctively before black and red.

He does not remember deciding to move. One moment, he is standing among the gathered lords, hidden in the shadow of a marble pillar, content to remain unnoticed, and the next, he is following in your wake, eyes pinned on the back of your head.

He weaves through the crowd of gathered lords and ladies as you make your way down the center of the throne room, a few paces behind, never losing sight of you. He slips between Lord Caswell and Lady Fell, circles around a knot of Hightower retainers without so much as glancing at him. His feet seem to know where to go before his mind does.

He has spent half his life following you—through the winding halls of the Red Keep, trying to keep pace with your longer stride as you laughed over your shoulder, through the gardens, to the dragonpit, to the training yard, wherever your restless feet happened to lead, Jace was always a few steps behind. Eight years may have passed, but his body remembers the path before his mind even has a chance to question it.

For one horrifying second, it looks as though you're going to bear left—in the direction of Queen Alicent, your half-siblings, your husband—but then you lean in close enough to Vaemond that your lips must brush his ear, mouth tilted up in a lazy smile.

Jace cannot hear what you say to him, heart pounding at the idea of you standing amidst the sea of green instead of alongside black and red where you belong, but Vaemond Velaryon stiffens so suddenly that Jace knows he must have disliked whatever it was. You seem to let out a soft laugh, head hanging forward slightly, before you cross in front of Vaemond to stand next to Rhaenyra, on the opposite side Daemon already stands.

Jace does not think he's seen his mother so relieved in ages, and he can't even blame her because he's just as relieved to see you stand at her side instead of amidst green. For the first time in weeks, it seems, the tension that has been endlessly weighing on her disappears the moment you stand at her side again.

Jace watches you take her hand into yours before lifting it to your lips. You bow your head slightly as you ghost your mouth against his mother's knuckles, and his mother gives you a soft, fond smile—one usually reserved for Jace himself—as she turns her hand to cradle the side of your face briefly.

You tilt your face into her touch momentarily before you stand straight again, casting a look over your shoulder to where Alicent Hightower and your half-siblings are standing before you nod your head once, beckoning.

Jace's brows furrow slightly in confusion as he moves to stand beside Luke, two paces behind you, his mother, and Daemon, until he sees two children instantly dart across the throne room—Maegor and Maegelle, Jace realizes instantly. Maegor busies himself at your side, tucked beneath your arm, while Maegelle positions herself behind you, both of them clutching you as Otto Hightower commences the petition by addressing Vaemond again.

Jace should be paying attention now, but his gaze remains fixed on your children. The last time he'd seen them, they'd hardly been a year old. You have described them in your letters countless times over, but it is different seeing them in person again. Maegor is tall for his age, nearly ten years old and already reaching your shoulder, while Maegelle hardly reaches your chest, nose tucked beneath your arm.

They cannot be more than nine or ten now, all silver hair and violet eyes to Jace's brown on brown—every inch a Targaryen prince, no question about it. Maegor's hand is wrapped around yours, the other fisted tightly in the folds of your skirt as though it belongs there. The sight of it stirs an ugly feeling in his chest, one so irrational and shameful that it embarrasses him, because once, without thinking, he had reached for you the same way.

His jaw tightens before he can stop it. The feeling is petty, even for him. He is a grown man, his mother's heir, standing in the throne room as the fate of his family hangs in the balance, and the boy is your son. Yet all he can do is think the place at your side had once been his, and wonder when he had ceased belonging there.

A sharp elbow catches his side. Jace startles, finally tearing his eyes away to find Luke staring up at him with a look caught somewhere between confusion and outright disbelief, following his brother's line of sight before slowly turning back to him as if silently asking whether he has forgotten where they are and what is happening.

Jace flushes and looks away.

The rest of the petition is a blur. Vaguely, he remembers his grandsire entering the throne room, the argument escalating, the rage and dread he felt as bastard and whore rang through the hall, Daemon spilling blood before the whole court as soon as the words are spoken. He hears the collective gasp of the nobility and the sickening thud of Vaemond's body and severed head striking the floor, but his gaze finds you again and again, as though the rest of the room has dissolved into little more than noise around your silhouette, gaze incessantly dropping to where your hands rest on your children.

Protective. Shielding them. It is the same hand that once rested on the back of his neck whenever he was frightened, that pulled him behind you when Alicent drew steel on he and his family. The same absent touch that soothed nightmares and bruises before he had ever needed to learn how to hide them.

It belongs to someone else now, he thinks bitterly, and then feels ashamed for even letting such a thought cross his mind when it is your children on the receiving end of it.

Aegon's children, his mind traitorously reminds him—his eyes, his hair, his blood. Jace wonders, before he can stop himself, what they might have looked like had fate been kinder. Would a son of yours and his have inherited your hair or his dark curls? Would—

Luke elbows him again hard, and this time, Jace shoots him an irritated look, but Luke doesn't even acknowledge it, raising his eyebrows pointedly before flicking his eyes ahead. Jace follows his gaze, attention dragging ahead to where his grandsire descends from the Iron Throne, his mother and Daemon standing close beside him, speaking in hushed voices that Jace cannot make out over the murmurs still sweeping through the hall. And you—

You are looking at him, finally.

Jace's eyes meet yours, and for one long moment, he is eighteen and ten all at once—a prince standing in his grandsire's throne room and the little boy who used to search every corridor of the Red Keep until he found you.

He is not breathing, he realizes as he stares at you. His lungs are burning as he waits for you to say something—anything. He has imagined this moment a hundred, a thousand, a million times before. He has scripted what he would say to you—practiced it in his room as soon as his mother told him they would be returning to King's Landing at last—but now that he is finally in front of you again, his throat is dry and his heart is beating so loudly that he is certain you must hear it.

Then, you smile, and Jace can suddenly breathe again.

"Jurnegon rȳ ao, mandianna," you breathe out softly, taking two steps in his direction, hands lifting to cradle his face between your palms, "emā mazverdagon sīr olvie."

Look at you, nephew, you have grown so much.

Jace's breath leaves him, lashes fluttering shut. The warmth of your hands against his cheeks is achingly familiar, so familiar that his body responds before his mind has the chance to. He sinks into your touch, turning his face into your palm as though he had been starved for your touch. Your thumbs sweep slowly along his cheekbones, catching the dampness he hadn't realized was gathering on his lower lashes.

Then, you frown and say, "I hate it."

Jace stared at you for a moment, heart pounding, freezing between your hands—you hate it?

Luke snorts loudly somewhere behind Jace, and you tilt your head and give his brother an easy smile as you say, "Do not laugh, you know what I mean, Lucerys."

Jace does not know, but you pull him closer, hands sliding from his cheeks to the back of his head so that you can tuck his face into the crook of your neck, and all offense disappears in an instant.

He melts into you with the same ease he did ten years ago—as though no time has passed at all—and a ragged breath escapes him. His forehead presses against the warm skin of your neck, hiding his face there the same way he always had whenever he was frightened or overwhelmed as a little boy.

He inhales greedily, familiar lavender filling his lungs for the first time since you parted all those years ago—he had tried buying similar perfumes at the harbor market on Dragonstone, lingering over every vial the merchants swore carried notes of lavender, but none of them had ever healed the ache in his chest the way a single breath against your neck does now.

His arms find your waist, drawing you against him until there is scarcely any space between your bodies, and you thread your fingers through the curls at the nape of his neck and press your lips to his temple.

He should be embarrassed, he thinks. He spent the entire voyage convincing himself that he would return to King's Landing as a man for you. He imagined standing proudly before you, kissing your hand, speaking with the confidence expected of the heir to Dragonstone. He would show you that he was no longer the frightened little prince forever trailing at your heels.

Instead, the first thing he has done is hide his face in your neck. He ought to pull away—loosen his grip on your waist, straighten his shoulders, meet your eyes and greet you with whatever slivers of dignity remained, but he cannot bring himself to when your fingers are carding so gently through his hair, lips lingering at his temple.

He wonders if you can feel the frantic beating of his heart through the layers of his tunic and your gown—if you notice how tightly he is holding you, how shamelessly he has folded himself into your embrace. But if you do and think less of him for it, you give no sign.

"You look well, niece," Daemon says as he approaches you, and irritation flares hot through Jace's chest at the interruption, jaw tightening when you pull away to look at Daemon. Your hand slides from the back of his head to his upper arm, and Jace feels electric beneath your touch, even as you turn to face your uncle. "Much better than you looked back on Driftmark, certainly."

Daemon takes your free hand to ghost a chaste kiss against your knuckles, gaze briefly landing on Jace. A curious expression crosses his face before he huffs out a laugh and takes a step back—Jace frowns at him, but Daemon's lips curve up into a knowing smile before he looks back at you again.

"I have you to thank for that, I suppose, kepa," you say with a ease smile. Jace cannot smother the sheer giddiness he feels when he realizes you have no intention of dropping your hand from his arm. You have missed him, he realizes, throat bobbing, you have missed him perhaps as much as he has missed you. "It was proper motivation, I'd say, threatening to send assassins after me to ensure I… ah, how did you phrase it? That I stopped feeling sorry for myself and climbed out of bed?"

Jace is immediately torn from his lingering thoughts, blinking once, unsure he heard you properly. He gives Daemon a furious look, but Daemon only laughs, tilting his head back. "Did it work?"

"Wonderfully," you say dryly. "I found the prospect of being assassinated while abed was an excellent cure for lingering weakness."

"Then all is well," Daemon says dismissively. "No need to stare at me so murderously, Jacaerys."

Jace flushes immediately when you glance up at him, embarrassed that Daemon called him out so plainly, but you only give him a fond smile, and Jace's heart flutters dangerously in his chest.

You have missed him, he thinks again, more desperately this time, because all of the time he has spent away from you, he had half convinced himself that you'd simply learned to live without him—out of sight, out of mind.

Have you ached for him the same way he has for you these last eight years? Have you thought about him? When you sat in the godswood to read, would you find yourself waiting for him? When you dined amidst the sea of green during feasts, did your gaze wander the crowd in search of him? When you lay abed with your husband, did you ever close your eyes and imagine it was him instead? He needs to know.

Before the thoughts can consume him entirely, your hand drops from his bicep, and Jace feels terribly cold again.

You reach your hands out to Maegor and Maegelle, and Jace realizes that they've been standing next to Baela and Rhaena, big violet eyes flicking between you and Jace curiously. They immediately rush over to you, each diving into your side.

Maegor looks up at Jace with a sharp, accusing look that he takes immediate offense to. Why is he staring at Jace as though he is the one who has wandered uninvited into someone else's home? Jace was here first. Long before anyone else had called you mother or wife, he had called you muña—he had known you first, he had loved you first, he had been the little prince forever tucked at your side. It was widely known throughout the keep that if someone sought him, they only needed to find you.

Jace is not the interloper here, because you were his first.

The childish part of him is bristling furiously, and shame follows it almost immediately. The boy is not even ten, and he has done nothing besides love his mother, and Jace is angry about it. He should be glad that someone in this keep cares about you enough to be wary of the strangers surrounding you.

Maegor's hand tightens around yours all the same, chin lifting ever so slightly, as though he's challenging Jace to say something, violet eyes fixed upon Jace with open suspicion. The prince edges a step closer, his shoulder pressing into you with unmistakable intent: it is territorial.

Jace almost scoffs. The little wretch is trying to stake a claim on you. Stake a claim from him. You finally notice it too, lips twitching up into a smile.

"Maegor," you say gently, resting a hand atop his silver hair, fingers threading through the silky locks absently. "There is no need to glare."

"I wasn't glaring," the young prince mutters, glaring.

"You were."

"I was looking."

"You were looking rather fiercely."

"I was making sure he wasn't upsetting you."

Jace blinks, but before he has the chance to become even more offended by the presumption that his presence might upset you, you laugh, and Jace is breathless. His lips part as his gaze fixes on your bright smile, the way your hair falls slightly in your face as you lean down to press a brief kiss to the top of Maegor's head.

You are beautiful, he thinks for the millionth time in his life—seeing your smile, hearing your laugh, it has always made the difference between a ruined day and a perfect one. Jace has always thought you were the most beautiful woman in the world—even when you were both children, he had thought no lady at court could ever compare to you, forever offended whenever singers insisted another lady was the fairest woman in the realm. They simply have never seen you laugh, he would tell them, full of righteous anger.

His gaze lingers on your smile too long—you look happy, he realizes, and it settles strangely in his chest.

For years, he had imagined your life here in King's Landing as… dark. Miserable. Lonely suppers eaten in silence, wandering the halls with no one to keep you company—a marriage endured rather than cherished. He was plagued by thoughts of you in Dragonstone, and they had always been riddled with guilt, because he had left you here alone, surrounded by enemies and—

—and it had comforted him, in some shameful way.

If you were unhappy, then perhaps you missed him as fiercely as he had missed you, perhaps you were waiting for him the same way he waited endlessly to return to you.

He had not imagined this. A daughter tucked beneath one arm and a son standing guard at your side as though protecting you were the most natural thing in the world. You love them, it is clear, and they love you the same.

Have you grown to love Aegon, too? Jace suddenly feels dizzy.

"Raqiarzy," you say fondly, smoothing an errant strand of silver hair away from Maegor's face before looking back up at Jace again. "This is Prince Jacaerys Velaryon. He is my nephew—your cousin. He will be our king one day after his mother."

Your words settle restlessly inside him. He will be our king one day after his mother. He has heard those words his entire life—from maesters, and lords, and his mother, and you. But it feels—it feels different now. He has fantasized standing beside you as your husband more times than he dares to admit, but—but as your king?

His throat bobs, breath catching, heart racing, mind shifting as his gaze slides up to the throne not a dozen feet away, then drifting to you, thoughts spinning and spiraling, enough to make him dizzy.

"Do you remember the plushes you two were gifted for your fourth nameday?" you ask the twins suddenly, drawing Jace from his mind, pulse hammering in his ears, shame crashing over him in devastating force.

—and what in the Seven Hells is he thinking?

He can see Luke giving him an odd look from the corner of his eye, and Jace desperately tries to compose himself, dragging in one slow breath through his nose as though it might somehow banish the treacherous images from his mind. His face feels unbearably hot.

Maegelle lights up beside Maegor. "Stuffed Hūraxes and stuffed Vēzarrion?" she asks, leaning into your arm and looking up at you with adoring eyes.

"Mhm," you confirm, running your fingers absently through her hair. "Do you remember who sent them?"

The twins exchange a thoughtful look, and then Maegor's eyes grow round as he looks at Jace, no longer accusing. "It was you!"

Jace clears his throat, grateful for something else to occupy his thoughts. He says faintly, "I hope they survived. I wish I could have been there for the celebrations."

"How did you know what they look like?" Maegor demands, leaning forward now. "You even knew about the little white patch on Vēzarrion's wing!"

"I keep stuffed Hūraxes in my room every day." Maegelle nods, excited. "He protects it!"

"We wanted to keep real Vēzarrion and real Hūraxes in our rooms, but mother wouldn't allow us," Maegor frowns. Then he asks again, "How did you know what they looked like? You've never seen them before."

Jace's eyes instinctively drift to you, but you only smile.

"Your mother writes to me often," he admits. "She is very thorough, as I'm sure you know."

You squint at him. "What does that mean?" you ask, but Jace only grins and holds his hands up in faux-surrender. You tilt your head and say, "Jacaerys."

Maegelle giggles, and Maegor immediately nods, brows knit together as he frowns, nodding in agreement.

"She knows everything," he complains. "I can never get away with anything. I try to skip lessons, and she knows. I try to sneak snacks, and she knows. I hid a frog in Maester Orwyle's desk, and somehow she knew that too."

Jace's smile widens a bit as he huffs out a laugh. He says, "Once I tried to hide beneath your mother's bed so I wouldn't have to attend sword training. I thought I was clever because certainly the last place she would look was right beneath her nose. She found me within ten minutes."

You laugh at the memory, and Jace's heart skips a beat when you lean slightly into him, head resting on his shoulder as you look down at Maegor and Maegelle, both of whom suddenly seem thoroughly delighted.

"You skipped lessons too?" Maegor asks excited.

"Frequently," you answer before Jace can.

Jace's lips part in mock offense. "I hardly think frequently is fair."

"Jacaerys," you say dryly, head tilted to the side as you give him a lazy smile. "You once convinced Luke that you had been kidnapped by pirates because you wished to avoid histories. He had the entire keep in a frenzy."

Luke snorts loudly behind him, finally taking a step forward to greet you. He leans in to ghost his lips against your cheek before he says, "I forgot about that."

"I was seven," Jace mutters, ears burning.

"You were a little menace," you correct.

Maegelle hides her face in your gown as she laughs, and Maegor stares at Jace with newfound admiration.

"Mother always said you were clever," he says, scrutinizing Jace carefully. Jace flushes slightly at the idea of you telling your children about him. "She did not mention you were also troublesome. You will have to share some of your tricks with me."

"He was dreadful," you confirm, "and if he knows what's good for him, he will share nothing."

"I protest," Jace says immediately, looking down at you. "You, too, were troublesome, muña. Do not cast the blame all on me."

Maegor and Maegelle gasp as though they were just handed gold.

"You used to adore me when you were little," you sigh wistfully. "You never used to talk back like this."

"I still adore you," he murmurs quietly, far more sincere than the teasing he aimed for.

You tilt your head up to look at him, and Jace cannot breathe again, because you are so close, so close that if he only leaned in a smidge then—Luke pinches his side hard, and Jace grimaces, shooting him an irritated look. Luke's expression is one of naked disbelief: what are you doing? it seems to say without a single word being spoken.

Heat crawls up Jace's neck, and he follows Luke's pointed glance across the Great Hall.

Aegon is watching him. Aemond, too.

The elder prince lounges against a pillar, but the amusement on his face is far too sharp to be entirely genuine. Beside him, Aemond stands with his hands behind his back, one violet eye fixed upon Jace with a type of scrutiny that makes him feel he's been caught doing something he ought not.

Jace's stomach drops, suddenly very aware that he is standing before half of the court and you, whether he likes it or not, are someone else's wife. It is one thing wanting you so desperately that it makes his heart ache—it is another entirely to put you in a position where your honor could be questioned.

He straightens immediately, subtly putting a bit of distance between the two of you. Your brows scrunch slightly, giving him a confused look, but luckily, Baela and Rhaena beckon you for a conversation, and you busy yourself with doting over them, pressing your lips to their hair as you fawn over how beautiful they've become.

He exhales, ears still burning as he chances another glance toward Aegon. The older prince tilts his head, the corner of his mouth curling upward ever so slightly. Jace's eye twitches in irritation. Then he looks down at Maegor as the boy grabs his hand, tugging insistently until Jace gives him his full attention.

"Will you tell us stories?" the boy asks hopefully. "About mother?"

Jace blinks, and his gaze flicks across the hall once more. Aegon is still watching. A curious, vindictive thought slips into Jace's mind, and a slow smile curls at the corners of his mouth. He intends to marry you one day—the thought comes as naturally as breathing, he has never doubted it once. One day, you will be his wife and his queen, and when that day comes—well, that would make your children his too, wouldn't it?

He kneels before Maegor and smiles as he agrees, "As many as you want."

Aegon can keep his goblet and his smug little smile. Jace will take everything else.

————————————

"What in the Seven Hells was that, Jace?"

Jace blinks as he looks at his brother, making his way across the outer edges of the training yard a few hours after the petition.

Soon, they will have to return to their mother's apartments to prepare for the supper the king wishes to host for his mother's family and Alicent's. Luke wanted to go down to the dragonpit and stay there until it was time, because he loathed to be around the vicious nobles of the court longer than he had to, but Jace thought it best that they show themselves a little longer. Prove to the court they are not afraid, that they are the rightful heirs—that they are Rhaenyra's sons and they will cower in the face of green schemes.

"What was what?" Jace asks, tilting his head to the side to look at Luke over his shoulder.

Luke stops walking altogether, and Jace stops with him. Luke says dryly, "You cannot be serious."

Jace squints at him questioningly.

"What?" he asks again, gaze flitting across the training yard. He sees Cole in the distance, and he frowns, trying to look over the crowd to see who else might be there—if you might be there—but he can't see over all of the heads. When Luke doesn't immediately reply, Jace glances at him again, raising his eyebrows, beckoning. "What was what?"

"Seriously,?" Luke hisses, grabbing his arm and forcing Jace to look at him. Jace frowns when he feels his brother's fingers digging into his upper arm, a pinched expression on his face. "You were practically climbing into her lap in front of the entire court."

Jace's face flushes, attention snapping fully to Luke once the mortifying accusation registers. "I was not."

"Yes, you were," Luke accuses. "In front of everyone."

"I was embracing my aunt," Jace denies, voice hushed as he pulls Luke to the side. "What are you talking about?"

"You were embracing her for an awfully long time," Luke whispers back, giving him an incredulous look. "What were you thinking? She's married, Jace. You do remember that, right?"

"Of course, I do," Jace snaps, bitter over the fact that his own brother is throwing it in his face. He does not need to be reminded that you are married. It has haunted him every day for the last eight years. "I was only acting as I always have. We have always been close. You know this."

Luke does not believe him. Jace can tell as much from the sidelong glance his younger brother gives him, but he does not care. He was acting as he always has—it is the truth. You have always welcomed him into your arms, and he has always gone willingly. He has always buried his face in your shoulder when he needed comfort, touch lingering a little longer than propriety perhaps allowed. He has always called you muña, has always reached for your hand without thinking, has always smiled whenever you smiled.

None of that has changed, only his intentions. That, Jace decides stubbornly, is not something anyone could have possibly seen.

"You're lucky Aegon found the whole thing amusing instead of making a fuss over it," Luke finally says, and Jace's expression hardens, jaw tightening as he inhales and stares ahead, fighting a shake of his head. "He won't be laughing forever."

"Perhaps she won't be his forever," Jace snips before he can stop himself, raising his chin and looking away. Luke's eyes bulge as he casts a disbelieving look toward him. Jace raises his hands in faux surrender. "I'm only saying."

"Jace," Luke hisses, "have you lost all sense?"

Jace shakes his head, staring ahead as he says simply, "No."

"I'm going to tell mother," Luke threatens.

Jace gives him a sharp, irritated look.

"What is there to tell?" he scoffs. Then, more aggravated, "Why must you tattle like a child? You are ten and seven now, act like it."

He does not need his mother knowing that he's infatuated with you—not that she would have much room to speak, all things considered.

"Bold coming from someone on the verge of throwing a fit for not getting his way."

"You—" Luke barely dodges as Jace tries to shove him hard, and Jace inhales sharply to calm himself down, shaking his head as he grabs Luke's bicep to pull him close. He says quietly, "I have loved her for as long as I can remember. I simply grew old enough to understand what that means. How do you propose I sit back and watch her be mistreated by Alicent's pig sons? What would you have me do, Luke?"

Luke sighs and looks away, chweing the inside of his cheek. "We are already under scrutiny, Jace. Look at what just happened—if grandsire hadn't shown, we would have been–" Luke cuts himself off, looking away. He does not need to finish the sentence for Jace to know what he was going to say: they would have been declared bastards before the whole court. "We need to tread carefully."

Jace knows this. He does. He knows he will be playing a dangerous game if he moves forward as he wishes—knows that it could backfire profusely, not just on him, but on you. But—but how is he not supposed to try?

"What do you even plan to do?" Luke continues, forcing Jace to look at him again. Jace rolls his eyes and turns away, but Luke steps in front of him again. "I'm serious. Do you plan to ask the High Septon to annul her marriage to Aegon? Approve of a divorce? They have two kids, Jace—it will not be so easy. And do you even know if she feels the same? Or does she still see you as the little boy who followed her everywhere?"

"I am a man grown," Jace scoffs. "I am not a little boy anymore."

"The last she saw of you, you were."

Jace rolls his eyes again, jaw tightening as he shakes his head. His chest aches as Luke's words settle over him—do you feel the same? Did you miss him? Ache for him how he ached for you? Or have you made a life for yourself that you are content with? His throat spasms as he swallows, uncertainty clawing at his chest.

"I liked you better when you couldn't speak," Jace snaps because he has nothing else to say. After a few moments pass, he says quietly, "I have to try. If she tells me that she—" He can hardly bring himself to push the words out. "—that she loves Aegon, if she tells me that she is happy and wants nothing more than the life she has, then I will leave it alone."

Luke squints as he searches his brother's face, as though he does not believe him. Jace presses his lips together, throat bobbing as he swallows.

Jace has wanted you for so long that he scarcely remembers what life felt like before the wanting began. It has become instinctive as breathing, woven so tightly into the foundations of who he is that he cannot imagine untangling himself from it. He has imagined futures with at his side, as his wife, his queen; he has imagined children, and children of children, and a long reign in his name and yours.

But he wants your happiness more. Preferably with him, of course. He wants to be the one who makes you laugh until tears sting your eyes. He wants to be the man whose children cling to your skirts, whose bed you crawl into after long days, whose name you breathe in throes of pleasure. He wants to grow old at your side and spend the rest of his life thanking the gods that they had finally been merciful.

But if that happiness belongs elsewhere—if, somehow, you have found it with Aegon… Then what right does he have to tear it away?

"I would never ask her to give up a happy life for me," he says quietly, gaze shifting to the ground, "but I need to hear it from her."

"Get him Maegelle! Hah!"

Your daughter? What is your daughter doing in the training yard?

Jace's gaze cuts to the side when he hears Aegon's obnoxious voice coming from the crowd on the opposite side of the training yard. He tilts his head to the side, sharing a look with Luke before he makes his way over. He grabs Luke's arm to keep him close as he pushes closer to the front of the people gathered, curious to see what has drawn so many knights and squires away from their drills.

Then he sees you.

You stand at the edge of the sparring ring, arms crossed over your chest, lips curved down as you watch the twins spar in the center with wooden practice swords and surprising enthusiasm. Your brows are knit together with the same concentration you always had whenever you were watching him and Luke train years ago.

Jace almost finds himself smiling, until he realizes Aegon is standing behind you, one arm slung comfortably around your shoulders, letting you rest your weight on him, a fresh goblet of wine dangling from his hand. The gesture is so effortless that it makes Jace's stomach turn, as though he's stood with you there a thousand times before.

Worse, you do not pull away.

Jace's jaw tightens. He can feel Luke looking at him to his side, and it's a distinct effort not to let the discomfort—the pain and uncertainty—show on his face. Could you be happy here? Without his mother? Without him? It has been eight years, he reminds himself. Eight years is a long time—long enough to build a life one can be content with, even when dealt a poor hand. Aemond, too, is on your opposite side, he realizes dully. He is leaning back against the wall, head tilted as he watches the twins spar with one another.

He says something to you that Jace cannot hear, and you snort and reply, giving Aemond an easy smile. He has to stop himself from physically shrinking from the sight of it.

He wonders, have you found in your half-siblings the home you once had in him, his mother, and Luke? When did Aegon's arm start resting there so casually? Do you seek him out at feasts the same way you once sought him? Do you instinctively drift toward his side after long days? Has that same hand, so casually resting upon your shoulder, held you through sleepless nights? Wiped away tears? Tucked loose strands of hair behind your ear? Every answer he imagines hurts.

He has always imagined Aegon to be a worthless cur undeserving of your hand, an absent husband who drowned himself in wine and whores while you tried to keep your family afloat—but he is here, a random evening watching as the twins spar with one another, one arm around your shoulders as though it belongs there. Like a husband. Like a father.

He had been pained for years at the thought of you being neglected, but—but it also brought him a semblance of comfort, because he would be able to swoop in and rescue you. He would show you love, he would take care of you, hold you, be with you.

Somehow, the idea of Aegon treating you properly feels infinitely worse, and he feels ashamed for it.

He watches a delighted expression cross your face at something Aegon says, and then you toss your head back and laugh. For the briefest instant, the prince grins—not the careless smirk he wears before the court, but something softer, almost boyish, that makes Jace nauseous.

"Jace," Luke says quietly.

Jace only shakes his head slightly, forcing a smile on his face as he glances over at his younger brother. His lips part to speak, but the smile freezes on his face when someone speaks somewhere to his left.

"I hear she entertains both of the brothers," an unfamiliar voice murmurs. "The princess."

Jace stares ahead blankly, the words taking a heartbeat too long to register. The blood beneath his skin simmers faintly. What did he just say? Is he talking about you?

"Aye," another answers with a snort. Jace tilts his head to the side, gaze focusing on the red-haired squire standing in the small crowd of onlookers—not much older than Jace himself. "The elder first. The younger whenever her husband is too deep in his cups. Makes you wonder whether those twins favor their father after all. Runs in the family, I'd say."

How dare they?

"What did you just say?" Jace asks coldly, turning to face the small group of men.

The red-haired one has the audacity to look annoyed at the interruption, gaze flicking up to meet Jace, and for a moment, his vision tints red—they wouldn't look at him like that if he looked like Aegon or Aemond. They would see his hair and eyes, and they would know who they were speaking to—instead, they look at him and see him as an equal.

"I asked you a question, you mongrel. What did you just say?" Jace repeats, taking a step forward, head tilting slightly. He can hardly think straight—he can hear his pulse pounding in his ears, drowning out everything else around him. "I dare you to repeat it."

For a second, it seems as though the squire is going to step forward, an indignant expression on his face, but before he could make a treacherous mistake, one of his thick-headed friends grabs his arm and bows deeply.

"My prince," he says quickly, stumbling over his words. The red-haired squire's face whitens, and the two behind him immediately follow suit, heads bowed so quickly they nearly collide with one another. "Forgive us. We meant no offense. We—we did not realize, truly—"

"I did not ask what you meant. I asked you what you said."

There's a long moment where all four of the squires remain silent, heads bowed—Jace can see that their hands are shaking, and his lip curls up in disgust.

"We said nothing, my prince."

Jace exhales through his nose—a laugh or a scoff, he's not sure. How dare they? He is furious in a way he has not been in a long, long time, nails digging so deep into his palms that he might draw blood.

"You had no difficulty finding your tongue when you believed no prince was listening," Jace says coolly. "Find it again."

They stand trembling now, heads bowed, hoping that if they pretend the words had never left their mouths, they might escape the consequences of speaking them. His fists curl tight at his sides—they do not know you. They have no right to speak your name or stain it with their filth.

He takes another step forward when they do not speak. "No?" he questions, and then huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. "Then count yourselves fortunate that I do not take your heads for the insult. Get out of my sight."

Jace exhales shakily as the four squires stumble to their feet and rush away. His eyes slide shut as he wills himself to calm down, and just as he's about to turn to Luke, he feels a familiar hand brush against his lower back. He knows you are standing there before he even turns and opens his eyes.

"Is everything okay?" you ask quietly, and Jace lets out a wavering puff of air as he turns to look at you. Your brows are furrowed slightly in concern, eyes roving over him carefully as you try to figure out what's wrong. "Mandianna?"

Do you know what they say about you? Are these common whispers, the same as the topic of his birth had once been? Did they turn on you again once Jace and his brothers left? Is there any truth to them?

The more treacherous question makes his stomach turn. He does not want to know the answer to that. He has imagined you abed with Aegon too many times to count over the past few years, each time agonizing in a way he could never quite explain, a private form of torture he inflicted upon himself whenever his thoughts grew particularly cruel. He would picture Aegon's hands where he wanted his own to be, mouth wandering your skin, arms wrapped around you beneath the sheets, body pressed into you in way Jace has only ever been able to dream about. Your face buried into his neck, breath pitching every time his body moved against yours, fingers tangled in silver hair instead of dark curls.

Each imagination had been enough to leave him sick with jealousy. He does not need another uncle added to them.

"Everything is fine," he lies.

You know instantly he is not telling the truth—you have always been able to catch him in a lie before he's even spoken a word—but he presses on anyway. His hand drops to yours, fingers tingling as he lifts it enough so that he can bend his head down and ghost his lips against your knuckles. He wonders if he imagines the way your breath hitches.

"Luke and I should go," he tells you. "We need to prepare for supper."

Your lips part slightly, and Jace thinks you are going to press him—to give him that look you always did when he was a boy, the one that pulled every secret from him without you having to ask twice. Instead, your gaze drops to where his fingers remain curled around yours.

"Of course," you say softly.

Jace realizes he is still holding your hand. He should let go, he thinks distantly, but instead, his thumb glides along your knuckles once, lingering, before he finally forces his fingers to loosen. The loss of your warmth leaves his palm strangely cold.

"We'll see you there?" Luke asks from beside him.

You wink at him. "Of course."

You glance at Jace again, an unreadable expression on your face, Jace's lips part to question you, but then your hand comes up, fingers briefly smoothing one of his dark curls away from his forehead. Jace's breath hitches, smile freezing.

"Go," you tell him fondly. "Before your mother sends someone looking for you and blames me for your absence.

He swallows thickly and then inclines his head obediently, "Yes, muña."

Jace turns away before he can do something foolish. Luke has the decency to wait until they have crossed half the yard before speaking.

"You are hopeless."

"Shut up."

————————————

Jace has spent the better part of the last fifteen minutes pretending not to watch the doors, nodding along absently to whatever Baela is saying beside him while his attention strays toward the entrance every few breaths.

You are late.

Not late enough to warrant the growing impatience twisting inside his chest, but late nonetheless, and every moment that passes where you remain out of reach only serves to further agitate the restlessness that has plagued him since the moment he saw you again.

"Can you please stop tapping your foot?" Baela finally asks, letting out an exasperated puff of air as she glances at Jace.

He immediately gives frowns at her, confused, and then she looks down pointedly at Jace's left leg, rapidly bouncing against the floor. He stills it immediately, face flushing slightly.

"I have yet to eat today," Jace lies, because he does not want to admit that he's antsy waiting for your arrival. "I'm merely hungry."

Baela rolls her eyes as she takes a sip from her goblet, and Jace gives her an indignant look, because what is what supposed to mean?

"I'm sure," she agrees dryly, "because it is food you are waiting for to come through that door."

Jace blinks once, lips parting in offense, but he does not get the chance to question her before Luke snorts and agrees, "It is not food he is hungry for."

Jace gapes, face hot as he stares at Luke in sheer disbelief, but Baela and Rhaena burst into laughter as though they know exactly what Luke is talking about, and Jace feels the distinct urge to sink into his seat. Did he tell them? Did they already know? How obvious was he being about it?

He spares a glance over to the opposite side of the table where the Queen and the Hand sit with Aemond and Helaena. Alicent is looking directly at them—so is Otto—and neither appears particularly amused.

Jace's stomach drops. The Queen's brows are drawn together in suspicion, gaze moving slowly between Jace and the rest as though attempting to decipher what could possibly have been said that inspired such an outburst. Beside her, Otto raises his chin slightly, eyes narrowed in that calculating way Jace remembers all too well from Driftmark as he watched the accusations of Jace, Luke, and Joffrey's legitimacy finally be given life.

They could not have heard, surely. Luke had spoken quietly, and the distance between them was too great for his voice to carry over the conversation filling the room.

Still, Jace sits up straighter. "Stop laughing," he hisses through clenched teeth, but it only serves to make the three of them laugh harder. Jace exhales hard, shaking his head before he straightens in his seat and looks away, doing his best to ignore them.

He's about to drive his foot into Luke's shin when the doors finally open again, and Jace's heart thuds painfully in his chest as his gaze cuts toward them just as you enter the room. There is an unsettlingly dull expression on your face when you walk in, and Jace's brows furrow slightly in confusion until you seem to shake your head and the expression off of your face right with it.

Your lips curl up into a smile that is distinctly bland compared to the ones he's used to as his mother and Daemon rise to their feet to greet you.

Aegon is with you, Jace realizes bitterly—it does not hurt as much as it did to see you in the training yard with him. He expected him to walk in with you when he saw that Helaena and Aemond had already arrived with their mother and grandfather, but he still does not like it. Maegor and Maegelle trail closely behind the two of you, dressed in fine reds for supper, and the sight of them manages to soften some of the irritation tightening Jace's jaw, because Maegor immediately brightens at the sight of him, waving his hand in a quick greeting.

You exchange a few quiet words with his mother before ghosting your lips to her cheeks, and Jace finds himself watching your face closely, trying to catch another glimpse of that strange expression you had worn upon entering the room. What was that? Are you unhappy? Are you only pretending to be content? Jace cannot tell, and it is gone now, carefully tucked away beneath smiles and pleasantries.

Then your eyes find his, and the smile changes, warming and softening in that familiar way that makes his heart flutter. Jace is on his feet before he realizes that he has moved, taking one of your hands in his.

"Muña," he greets softly, pressing a kiss against your cheek, lingering perhaps a heartbeat longer than necessary before forcing himself to straighten. "Ao jurnegon gevie."

You look beautiful.

He is wistful as he looks over you, a tight feeling in his chest as he looks over the deep red gown you wear. The velvet fabric hugs your figure, spilling elegantly against the floor, and Jace cannot decide whether it is the gown that makes you radiant, or you simply are yourself—for he is fairly certain he would have found you the most beautiful woman in the room even had you arrived dressed in plain linen instead.

You smile at him lightly, a pleased expression on your face as your gaze roves over him once. Jace is giddy from it—he has always preened beneath your praise, seeking out that particular look of pride in your eyes. Even now, perhaps especially now, some part of him still desperately wants to impress you, to do something—anything—that might make you look at him as though he is everything you hoped he would become.

"Emā issare gūrēñare aōha Valyrio," you murmur. Jace loves the way High Valyrian sounds rolling off your tongue—it is musical and natural in a way he has never been able to make it sound on his, much as he tried. "Iksan biare."

You have been practicing your High Valyrian. I am glad.

"Hen rhinka," he replies easily. Of course.

He is still holding your hand, he realizes, pressing his luck and letting his fingers ghost up along the inside of your wrist just to feel the way your pulse flutters beneath his touch. Do you want him the way he wants you? Jace cannot tell, but the slight quickening beneath his fingertips sends a dangerous flicker of hope through him nonetheless.

"Mother!"

You both startle. Jace's hand falls away from yours as Maegor suddenly appears at your side, entirely oblivious to the moment he has interrupted. He does not have to look at Luke to see the disbelief plain on his face, and he does not dare glance over at Aegon or Aemond—or worse, the Queen or the Hand—to see their reactions to what just transpired.

It is fine, he tells himself. He was only greeting you.

The boy reaches for the back of your chair with both hands and pulls it out with such enthusiasm that the wooden legs scrape loudly against the stone floor. Once he's pulled out the chair, he stands beside it tall, gesturing proudly toward the seat.

"For you, mother."

Your lips curve up into fond smile. "How gallant of you, byka dārilaros. You are such a gentleman—your father could learn from your lead."

Maegor positively beams, and you reach down to smooth a hand over his silver hair before leaning forward to press a kiss to the crown of his head. The boy bounces on the balls of his feet beneath your affection, eyes wide and adoring as he looks up at you, and your lips curve up as you stroke his hair gently before nodding in the direction of the two empty chairs near Luke.

"Go on. You and your sister are sitting beside your cousin tonight. Be sure to torment him properly."

Luke gives you an alarmed look, but you only wink at him in response. Maegor grabs Maegelle's hand and drags her over to the empty seats, already reaching for Luke's arm and babbling about a story you read him last night. Jace snorts and looks over at you, breath catching slightly at the soft expression on your face as your gaze lingers on the two of them for a moment longer.

You finally begin to sit, and Jace moves without thinking, giving the servant waiting to push your chair in a sharp look to back off. His hand catches the back of your chair, gently pushing it forward beneath you so that you can sit properly at the table.

You turn your head to the side to look up at him, smiling lightly. "Thank you, mandianna."

"Of course," he murmurs, pleased with himself—until he feels someone staring at him, that is.

His gaze lifts to your opposite side, where Aegon has taken his seat. He is watching Jace with narrowed eyes—the amusement from earlier in the day long gone. For a long moment, neither prince looks away. Jace's hand remains on the back of your chair, and Aegon's gaze drops pointedly toward it, then back up at Jace.

Jace understands the message perfectly, but he tightens his fingers around the carved wood instead, stubborn, until Aegon tilts his head and straightens in his chair, irritated. Then Jace gives him a pleasant smile and releases your chair, moving to take his own seat beside you.

Maybe Luke was right—this is a dangerous game. But as he settles into the chair at your side, close enough that the sleeve of his tunic brushes lightly against your gown, he finds that he cannot bring himself to regret it in the slightest.

"I am a gentleman," Aegon finally complains, leaning his elbow on the table, head resting in his hand as he gives you a lazy smile.

"You are neither gentle nor man, valonqar," you drawl, leaning back in your seat to look at him. "I could not think of a word less fitting if I tried, and my vocabulary is vast."

Jace cannot even bring himself to feel pleased by your insult, because there is a casualness in the way you tease him that tells him this is familiar. The type of insult born from years in one another's company, where neither party has to wonder whether the other will take offense.

Aegon only grins. "How cruelly my own wife wounds me," he sighs. Then his smile sharpens, eyes meeting Jace's instead of yours—Jace is so focused on whatever Aegon is about to say that he almost forgets to stand as the kingsguard carries his grandsire through the door to sit at the center of the table. Aegon continues quietly, "Though you know better than most that I am very much a man, and as I recall, you rather prefer me when I am anything but gentle."

"Aegon the Crude," you roll your eyes and mutter.

Aegon winks at you and says in response, "Aegon the Generous. At least, that is what I have been told."

Jace flushes immediately, gaze averting to the side, trying to focus as Alicent leads a prayer and his grandsire begins a toasts to his brother and Rhaena's betrothal and failing miserably.

He hates the image that Aegon's words conjure almost as much as he hates the man for deliberately putting it there. You beneath him, back arched as Aegon's hands roam where Jace aches to place his own, his mouth tracing the bare skin of your throat while his body presses yours into the mattress, you panting his name as he stretches you open, silver instead of brown, pale, unblemished skin instead of sun-kissed freckled.

His stomach twists. The jealousy is vicious, burning through his veins with enough force to make him want to reach across the table and wipe that smug expression from Aegon's face. Under the jealousy is something far worse—hotter, more shameful, awakened by the very image he wants desperately to banish from mind. Because the thought of Aegon with you is unbearable, but the thought of you—

That is the problem. He cannot picture you in such a state without imagining himself taking Aegon's place. His hands, his mouth, his body, his name, his hair. Is that how you like it? he cannot help but wonder, tongue darting out to wet his lips.

Whenever Jace has imagined being with you—far more often than he would ever confess, one hand wrapped around his cock, head tilted back against his bed frame—it had always been different. Slow and tender, he would take his time with you, kissing you as though he has eight lost years to make up for, touching you with a reverence bordering on worship. He has imagined your arms wrapped around him and your forehead pressed to his, breathy words exchanged in the darkness as the two of you lost yourselves in one another.

But maybe that is not what you want. Maybe you prefer something less tender.

He swallows thickly, warmth creeping higher beneath his collar as the question takes root. What would you want from him, then, if tenderness alone would not satisfy you? His imagination betrays him at once: his chest pressed firmly against your back, his mouth at your ear, one hand sliding up to curl around your throat as he holds you close to him. He imagines turning your face toward his, mouth finding yours messily, panting, gasping, soft moans and ragged cries of his name.

Would you like him that way? Is that what you would want from him? He has never pictured it happening like that, but he could do it, he thinks—he could do anything you want, be anything you want.

Jace shifts in his seat, exhaling hard through his nose as he tries to focus on what his grandsire is saying—he should be ashamed, having thoughts like this at supper while you are sat at his side, oblivious. What is wrong with him?

Once he is certain that his mind is clear of the disgraceful images circulating through his head, he dares to spare a glance back at you. You are leaning back in your seat, head tilted back slightly so you can look up at the ceiling, looking as though you would rather be anywhere else.

It is horribly rude, he thinks, fighting a smile, considering your father, the king, is across from you, attempting to address the entire table, and you have apparently decided that whatever intricacies decorate the ceiling are infinitely more deserving of your attention.

Then, his gaze traitorously slips down the slope of your neck. He catches himself before it can wander any farther, eyes snapping dutifully back to your face, but the damage is already done. His mind drifts back to where he had only just freed it from—to the weight of his hand there, palm curved against your throat, thumb resting beneath your jaw.

Jace swallows thickly, suddenly wondering whether you would still look so carelessly bored then. Whether that distant expression would finally disappear as he leaned close behind you, breath warm against your ear, and demanded your attention in full for himself. He catches himself before his mind can go down another spiral.

What the fuck is wrong with him?

Then, your eyes slide sideways and meet his. Jace immediately realizes he has been caught staring and flushes. One of your brows arches. You ask silently, what?

Jace shakes his head quickly, jaw tightening. Your eyes narrow, and he looks away. He sees you tilt your head curiously from the corner of his eye, and then, he feels your foot brush against his ankle beneath the table.

His entire body goes rigid, gaze snapping toward you. You are still watching him, curiosity flickering in your eyes, and Jace knows that this was an innocent touch. You were only trying to get his attention after he so pointedly looked away from you—he should move his leg away and that should be the end of it, but… but instead, something reckless takes hold of him.

He inhales deeply before he shifts his leg beneath the table until his knee presses against yours. Your brows lifts, and his heart pounds as he waits for you to pull away. You do not.

Emboldened, Jace lets the contact remain, the length of his leg resting deliberately against yours beneath the cover of the tablecloth. It is such a small thing—hardly anything at all, really—but with the thoughts that had been consuming him only moments before, the warmth of you against him feels unbearably intimate.

He wonders, do you think anything of it? Is the reason you do not pull away because this is no different from the countless casual touches you shared when the two of you were young? Or is there some small part of you that is as aware of the contact as he is? That feels the warmth of his leg pressed against yours, that knows there is a distinct lack of innocence behind the touch, but you do not move away because, perhaps, you want him close too?

Jace turns his attention forward as though nothing has happened, and from the corner of his eye, he sees you glance down toward the tablecloth and then back at him.

"You know," Aegon suddenly murmurs, leaning over you to address Jace. Jace's heart skips a beat, wondering if he noticed the contact hidden beneath the table, but Aegon's gaze betrays nothing. "It's a shame your younger brother was betrothed before you. I'd rather hoped that marriage might finally afford you the opportunity to discover what it is like to share a woman's bed."

Jace scoffs under his breath, tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek. He glances at Aegon, and then his gaze drifts toward you—you are staring forward, face refusing to betray whatever thoughts are running through your mind with his leg pressed to yours the way it is.

Jace finally looks up at his uncle with a faint curve of his lips and asks easily, "What makes you think I haven't discovered it already?"

Your attention immediately snaps toward him, brows furrowed and gaze sharp, and Jace is thrown off momentarily by the intensity in it. There is something there, he realizes—surprise, certainly, but something that looks suspiciously like displeasure flickers across your face before you manage to smooth it away.

His pulse quickens. Are you jealous?

The thought is so hopeful and self-serving that he immediately tells himself he has imagined it. Why should you care whether he has shared another woman's bed? You are married—you have been married for eight years. Surely, you cannot expect him to have spent all that time—

Well, he has, but you do not know that.

Aegon catches a laugh before he can make a scene while the king is still speaking, grin sharpening as he looks at you pointedly and then tilts his head to the side to look at Jace more head on. "Oh? Have you now? Has our lovely little nephew wet his cock at last?"

Jace drags his attention from you with considerable effort and says, "I don't recall my private affairs being any concern of yours."

"They aren't," Aegon says easily, leaning back in his chair with a grin. "I am merely curious."

"Then remain curious, uncle."

"And let us toast to Prince Lucerys as well," his grandsire says, a tired smile on his face as he lifts his goblet to Jace's younger brother. Your gaze drifts over to Luke briefly, and he forces himself to follow, giving his brother a small smile when he sees how he stiffens beneath the attention of the full room. "The future Lord of the Tides."

Jace races his cup to his brother, ignoring as Aegon's grin widens when he leans in again. He can feel your gaze still fixed upon the side of his face, far more distracting than anything your husband could possibly say.

Then Aegon murmurs to you, "See, wife. It seems your perfect little prince may not be so perfect after all."

Aegon sounds openly bitter, and you make a noise in the back of your throat—a scoff or a laugh. Jace pauses. Your perfect little prince. The words warm some silly, childish part of his chest. Do you really talk about him, praise him, so much around Aegon that your husband is resentful over it?

Then he hesitates. Does the thought of him seeking pleasure in another woman's bed sit uneasy with you because, somewhere in your mind, Jace is still the sweet little boy you raised years ago? Or does it disturb you because you do not want him in another woman's bed at all? He finds himself deflating slightly, because one option is far more likely than the other. He needs to know.

Your eyes flick toward him, and he holds your gaze this time. There is an expression on your face that he cannot decipher. Something about it makes him feel strangely guilty, any delight he might have felt over the prospect of you being jealous trickling away.

It is absurd. He has done nothing. The entire insinuation is a lie of his own making, a careless remark offered only because he refused to let Aegon embarrass him. Yet suddenly, Jace feels as though he has disappointed you somehow—as though the perfect little boy you have apparently preserved in your memory all these years has returned to you a man, and, within the span of a single evening, revealed himself to be just as capable of vice as the brother you married.

Except he is not, he wants to tell you desperately. There have been no women. There has only ever been you.

His attention drifts to the side when the low murmur of conversation around the table begins to fade, the scrape of silverware against plates quieting as his grandsire struggles to his feet to speak. Jace reluctantly tears his gaze from you.

"It both gladdens my heart and fills me with sorrow to see these faces around the table," Viserys begins, voice strained with exertion, breath shuddered. "The faces most dear to me in all the world… yet grown so distant from each other in the years past."

He hears you make a noise in the back of your throat, leaning back in your chair again as you share an unreadable look with Aegon. Jace hates it, fingers tightening in his lap as he wonders what passed between you in that single glance—what understanding eight years together has afforded the two of you that he cannot hope to decipher.

Then, your leg shifts against his. He thinks you might be pulling away, but you only press the side of your leg harder against his. Jace's breath catches, nostrils flaring slightly as he inhales, gaze cutting to the side, but you are still looking at Aegon, talking to one another without speaking.

Was that an accident or intentional?

"My own face… is no longer a handsome one, if indeed it ever was," he distantly hears his grandsire continue, but his pulse is roaring in his ears again, throat bobbing as he tries to figure out if he should press his luck. Would it be too much to shift his leg beneath yours, to nudge your feet apart, spread your legs a little just to see how you react? The thought alone sends a wildly inappropriate rush of heat through him. "But tonight, I wish you to see me as I am. Not just a king… but your father, your brother, your husband… and your grandsire. Who may not, it seems… walk for much longer among you."

Would you startle and pull away, finally realizing there is nothing innocent about the game he is playing beneath the table? Or would you let him? Would you glance at him with that same unreadable expression and leave your legs parted at his behest? How far will you let him go before you stop pretending not to understand what he's doing? Or have you already?

Gods, has he lost all sense? His grandsire is speaking of his death, of a house broken nearly beyond repair, and Jace is sitting at his table contemplating how far he might push the boundaries of your affection before you finally push back. Shame burns hot across his face, and he forces himself to remain perfectly still, ridding himself of all thoughts to slide his foot between your legs to nudge your knees apart.

"Let us no longer hold ill feelings in our hearts," Viserys continues, his labored voice drawing Jace's attention forward again. "The crown cannot stand strong if the House of the Dragon remains divided. But set aside your grievances. If not for the sake of the crown… then for the sake of this old man who loves you all so dearly."

Jace hears you inhale, looking away from Aegon at last, and his gaze drifts back to you. The boredom gone, along with whatever had passed between you and your husband, and you stare at your father with something far more complicated written across your face. Jace watches as your jaw tightens and brows furrow as you look down at the empty plate in front of you.

In Jace's defense, when his hand settles on your thigh beneath the tablecloth, he really, really does mean it only as comfort.

But your entire body stills and everything between the two of you changes. Jace feels it happen in the span of a single hitched breath—the moment the touch ceases to be innocent, when the warmth of his palm against your leg, fingertips pressing into the plush skin of your thigh, becomes something neither of you can reasonably mistake for the affection of a nephew comforting his aunt. His fingers remain perfectly still, but every nerve in his body is suddenly alive and tingling.

He does not dare to look at you now, attention pinned ahead as his tongue darts out to wet his lips, heart pounding in his chest, pulse roaring in his ears.

Somewhere beyond you, his mother rises to her feet. He distantly hears her speak of Queen Alicent, hears the scrape of a goblet being lifted, and the answering murmur as Alicent stands in return. The entire table seems to be listening as the two women raise their cups to one another after years of tension and resentment. Jace hears almost none of it.

His fingers tighten around your thigh slightly, accidentally, really, but when you still do not bat his touch away, his hand slides up slightly, thumb stroking over the fabric of your gown. Your breath catches again as you stare ahead, lashes fluttering slightly, and Jace's stomach clenches, heat rushing downward so quickly that he has to stop himself from shifting in his seat.

Then, Aegon rises. Jace watches warily as the prince steps out from his chair, subtly drawing his hand back into his lap. Aegon makes his way around you in Jace's direction, moving with the lazy confidence of someone already well into his cups. He stops behind Jace's chair and bends slightly, obnoxiously reaching across the table for the wine.

"I see it, you know," Aegon murmurs beneath the swell of conversation. Jace goes rigid. "The way you look at my wife."

Jace's jaw flexes as he forces himself not to react to Aegon's words. He stares ahead blankly. He cannot afford to lose grip of his temper—not here, not ever, but especially not here with the Queen and the Hand and both of his uncles watching him keenly for any and every mistake.

"Like a loyal hound, aren't you? Ten years is rather impressive," Aegon says quietly with a widening smile. "If you're so desperate to know what she's like, I'd be willing to give you a demonstration sometime. Save you all the trouble of wondering what pleases her."

Jace is on his feet in an instant, fist slamming so hard against the table that conversation silences and all eyes swivel to him.

"Jace," Baela hisses quietly, eyes wide.

"Don't," you say under your breath, quiet enough that only he can overhear.

On the far end of the table, Aemond rises to his feet slowly, head tilted to the side as though daring Jace to raise a hand to Aegon. For one terrible moment, Jace wants to. Damn the consequences—he'll put his fist into Aegon's jaw and knock the smug smirk right off of his face. He does not care that he'll walk right into the trap—angry and reckless, humiliated before the entire family—not if it means getting to watch him stumble back, bruised and bloodied.

Then, his gaze drops down to you, and he sees the severe expression on your face, expression hard and gaze sharp with warning. Jace exhales hard through his nose, glancing back slowly at Aegon.

The older prince grins shamelessly, leaning back again—the audacity to look amused as though he had not just spoken of you like some common whore whose intimacy could be displayed for another man's entertainment. He has never deserved you, Jace thinks furiously. Jace would never talk about you like this to another man, would never treat you with anything less than the devotion you deserve. It is infuriating that Aegon gets everything Jace has ever wanted and does not even have the decency to be appreciative of it.

Jace presses his tongue to the inside of his teeth, forcing the white-hot fury at bay as he smiles, strained. He says at last, "You should mind your cups, uncle. It is only the beginning of the evening, and you are already speaking in twisted tongues."

Irritation flashes across Aegon's face; he barely withholds a roll of his eyes, realizing that not only is he not going to get the reaction he wants, but Jace was able to get in a public dig at his drinking habits. Jace's smile is a little less forced and a little more mocking as Aegon makes his way back to his seat.

Then, his gaze shifts down to you. Your eyes meet his, and you tilt your head to the questioningly, wondering why he's still standing. He holds his hand out to you and murmurs, "Would you do me the honor of a dance, muña?"

"Yes, yes," his grandsire suddenly says, leaning forward and waving his hand. "The music."

You give him a small, indulgent smile before placing your hand in his and allowing him to help you to your feet. Your husband has settled back into his chair, sipping at his refilled goblet, but the careless amusement from moments before has vanished. His eyes follow Jace as he steps closer to you, releasing your hand only to settle his palm against the small of your back.

Jace hold's Aegon's gaze momentarily as he guides you away from the table, and he cannot help the faint satisfaction that curls in his chest—childish and vindictive and spiteful, but he does not care.

Behind him, another chair scrapes against the floor. Baela calls brightly, "Helaena—cousin. Dance with me?"

Jace glances back in time to see Helaena blink in surprise before a hesitant smile spreads across her face as she rises to her feet, lifting her skirts slightly as she shuffles over to Baela.

Maegor and Maegelle are quick to steal Rhaena, working in union to each grab a hand to drag her out of her seat, despite her vocal protests and pleas for her father and Rhaenyra and you to get them to release her. For the first time that evening, laughter begins to spread naturally around the table, and Jace turns his attention back on you, lips curled up into a small smile.

Your smile matches his as you say with a short laugh, "The last time we danced, you were half the height and I led."

"Well," Jace says, voice lower than he intends. "I am a man grown now. Perhaps it is time you let me take the lead."

Your brows lift, and Jace realizes what the words sound like only after they have already left his mouth. Heat creeps up the back of his neck—perhaps it is time you let me take the lead. After his lingering touch at your thigh and the thoughts that had plagued him at the table—wondering how you like to be touched, what you might want from him, what it would be like to take you in full—the words suddenly sound far less innocent than he intends for them to be.

Did you hear it too?

He cannot tell. The corners of your mouth curl upward, and Jace swears he sees something knowing flicker in your eyes before you question, "And what makes you so certain I would enjoy letting you do that?"

His pulse jumps. Surely that was intentional, wasn't it? You could have phrased that a hundred different ways that did not sound so—

Is he just reading too much into it? Jace cannot tell and it's driving him crazy. He swallows thickly. There is still time to retreat—to laugh it off and make some jest about how much his dancing has improved since he was a boy—but instead, he lifts his chin slightly.

He leans his head in slightly. "You should give me the opportunity to prove myself," he replies, finding himself growing bolder. "You might find I have learned a great deal since you last had me in your hands.

Your gaze searches his face for a moment before you tilt your head in acquiescence and step closer, allowing him to guide you into position.

"Very well, mandianna," you murmur at last. "Show me what you have learned."

Jace's heart pounds. He cannot tell whether the conversation is still about dancing.

The musicians start the opening of the song, and Jace takes your hand properly in his, his other settling at your waist as he leads you into the first steps. He remembers enough not to embarrass himself, thankfully, despite the fact that he has hardly danced at all over the last few years, but he is far too conscious of you to focus fully on the rhythm—your palm is warm against his, and you let him guide your body as he pleases.

"There," he says when you follow him through a turn without resistance. "This is not so difficult, is it?"

Your eyes narrow playfully. "Do not become arrogant, Jacaerys. You have only just begun. I'm hardly impressed yet."

Jace's mouth curves upward. Bolder, he says, "Then I suppose I shall have to pace myself, so that I may keep going until you're satisfied."

You inhale sharply through your nose, gaze more calculating now as you stare at him. His heart pounds as he waits for you to reply, because there is no ignorance to the twofold meaning to his words this time.

"Careful, mandianna," you murmur. "Someone might misunderstand you."

Jace's hands tightens at your waist as he pulls you closer for the next step of the dance. He lowers his voice as he says, "That depends entirely upon what you believe I meant."

You squint at him, and Jace slows with the music as the kingsguard prepares to return his grandsire to his chambers. He stands at your side, one hand still resting lightly on your mid back, as they gather around the king's chair and carefully lift it from the floor.

You both incline your heads dutifully as they carry him past, remaining silent until the guards disappear beyond the doors. Jace feels you draw a slow breath beside him, the playful tension between you momentarily forgotten as you stare to where your father had left.

You tell him quietly, "You are testing your luck, Jacaerys."

"Am I?" he questions, searching your face. Is this your way of warning him that his attention is unwanted, an attempt to draw a boundary he has been too blinded by hope to see? Or is it the opposite? The not knowing is enough to drive him mad. "Then let me know where my luck ends, muña. Speak with me tonight."

He hates that it comes out pleading when he was going for confidence.

You let out a soft puff of air, but before you get the chance to give him an answer, Aemond slams his fist against the dinner table and rises to his feet, cup in hand. Jace startles at the noise, glancing at Luke, who is still sitting at the table and looks closer to frightened fawn than man, and realizes he must have done something to set off Aemond. Jace stiffens, hand dropping from your back as he braces himself for whatever is about to be said.

"Final tribute," Aemond drawls,raising his cup to Luke and then to Jace. Baela and Helaena pause from where they were dancing around each other, laughter fading. Even the twins share a look with one another, slowing in their chaotic dance with Rhaena. "To the health of my nephews: Jace, Luke, and Joffrey. Each of them handsome, wise… Strong."

"Aemond," Alicent says carefully.

Jace exhales hard through his nose, fists tightening at his side as he tilts his head. He knows what Aemond wants—the knowledge should make it easier to ignore him, but somehow, it only makes the anger worse. Only hours ago, Vaemond had stood before the entire court and called his mother a whore, naming Jace and his brother bastards. His body has scarcely grown cold, and now Aemond stands beneath the same roof, moments after his dying father pleaded for unity, as he renews life to the accusation.

Aemond's lips curl up into a smug smile as he continues louder.

"Come," he announces, louder this time, ensuring that every person in the room hears him clearly, "let us drain our cups to these three Strong boys."

He should let it go. He should not give Aemond the reaction he wants.

"I dare you to say that again," Jace says before he can stop himself, raising his chin as he stares at Aemond.

Aemond raises his eyebrows with faux innocence.

"Why? It was only a compliment." Jace feels your fingers close around his wrist the moment he starts to move forward, and for a fleeting second, the touch stops him from doing something he cannot take back. Then Aemond meets his eyes directly and asks, "Do you not think yourself Strong?"

Jace tears his wrist from your grasp and drives his fist into Aemond's face before he can think better of it. Pain bursts across his knuckles, but the satisfaction Jace expects never comes. The moment his fist connects, the room erupts around him. Chairs scrape hard against stone as Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Alicent rise to their feet. Aegon slams Luke's face hard into the table when he rises to help Jace. Someone shouts Jace's name, telling him to stop. The twins scream in surprise. Jace hardly hears any of it, lunging forward again, only to be yanked backward.

"Enough, Jacaerys," you hiss, fingers digging hard into his bicep as you pull him back, shoving him hard when his gaze flits above your shoulder back to Aemond.

He turns toward you, chest heaving, because why is it he that you are telling enough? It is Aemond who started this, Aemond who all but called him and his brothers bastards for all to hear, Aemond who stands there smugly. Betrayed, he wonders, how could you take his side? Was he misreading everything after all? The shared look with Aegon, his arm around you in the training yard, entertains both brothers—

"Take Maegor and Maegelle back to their chambers," you say coolly, "before you make this worse than it already is."

For a moment, he can only stare at you in disbelief. He knows you are right to an extent—he is making a scene, and the last thing his family needs right now are more whispers circulating about them. Somewhere beneath the fury and betrayal, he knows it perfectly well, but the dismissal still burns with Aemond standing there watching, bloodied mouth curling into the start of another insufferable smile.

Then Daemon steps forward, gaze meeting his momentarily, as though daring him to defy you, before he steps between him and Aemond, his attention turning to the older prince instead.

Jace scoffs, looking away, and just as he is about to turn on his heel to leave, you reach out again, thumb pressing briefly against his pulse. You lean in this time as you speak, voice low enough that only he can overhear what you say: "You and I will talk later."

His anger falters, gaze searching yours before he finally nods, swallowing his pride and whatever protest is left lingering on his tongue as he obeys without argument.

————————————

Jace stands outside your door for nigh an hour trying to work up the courage to knock.

Ser Steffon Darklyn watches him with open curiosity from where he stands vigilant at your door. Every time Jace throws a vicious glare in his direction, the man averts his gaze back to the sprawling corridor leading to your chambers, and then he returns to observing Jace, not moments later, the next time he lifts his hand to knock and drops it back at his side.

Is it true? Do you favor Aegon and Aemond now? Have years away—

"My prince," Ser Steffon finally says, clearing his throat, and Jace's gaze lifts to the older man, cold. "Would you like me to announce your arrival to the princess?"

A sharp no is about to fly off his tongue when he hesitates, glancing at the door to your apartments one last time before he nods once, raising his chin and looking away.

He ignores the amused expression on Ser Steffon's face out of courtesy for you, because he knows that you have long favored the man for being the first to indulge your requests to learn the sword.

Ser Steffon knocks politely twice before he pushes the heavy door open and says, "Princess, the prince Jacaerys has been waiting outside your chambers for some time now. Would you see him?"

Jace flushes hot and fast, all courtesy for you disappearing as he glares wildly at the knight's back, because there was no reason for him to say he's been waiting for some time.

"Oh," he hears you say. The anger drains into nerves instantly as he raises his chin and stiffens slightly. "Let him in."

Jace exhales hard through his nose, gaze flicking up as Ser Steffon inclines his head before stepping to the side to allow Jace past. He gives the older man a serious side eye as he steps forward, but Ser Steffon ignores it, letting Jace into the room before shutting the door behind him.

Jace knows exactly what he's going to say: he's going to demand to know why it was him and not Aemond you told to back down earlier, he's going to ask if you are happy, he's going to tell you to let him know where his luck ends as you promised at supper.

Then, his gaze meets yours and you are wearing thin, silk night slip at your vanity, a platter of fruits before you, and every thought drifts away like dust in the wind. His lips part as he stares at you—the soft black fabric inching up your thigh, the strap threatening to slide down your shoulder, the way you tilt your head to the side curiously when you see how his pupils are suddenly blown wide as he stares at you.

Aggravation hits him just as swiftly as desire, because were you really dressed like this for that kingsguard of yours to see? Jace flushes hot as he looks around wildly before his gaze falls upon a robe draped over your dresser, he grabs it furiously and then tosses it at you.

"Put it on," he hisses. He hates the amused look you give him as you rise to your feet and slide the robe of your shoulders. It is hardly better, but Jace can actually bring himself to meet your eyes now. He demands, "You let your sworn shield see you dressed like that?"

You tilt your head. "It is not my fault you came to me when I was getting ready to sleep. I waited for you for three hours, mandianna—I resigned to bed because I figured you were upset and would not come."

Petulantly, Jace crosses his arms and raises his chin as he asks, "And why would I be so upset that I would not come?" simply because he wants to hear you say the answer.

You tilt your head with an amused smile. You say easily, "Because I sent you to your chambers after Aemond antagonized you."

Jace instantly points at you, vindicated. "And tell me, why should I be the one chastised when it was your half-brother who purposely reignited the rumors that were just put to question not hours before?"

"Because the realm expects more of you, Jacaerys," you say dryly without hesitation, taking a seat on the edge of your bed and motioning for him to join you. Jace falters at your words, shoulders slumping slightly, feet shuffling against the burgundy carpets as he makes his way over to you. "These rumors will be ignited and snuffed continuously throughout your life and reign. Do you plan to strike every courtier who dares reference your strength?"

Jace's eye twitches. "If they mean it as a slight concerning my—" His jaw tightens over the word parentage, unable to force it out. He finished simply, "Perhaps."

When you immediately give him a sidelong glance, he bristles in defense. He demands, "Do you think I forgot that you, yourself, said that we would meet such accusations with dragonfire, and you chastise me for striking?"

You raise your eyebrows, hand lifting to grab his chin firmly. Jace silences beneath your touch, breath catching when he feels how the blunt tips of your nail dig into his cheeks.

"No, you stupid boy," you say sharply. Jace thinks he should be offended by the insult, but he can hardly focus on anything besides the feeling your fingers hot against his skin and the fact that beneath the robe he handed you, you only wear a thin night slip. "I said that I would meet such accusations with dragonfire. You cannot afford such—”

You do not finish whatever you're about to say, hand dropping back to your side with an exhale, but Jace can imagine, swallowing thickly as he remembers your fury following the prank he, Aegon, and Luke played on Aemond. Shame coils low in his gut as he looks away.

"I should not have struck him," he finally says quietly, "but he deserved it."

You huff out a laugh through your nose. "He deserved far more than a strike," you say at last. "He is insolent. Alicent coddled him after what happened in Driftmark. He has become insufferable."

Jace hates the familiarity with which you speak of him. It makes his stomach turn, sourness building in the back of his throat. It is he and Luke and Joffrey you should be speaking of with such familiarity—not your half-brothers.

You do not even know Joffrey, Jace realizes, a lump in his throat. You do not know his favorite color or his favorite story, that he dislikes sweets and has taken to High Valyrian better than Jace ever did. You do not know Joffrey, or Aegon, or Viserys. It is not fair—none of this is fair.

"He is a prick," Jace mutters.

"That too," you agree, and Jace cannot help the smile that tugs at the corner of his lips as he looks down.

You rise to your feet. Jace's gaze shifts up questioningly, but you're making your way across the room to a table, you lift a flagon of wine and then look over your shoulder at him, lifting it and motioning toward him. Jace hesitates before he nods—you have never offered him wine before. The last time he remembers, Aegon had tried to slip him some as a joke at Lucerys's eighth nameday celebration, and you had slapped the back of his head so hard that his uncle had nearly cried.

"I have grown fond of it over the past few years," you say absently as you turn two goblets right side up and fill up both generously. "Wine, I mean. The gods know the twins drive me to it."

Jace is grateful for something to begin with, because he had struggling with how to approach the conversation he wants to have. He fixes his posture as you finish pouring the glasses and make your way back over to him.

He says, "They have grown." He winced at the observation—it has been eight years, obviously, they have grown. "You—" He cuts himself off abruptly, unsure how to phrase what he realizes he's about to say. Finally, he finishes, "You appear to have a good relationship with them."

I hate them sometimes, he remembers you crying to his mother nearly a decade before when Jace was not supposed to be listening. I wanted to love them the same way you loved Jacaerys—

You hum lightly as you pass him his goblet, and he fights a shiver when your fingers brush his. You do not respond right away, sitting back down carelessly at the top of the bed, relaxing back against the pillows.

Jace's throat spasms as he swallows a large gulp of the sweet Arbor Red. He has sat in bed with you hundreds of times before, but never with this type of intimacy—always two children curled up with one another, now you are both adults, sipping on wine, close enough to feel the heat on one another's skin. His chest is tight with nerves.

He could imagine this—life with you, life like this. Returning to his chambers after long days at court to you lounging in your robe against the pillows, smiling when you see him, a glass of wine in hand and another poured for him. He wants it desperately—more than he has ever wanted anything in his entire life.

"Children do tend to grow in eight years," you reply dryly as you take a long sip of your wine, not acknowledging the second half of his statement for a long moment. After what feels like an eternity, you finally smile wryly and tell him, "I struggled the first few years—to be a mother for them, that is."

"You were only a child yourself," Jace notes quietly. "You cannot be blamed."

Something softens in your face at his words—he wonders if anyone has ever acknowledged that beside his mother, or if they had simply placed two infants in your arms and expected you to be a mother for them, as though bringing two children into the world had somehow made you cease to be one yourself. Jace hates it—the idea of you being alone, struggling, drowning beneath expectations and exhaustion and no one around you willing to do everything Jace would have done without hesitation had he been allowed to be there.

"I was angry at them for a time," you admit after a long silence, staring into your wine. "I knew it wasn't their fault deep down, but I was—I was so weak after they were born, Jacaerys. I could barely walk without someone helping me. I could not climb stairs without feeling as though I might collapse. I could not ride. I could not fly. Zūgaxes would call for me, and I could not even get to him."

Jace knows this, but he doesn't dare interrupt you, gaze focused on the pinched corners of your mouth and the way your gaze lowers to your dark sheets.

He remembers seeing you at Driftmark during Lady Laena's funeral, remembers the way you could barely hold yourself up, the way your dresses were hanging from your shoulders, what you said to his mother when you thought the two of you were alone. He remembers the weariness in your eyes and the exhaustion plain on your face when you thought no one was looking, but he was always looking at you.

"Everyone kept telling me how fortunate I was," you continue, exhaling through your nose as you look away. "Two healthy babes. A son and daughter. They would place them in my arms and tell me how much I must love them, how happy I must be, and all I could think about was everything I could no longer do."

He wants to reach out for you. His fingers twitch in his lap as he holds his goblet carefully. Your free hand is not too far away—he could take it in his, entwine your fingers, squeeze it lightly.

I'm here, he wants to tell you, and if you want me to stay, I won't leave again.

"I tried to leave them behind and fly to Dragonstone once—after the birth," you tell him, drawing him from his thoughts. His hand settles back in his lap as his gaze lifts to the heavy expression on your face. "I did not even make it to the Blackwater before I fell unconscious upon Zuzu. I hadn't even been strapped in properly, because my fingers weren't strong enough to clip myself in. I would have fallen to my death had he not sensed when I lost conscious and turned around. I think I knew it was a risk when I was climbing atop him. I think a part of me would have preferred it."

He does not think you mean to say that last part aloud, because your expression immediately twists, and Jace feels sick. The wine he just sipped threatens to come up as he imagines you alone in the sky, barely conscious and too weak to properly secure yourself. What would have happened if Zūgaxes had not been able to get you back safely? Before he can stop himself, he imagines your hands slipping from his saddle, your body falling through open air. He imagines his mother receiving word on Dragonstone, and him—

"Do not say that," he whispers, jaw so tight that it is almost painful. "Do not say you would have preferred to die. I—I cannot—I do not want–"

Jace does not know a life without you. His first memories are of Vermax's green scales and the warmth of your arms around him. You have been the center of his life for as long as he can remember, and he has loved you just as long. You are as essential to him as air, water, food—there has never been a version of his world in which you did not exist somewhere within it, even during the two years of silence before Driftmark.

He would think of you every day, crying incessantly into his mother's skirts, demanding to know why you would not answer his ravens, what he had done to make you stop loving him. Rhaenyra would hold him while he sobbed himself sick, rubbing his back as he clung to her and begged her to bring you back. It had hurt, and not in the vague, aching way that people often spoke of missing someone, but in a way that manifested physically. His chest ached until it became difficult to breathe, and his stomach turned whenever he thought too long about the possibility that you had forgotten him. More than once, his mother had summoned Maester Geradys because she had been convinced Jace was falling ill. Those two years had nearly ruined him; he cannot imagine an eternity without you.

"Please," he finally says quietly, unable to even bring himself to meet your gaze. "Just—"

"Come here, mandianna," you murmur.

Jace comes without need for any more prompting, eyes sliding shut as you take the goblet from him and place it on your bedside table. Then your arms are around him, and Jace folds into you with a quickness that is more instinctual than anything else. For a fleeting second, he is ten years old again, small enough to bury himself against you and believe nothing terrible could happen as long as you held him tightly enough. His arms wind tightly around your waist, face pressing into the crook of your neck as you draw him closer, one hand settling against the back of his head.

He breathes you in—the familiar lavender and the faint trace of wine—his throat is painfully tight as he sinks into you.

"You have always been so sweet," you sigh into his hair, gently combing through the dark curls at the back of his neck, nails scratching his scalp lightly. Jace can hardly keep his eyes open as he presses his forehead to your warm skin. "So terribly sensitive."

Jace's eyes snap open as he pulls back just enough to frown at you, indignant. "You just spoke of—" He cannot finish the sentence, shaking his head as he protests, "I am not sensitive."

"Mm," you say, and you clearly do not believe him from the amused smile on your lips. "Of course not."

The amusement in your eyes is mortifying, suddenly painfully aware that he is still clinging to you with his face tucked to your neck. He releases you reluctantly, clearing his throat as he sits upright.

"You do not sound as though you believe me," Jace scowls, looking away.

This is not how this was supposed to go. He had come here determined to make you see him differently. He had spent the entire evening testing the boundaries between you, trying to prove that he was no longer the little boy who followed you everywhere and pretended to be asleep so you would carry him around. He wanted you to look at him and see a man—a man capable of protecting you, loving you, satisfying you, a man worthy of being called your husband.

Instead, within half an hour of entering your chambers, he has nearly cried in your arms. Wonderful.

"Pouting does not befit you, mandianna," you tease, leaning in to press your lips to his temple briefly before you reach for the goblet of wine you put to the side so that you could comfort him. He reaches for his own too, desperately in need of something to numb the embarrassment he feels. "Anyway, it has been a long time since then, Jacaerys. You do not need to worry; I do not feel that way anymore."

"What changed?" he asks you quietly, not daring to ask the question he really wants to know: are you happy now?

You stare at him inexplicably for a moment, as though you do not know how to answer, and then you smile lightly and turn your back to him, shuffling through the drawer near your bed to pull out two pieces of parchment.

The one you first show him is familiar—his cheeks heat up when he recognizes the drawing you set before him. He had forgotten it, or, rather, he had simply assumed it had been discarded years ago. The parchment is faded now, worn and yellowed with time, but the childish figures drawn across it remain unmistakable.

You stand at the center, a mess of scribbles and a big smile. Luke stands on one side of you and Jace stands at the other, both of them holding your hands with arms so long that it would be unsettling in reality. Rhaenyra and Laenor are squeezed into the remaining space, Rhaenyra little more than a head with an enormous crown and legs beneath her, and Laenor drawn absurdly tall, his smile taking up nearly half of his face. Above the five of you, several messily drawn dragons circle beneath a violently yellow sun.

Jace vaguely remembers making it. He and Luke had found you crying in one of the gardens after you thought everyone had gone to dinner. Neither of them had understood why, and you had wiped your face the moment you saw them, insisting nothing was wrong, but Jace had known better, so he and Luke had disappeared into his chambers armed with parchment and charcoal to make a gift for you.

Luke had drawn himself and Laenor, and Jace had drawn himself and Rhaenyra. They had argued terribly over who would draw you until Luke accidentally snapped his charcoal in half and solved the matter entirely. He remembers presenting it to you with Luke and telling you the same thing you had told them both dozens of times before: it is okay to be sad, so long as you are never sad alone.

"You kept this?" he asks with what he intends to be a laugh, but comes out too weak. "After all this time?"

"Of course," you say quietly, an unreadable expression on your face as you stare down at it. "Whenever I felt alone, I would take it out and remind myself that somewhere, there were people who loved me enough to draw me wildly disproportionate." Jace laughs, swallowing thickly as he looks up at you, heart fluttering at the soft expression on your face as you stare down at the picture. "It made me smile, even when I was sad."

He wants to reach out for you again, fingers twitching at his side. After a moment's hesitation, he does, slipping his hand into yours and entwining your fingers. His pulse pounds, half expecting you to pull away, but you do not, squeezing lightly as you finally show him the other piece of parchment.

"That's—" he begins, surprised, cutting himself off.

It's a replica of his and Luke's drawing, except a bit more sloppily drawn with two more tiny figures wedged on either side of you, each with a wild scribble of silver hair and big smiles.

"Maegelle said that I only smiled when I was looking at your drawing," you say quietly. "She and Maegor did not even know who any of you were then—I… I rarely spoke to them outside of when it was absolutely necessary. They only knew that these people made their mother happy, and they decided if they added themselves to the picture, perhaps they could make me happy too."

Jace does not know how to reply to that, staring down at the two little figures crudely squeezed into the new version of the drawing. He imagines the two children studying the first drawing, trying to understand why a bunch of scribbled strangers they had never met could make their mother smile when they could not, and rather than resent those strangers for possessing some piece of you that remained beyond their reach, they had simply decided to join them.

"I was awful to them, Jacaerys," you admit, voice breaking, and Jace hates seeing you like this. Hates seeing you sad. Hates the reminder that you have spent ten years alone, suffering, and he was stuck across the Blackwater, unable to do anything about it. He wants to wipe away your tears and hold you close the same way you did for him for years, but he doesn't know if you would let him. "When Maegelle cried, I would hand her off to Melynda and tell her to leave the room until she stopped crying. When Maegor reached for me, I would walk away. They didn't understand why I kept pushing them away, no matter how hard they tried to be near me, and they still only ever wanted me to be happy."

"Are you?" he finally dares to ask, voice little more than a breath. "Are you happy?"

You stare at him for a long moment, lips parting as though to answer, but no words leave them. Jace's heart is pounding again. What answer does he want to hear? Selfishly, he thought he wanted you to say no, so that he could be your knight in shining armor, your prince from a fairytale who would swoop you off your feet and carry you off to a brighter future.

Now, he isn't so sure, because the idea of you being unhappy for a decade, forced to content yourself with life so that you do not climb back onto Zūgaxes's back, knowing you might fall, makes him terribly sick.

"I love the twins," you finally say, thumb pressing over the little silver-haired figure that Jace assumes is Maegelle, if only because the hair is slightly longer than the other. "Even when they drive me mad. I have Zūgaxes. I can fly again. I can walk without someone hovering behind me—most days at least. Some days are still… difficult."

But are you happy? Jace wonders, a treacherous flicker of hope stirring inside him when he realizes you didn't mention Aegon.

"And Aegon?" he finally asks. His uncle's name tastes bitter in his mouth, and Jace feels your fingers tense between his. He watches you carefully, thumb stilling against your hand. He forces himself to press, "What of him? Does he make you happy?"

There it is again—that calculating expression you had worn earlier when his double-meaning words edged on too plainly spoken. Jace feels as though he has stepped onto dangerously thin ice, but instead of retreating, he finds himself leaning closer.

"Does he treat you right? Does he love you?" he murmurs, watching your face carefully. "Does he make you feel wanted?"

"Jacaerys," you start to say, voice low with warning.

Jace is undeterred. Perhaps it is the wine you gave him, the light buzz finally reaching his head, giving him all the confidence he needs to press the subject, or perhaps he is just desperate after having been plagued with uncertainty all day and all evening, but he cannot bring himself to back down.

"It is a simple question," he tells you quickly.

"No," you say quietly. "It is not."

His heart begins to pound. "Tell me," he insists. "Tell me that he loves you as he should. Tell me that he makes you happy. Tell me that you have never wanted for anything from him."

"This is none of your business," you tell him firmly, slipping your hand from his instead of answering. His skin tingles where yours had once been flush against his, and Jace's throat bobs as he tries to figure out what to do—should he press? Should he drop it? "You have no right to question me about my marriage."

"Why not?" he asks boldly, making his decision the moment he sees that dull expression from earlier in the night briefly cross your face again as your gaze flicks away.

"Why not?" you echo, giving him a disbelieving look.

"Yes," he says, agitated and unrepentant. "Why shouldn't I care whether or not you are happy?"

"That is not what I said," you sigh, shaking your head. "You are being deliberately obtuse."

"Then why don't you answer my question?"

"Because I do not owe you the details of my marriage, Jacaerys."

"I'm not asking for the details."

"Then what are you asking for?"

"I am asking for a simple answer," he tells you, reaching for your hands again, taking them both in his. He shifts onto his knees and leans in slightly, forcing you to look him in the eye. "Tell me. If he loves you, if he makes you happy, if he gives you everything you want, then it is an easy answer. I will never ask again."

It is a lie—he knows it the moment the words leave his mouth. He would ask himself every day for the rest of his life. He would lie awake wondering whether Aegon had touched you gently that evening, whether he had made you laugh, whether Jace might have had he been in his position instead. He would torture himself with knowledge that another man possessed everything Jace has wanted since he was old enough to understand wanting at all.

But he would leave you alone. If you told him that Aegon made you happy, Jace would bury whatever foolish hope had begun to take root inside of him today. He would accept that whatever he wanted from you could never be his and content himself with whatever place in your life you were willing to give him.

"What does it matter?" you finally ask him, shaking your head. He can see your defenses dropping in real time as you consider his question, a hopeless expression settling over your face as you look away from him again, but you do not pull your hands back. "What would it change, Jacaerys? If I told you that this marriage isn't what I'd wished, what would you do with that answer?"

Jace stares at you, and for one terrible moment, his mind goes completely blank of all of things he would do, everything that would change if you would just tell him what he needs to hear.

"Everything," he finally breathes out, pulse pounding, breath unsteady as his fingers tighten around yours. "I would do everything. Anything. I would—I could make you happy, muña."

"Jacaerys—" you start to say.

"I could," he insists. The words come louder this time, almost frantic, as though if he can only make you understand, everything will suddenly become simple. "I know I could. I know a part of you still looks at me and sees the boy I was when you left, but I'm not. I know I could be what you need."

"You do not know what you're saying," you say, shaking your head, but Jace's grip on your hands tightens. He shifts closer, desperate, knees pressing against yours as he tries to force you to hear him. "Jacaerys—"

"I do," he insists. His chest rising and falling too quickly, every shred of caution he possessed earlier in the evening abandoning him now. He has spent hours wondering how far you would let him go, months preparing for this moment, years fantasizing it. He cannot hide it anymore. He breathes, "I would be good to you. I would make you feel wanted. I would make certain you never have to wonder whether you are loved. I would never speak of you the way he did tonight. I would never treat loving you as though it were some burden I had been forced to carry."

Your lips part as you stare at him. He is so close to you that he can almost feel your breath on his lips, can see the way your pupils widen ever so slightly as you stare at him.

"I would choose you. Every day, I would choose you," he tells you softly, hands tightening around yours. "So tell me, what I am supposed to do, how I am meant to sit beside you and watch you be unhappy when I know—when I know that if you would only just let me—" He stops, swallowing hard. "I could make you happy."

You pull your hands away from his, and Jace feels cold, rejection spreading like ice through his veins as you shake your head and rise from the bed, stepping away from him.

"You do not know what you're saying," you say again, quieter.

Distantly, he recognizes that there is a distinct lack of conviction in your voice, that it seems more like you are trying to convince yourself than him, but it does not quell the rage that suddenly rises in his chest.

You still see him as a child.

"I am not a child anymore," he hisses, frustrated, rising to his feet, quick and angry.

"I did not say you were."

"You do not have to," he snaps, following you when you turn away from him. He grabs your wrist and forces you to face him again. He can feel your pulse hammering beneath his fingers when they circle your wrist. "You still look at me and see the boy who I was. I want you to look at me and see me."

"Jacaerys," you say, pleading for him to listen. "It would not change that I am married. It would not change that Aegon is my husband. What is it you want from me?"

"You," he answers before he can stop to think if maybe there is a better way of phrasing this. You stare at him, expression unsettlingly blank. "I want you. Gods, what do you think I have been trying to tell you?"

You swallow thickly, lips parting, but Jace barrels on before you can shut him down.

"I know that you are married." His voice rises with his frustration. "I know he is your husband. I know all of it, and I have spent years knowing it, and it has not made me want you any less."

"I do not know what you expect me to do."

"I don't know either!" The admission bursts from him, raw and almost angry. Jace drags a hand through his hair as he turns away for half a heartbeat to take in a shuddered breath before facing you again. A part of him had thought that once he confessed what he felt for you, everything would fall into place—that you would know what to do, as you always have."I don't know. I thought—I don't know." He laughs once, shaking his head, breathless and bitter. "I thought if I told you, perhaps I would know what came next. Or you would. Gods, I don’t know. But I cannot keep pretending that it does not ruin me to see you with someone who does not deserve you. To stand there and watch him take for granted what I have wanted for as long as I can remember and act as though it does not tear me apart. And then tonight—everything I felt before it was worse—stronger—because he was insufferable, and you kept looking at me like—" He stops himself, shaking his head. "You let me touch you. You knew what I meant when we danced. You knew what I was doing."

"I should have stopped you," you rasp, voice weak, catching over the words. "I—"

"But you didn't," Jace interrupts, taking a step closer, taking your hands in his again, "why didn't you?"

You stare at him so helplessly that Jace knows your answer without you even having to say anything.

"Muña," he breathes , trying to get you to listen to him. "Let me make you happy. Please. Kostilus."

Your eyes are wide, lips parted around a breath that never seems to come, and Jace waits, heart beating rapidly in his chest. He waits for you to tell him no, waits for you to order him from your chambers and finally draw the boundary he has spent the entire evening recklessly searching for.

You do none of those things. Instead, his tongue darts out to wet his lips, and your gaze drops to his mouth. It is only for a heartbeat, perhaps less, but Jace sees it nonetheless, and whatever remains of his good sense abandons him entirely.

It all happens too quickly, all that desperate courage he has gathered over the course of the evening propels him forward before he has the slightest idea what he is doing. His nose bumps awkwardly against yours, and his mouth catches the corner of your lips instead of landing properly upon them.

Jace freezes, mortification washing over him. Neither of you moves for a horrible second, and he thinks, humiliated, that of all the ways he imagined this moment over the years, never once had he considered the possibility that he might fuck it up.

Then, you inhale sharply, turning your face toward his just enough that your lips brush his, and Jace stops breathing. His world narrows to that single point of contact between the two of you.

His hand rises to your cheek, trembling as his palm settles against your warm skin. This time, when he closes the distance, he does it slowly, eyes remaining fixed upon yours until his mouth presses to yours, your lips soft and sweet against his own. He braces himself for you to pull away, for you to tilt the lower half of your face out of reach. You do not.

Jace kisses you properly now. It is still too clumsy for his liking. He cannot figure out how to pace himself for the life of him. Too hesitant at first, then too eager when the realization finally crashes over him that this is you beneath his hands, your lips against his. He can taste the wine on your tongue, and the fruit from the platter you were picking at before he arrived.

Years of longing and an entire day of restraint unravel in the space of a heartbeat as he tilts your head back to kiss you deeper. His other hand finds your hip by instinct, drawing your body closer to his, and your breath hitches against his mouth. Jace kisses you until his lungs burn and his head feels light, and even then, he kisses you still, terrified that the moment he stops, you will send him away.

"I am sorry," he breathes when he is finally forced to part his lips from your, forehead resting against yours, breath ragged as he tries to catch it. He does not know what he's apologizing for. Kissing you? He is not sorry for that, and you certainly know it from the way he's holding you. His eyes are wide and searching as he tries to figure out where your mind is at. His thumb strokes helplessly along your cheek, gaze dropping back to your lips. "I should not have—I only thought you—"

His words dissolve into a low moan in the back of his throat when you press your lips against his this time. Jace's whole body feels hot and shaky. Your hands find his waist, and his lashes flutter when your lips move slowly against his, easing them open so that you might trace your tongue along the inside of his mouth.

Jace wonders if he is dreaming—a pleasant, wine-induced dream, and he would wake up in the morning hot and aching desperately for you, cursing himself for allowing his imagination to conjure something so terribly convincing.

But then your fingers tighten on his waist, and you pull him closer until his slim body is flush to yours, and Jace knows that it is real because no dream has ever felt like this before.

A shuddered breath escapes him against your lips, something between disbelief and relief, and whatever hesitation had seized him moments before disappears. You are kissing him. You are kissing him. He had stopped, apologized, given you every opportunity to push him away, and instead you closed the distance yourself.

He has imagined this dozens, hundreds of times before, but nothing could have prepared him for the reality of having you like this, of having your lips on his, feeling your chest heaving and pulse pounding. Jace is dizzy with need—it is not enough, he has to have you in full.

His hands lift to your face, cupping your cheeks, tilting your head back as he kisses you again. A second time. A third. Needy and eager, you can hardly keep up with him, hands curled around his tunic, holding him close as he presses his mouth to yours like he wants to devour you. It is not enough.

"Muña," he breathes into your mouth, pulling your body closer so that he can feel you flush to him. He walks you backward until your back hits the cool stone wall of your chambers, and his lips slide messily from yours to your cheek, along the line of your jaw until he can kiss down your throat. "I just want you to be happy. I want to make you feel good."

The words aren't meant to come out as desperate as they do, pleading, begging you to just let him help you be happy, but you shiver against him all the same.

"Jacaerys," you gasp, breath hitching as he slides your robe off your shoulders, letting it drop to the ground at your feet. He lets out a low moan into the skin of your neck, fingers toying with the thin strap of your night slip. "I—"

"I will stay, if you'd let me," he continues, lashes fluttering as his teeth graze your collarbone. One hand lifts to entwine with your hair so he can tilt your head back gently, kissing back up the line of your throat until his lips hover above yours, eyes searching as he continues, "My mother plans to return to Dragonstone with the rest in the morning, but I will stay. With you. As I promised all those years ago. You only need say the word."

He does not know what the look in your eyes means as you stare at him. He hates that—hates there was once a time where he could look at you and know what you exactly what you were thinking, and hates that the privilege now seems to belong to Aegon.

He kisses you again, harder this time, deeper—if he cannot convey himself in words, he will do it through actions. He will kiss you hard enough that anytime you kiss another, you will only think of how perfectly his lips slotted against yours, deep enough so that you will taste him on your tongue when your husband tries to take your bed.

He lets out a low moan into your mouth as he drags his tongue along the roof of your mouth, the inside of your lips, gliding along your tongue. It is messier than he has imagined it in times past—when he would fist his cock pretending your lips were on his, he was kissing you slow and careful. Now, spit slicks around his lips and yours, and each breath of his is wet and ragged. He sucks your bottom lip into his mouth and rolls it between his teeth.

It is not enough, he thinks, kissing sloppily down your neck again, arms winding around your waist. He needs more.

"Jacaerys," you breathe his name again, and his gaze lifts to your face.

There is a haziness to your eyes that drives him crazy, a need that is only reflected in his own.

You want him, he thinks, inhaling shakily as his fingers bite into the skin at your waist. You want him as desperately as he wants you.

Before he can lose his courage, his hands slide up the curves of your body to shift the thin straps of your nightslip over your shoulders. His throat bobs, breath not reaching his lungs as he leans back just enough to watch as he lowers the slip from your body. The fabric catches briefly on your arms before sliding lower, and Jace's hands still, eyes sliding shut.

For all the times he has imagined this, he suddenly finds himself terrified to look.

It is ridiculous. He has conjured half a hundred different versions of you in the privacy of his chambers, pieced together by his traitorous imagination, but none of those fantasies had ever accounted for the sheer enormity of actually standing before you now. Of being allowed to see you. Of knowing that when he finally lowers his gaze, it will no longer be something imagined.

"Mandianna?"

His eyes reopen at last, and all the breath leaves his lungs in one fell swoop.

You are beautiful. The thought is almost painfully inadequate. He steps forward just enough to reach out for you again, fingers skimming along the bare skin of your waist, the curve of your hip. He has always known you were beautiful. He knew it when he was young and possessed no understanding of why he couldn't stop himself from giggling and hiding his face whenever you smiled at him. He knew it when he would have fits of irritation whenever a bard implied any noble lady other than you was the most beautiful woman in the room. He knew it in Driftmark, even when your eyes were tired and your body was weak and everyone around him said you looked closer to corpse than woman. He knew it when he saw you in the throne room earlier today, and for one humiliating moment, he had forgotten how to breathe. This is different.

"Gods," he whispers.

You tilt your head. "Is something wrong?"

"No." The answer comes so quickly that you laugh, and Jace flushes. "No, I—"

He fumbles for words. His hands continue their absent exploration, tracing the lines of your body with reverence. His gaze flicks up to your face, searching for the slightest sign you want him to stop, but you remain where you are.

"Iksā gevie," he breathes at last, and your expression softens.

You are beautiful.

Jace leans forward and kisses you again, gentler now. There is none of the frantic desperation from moments before, only the lingering wonder that you are really here, really allowing him to do this.

Then, the moment is ruined.

Aegon has seen you like this. The thought strikes him with enough force that his stomach twists, and he has to tilt the lower half of his face away from yours, parting from you as his jaw tightens. He cannot even relish in the fact that you find yourself chasing after his lips before he catches himself grimacing.

But now that the thought has crossed his mind, he cannot push it away. It sours inside him, curdling the sanctity of this moment.

Aegon has stood where he stands now. Aegon has known every part of you that Jace is only now discovering. Aegon's hands have been dozens, hundreds of times, where his only just touched for the first time. Eight years of marriage in which his uncle has been permitted an intimacy with you that Jace had only allowed himself to dream of.

"What is it?" you ask him, one hand coming up to his chin, tilting his face up so that he is looking at you.

"Nothing."

You tilt your head with an indulgent smile. "Jacaerys."

He exhales sharply through his nose, scowling as he looks away. It is foolish. He has you in front of him, bare and wanting, as he has dreamed, and instead of savoring in the moment, he is allowing your wretched husband to invade it.

"Does he tell you?" he asks you quietly. "That you're beautiful? Does he even know how fortunate he is to call you his wife?"

He would, Jace thinks darkly, if he knew the lengths Jace is willing to go to call you his.

Your lips part as you stare at him. Before you can dismiss the question with another shake of your head, he leans to ghost his lips against yours, relishing in the way you falter.

"Tell me," he murmurs against your lips. "Please, muña. I need to know."

"Enough of this, Jacaerys," you finally say roughly, turning your face away from his. Jace does not mind. He kisses you still, trailing his lips gently along your cheek, to your ear, down the length of your neck, easing the words from you. "He prefers whores. He only comes to me when he has indulged in a cup of wine."

Jace's mouth stills against your skin. He does not know why the words both anger and please him. He is glad that you do not lie with one another as frequently as he feared, you do not seek each other for pleasure as you do in his nightmares, but—but how dare he prefer whores to you? How dare he have the right to call you his wife, the right to your bed, arms, and cunt, and he still seeks out other women? If it were Jace—

If it were Jace, if it were Jace, if it were Jace.

"How often?"

"Jacaerys," you warn, voice low.

"Please, muña," he says again, glancing up at you. "I just want to know."

You relent when he looks up at you with beckoning eyes. You have always been weak for him when he looks at you like that, always struggled to deny him anything when he turns his eyes up to you, wide and pleading—he has taken advantage of it for as long as he could remember, and he takes advantage of it now.

You press your lips together and say, "Often enough."

Jace's blood runs hot. "And when he does?"

You sigh, tilting your head back against the stone, patience waning, and Jace quits while he's already behind, not wanting to risk an argument while you're bare and wanting in his arms for the first time. He busies himself at your neck again, kissing down the length of your throat slowly, fingers stroking the skin at your hip.

"It makes me angry," he admits, voice muffled slightly against your skin as he nips and licks at your neck. He continues lower, lashes fluttering as he trails open-mouthed kisses between the valley of your breasts. "Worse, really. There is no word that can articulate how it feels knowing that mongrel has everything I have ever wanted and treats you with such—" He cuts himself off abruptly, resting his forehead against your collarbone. "I only wish to see you treated as you deserve. I—"

I wish to be the one to treat you that way.

He does not give you the opportunity to respond again, lips finding your skin, mouth wandering lower. He presses lingering kisses along your skin—an apology for every careless touch you have endured because he was too young to do anything when your father handed you off to Aegon. He wants you to understand the difference without having to put it into words—that there is nowhere he would rather be, there is no woman in the world he would prefer to be abed with than you.

Your fingers slip uncertainly into his dark curls when he lowers himself to his knees before you.

"Jacaerys," you say hesitantly, and Jace glances up. The sight of you looking down at him with furrowed brows nearly steals what little courage he has managed to build up. "What are you doing?"

Jace does not fully know himself. The only experience he has comes from the poorly written romances he'd managed to sneak from Rhaena when she wasn't paying attention and the increasingly indecent conversations he had overheard from the men around him as he grew older, boasting crudely over cups of lovers beneath them, thighs closed tight around their ears—the pleasure a man can give with naught but his mouth—but he had always flushed and looked away, feigning disinterest. He wishes now that he had listened more.

Once or twice, he had considered visiting a pleasure house. He had even convinced himself it would be sensible—to learn what he was doing before he ever found himself in the position he is now. But every time he seriously entertained the idea, his stomach turned. The idea of touching another woman, of kissing her, of sinking inside her and pretending it was you beneath his hands, made his skin crawl.

So he has remained hopelessly inexperienced, despite what he might have implied at supper earlier.

"Trust me," is all he says, hoping you cannot hear the uncertainty behind the words. He press another soft kiss against your skin, a second to your inner thigh as he eases your legs apart. He cannot breathe at the sight of your cunt so close to his face, half-convinced this might be a dream. "I just want to make you feel good. Let me try, muña."

He does not wait for you to second guess him, dragging his lips from your skin to the apex of your thighs, warmth breath ghosting over you. Your breath hitches, entire body tensing, and before he can lose his nerves, Jace buries his face between your thighs. His breath hitches the moment his mouth is on you, savoring in the taste of you, the scent of you, the warmth of you. His fingers bite deep into the plush skin of your thighs to hold you still, and Jace's lashes flutter as he drags his tongue between your folds, lapping at you desperately before he presses the tip of his tongue to your hole.

"Oh," he hears you breathe, thighs tensing beneath his touch, hips jerking against his face. His eyes slide shut momentarily as he relishes in the sound of the soft noises spilling from your lips above him—gasps and moans and whines caught in the back of your throat. "I—What—what are you—"

Instead of answering, he shifts one of your thighs so that it rests on his shoulder so that he might bury his tongue deeper inside of you, and you choke on your words. His eyes flick upward, wide and searching, to watch the way your chest heaves, head tilted back against the stone, lips swollen and slick from Jace's own mouth, trying to figure out what you like.

Jace has spent years dreaming of this, he thinks for the dozenth that night. Years imagining the moment he could touch you, hold you, kiss you, lay with you; none compares to having you writhing against his mouth, cunt grinding on his tongue.

How could Aegon ever be with another after seeing you in the throes of pleasure like this? Jace would suffocate between your thighs if it meant he would die with the sound of your pretty moans in his ears.

Unless—unless Aegon has never seen you like this?

Heat rushes low—his trousers have been painfully tight from the moment his lips first touched yours, but he aches now, lungs burning as his hips jerk slightly, rutting against air as he seeks out friction. He parts his lips from your cunt just long enough to suck in a gulp of air to his lungs before latching back onto you, tongue sweeping between your soaked folds, lapping at your slick before he sucks the small little bud at the front of your cunt into his mouth.

The cry that spills from your lips is music to his ears, gaze flying up as your back arches against the wall, hips rocking against his face, your heel digging into his mid-back. The hand you buried in his hair twists at the dark locks painfully, your other scratching at the stone behind you, and his eyes half-roll back at the stinging to his scalp.

There is no way, he realizes, the image of you writhing on his tongue seared behind his eyelids as his eyes slide shut so that he can focus on eating you in earnest. He groans into you, one hand tight around your thigh, the other fisting your ass to pull you impossibly closer. There is no way Aegon has ever seen you like this, had you like this, because if he had, he would never go to another.

Jace is the only one who gets to see you like this.

Jace is the only one who gets to have you like this.

"Jacaerys," you gasp, voice breathy, hitching over his name, thighs trembling around his head. "Please."

Jace's gaze snaps back up toward you. He's panting as he pulls his mouth from your cunt, savoring the keening noise that spills from your lips.

Distantly, he knows that this is reckless. He knows that Ser Steffon is right outside your door, and he can likely hear everything happening behind your doors. He knows that you are married, and he knows the consequences for both of you would be dire if someone walked in while his face is buried in your cunt.

Still, he says hoarsely what you have told him dozens of times before, "Ivestragon ziry drējī."

Say it correctly.

You stare at him, eyes wide and lips parted in disbelief, and a thrill runs through him, grip tightening on your thighs, breath ghosting hot over your cunt. He wants so badly to drown himself in the taste of you again, tongue darting out to lap at the slickness on his lips and chin, but he refrains, waiting.

"Kostilus," you finally breathe out, voice shaky, fingers trembling in his hair. They slip down the slope of his nose, resting on his lips, and Jace's lips part instinctively, lashes fluttering as he takes your two fingers into his mouth. "Kostilus, Jacaerys."

Jace's vision flashes white as he moans around your fingers, hips rutting forward against air again. Your fingers slip from his mouth so he can dive forward again, sloppily dragging his tongue between your folds, fucking it deep into your hole before he kisses messily up your cunt to the sensitive bud that makes you writhe.

He's mortified when his abdomen tightens and his hips jerk one final time, and he recognizes the familiar, sticky warmth suddenly seeping through his trousers, but he's so lost in the taste and feel of you that all he can do is hold you tighter, panting as you grind your hips against his face and he desperately tries to kee up.

You're keening above him, pretty, pitched moans that make him dizzy—because he's making you feel like this. He is. Not your husband, not Aemond, not anyone—only him.

He wants to feel you fall apart on his tongue, wants you to grab his hair and rock your hips against his face, use him—he wants you to use him however you see fit. Take him for everything he has and more.

Jace knows that you are married. He knows he cannot ask you for what he wants yet because he does not know how to achieve it, cannot yet find the courage to tell you how desperately he needs to be the man you choose before all others. He wants to be your husband—he wants to be your husband so bad that it kills him sometimes to know that the path getting there will be a long, difficult one.

But Jace is patient. He has waited a decade to be reunited with you, he will wait a decade more to wed you, if need be.

If this is all you can give him for now, he will take it. He will accept being something can only exist in stolen moments behind closed doors, beneath sheets in the dead of night, in sweat slicked skin and breathy moans, if it means that one day he might have the right to love you openly and call you his wife.

"Hah—" you gasp, thighs trembling on either side of his head. Jace suddenly understands why men always sounded so proud of themselves when they spoke of having their women wanton and writhing on their tongue. He is so drunk off the taste of you, the sound of your pleasure, that he hardly cares that his lungs burn. "I'm—I think—I'm going—"

Jace's gaze cuts upward, jaw falling half slack as he watches you come undone above him. You cry his name, fisting his hair and grinding your cunt against his mouth, and Jace thinks he finishes a second time untouched, cock twitching in his trousers, seed dripping down his thighs.

His fingers loosen on your thighs, thumbs easing circles into your skin as he returns to lapping at your cunt, careful not to let a single drop of you go to waste. His lashes flutter as he dares to suck your bud into his mouth again, only for you to start squirming and tugging at his hair.

"Jacaerys," you gasp, trying to pull your hips away, but Jace follows, tongue swirling circles, dragging between your folds. He dips it back into your hole to feel the way it tightens around him, and his mind goes blank as he imagines his cock in its place. "J—mandianna, stop—hold on, it's too sensitive. Jacaerys!"

Jace only pulls back when your voice sharpens and your heel kicking hard into his back twice, eyes a bit hazy as he looks up at you. Your expression softens at the sight of him. He wonders how much of a mess he must look right now—on his knees before you, chest heaving with every breath, face flushed, lips swollen and chin slick, hair a tangled mess from where your fingers had been tugging it.

One of your hands, still trembling, drops to his face, cradling his cheek gently. You tilt his face up, and Jace leans helplessly into your palm, turning his face just enough to press a kiss to the center of it.

"I meant what I said," he tells you, voice hoarse, eyes searching your face. "I'll stay. You need only say the word, muña. You do not have to be alone anymore."

It would be a dangerous game, he realizes. One day with you—in the throne room, at the training yard, during supper—had been enough for him to nearly expose the two of you before there was even anything to expose.

What would become of the two of you after days of stolen glances and nights spent slipping unnoticed into one another's chambers? How long before his hand lingered where it should not, before someone noticed the way his eyes followed you through every room, before the whispers that already plagued the family found fresh fodder?

Jace watches the same realization cross your face and his heart sinks. Your expression turns distant and calculating as you consider every risk he has been too desperate to care about.

"Say something," he murmurs.

Your eyes meet his again at last. "We will talk in the morning."

His heart sinks. "Muña—"

"In the morning, Jacaerys," you repeat, softer this time, thumb brushing once across his cheek. "When neither of us has wine in our blood, and you have had time to consider what you are asking of me."

Jace wants to protest that he has had eight years to consider it. Instead, he presses his lips to your palm again and nods, rising to his feet so that he might guide you to the bed.

Perhaps it is for the best, he thinks, that despite everything that has transpired tonight, the two of you have not gone any further. His gaze drops briefly before returning to yours.

"We should be careful," he murmurs. "If this is to continue."

Your brows lift slightly. "You have only just discovered caution?"

Jace almost smiles. "I mean it. I will not make the same mistake my mother did." His expression sobers. "I will not put a child in you who bears my face and leave you to answer for it."

Your entire expression changes. "Jacaerys."

He mistakes the sharpness in your voice for offense—perhaps he was being too presumptuous, you could very well tell him this will never happen again come morning. The thought makes his stomach turn violently.

"I only meant—"

"You were not a mistake." Jace goes still, throat bobbing as he stares down at you. "Do not speak of yourself that way—or your mother, for that matter."

Jace makes a bitter noise in the back of his throat—a scoff, maybe a laugh, and then he speaks out loud the words that have haunted him for as long as he's known he does not look like his father. "You cannot tell me that no one thought it. That there was not some immediate disappointment—regret—when I came into the world with brown hair and brown eyes instead of silver and violet."

You have the nerve to laugh at him, and when he shoots you an accusing look, you only grab his hand so that you can ghost your lips to his knuckles.

"Mandianna," you say fondly. "Tomorrow morning, I want you to ask your mother what my reaction was when I saw you for the first time. She will tell you."

Jace falters, fingers tensing against yours as he gives you a questioning look, but you only raise your eyebrows, signaling you will say no more.

He sighs and looks away, "I only mean to say that I do not want my son to go through what I have. Nor do I want you to go through what my mother has."

"I know," you soothe, running your thumb over his knuckles before releasing his hand. "We will talk in the morning. I would ask you to stay, but the twins rise with the sun and enjoy waking their disgruntled father with them, so Aegon tends to appear at my door shortly after sunrise to deposit them here so that he might return to his own bed. I would rather not risk him finding you in mine."

Jace's jaw tightens at the reminder of your husband, hating the domestic image that comes to mind—Aegon with sleep trussed hair and tired eyes, two children at his heel, showing up to your door with a yawn so he might return to sleep.

It should be him, he thinks despondently. It should be him with your children, him who can be with you when the sun is high, him as your husband. Not Aegon.

"Of course," he finally says, voice strained. Then he swallows as his gaze lifts to yours, tone softening as he tells you, "I missed you a lot, muña."

"I missed you too, mandianna," you say quietly. "Go rest. We will figure everything out."

Jace does not think he's going to get a wink of sleep, but he nods anyway, inclining his head slightly before he makes his way to your door.

He takes one last lingering look at you, hesitating when he sees the distant expression on your face as soon as you think his back is turned, and then he inhales deeply before lowering his gaze and leaving your chambers, an ache in his chest that already feels unbearable.

If Ser Steffon heard anything from the other side of the door, he gives no indication of it beyond the faintly awkward look that crosses his face when Jace steps into the corridor, wiping at the lower half of his face.

Jace answers it with a vicious glare before hurrying away.

————————————

"Jacaerys," his mother demands when he finally makes his way to the courtyard, where she, Daemon, his brothers and cousins are all waiting. It is hours past dawn—they were supposed to leave for Dragonstone as soon as the sun breached the horizon. "Where have you been? We've been waiting for you."

Jace's jaw tightens as he walks past his mother without a word to the horse the stable boys readied for him. He has been trying to rationalize your absence for hours. He had waited in the godswood and the gardens, lingered near the training yard and the library; he was desperate to catch so much as a glimpse of your familiar smile. He did not dare go to your chambers.

You had promised. You had sworn to him that you would speak in the morning, and Jace had hardly slept because of it. He alternated between wild hope and sickening dread as he imagined every possible outcome of the conversation awaiting him. He paced the corridors of the keep and stared up at the moon above until his eyes were heavy and circled, but he could not bring himself to return to his chambers.

Finally, morning had come, but you were nowhere to be found. You are avoiding him.

The thought has been festering inside him for hours, growing uglier each time he searches another part of the keep for you. Perhaps sobreity had brought regret with it, he thinks with a lump in his throat. Perhaps you had wakened this morning and remembered his mouth upon yours, his hands against your skin, and realized with horror what you had allowed to happen.

What has he done? He had pushed all evening, testing every boundary you placed before him until eventually there had been none left to cross. He had kissed you. He had put his hands on you. He had—

His stomach twists so violently that he almost retches. What if he had mistakken hesitation for invitation simply because he had wanted you so desperately? What if you only kissed him because you have never been able to say no to him? What if—

"Jacaerys," his mother snaps, grabbing his wrist before he can sit astride his horse. Jace inhales sharply, raising his chin and straightening his shoulders, refusing to turn around until she forces him to. When she sees the expression on his face—the tears wetting his eyes, and the way his lips tremble faintly—fury drains into concern. Her voice softens immediately, hand rising to cradle his face as she asks quietly, "Jacaerys, what's wrong, sweet boy? What has happened?"

Jace swallows thickly, gaze averting up to the sky as he desperately tries to swallow the lump in his throat. He shakes his head once, but his mother is persistent, tilting her head, lips pursed as she waits for an answer.

"I cannot find her," he finally admits, and he hates how small his voice sounds. Rhaenyra's brows draw together, confused.

"Who?" she asks, and Jace gives her a look that makes the question unnecessary. Understanding flickers across her face. "I am sure she is just busy with the twins, Jacaerys. I—"

"She said she would speak with me in the morning," he continues, words coming faster. "She promised me, and I have looked everywhere, and she is nowhere, and I think–" His voice cracks. His lashes flutter as he forces himself to stop and swallow, clearing his throat. "I think I have done something terrible."

"Jace—"

"I should not have pushed her." His eyes squeeze shut. "I should have left things as they were. Everything was finally right between us again, and I ruined it."

His mother stares at him, concern deepening into confusion. "Jacaerys, what exactly did you do?"

Jace stares at his mother helplessly. He cannot very well stand in the middle of the courtyard and confess that he spent half the night with his mouth pressed to his married aunt's cunt while Daemon, his brothers, cousins, and half a dozen stable boys stand within earshot. Rhaenyra's brows furrow slowly, glancing at him once before her gaze draws back to the direction of the keep, a calculating expression on her face.

"It does not matter," he rushes out before she can put two and two together. "It does not matter. I just—I need to speak with her."

Rhaenyra studies him for another long moment, and Jace struggles not to squirm beneath her scrutiny, afraid she can see everything that he had done with you the night before. At last, she finally says, "Then come back with me."

Jace blinks. "What?"

"We will see the others safely to Dragonstone, and then you and I can return on dragonback. If you are so desperate to speak with her, I see no reason you cannot."

Relief loosens the tension in his shoulders. It is not ideal—he had wanted to speak with you this morning, had spent hours imagining exactly what he might say, loathes the idea of not knowing what terms the two of you are on for days on end—but at least he does not have to return to Dragonstone wondering when he might see you again.

"Yes, that—" he starts to say, voice catching. "I would like that."

Rhaenyra gives his cheek an affectionate pat before releasing him, turning to make her way toward the carriage.

"Mother," he calls after a moment, and she pauses. Jace hesitates, remembering what you had told him to ask in passing the night before. Jace shifts awkwardly on his feet, feeling strangely foolish now that he has to ask. "What did muña do when she first saw me?" His mother's eyes narrow, and Jace is flustered, feeling as though he needs to explain the sudden question. He defends, "She told me to ask."

Understanding dawns across Rhaenyra's face, and then she immediately starts to laugh, hand lifting to her mouth to stifle her giggles. Jace flushes the longer she laughs and does not answer, fighting a scowl.

"She wailed," his mother finally says through her a sigh as she calms her laughter. "Quite inconsolably, actually."

Jace stares at her, unsure how this was supposed to make him feel better. "She cried?"

Rhaenyra hums in agreement, and Jace's face falls. She notices immediately and gives him a small, fond smile, tucking a dark curl behind his ear.

"Sweet boy, not because she was disappointed. When I put you in her arms the first time, she refused to let you go. I, too, thought something was wrong at first, because she wept so hard that I could hardly get her to answer me when I asked her why she was crying. Finally, she told me that you were perfect—" Jace's throat bobs terribly, and Rhaenyra tilts her head slightly as she cradles his face again "—her exact words, mind you. Then she asked quite sweetly if she might keep you."

"Keep me?" Jace echoes.

"You must understand, she was very young." Rhaenyra laughs again, hand dropping from his face to adjust Viserys against her shoulder. "She seemed to believe that because I had made you, I could simply make another if I wished. I spent the better part of an afternoon explaining that you were my firstborn son and heir, and no, she could not keep you merely because she asked so sweetly."

Jace cannot help the smile slowly spreading across his face.

"That did not discourage her, of course, spoiled little thing. She does hate being told no. She asked for you again on her next nameday, and the one after that, if memory serves. Every year for quite some time." Jace's ears burn as he flushes and looks away. His mother reaches out to hold his hand gently. He wonders if she understands what prompted you to tell him to ask this, because she gives him a soft smile and says, "She loved everything about you, but your eyes were always her favorite. She used to hold you in the sunlight because she swore they looked like pools of honey when the sun caught them right. I had to tell her to stop more than once. She would have kept you there all afternoon if I let her, and I was afraid the sun would burn you if you were kept out there too long."

"Oh," Jace says quietly, swallowing thickly as he stares down at the ground.

Her expression softens, more serious now as she tells him, "You know, she was lonely before you were born, Jacaerys."

His smile fades slightly, gaze lifting to meet hers. His mother has mentioned this before in passing when he was younger, but never elaborated on it, simply sent him off to go spend time with you.

"I tried to be there for her. I loved her dearly, but I was fourteen years her elder. By the time she was old enough to want someone to play with, I had already grown beyond such things and had courtly duties to attend to." Rhaenyra looks toward the keep, something wistful passing over her face. "She tried to befriend Aegon when she was young—" Jace's expression twists at the mention of your husband. "—but Alicent—the Queen—kept her children away from me and mine, and your muña was always lumped in with us. Sometimes I would find her watching the other noble children in the garden and training yard. They would be running about together, playing their games, and she would simply stand at the edge and watch them."

Jace swallows thickly, voice hoarser than he intends as he asks quietly, "Why didn't she join them?"

"I do not know," Rhaenyra admits. "Perhaps she did not know how. Perhaps she was scared. She was always a little apart from everyone else. You know well that she had her own whispers following her. Many thought she was—" A bitter expression crosses his mother's face. "—thought she was cursed because of the manner she came into this world. The manner in which she claimed her dragon only made people believe it more."

Jace chews the inside of his cheek, chest aching at the thought of you younger, smaller, standing alone as you watched other children laugh together. He cannot imagine it.

For as long as he could remember, you have always been bright smiles and pretty laughter, the difference between a perfect day and a ruined one. He cannot stand the idea of you small and alone, desperate for friends but unable to make any. He thinks of the dulled look on your face as you entered the throne room, the emptiness in your eyes when you first arrived to supper—worst of all, the distant one you wore last night before he left.

He has ruined everything.

"So when you were born," Rhaenyra continues, looking back at him with a small smile. "I was happy for more reasons than one. I had my sweet son, and she finally had someone who belonged to her as much as she belonged to him. I knew that once you were old enough to toddle about after her, neither of you would ever truly be alone."

Jace swallows around the sudden tightness in his throat, head hanging forward slightly. Tears sting at the corner of his eyes again, and he blinks them away before his mother can notice.

"Jacaerys," his mother says quietly, beckoning him to look at her. He lifts his head reluctantly, eyes heavy. "Whatever happened between the two of you, she has loved you from the moment she first laid eyes upon you. There is nothing in this world that will change that."

Except she does not know that, Jace wants to say, fists curling at his side. What if last night had cost him the one thing he had spent eight years desperate to have back? What if, in his selfish desire to have more of you, he had destroyed the chance to simply have you at all? What if—

"She really asked you to give me to her?" he asks instead, voice rough as he tries to joke to change the subject, hoping that his mother does not see the doubt swirling in his eyes.

He thinks she does, because her smile is a bit sadder as she says, "Repeatedly."

"What did you tell her?"

"That she could borrow you." Rhaenyra laughs softly, reaching up to brush an errant curl from his forehead. "I'm afraid she never did learn to give you back. Come, sweet boy, it is time for us to bring your brothers and cousins home. We will return on dragonback soon after."

————————————

"What is the meaning of this?" you demand, slamming your fists against the doors to your chambers. "Ser Steffon—who is out there? Let me out this instant, you mongrels, I will feed you to my dragon if you do not unbar my chambers immediately."

You had woken late to find your doors barred from the outside and Ser Steffon conspicuously absent from his post. At first, you had assumed some drunken foolishness on Aegon's part—a poorly conceived jest that you would make your half-brother regret the moment you were free—but nearly an hour has passed, and no one will answer you.

You pace the length of your room, agitated, furious, terrified. Something is terribly wrong.

Had they figured out what you had done with Jacaerys? Were they locking you in your chambers so you might not flee before they bring you before the High Septon to humiliate you? You would not put it past them—Alicent has always held a particular disdain toward you, and you have been at odds with the Faith ever since the septons tried to convince thirteen-year-old Aegon to let the maesters cut you open to save the twins.

No, if they knew what happened, there would be much more noise. It is the silence that is unsettling. The Red Keep is never silent in the afternoon. You should hear servants rushing through the corridors, bringing meals to the lords who do not wish to leave their chambers, guards changing their watch, absent chatter and laughter. But there is nothing.

"Aegon," you call loudly, slamming your fist against the door, because he had not come by with the twins this morning either. He always comes by with the twins. "Who is out there? Answer me now!"

You press your ear to the door. For several heartbeats, you hear nothing. Then, there is the faint scrape of armor shifting beyond the door, and you tilt your head to the side, stilling as your focus narrows in on the sound.

"I can hear you," you say, voice dropping dangerously low. "Open the door immediately, and I might grant you the privilege of choosing how you are going to die."

"Forgive me, princess. I cannot open the door."

The voice is unfamiliar. Your stomach drops. What is happening? Fear curdles low in your stomach, skin itchy with anxiety. Your gaze flicks from the heavy door to the bars on your window—your apartments are too high to climb from, and there is no way for Zūgaxes to free you lest risking bringing the entire tower down with you in it.

"Where is Ser Steffon?" you demand. "Who are you? Where are my sister and my nephews? Where are my children?"

Where are Maegor and Maegelle? Where are Jacaerys and Lucerys? Rhaenyra, Daemon, everyone else? What is happening? Why are you locked in?

"Your children are safe, princess," the guard says simply.

"Where are they?"

"I have been instructed only to assure you that Prince Maegor and Princess Maegelle are unharmed."

What? Unharmed? Why would they be harmed?

"Instructed by whom?" you hiss, only to be met with more silence. You strike the door again, fury beginning to overwhelm your fear. "Where is my husband? Answer me, you worthless dog!"

"I cannot say."

"My sister?"

Your heart begins to hammer when the guard does not respond. Rhaenyra and the boys were supposed to leave for Dragonstone at dawn—Jacaerys was supposed to leave with her.

Jacaerys, who would be waiting for you. Jacaerys, who you had watched leave your chambers only with the assurance that when the sun rose, the two of you would speak about what had transpired between you and what in the Seven Hells you intended to do next. Jacaerys, who would undoubtedly assume the worst when you did not show.

Your stomach twists as you imagine him waiting somewhere for you, watching the hours pass with no sign of your arrival. You know exactly where his mind will go. He will convince himself that you regret everything that happened between you, that you had woken sober and ashamed and had broken your promise because you could not bear to face him after what you had allowed him to do.

He will think he had done something wrong. The thought makes panic claw at your throat. You slam your fist against the door again, and again, and again, tears of frustration pricking at your eyes.

He had been so uncertain when he left you. He had searched your face for reassurance, and his confidence crumbled the moment you told him the two of you must wait until morning to speak. You should not have sent him away. You do not even know why you sent him away. You had just been—you had been scared.

You had been scared for what you'd done, of what you'd allowed him to do, of how easily you'd forgotten everything else as soon as his mouth was on yours—your husband, children, his mother, the realm. Every consequence that should have been enough to make you push him away had disappeared the moment he touched you, and you'd been terrified of how desperately some part of you had wanted him to stay.

When he offered to remain in King's Landing with you, some reckless part of you had wanted to say yes before he even finished speaking. You'd wanted to pull him into your bed and keep him there until morning, consequences be damned. For one night, you had wanted to forget that you were Aegon's wife, that you have been alone, desperately trying not to drown for a decade, that war was most likely on the horizon and your children would be at the center of it.

So, you had sent him away and told yourself that morning would make everything clearer. Instead, morning has come and gone, and Jacaerys is somewhere far beyond these walls believing you had abandoned him again.

What is happening? Why are you locked in your rooms?

"Let me out," you demand, voice rising, furious, slamming your fists against your door again and again and again. "Let me out! Let me out, let me out, let me out!"

He should be dead.

The last thing he remembered with any coherence was the sky, a sky choked with smoke and screaming. Beneath that memory lay only fractured images that swam behind his closed eyelids, fragments of chaos that refused to assemble into anything whole.

Vermax.

The name pierced through the darkness like a blade. His dragon. His beautiful, loyal Vermax, who had hatched from an egg placed in his cradle when he was nothing more than a squalling babe with a tuft of dark hair that already marked him as different from his silver-haired mother. Vermax had shrieked as the grappling hooks tore into his wings, as the Triarchy ships surrounded them, as the sea rose up to swallow them both.

Jace’s chest seized, he remembered the impact. He remembered the bone-shattering crash as Vermax slammed into the churning waters of the Gullet, and he remembered the dragon’s terrified, agonized roar. That sound had carried more than pain. It had carried something that felt like betrayal, as if Vermax could not understand why the sky had abandoned them. The cold of the sea had been absolute, salt water flooding his mouth, his throat, his lungs.

He had surfaced somehow. He had gasped and choked and reached for something, a piece of wreckage or a shattered mast, though the memory refused to sharpen. The waves had tossed him like a child’s toy. Through the spray and the smoke, the first bolt had taken him in the shoulder. The second had buried itself in his side, just beneath the ribs. The third was a blank space in his memory, a sensation his mind had simply refused to record.

What remained was the feeling that followed. A slow, spreading numbness. The way his limbs had stopped obeying him. The way the sky had tilted and spun, grey and gold and red bleeding together like watercolors on parchment. His last conscious thought had not been of his mother, nor of his brothers, nor of duty or the Iron Throne or the war that was tearing the realm apart. It had been of Vermax.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

—

He woke to the glow of candlelight, the light came from dozens of candles, the air smelled of salt and something else, something green and living. Herbs, perhaps, or flowers. It was an earthy smell, a growing smell, utterly unlike the smoke and blood and terror that had filled his nostrils before the darkness took him.

Jace tried to move, and his body screamed in protest. Every muscle, every joint, every inch of skin felt like an open wound packed with burning coals. Pain lanced through his shoulder, his side, his ribs. He sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth, and even that small motion sent fire racing down his spine.

“You shouldn’t move.”

The voice was soft and female, carrying an accent he had never heard before. The vowels were rounder than he was used to, the cadence lilting and unfamiliar, Jace turned his head slowly, every vertebra in his neck protesting, and saw you.

You were kneeling beside the bed, on a cushion of deep blue silk, and you were looking at him with an expression of such open relief that Jace forgot, for a moment, how to breathe.

You were beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with the powdered faces and elaborate hairstyles of court ladies. You wore no jewelry, no rings, no gems at your throat. Your dress, if it could even be called that, was unlike anything he had ever seen, layers of fabric in pale ivory and soft gold that had been draped rather than tailored. The cut left your arms bare, and the neckline was wide and flowing. It was clothing from a warmer world entirely, bearing no resemblance to the heavy velvets and structured bodices of Westeros.

“You’re awake,” you said, and your smile was like dawn breaking over still water. “I was beginning to fear you wouldn’t open your eyes again.”

Jace opened his mouth to speak, all that came out was a dry, rasping croak. His throat felt as though it had been scoured raw.

You reached for a clay cup beside you, glazed deep blue, and lifted it to his lips with a careful hand. “Drink. Slowly. You’ve been without water for a long time.”

The water was cool and impossibly clean. It slid down his throat like mercy. He drank until you pulled the cup gently away, your expression soft but firm.

“I said slowly. Your body has been through a great ordeal.” Jace sagged back against the furs, his breath coming in shallow gasps. Even drinking had exhausted him. He could feel the heat radiating from his own skin, a fever burning beneath the surface. “Where…” His voice was barely a whisper, cracked and ruined. “Where am I?”

You set the cup aside. “My home. I found you on the shore.”

He tried to form another question, but his thoughts were slipping away from him like water through fingers. The shore. The battle. The arrows.

“Your body was full of arrows,” you said quietly, as if you had followed the path of his scattered thoughts. “You looked dead. I do not know how you survived.” A pause. “But I am glad you did.”

Jace stared at you, his vision blurring and sharpening in turns. The candles made halos around your silhouette. The cave walls curved around you both like cupped hands. He lay in a bed of soft furs with clean linen bandages wrapped around his chest and shoulder. The space around him was strange, a blend of cave stone and polished wood and silk cushions.

He tried to focus on you again, on your strange dress and your unfamiliar accent and the way you looked at him without the calculating gaze of a courtier. Your expression held only simple, unguarded relief.

“You…” he started, but the words crumbled before he could shape them. He was so tired. The heat in his blood was growing worse, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool air of the cave.

“Shh.” You leaned closer and pressed a cool cloth to his brow. Your touch was impossibly gentle. “You have a fever. The arrows were laced with something, I think. A poison, or something like it. It will take time to burn it out.”

Jace’s eyes fluttered. The cool cloth was a mercy, and your hand was steady against his skin.

“Where is this island?” he managed, the question barely a whisper. “How far from the battle…”

You shook your head, a small and quiet movement. “This is my island. That is all that matters now. You are here, and you are safe.” Your hand brushed the dark, sweat-soaked curls back from his forehead. “You are my guest. I will take care of you.”

He should have questioned you. He should have demanded to know where he was, who you were, how any of this was possible. He was a prince, raised on suspicion, trained to trust no one. But the fever was burning through him, and you were so calm, so steady, and your hands were so gentle, and he was so gods-damned tired.

“Rest,” you murmured. “You are not strong enough to stay awake. But you will be. In time.”

Jace’s eyes closed against his will. The darkness pulled at him, soft and warm. The last thing he felt was the cool cloth on his forehead and the gentle weight of your hand smoothing his hair back from his face.

“Sleep, Jace,” you whispered.

—

The days blurred together like watercolors left in the rain, Jace measured time by the changing quality of light that filtered through the cave's entrance, a distant glow that brightened and dimmed in a rhythm he slowly came to recognize. Morning, afternoon, evening, night. The cycle repeated itself over and over. He could not see the sky from his bed, only the rough stone ceiling and the flickering candles and, whenever he turned his head, the soft silhouette of you moving through the chamber.

You were always there, that was the first thing he truly understood once the fever broke and his mind began to piece itself back together. You were always there. When he woke gasping from nightmares of Vermax screaming, the arrows striking, the water closing over his head, you were beside him with your cool hand on his forehead and your voice murmuring words he could not quite catch but that soothed him anyway. When the pain in his wounds flared hot and unbearable, you were there with the medicine, spooning bitter liquid past his cracked lips and following it with cool water to wash away the taste. When the fever spiked and he thrashed in the furs, soaked in sweat and half-delirious, you were there with cloths dipped in cold water, pressing them to his chest, his neck, his brow.

He did not know how you slept. He did not know when you ate. He only knew that every time he opened his eyes, you were somewhere nearby, kneeling beside his bed or mixing herbs at the stone table or simply sitting on your silk cushion with your hands folded in your lap, watching the candles burn.

“You don’t have to stay,” he rasped one night, though it might have been day for all he could tell the difference. His voice was still weak and still cracked, but it no longer hurt to speak. “You must have other things to do.”

You looked up from the bowl you were mixing, and your lips curved into that soft, patient smile he was beginning to recognize. “I have nothing more important than keeping you alive, Jace. That is a full-time occupation, it seems.”

He wanted to argue, but exhaustion pulled him back under before he could form the words, the fever broke on what might have been the fifth day, or the sixth, or the seventh. He had lost count.

He woke drenched in sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead and the furs kicked to the foot of the bed, but his head was clear. For the first time since he had opened his eyes in this cave, his thoughts were not swimming in a haze of heat and pain. He could feel the wounds in his shoulder and side, still tender and still healing, but they no longer burned with the sharp, insistent fire of infection.

He was alive. He was going to stay alive, and that meant he had to get back.

His mother. His brothers. The war. Every day he spent lying in this bed was another day the Blacks fought without him, another day his family believed him dead, another day the Greens advanced their stolen throne. He had to get stronger. He had to return to Westeros.

“Your thoughts are very loud.” Jace turned his head. You were sitting on your cushion beside the bed, a piece of fabric in your hands and a needle moving in small, precise stitches. He had no idea how long you had been there. He had not even noticed you.

“My thoughts?” he repeated, his voice hoarse but steadier than before.

“You are frowning at the ceiling as though it has offended you.” You did not look up from your sewing, but there was a hint of amusement in your voice. “I assume you are planning your escape.”

Jace blinked. “I was not planning an escape. I was only thinking about how to leave.”

“That is the same thing.”

“It is absolutely not the same thing.” Now you did look up, one eyebrow raised, and Jace felt his face warm. He had walked directly into that.

“You want to go back,” you said, and your voice was quieter now, the teasing edge softened into something more serious. “It is natural. You have people waiting for you. A family. A war, perhaps, judging by the state of you when I found you.” You returned your attention to your stitching. “I understand.”

He was quiet for a moment, watching your hands move. The fabric you were working on was pale blue, the stitches neat and even. You were making him more bandages, he realized.

“Yes,” he admitted finally. “I have to go back. My family needs me. They probably think I am dead.”

“Then we will work to make you strong enough to leave.” You bit off the thread with your teeth, smooth and practiced. “But you cannot rush it. The wounds are healing well, but if you push too hard, too fast, you will undo all my hard work. And I have worked very hard, Jace.”

There was something almost stern in your tone, and despite himself, he felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward. “I would not dream of undoing your hard work.”

“Good.” You set the sewing aside and rose to your feet, your gossamer skirts rustling softly against the stone floor. “You have been lying in that bed for days. I think it is time you tried to sit up properly. Do you think you can manage it?”

Jace took a breath. His shoulder throbbed. His side ached. But the fever was gone, and his head was clear, and he was so gods-damned tired of lying flat on his back.

“Yes,” he said. “I think I can.” It was harder than he had expected.

His muscles had atrophied during the days of fever and stillness. His arms shook when he pushed himself up, and the wound in his side pulled sharply, and by the time he was sitting upright against the carved headboard, he was breathing hard and sweating again. But he was sitting. He was upright. He was looking at the cave from a new angle, and it was strange and wonderful and disorienting all at once.

“There,” you said, and you were smiling now, truly smiling, something brighter than the gentle curve of lips he had grown used to. “That was not so terrible, was it?”

“Terrible,” Jace managed, still catching his breath. “Absolutely terrible.”

“But you did it.”

He looked at you, at the way the candlelight caught the strange color of your eyes, and he found himself almost smiling back. “I did it.”

—

The days that followed fell into a pattern, you would help him sit up in the mornings, propping him against the headboard with pillows and furs. You would change his bandages, your fingers quick and efficient, your touch never lingering longer than necessary but never cold or impersonal either. You would bring him food, strange fruits he had never tasted before, sweet and tangy, and a porridge made from some grain he did not recognize, and fresh water that tasted cleaner than anything he had ever drunk in his life.

And you would talk about small things, the weather on the island, the herbs you used in your medicines, the fish you caught in the tidal pools below the cliffs. You had a dry, quiet sense of humor that surprised him, and a way of tilting your head when you were thinking that he found himself watching for.

In return, he told you things about himself. He was still a prince, still trained in caution, and so he held back the details that mattered most. But he told you about Dragonstone, about the volcanic rock and the sea winds and the dragons that wheeled in the sky. He told you about his brothers, careful to speak of them in the present tense even though Luke was-even though Luke had become something he could not yet say aloud.

He told you other things instead. That he missed the sea. That he had never been good at dancing. That his mother had taught him to read when he was four years old, and he had been so proud that he had carried the book around for a week straight, showing it to anyone who would look.

You laughed at that, a real laugh, bright and surprised, as if you had not expected him to say something so ordinary. “A week?”

“I was very proud of myself.”

“I can imagine. A little prince with his book, demanding that everyone admire his genius.”

“I did not demand. I simply made strong suggestions.”

“That is the same thing.”

“It is absolutely not the same thing, and I will not have my diplomatic skills insulted.”

You laughed again, and Jace realized with a jolt of surprise that he liked making you laugh. It was a good sound, your laugh, unstudied and unguarded, the sound of someone who spent too much time alone and had forgotten to be self-conscious about joy.

You were his only companion. His caretaker. His only visitor.

He had not seen another person even once in all the days he had been lying in this bed. No one came to the cave. No one called your name from outside. No one brought supplies or messages or news. It was only you, always you, appearing and disappearing through the winding passages of the cave system with the quiet confidence of someone who knew every stone by heart.

He had not asked about other people. It felt rude, somehow, when you were taking care of him and feeding him and changing his bandages and sitting beside him through the long, fevered nights. To ask about the absence of others would have sounded like an accusation, as though your company were insufficient, as though he had grown bored of you.

So he did not ask, but the question sat in the back of his mind, growing heavier with each passing day.

—

The day he walked for the first time was the day everything began to shift.

It was morning, the pale silver light filtering through the distant cave entrance, and you had just finished changing his bandages. The wounds were healing well, the flesh knitting together into angry red scars that would fade to white in time. You told him he would have a collection of them, a constellation across his shoulder and ribs. He said he would wear them with pride. You called him ridiculous.

“Today,” you announced, rising to your feet and brushing off your skirts, “you are going to walk.”

Jace looked up at you. “Walk.”

“Yes. Walk. Put one foot in front of the other. I assume you knew how to do it before you arrived here.”

“I knew how to walk.”

“Then today you will remember.”

It was harder than sitting up. It was harder than anything he had done since waking in this cave. His legs felt as though they belonged to someone else, weak and unsteady, the muscles wasted from days of lying still. You had to help him, your arm around his back and his arm across your shoulders, bearing some of his weight even though he tried very hard not to let you. You were smaller than him and slighter, and he was terrified of crushing you.

“You will not crush me,” you said, as if reading his thoughts. “I am stronger than I look. Stop trying to hold yourself up with pride alone and lean on me.”

He leaned on you, by the time he had taken five steps across the chamber, his legs were shaking and sweat was dripping down his face. But he had walked. Five steps. Then ten. Then, a few days later, he crossed the entire chamber without help, his hand braced against the wall and his breath coming hard and fast.

And the day after that, you smiled at him and said, “I think it is time you saw the sun.”

The cave system was a maze, Jace knew, that your home was larger than the single chamber where he had been lying. He had seen you disappear down passages and emerge from different directions, had caught glimpses of other rooms, a kitchen carved into the rock, a storage chamber lined with jars and barrels, a space where water trickled down the wall into a natural basin. But he had not grasped the full scale of it until you led him through it yourself.

The passages twisted and turned, branching off into side tunnels and dead ends. Some were narrow, barely wide enough for a single person to squeeze through. Others opened into wide chambers with high ceilings, lit by candles placed in alcoves and by thin shafts of daylight that pierced down through cracks in the rock. The walls were rough in some places and smooth in others, worn down by time and water and the patient labor of whoever had carved this place.

“Did you build all this?” Jace asked, his voice echoing strangely in the stone corridors. He was walking slowly, one hand on the wall for balance, but he was walking.

You glanced back at him. “The caves were here long before me. I only furnished them.”

“You furnished them very well,” he muttered, stepping around a carved wooden chest that would not have looked out of place in a merchant’s manse.

“I had time.”

That was all you said, as if it explained everything. As if it explained anything at all.

The light grew brighter as you walked, the grey-silver of filtered daylight giving way to a warm golden glow. Jace could smell the outside now, salt air and flowers and something green and growing. His heart beat faster. He had been underground for so long that he had almost forgotten what the sky looked like.

Then you stepped through the cave entrance, and he followed you, and the world opened up around him.

It was beautiful, there was no other word for it, no word that could possibly capture what Jace saw as he stood at the mouth of the cave, blinking in the sudden brightness, his eyes struggling to adjust after so many days of candlelight and shadow.

The island spread out before him like something from a dream, the cliffs where the cave was carved dropped down to a shoreline of white sand that gleamed in the morning sun. Beyond the beach, the water was the most extraordinary shade of blue he had ever seen, turquoise at the shore, deepening to sapphire further out, clear and calm and glittering with reflected light. The sky was vast and cloudless, a pale, soft blue that seemed to go on forever.

But it was the island itself that stole his breath, flowers grew everywhere, wild, sprawling, abundant blooms that cascaded down the cliffs and carpeted the meadows in explosions of color. He saw flowers in shades he had never encountered before, deep violet, vivid orange, a blue so pale it was almost silver. Trees heavy with fruit he did not recognize bent over natural pathways, their branches laden with something golden and round, something dark and pear-shaped, something that resembled a pomegranate but was the color of honey.

The air was warm and sweet, thick with the scent of blossoms and salt and damp earth. Birds sang somewhere in the distance, strange, melodic calls that were not quite like any birdsong he knew. A waterfall tumbled down the cliff face to his left, a thin silver ribbon that caught the light and threw rainbows into the air.

Jace stood there, swaying slightly on his still-weak legs, and he could not speak.

“I know,” you said quietly, standing beside him. “It is a great deal, after so long underground.”

“I have never seen anything like this.”

“It is home.” Your voice was matter of fact, but there was something softer underneath it, something almost sad. “Come. There is a place to sit not far from here. You should not stand for too long yet.”

He let you lead him to a flat outcropping of rock cushioned with moss and ferns, and he sat down heavily, still staring out at the impossible landscape. The flowers swayed in the breeze. The waterfall sang its endless song. The sea glittered and danced.

And there was no one here, the realization crept up on him slowly, settling over his shoulders like a cold cloak. He looked out at the island, the meadows, the fruit trees, the white sand beach, the cliffs, and he saw no houses and no fishing boats pulled up on the shore. He saw no paths worn by the tread of many feet and no smoke rising from chimneys. He heard no voices calling in the distance. He saw no sign of human life at all.

Only the flowers. The birds. The waterfall. The sea.

And you.

—

He did not say anything at first, you helped him walk a little further each day, down to the edge of the meadow where the strange golden fruit grew on low, sprawling trees, up to a ridge that overlooked the eastern shore where the water was even bluer and the sky even wider. You showed him the tidal pools, teeming with tiny creatures he had never seen, brightly colored shells that moved on dozens of legs, star-shaped animals that clung to the rocks, fish that darted and flashed like living jewels.

And everywhere you went, you were the only person, he saw no footprints but yours, he saw no structures but the cave. The only signs of cultivation were a small vegetable garden tucked into a sheltered hollow behind the cliffs, neat rows of plants he recognized, mostly herbs and some kind of root vegetable, and further back, half-hidden by a grove of flowering trees, a low stone wall enclosing a patch of churned earth.

He heard the pigs before he saw them, a grunting, snuffling chorus rose and fell, punctuated by the occasional indignant squeal. Jace followed the sound, moving carefully along a narrow path between two rock formations, and emerged into a clearing where at least two dozen pigs were milling about in a large stone enclosure. They were fat and healthy, their coats glossy, their ears flopping. Piglets tumbled over each other in the dirt while larger sows dozed in the shade of the trees.

And you were in the middle of them, you were scattering something from a woven basket, scraps of fruit rinds and vegetable peels and some kind of grain, and the pigs crowded around you like old friends. You were speaking to them in a low, affectionate murmur, and your hands moved among them with the ease of long familiarity.

You looked up and saw him standing at the edge of the enclosure. Your expression shifted, just slightly. Something guarded, something wary, flickered behind your eyes before you smoothed it away.

“You found my pigs,” you said, Jace leaned against the stone wall, catching his breath. The walk had been longer than he had realized, and his side was aching. “You have a lot of pigs.”

“They keep me company.” You tossed another handful of scraps into the enclosure, and a particularly large sow shouldered her way forward to claim it. “And they are useful. The meat, the fat, the leather. Nothing goes to waste.”

He watched you for a moment. The pigs jostled around your legs, grunting and snuffling, and you moved among them without the slightest hesitation, like a shepherdess, like someone who had been doing this for years.

“Where are the other people?” he asked.

Your hands stilled on the basket. You did not look up.

“What other people?”

“The villagers. The farmers. Whoever else lives here.” Jace gestured vaguely at the enclosure, at the pigs, at the island beyond. “You said this was your island. But someone has to help you with all of this.”

He trailed off. You were looking at him now, and your expression was strange, as though you had been expecting this question and dreading it in equal measure.

“There are no other people, Jace,” you said quietly.

He stared at you. “What do you mean, there are no other people?”

“I mean it is only me.” You set the basket down on the stone wall. Your hands, now empty, folded together in front of you. “There is no village. There are no farmers. There are no fishermen or shepherds or traders. There is only me, and the pigs, and the birds, and the fish in the sea. That is all.”

The words refused to make sense. Jace shook his head, a short, sharp movement. “That cannot be right. You cannot live here alone. How do you survive? How do you get supplies? There has to be someone else, a trader who comes by ship, a neighboring island, something.”

“There is no one else.” Your voice was calm and steady, but there was something raw underneath it now. “No ships come here. No traders. No neighbors. The island is hidden. It does not appear on any map. No one knows it exists.”

“That is impossible.”

“It is simply true.”

Jace pushed himself off the stone wall, ignoring the protest of his healing wounds. His heart was beating too fast. His thoughts were spinning. “How did you get here, then? How do you live? You cannot simply be alone on an island forever.”

“I did not say I chose it.”

The words stopped him cold, you were still standing in the middle of the pig enclosure, surrounded by grunting, oblivious animals. Your strange dress fluttered in the breeze, the pale fabric catching the sunlight. Your face was composed, but your eyes were dark with something old and heavy and carefully buried.

“My brother sent me here,” you said. “As punishment.”

Jace opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “Punishment for what?”

“For disobeying him.” Your voice was flat now, reciting facts rather than feelings. “I did something he could not forgive. And instead of killing me, he sent me here. He had the means to do it, the ships, the men, the knowledge of this place. He left me with supplies and seeds and animals and told me I would never leave.”

“You have been here ever since,” Jace said slowly.

“I have been here ever since.”

“How long?”

You looked away, out over the blue water, and for a moment you were utterly still. “A long time.”

Jace’s mind was racing, scrambling to fit the pieces together. A brother with enough power to exile someone to a hidden island. Ships and men and the means to keep the place secret. A lord powerful enough to make his sister disappear without anyone asking questions.

“Who is your brother?” he asked.

Your jaw tightened. “A lord. That is all you need to know.”

“A lord of what? Where? What house?”

“It does not matter.” Your voice sharpened, just slightly, the first hint of steel he had ever heard from you. “What matters is that he is powerful enough to do this. Powerful enough that if I try to leave, if I find a way off this island and set foot on the mainland, I will be found and I will be brought back, and the consequences will be worse than exile.”

Jace stared at you, you were alone. Completely, utterly alone. You had been alone for what might have been months or years or decades. You had built a life in a cave, furnished it with silk and polished wood, grown a garden and raised pigs and taught yourself to heal. And no one had come for you. No one had visited. No one had even known you were here.

Until a dying dragon prince washed up on your shore.

“I am sorry,” he said, and the words felt pathetically inadequate. “I did not know.”

“How could you have known?” You picked up the basket again, your movements brisk and practical, as if you were eager to change the subject. “You were unconscious when you arrived. It is not as if I introduced myself and gave you a tour. Welcome to my prison, please enjoy the flowers.”

“It is not a prison.” You looked at him, and your smile was tired and sad and strangely kind. “It is a very beautiful prison. But it is a prison nonetheless.” You turned and walked away, the basket tucked under your arm, the pigs trailing after you like a strange, grunting entourage. Jace watched you go, your bare shoulders and your flowing dress and the way you moved through the meadow as if you had memorized every inch of it.

And he understood, suddenly, why you had never hesitated to save him. Why you had sat beside his bed for days on end. Why you had laughed at his stupid jokes and argued with him about the proper way to brew medicinal tea.

You were lonely.

Jace stood at the edge of the pig enclosure, the sun warm on his face and the sea glittering in the distance, and he thought about his mother and his brothers and the war and the throne.

He had to go back. He had to, but as he watched you disappear into the grove of flowering trees, your figure growing smaller and smaller against the impossible beauty of the island, he realized that leaving might be harder than he had thought.

—

In the days following your revelation—it is just me, there is no one else—Jace threw himself into the work of recovery with a ferocity that surprised even him. He woke early, before the light through the cave entrance had shifted from silver to gold, and he pushed his body harder than was probably wise. He walked the island's paths until his legs stopped shaking. He climbed the low cliffs until his arms stopped burning. He ate everything you put in front of him, slept when you told him to sleep, and bit back every complaint when you made him drink your bitter medicines.

"Someone is motivated," you remarked one morning, watching him pace the length of the chamber. He had been doing laps—back and forth, back and forth—testing the strength of his newly healed legs. The scars on his shoulder and side had faded to pink, then to white, and the pain was a distant memory now, only flaring when he moved too quickly or twisted the wrong way.

"I have to get home," he said, not breaking stride. "My mother needs me. My brothers need me. Every day I spend here is another day they think I'm dead."

You nodded, your expression unreadable. "Then we had better build you a boat."

The boat took shape slowly, you showed him a grove of trees on the eastern side of the island, tall and straight, their wood pale and close-grained, ideal for shipbuilding. You had an axe, kept sharp and well-oiled in one of the storage chambers, and you handed it to him without ceremony.

"I will help where I can," you said, "but I am not a shipwright. You will have to figure out most of it yourself."

Jace had never built a boat before. He had sailed on dozens of them but knowing how to sail and knowing how to build were two very different things. He felled the first tree through trial and error, the axe handle blistering his palms, the sweat dripping into his eyes. By the time the trunk crashed to the ground, he was exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure.

"Not bad," you said from where you sat on a nearby rock, a pile of mending in your lap. You had been watching him work for the better part of an hour, offering no advice but plenty of company. "For a prince who has never done a day's labor in his life."

"I've done labor."

"Name one example."

He opened his mouth and swung the axe into the fallen trunk with more force than necessary. "I trained with swords. That's labor."

"Swords are not labor. Swords are play for princes."

"Then what do you call this?" He gestured at the tree, the axe, his blistered hands.

You smiled, that slow, warm smile that was becoming as familiar to him as the sunrise. "I call it a good start."

The days passed, Jace shaped the wood as best he could, stripping branches and hewing planks with tools you provided from the depths of the cave. Some of them were strange—shaped for hands slightly different from his own, their handles worn smooth by use that was not his. He didn't ask where they came from. He was learning that there were questions you would answer and questions you would not, and the line between them was invisible until he crossed it.

But you were always there, always nearby.

He had grown accustomed to the rhythm of your presence, the rustle of your strange, flowing dresses, the soft pad of your bare feet on stone, the quiet humming you did when you worked. You brought him water when the sun grew hot. You checked his scars every evening, your fingers against his skin, pronouncing him healed and healing well. You sat with him while he ate, and you talked about nothing and everything, and your laugh was the brightest sound on an island full of bright sounds.

"I should be further along by now," he said one evening, staring at the skeleton of the boat with frustration. The hull was taking shape, but slowly—too slowly. At this rate, it would be months before it was seaworthy.

"You are one person building a boat by hand," you pointed out. You were sitting cross-legged on a flat rock, sorting through a basket of herbs. The setting sun caught the planes of your face, the curve of your bare shoulders, the way your dress draped across your lap in soft folds. "I think you are allowed to take your time."

"I don't have time." He ran a hand through his hair—longer now, curling past his ears, in desperate need of a trim. "My mother—she needs me. The war—"

He stopped.

The war.

What war?

The thought slipped through his mind like water through fingers, there and gone before he could catch it. There was a war. Of course there was a war. He was fighting in it. Or he had been fighting in it. That was why he had been in the Gullet, why Vermax had—

Vermax.

His chest tightened. He remembered the dragon's scream. He remembered the water closing over his head. He remembered the arrows.

But what was the war about?

"The war," he repeated, more quietly now. "I have to get back to the war."

You looked up from your herbs, and your expression was gentle. Unreadable. "You will. When the boat is ready, you will."

"Right." He nodded, the motion jerky. "Right. The boat."

He picked up the axe and got back to work.

—

One afternoon you were down by the shore, sitting in the shade of a flowering tree while Jace worked on the boat's hull. "Brothers," he said, sanding down a rough edge of wood. "Three of them. Well—two full brothers. Two half-brothers. That's four. No, wait." He frowned. "Joffrey and... and the little ones. Aegon and..."

He stopped, the name wouldn't come.

"Viserys," you said quietly.

"Viserys. Right. Viserys." He shook his head, laughing at himself. "I don't know why I couldn't remember that. He's the youngest. Named after my grandfather."

You said nothing. You only watched him with those shifting sea-glass eyes, and your fingers were very still on the mending in your lap.

"And Luke," Jace continued, the name coming easier now. "Lucerys. He's the second one. He's..."

Dead.

The word surfaced from somewhere deep, cold and sharp as a blade. But it didn't hurt the way it should have. It was distant. Muffled. Like a scream heard through a closed door.

"He's what?" you asked.

Jace blinked. "He's... he's at Dragonstone. With our mother. Waiting for me to come home."

You nodded slowly. "I am sure he misses you."

"He probably thinks I'm dead." Jace turned back to the boat, running his hand along the smooth wood. "I have to get back soon. Before he does something stupid. He's always doing stupid things, Luke. He's impulsive. Reckless. He doesn't think before he acts."

Luke is dead. Luke was torn apart by Vhagar above Storm's End. You weren't there. You didn't protect him.

But the voice was fading. Growing quieter. Harder to hear over the sound of the waves and the breeze and your soft, steady breathing.

—

The boat took longer than it should have, some days Jace worked on it from sunrise to sunset, his hands raw and calloused, his back aching, his mind fixed on the singular goal of getting home. But other days—more and more days, as the weeks wore on—he found himself... distracted.

The waterfall, for one thing.

It tumbled down the cliff face on the western side of the island, a silver ribbon that caught the sunlight and scattered it into rainbows. The pool at its base was deep and clear and shockingly cold, fed by some underground spring that kept it cool even in the heat of the afternoon. Jace had discovered it on one of his exploratory walks, and he had been drawn back to it again and again.

You came with him sometimes. You would sit on the rocks at the edge of the pool, your feet dangling in the water, your dress hiked up to your knees. You would tilt your face toward the sun and close your eyes, and Jace would find himself watching you instead of the waterfall.

"Are you going to swim or are you going to stare?" you asked one day, not opening your eyes.

"I wasn't staring."

"You were staring."

"I was... appreciating the scenery."

You opened one eye. "The scenery."

"The waterfall," he said, gesturing vaguely. "It's very nice."

You laughed—that bright, unguarded laugh that he had come to love—and he felt something warm bloom in his chest. Something that had nothing to do with the sun.

"Come on, then," you said, and before he could react, you slid off the rock and into the water with a splash that sent droplets arcing through the air like diamonds.

Jace stared at you. You surfaced a moment later, your hair plastered to your head, your dress clinging to your skin, the wet fabric rendered nearly transparent. The water lapped at your collarbones, and you were laughing again, and you looked—

You looked beautiful.

He had known you were beautiful from the moment he opened his eyes in the candlelit cave. But there was something different about you now. Something that had shifted, the curves of your face seemed softer. The color of your eyes seemed deeper. The way you moved—the way you laughed—the way you looked at him—it all seemed more vivid. More precious.

"Are you coming in or not?" you called, treading water in the center of the pool.

Jace pulled his shirt over his head and dove in after you, the water was cold and clean and wonderful. They splashed each other like children, chasing each other around the pool, ducking under the waterfall and emerging gasping and laughing. Jace couldn't remember the last time he had laughed like this—freely, openly, without the weight of duty pressing down on his shoulders.

Your dress clung to you like a second skin, the wet fabric outlining every curve of your body. Jace tried very hard not to notice. He failed. "You're staring again," you said, but your voice was different now. Quieter. Almost shy.

"Sorry." He wasn't sorry.

—

"I was betrothed," he said one evening.

You were sitting on the rocks overlooking the western sea, watching the sun sink toward the horizon in a blaze of orange and pink. Jace sat beside you, close enough that he could feel the warmth of your arm near his. The boat sat half-finished on the beach below, forgotten for the day.

"Was?" you asked.

"Am. I am betrothed." He frowned. "I think. We were supposed to marry before... before I left."

"Before the battle."

"Before the battle, yes." He stared out at the sunset, trying to conjure her face. His betrothed. She was a Targaryen, he was sure of that. Silver hair. Purple eyes. A dragon. But her name—her name wouldn't come. "She's my cousin, I think. Or my step-sister. Both, actually. It's complicated."

"What is her name?"

Jace opened his mouth. The name wasn't there.

"I can't remember," he said, and the admission felt strange. Not frightening—it should have been frightening—but strange. Like discovering a pocket in a familiar coat that he had never noticed before. "I know her face. She's... she's fierce. Brave. She has a dragon. A small one, I think. Or maybe it's large. I can't..."

He trailed off.

You were quiet for a moment. Then, very softly: "Do you love her?"

"Love?" He considered the question. "I don't know. She's family. She's duty. She's... she's what I'm supposed to do, but i care for her, a lot."

"That is not the same as love."

"No," he agreed. "It's not."

He didn't say anything else. Neither did you. But your arm was warm against his, and the sunset was beautiful, and when he finally walked you back to the cave, his hand found the small of your back without thinking, and you leaned into the touch instead of pulling away.

—

He forgot about the betrothed entirely by morning.

—

The days grew warmer. Or perhaps they didn't—perhaps it was only that Jace had stopped paying attention to the passage of time. The boat sat on the beach, half-finished, and he told himself he would work on it tomorrow. Tomorrow came and went, and he spent it with you instead—walking the island paths, gathering fruit from the strange golden trees, sitting by the waterfall and talking about nothing.

What are you doing? a voice whispered in the back of his mind. You have to go home. Your mother needs you.

But what did his mother need him for? There was something—something important—something about a throne, a war, a betrayal. But the details were foggy now, blurred like ink left out in the rain.

He remembered her face. Her silver hair. Her voice saying his name, but the rest was slipping away, piece by piece, day by day, and the more he forgot, the more he noticed you.

The way you moved through the meadow, your skirts brushing the wildflowers. The way you hummed when you cooked, some melody he had never heard before but that felt familiar anyway. The way you looked at him sometimes, quick glances from beneath your lashes, as if you were checking to make sure he was still there. Still real. Still alive.

The way your hand felt in his when he helped you over a rocky patch of ground.

The way your laugh echoed off the cliffs and came back to them multiplied, a chorus of joy.

The way your eyes caught the light of the setting sun and held it, like they were made of something more than flesh.

He loved you.

He loved the sound of your voice and the curve of your smile and the gentle patience with which you had nursed him back from the edge of death. He loved your dry humor and your quiet strength and the way you never pressed him for answers he didn't have. He loved the life you had built here, alone on an island that should not exist, and he loved that you had let him into it.

He loved you.

And the more he loved you, the less he remembered.

—

The morning was hot and still, Jace had woken early, as he always did now, but instead of reaching for the axe or walking down to the beach where the half-finished boat sat waiting, he had gone straight to the waterfall.

The pool was cool and clear, fed by the endless rush of water that tumbled down the cliff face in a silver curtain. He shed his clothes on the rocks, just the loose linen breeches you had sewn for him from fabric found somewhere in the depths of the cave, and dove in without hesitation. The cold shock of the water stole his breath and cleared his head, chasing away the last cobwebs of sleep.

He floated on his back, staring up at the pale blue sky, watching the birds wheel overhead. His dark hair fanned out in the water around him. The scars on his shoulder and side had faded to thin white lines, barely visible now. He was stronger than he had ever been, his muscles hardened by weeks of manual labor, his skin tanned golden by the sun.

He should have been thinking about the boat, about going home, about his mother and his brothers and the war.

He was thinking about you. Your laugh, your smile, the way your eyes caught the light. The way your hand felt in his. The way you looked at him sometimes, soft and searching, with something unspoken hovering just behind your lips. He had kissed you before, small kisses, brief and chaste, a press of his lips to your forehead when you fell asleep beside him, a brush of his mouth against your knuckles when you handed him a cup of water. But he had not kissed you properly. He had not kissed you the way he wanted to, the way he had been imagining for weeks, the way that left no doubt about what he felt.

He was thinking about that when he heard your footsteps on the rocks above. "You started without me."

Jace turned in the water, treading easily, and looked up at you. You were standing at the edge of the pool, barefoot on the smooth stone, wearing your dress of pale purple gossamer that drifted around your ankles in the faint breeze. The sun caught the planes of your face and the curve of your neck and the dip of your collarbones, and the sight of you struck him silent for a moment.

"Someone has to," he called back, forcing his voice into something approaching normal. "You sleep too late."

"I was gathering herbs. Some of us have work to do."

"Swimming is work. It builds character."

You laughed, that bright, warm sound that he had come to treasure more than anything else on this island. "Is that what you are doing? Building character?"

"Come in and find out."

You hesitated for just a moment. Your eyes met his across the water, and something flickered in your expression, something tentative and questioning, as if you were making a decision and waiting to see if he would notice.

Then you reached up and untied the clasps at your shoulders.

The dress fell and Jace stopped breathing.

You stood above him in nothing but the sunlight, bare to the sky and the water and his gaze. The curves of your body were soft and smooth, your skin glowing in the morning light. Your breasts were full and round and tight in the open air. Your waist dipped inward in a graceful curve before flaring out to the swell of your hips.

You were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

"Are you coming in or not?" he asked, his voice rougher than he intended.

You smiled, then you dove into the water in one clean, graceful arc, slicing through the surface with barely a splash.

You surfaced inches from him, the water lapped at your collarbones, but beneath the surface he could see the pale shape of your body, distorted by the ripples, impossibly close. Droplets clung to your lashes. Your hair floated around you like ink spilled in water. Your lips were parted and slightly wet, and you were looking at him with those shifting sea-glass eyes, and Jace forgot how to think.

"The water is nice," you said, and your voice was teasing and light, but there was a tremor underneath it.

"Nice," he repeated. He could not stop staring at your mouth.

"Very refreshing."

"I had not noticed."

"No?"

"No."

His hand found your waist beneath the water. Your skin was cool and slick and impossibly soft. You did not pull away. You drifted closer, your bare legs brushing against his, and the contact sent a jolt through him like lightning striking water. He could feel the heat of your core through the cool water, a promise of the warmth waiting for him, and his cock stirred against the confines of his breeches.

"Jace," you whispered.

That was all. Just his name, but the way you said it, breathless and aching and full of want, broke something open inside him.

He kissed you, his mouth strong against yours. His hand tightened on your waist, pulling you flush against him. His other hand came up to cup the back of your head, fingers tangling in your hair. You made a small, desperate sound against his lips and kissed him back just as fiercely, your arms winding around his neck, your bare breasts pressing against the hard plane of his chest.

You were bare beneath his hands, there was nothing between his palms and your skin but water. He could feel every curve of you against the hard muscle of his own. His thumbs traced the ridges of your middle, and you shivered, and he swallowed the sound you made. His hands slid lower, cupping the full curve of your arse, kneading the firm flesh, pulling your hips against his so you could feel the rigid length of him pressing against your belly through the wet linen of his breeches.

"Jace," you gasped against his mouth. "Jace, I—"

"Tell me to stop." His voice was wrecked, barely recognizable. "Tell me to stop and I will stop."

"Do not stop." Your fingers dug into his shoulders, nails biting into his sun-warmed skin. "Please do not stop."

He kissed you again, deeper this time, slower. His tongue traced the seam of your lips, and you opened for him with a shuddering breath. The taste of you, sweet and clean and faintly herbal from the medicines you were always brewing, flooded his senses. He explored your mouth thoroughly, learning the texture of your tongue, the ridge of your teeth, the softness of your inner cheeks. You moaned into his mouth and sucked on his tongue, and the sensation went straight to his groin. He could feel your heart pounding against his chest, or perhaps that was his own heart, hammering so hard he thought it might crack his ribs.

Your legs wrapped around his waist beneath the water. The movement was instinctive and natural, and it brought your hips flush against his, the heat of your sex pressing against the hard ridge of his cock through his breeches. He groaned against your mouth, low and rough, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of your thighs. You were so warm. Even in the cool water, the core of you radiated a heat that he could feel through the fabric separating them.

He walked you backward through the pool, still kissing you, still holding you, until your back met the smooth stone of the cliff wall. The waterfall rushed beside them, a curtain of silver sound. He kissed the hollow of your throat, feeling your pulse flutter against his lips. He traced the delicate line of your collarbone with his tongue, tasting the clean, mineral tang of the spring water on your skin. He let his mouth drift lower, over the swell of your breast, and when his lips closed around one tight, pebbled nipple, you gasped and arched against him, your fingers fisting in his hair.

He lavished attention on your breasts, suckling first one and then the other, his tongue circling the tight buds, his teeth grazing them with just enough pressure to make you moan. Your breasts were perfect in his hands, full and soft, fitting his palms as though they had been made for him. He kneaded them gently, thumbs brushing over the wet peaks, watching your face contort with pleasure. Your head had fallen back against the stone, your lips parted, your eyes squeezed shut. The sight of you like this, bare and wanting and completely surrendered to his mouth, made his cock throb painfully against his breeches.

"I have wanted this," he breathed against your skin, his voice ragged. "Gods, I have wanted this for so long."

"Then do not wait any longer."

He lifted his head and looked at you. Your eyes were dark with want, your lips swollen from his kisses, your chest rising and falling with rapid, shallow breaths. The water lapped at your breasts, revealing and hiding, and he could feel every inch of you pressed against him, every curve, every soft place, every point of contact where your body met his.

"Are you sure?" he asked. He needed to hear it. He needed to know.

In answer, you cupped his face in your hands and pulled him down to you. "I have never been more sure of anything in my life."

He kissed you again, soft and sweet this time, a promise and a question all at once. Then his hand slid down your body beneath the water, tracing the curve of your waist, the swell of your hip, the sensitive skin of your inner thigh. Your legs tightened around his waist, and he felt you tremble against him. His fingers found the heat of you, warm and slick even in the cool water, and he traced the folds of your sex with a feather-light touch. You gasped and bucked against his hand. He explored you slowly, learning the shape of you, the soft outer lips, the slick inner petals, the hard pearl of your pleasure at the apex. When he circled that sensitive nub with his thumb, you cried out, a sound half-lost in the rush of the waterfall. He swallowed it with his mouth, kissing you through it, his touch gentle and searching and patient. He slid one finger inside you, feeling the tight, wet heat of your body grip him, and you moaned against his lips. He added a second finger, stretching you gently, his thumb still circling your sensitive peak, and you writhed against his hand, your inner walls clenching around his fingers.

"Please," you whispered, the word broken and beautiful. "Please, Jace. I need you inside me."

He withdrew his fingers, and you made a small sound of protest that he silenced with a kiss. He reached down and freed himself from his breeches, his cock springing out, hard and thick and aching. The head was dark with need, a bead of moisture already forming at the tip. You glanced down through the clear water and your eyes widened at the sight of him, long and rigid, curving slightly upward toward his belly.

"You are so beautiful," he murmured, positioning himself at your entrance. He rubbed the head of his cock against your slick folds, coating himself in your wetness, teasing you both with the promise of what was to come. "I want to watch your face when I enter you. I want to see what I do to you."

Your legs tightened around his waist, your heels pressing into the small of his back. "Then do it. I want to feel you."

He pushed into you slowly, so slowly, inch by agonizing inch. The water made everything liquid and easy, but he wanted to savor this, the way your eyes fluttered closed, the way your mouth fell open, the way your body welcomed him. You were so tight and so warm and so perfect around him. He could feel every ridge and fold of your inner walls as they gripped him and fluttered and stretched to accommodate his size. Your heat enveloped him, searing even through the cool water, and he had to stop and breathe when he was fully sheathed, his forehead pressed to yours, his whole body shaking with the effort of holding back.

"Look at me," he murmured. "Please. Look at me."

Your eyes opened. They were dark and shining, full of something that looked very much like love. "You feel incredible," you breathed. "I am so full."

He began to move, he withdrew almost completely, feeling the drag of your body against every inch of his length, and then pushed back in with a slow, deep thrust that made you both gasp. The sensation was overwhelming, the tight clutch of your body, the heat, the way your inner muscles rippled around him. He set a steady rhythm, each stroke deliberate and full, sliding into you to the hilt and then pulling back until only the head remained inside you. The water splashed gently around them, ripples spreading outward in concentric circles with every movement. Your legs tightened around his waist, your heels digging into the small of his back, pulling him deeper with every thrust. Your hands slid down his spine, tracing the ridges of muscle that flexed with every movement. You were making soft, breathless sounds, gasps and moans and fragments of his name, and he caught each one with his mouth, kissing you, drinking you down like wine.

"You feel incredible," he groaned against your lips. "So tight. So perfect. I could stay inside you forever."

"So do you," you gasped, your words barely coherent, slurred with pleasure. "Harder, Jace. Please."

He did not need to be asked twice. His pace quickened, his hips slamming against yours with increasing force. The sound of their coupling echoed off the cliff walls, wet and rhythmic, the slap of skin against skin beneath the water. Your breasts bounced with every thrust, and he watched them, mesmerized by the way they moved, the way the water lapped at the peaks. He bent his head and captured one nipple in his mouth again, sucking hard, grazing it with his teeth, and you cried out sharply, your inner walls clenching around him.

He shifted his angle slightly, tilting his hips, and on the next thrust you cried out sharply, your head falling back against the stone, your whole body arching against his. He had found the right spot, that sensitive place deep inside you, and he drove into it again and again, watching your face contort with pleasure. Your brow furrowed and your lips parted and your eyes lost focus, and you were babbling now, a stream of broken words, his name and pleas for more and incoherent praise.

"There," you gasped. "Right there. Do not stop. Please do not stop."

He did not stop. He could not have stopped if the world was ending. There was nothing but you, your body, your voice, your hands on his skin. He felt your inner walls begin to flutter around him, the first warning signs of your approaching climax, and he moved his hand between your bodies, finding the slick, sensitive pearl of you beneath the water. He pressed his thumb against it in tight, circling strokes, matching the rhythm of his thrusts.

"That is it," he murmured against your ear, his voice low and rough. "Let go. I want to feel you come apart around me."

Your climax took you by surprise. He felt it building, the way your breath quickened, the way your nails bit into his shoulders, the way your body tightened around him until he could barely move. And then you shattered, crying out his name, your head thrown back, your whole body arching and shuddering against his. He felt the rhythmic pulsing of your release gripping his cock, your inner walls milking him in waves, and he watched your face contort with pleasure, your mouth open, your eyes squeezed shut, your cheeks flushed dark. The sight of you, bare and beautiful and completely undone, was enough to push him over the edge. He drove into you one final time, burying himself to the hilt, and let go. His release surged through him in hot, pulsing waves, spilling deep inside you, and he groaned your name against the curve of your neck, his body shaking with the force of his climax.

For a long moment, neither of you moved, your breathing slowed, your chest rising and falling against his. Your fingers traced lazy patterns on the back of his neck. He remained inside you, still half-hard, reluctant to separate from the warmth of your body. He could feel his seed and your slickness mingled together, warm and wet around him, and the sensation was so intimate, so perfect, that he never wanted to move again.

"Jace," you whispered, and your voice was hoarse and sweet and utterly content.

He lifted his head and looked at you. Your cheeks were flushed. Your lips were red and swollen. Your hair was a wild tangle around your shoulders. Your eyes were soft and hazy with satisfaction. You had never looked more beautiful.

"I love you," he said.

The words came out before he could stop them, before he even realized he was thinking them. But once they were spoken, he knew they were true. He loved you. He loved you so completely and so absolutely that he could barely remember what his life had been before you. You were everything. You were the sun and the sea and the stars. You were the only thing that mattered.

Your eyes widened. "I love you too," you said. "I have loved you since the moment you opened your eyes."

He kissed you again, softly this time, tenderly, a kiss that tasted of water and salt and promises. And then he held you, your body still wrapped around his, the waterfall cool against his back, the sun warm on his face.

They did not leave the pool for a long time. When they finally climbed out, their skin pruned and their limbs heavy with satisfaction, they did not bother to dress. Jace carried you to a patch of soft grass beneath the flowering trees, and he laid you down among the fallen petals, pink and white and gold. He knelt between your spread thighs and looked down at you, at your bare body glistening with water droplets, at the place where his seed was already beginning to leak from your swollen folds, and he felt himself harden again at the sight.

He made love to you again, slower this time, sweeter. He kissed his way down your body, his mouth tracing the hollow of your throat, the swell of your breasts, the plane of your stomach. He paused to dip his tongue into your navel, making you squirm, and then continued lower, pressing kisses to your hip bones, the sensitive crease where your thighs met your body. When he reached the junction of your thighs, he settled between them and looked up at you. Your scent was intoxicating, musky and sweet and mixed with the salt of his own release. He could see the evidence of their earlier coupling, the glistening slickness that coated your folds, and the sight made him groan with want.

He tasted you properly for the first time. His tongue parted your folds, tracing a slow path from your entrance to the peak of your pleasure. The taste of you combined with the taste of him was earthy and raw and utterly intoxicating. You cried out and fisted your hands in the grass, your hips rising to meet his mouth. He took his time, learning what you liked, alternating between broad, flat strokes of his tongue and focused, circling attention to your sensitive peak. He slid two fingers inside you as he sucked on that tight bundle of nerves, curling them forward to press against that sensitive spot on your inner wall, and you came apart against his mouth, your thighs trembling around his head, your voice breaking on his name, your body gushing wetness that he lapped up eagerly.

After that, they walked back to the cave hand in hand, bare and unashamed, their clothes forgotten on the rocks by the waterfall. The sun had climbed higher in the sky, and the island was alive with birdsong and the scent of flowers. Jace kept his hand on the small of your back as you walked, unable to stop touching you, his thumb tracing small circles against your skin.

When you reached the bedchamber, the bed where he had first woken, the furs soft and the candles flickering on the walls, he took you again. This time you pushed him down onto his back and climbed on top of him, straddling his hips. You looked down at him and you reached between your bodies to guide him to your entrance. He watched his cock disappear inside you, inch by inch, watched the way your folds stretched to accommodate him, and the sight was almost enough to make him spend right there. You sank down until he was fully seated inside you, and you both moaned at the sensation.

You began to move, rolling your hips in a slow, sinuous rhythm. He watched you move above him, your breasts swaying with each roll of your hips, your stomach flexing, your head thrown back in pleasure. He reached up and cupped your breasts, rolling the tight peaks between his fingers, and you gasped and increased your pace. Your thighs flexed as you rose and fell, taking him deeper with every stroke. He guided you with his hands on your waist, helping you find a rhythm that made you both moan, his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh of your hips.

"Look at you," he breathed, his voice full of wonder. "You are so beautiful riding my cock."

You leaned forward, bracing your hands on his chest, and the new angle made you gasp. He thrust up into you from below, meeting your movements, and the wet sound of your bodies joining filled the chamber. Your inner walls were fluttering around him again, your breath coming in short, sharp gasps. He moved one hand to where your bodies were joined and pressed his thumb against your sensitive peak, circling it in time with your movements. You cried out and shattered above him, your body clenching around him, your back arching. The sight of you, lost in pleasure, pushed him over the edge. He thrust up into you one final time and spilled his seed deep inside you, groaning your name, his hands gripping your hips hard enough to leave marks.

You collapsed against his chest, spent and trembling, and he wrapped his arms around you and held you close, still buried inside you. Your breath was warm against his neck. Your heart hammered against his chest. He could feel the thrum of your pulse where your bodies were still joined, and he never wanted to let you go.

You fell asleep like that, joined together, your body draped over his, and when you woke an hour later, the candles had burned lower and the light through the cave entrance had shifted to the gold of late afternoon. You stirred against him, and he felt himself harden again inside you, still buried in your warmth. You smiled sleepily and began to move your hips in a slow, lazy rhythm, and he rolled you onto your back and made love to you again, gentle and tender, whispering your name like a prayer.

After that day, they could not keep their hands off each other, it was as if a dam had broken. Every moment they were together, they were touching. His hand on the small of your back, your fingers tangled in his hair, his lips on your shoulder, your thigh pressed against his beneath the dinner table. The boat sat forgotten on the beach, the wood beginning to weather and grey in the salt air. The days blurred into a haze of sun and water and skin.

He took you in the meadow, surrounded by wildflowers, the grass tickling your bare skin as he moved inside you, your legs wrapped around his waist and your fingers digging into his back. The sun was warm on his shoulders and the scent of blossoms was thick in the air. He rolled onto his back, pulling you on top of him without breaking their connection, and you rode him among the flowers, your head thrown back, your breasts bouncing with every movement, the bright petals clinging to your damp skin.

You pulled him into the storage chamber one afternoon and pressed him against the cool stone wall. You sank to your knees before him on the worn stone floor, looking up at him and you freed him from his breeches with practiced hands. He was already hard, his cock springing out, the tip glistening. You wrapped your hand around the base of him, feeling the weight and heat of him in your palm, and then you leaned forward and took him into your mouth.

He groaned and buried his fingers in your hair as your lips closed around him. You took him slowly, deliberately, your tongue tracing the ridge on the underside of his shaft, your cheeks hollowing as you sucked. You worked him with your mouth and your hand in tandem, your head bobbing in a steady rhythm, your tongue swirling around the sensitive head on every upstroke. He watched you move, mesmerized, watching his cock disappear between your lips again and again, feeling the wet heat of your mouth, the gentle scrape of your teeth. When you took him deeper, relaxing your throat to accommodate his length, he groaned your name and tightened his grip on your hair.

You pulled back, your lips slick and swollen, a strand of saliva connecting you to his tip. You looked up at him and smiled, a slow, wicked smile, and then you took him deep again, hollowing your cheeks, increasing your pace. Your hand cupped him gently, rolling him in your palm, and the dual sensation pushed him closer and closer to the edge. When he could not hold back any longer, he warned you, his voice ragged, but you only took him deeper, and he spilled into your mouth with a ragged cry of your name. You swallowed everything he gave you, your throat working around him, and you did not pull away until he was spent and trembling.

You looked up at him, your lips slick and swollen, a tiny bead of his release at the corner of your mouth that you caught with your tongue. The sight of you, kneeling before him, having taken everything he had to give, made his spent cock twitch with interest. He pulled you to your feet and kissed you deeply, tasting himself on your tongue, and then he spun you around and bent you over the stone table where you mixed your medicines.

He bunched your skirts around your waist, baring you to his gaze. Your folds were already slick and glistening, your arousal dripping down your inner thighs. He ran his hand over the curve of your backside, kneading the firm flesh, and then he positioned himself at your entrance. He entered you from behind in one smooth thrust, burying himself to the hilt, and you gasped and clutched at the worn stone surface. He set a hard, fast rhythm, one hand gripping your hip hard enough to leave fingerprints and the other braced on the table beside yours. The sound of his hips slamming against your backside filled the small chamber, wet and rhythmic, punctuated by your breathless gasps and his low groans.

"Is this what you wanted when you got on your knees for me?" he asked, his voice rough. "Did you want me to bend you over and fuck you until you screamed?"

"Yes," you gasped, pushing back against him. "Yes, I wanted this. I wanted you."

He reached around and found your sensitive peak with his fingers, rubbing tight circles in time with his thrusts. The angle was perfect, driving him deep, hitting that spot inside you with every stroke. Your gasps turned to cries, your cries turned to screams, and when you came, your body clenching around him so tightly that he could barely move, he followed a heartbeat later, groaning your name into the curve of your shoulder, spilling himself deep inside you.

He stayed inside you until he softened, his forehead resting against your shoulder blade, both of you breathing hard. Then he pulled out gently and turned you around, and he kissed you softly, tenderly, his hands cupping your face.

Every night, they fell asleep tangled together in his bed, their bed now, and every morning they woke the same way. Sometimes he would wake first and simply watch you sleep, the soft rise and fall of your chest, the way your lips curved into a faint smile as if you were dreaming of him. Sometimes you would wake first and trace the lines of his scars with your fingertips, until he stirred and rolled on top of you and the day began the way all their days began now, with your legs around his waist and your soft cries filling the candlelit chamber.

He could not get enough of you. He could not get enough of your taste or your scent or the sounds you made when you came apart in his arms. He could not get enough of the way your eyes fluttered closed when he kissed your neck, or the way your back arched when he ran his hands down your sides, or the way you whispered his name in the darkness, over and over, like an incantation. He learned every inch of your body, every sensitive spot, every place that made you gasp and every place that made you moan. He learned the rhythm you liked, slow and deep when you were tender, fast and hard when you were hungry. He learned how to read your body well enough to know which one you needed before you had to ask. He learned that you liked it when he talked to you while he moved inside you, telling you how beautiful you were, how much he loved you, how he wanted to stay buried in your warmth forever.

And every time he was inside you, every time you came apart in his arms, every time he lost himself in the heat and the pleasure and the overwhelming, consuming love he felt for you, something else slipped away.

In many ways, you were. You were his world now. You were everything.

And he was forgetting that there had ever been anything else.

—

The ship appeared on the horizon like a ghost from a life Jace had almost forgotten, he was down by the shore, skipping stones across the glass-flat water while you gathered shells further down the beach.

Then he saw it, a dark shape cut against the glare of the sun. At first he thought it was a cloud, or a trick of the light, or one of the strange birds that sometimes wheeled overhead. But the shape grew larger and sharper and resolved itself into masts and sails and a hull cutting through the water.

Jace's hand froze mid-throw. The stone dropped from his fingers and plunked into the shallows.

"Jace?" Your voice came from further down the beach, laced with concern. "What is it?"

"A ship."

The word felt strange in his mouth, foreign. He had not seen a ship in how long? Months? Years? He could not remember. Time had stopped meaning anything on this island.

He squinted against the sun, his heart beating faster. The ship was large, a warship by the look of it, three masts and a reinforced hull. As it drew closer, he could make out the banner snapping from the mainmast.

A seahorse. Silver on sea-green.

Velaryon.

The name hit him like a wave. His grandfather's house. His mother's allies. His family. The memories surged up from wherever they had been hiding, Dragonstone, Driftmark, the fleet, Lord Corlys, the war.

The war. He was fighting a war. His mother needed him. He had to go home.

"They are here for me," he breathed, and then he was running down the beach, waving his arms over his head, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Here! I am here!"

The soldiers came ashore in a longboat, six of them, their armor gleaming in the sun, the Velaryon seahorse embossed on their breastplates. They were grizzled men, seasoned fighters, and when they saw Jace standing on the beach, their faces broke into expressions of shock and relief and barely contained joy.

"Prince Jacaerys," the lead soldier breathed, dropping to one knee in the sand. "We thought you were dead. The Queen, your mother, she sent ships to every corner of the Narrow Sea. She never gave up hope."

Jace pulled the man to his feet, his hands shaking. "My mother. Is she well? Is the war still—"

"The war continues, my prince. The queen has taken Kings Landing. She will be overjoyed to see you. Everyone believed you had perished at the Gullet."

The Gullet. The arrows. Vermax screaming. The water closing over his head.

Jace shoved the memories aside. "I am alive," he said, and he was laughing now, giddy with relief and adrenaline. "I am alive, and I am coming home."

He turned to find you, you were standing a few paces back, your hands clasped in front of you, watching the soldiers with an expression he could not read. Your strange dress fluttered in the sea breeze, and your eyes were dark and unreadable.

"This is Y/N," Jace said, pulling you forward. You came reluctantly, your bare feet dragging in the sand. "She saved my life. She pulled me from the water and nursed me back to health. I would not be alive without her."

The lead soldier bowed to you, respectful. "The Queen will want to thank you personally, my lady. You have done the realm a great service."

You said nothing. You only nodded, a small, stiff movement.

Jace pulled you aside while the soldiers began unloading supplies from the longboat. His hands were still shaking. His heart was pounding. He felt more alive than he had in weeks, or months, or however long it had been.

"You are coming with me," he said, the words tumbling out in a rush. "I know what you told me about your brother and the exile. But I am a prince, and my mother is the Queen. Whatever power your brother holds, it is nothing compared to the Iron Throne. We can protect you."

Your eyes widened. "Jace..."

"I mean it." He took your hands in his, squeezing tight. "You saved my life. You have been alone here for so long, and I am not going to leave you behind. Come with me to Westeros. I will keep you safe. I swear it."

For a long moment, you only looked at him. Your sea-glass eyes searched his face, looking for something he did not recognize. It might have been doubt or hesitation or some reason to refuse, then you smiled.

"Yes," you said. "I will come with you."

Jace pulled you into his arms and held you tight, his face buried in your hair, breathing in the scent of you, salt and flowers and home. "We leave at dawn," he murmured. "Tomorrow, we leave at dawn."

That night, you cooked a feast, the soldiers were camped on the beach, their tents pitched in a neat row above the tide line. They had offered to share their rations, but you had insisted, telling them in that quiet, gracious way of yours that they were guests on your island and that you would feed them.

Jace helped you carry platters of food down to the beach. There was roasted pork, crackling and golden, seasoned with herbs from your garden. There were strange fruits sliced and arranged in intricate patterns. There was fresh bread baked in the stone oven at the back of the cave, still warm and fragrant. And there was wine, more wine than Jace had ever seen in the cave, deep red wine in clay amphorae, rich and dark and potent.

"Where did you get all this?" he asked, watching you fill cup after cup for the soldiers.

You smiled, your hands steady on the amphora. "I have been saving it. For a special occasion."

The feast was a joyous affair. The soldiers laughed and sang and told Jace stories of the war, battles won and lost, allies gained and betrayed, the endless, grinding struggle for the Iron Throne. He listened with half an ear, nodding in the right places, but his attention kept drifting to you.

You moved among the soldiers like a ghost, refilling cups, offering plates of food, your smile never wavering. The men thanked you with drunken enthusiasm, their faces flushed with wine and gratitude. Jace felt a swell of pride watching you, his savior, his love, soon to be his companion in Westeros, where he would shower you with every luxury you had been denied on this lonely island.

"To the Prince!" one of the soldiers bellowed, raising his cup. "To Prince Jacaerys, returned from the dead!"

"To the Prince!" the others roared.

Jace raised his own cup and drank deep. The wine was stronger than he expected, and it went to his head almost immediately. The stars above seemed to blur and swirl. The fire on the beach danced and flickered. Your hand found his under the table, and he squeezed it tight.

Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow, we go home

—

He woke to sunlight and the sound of birdsong, his head pounded. His mouth was dry and sour with the aftertaste of wine. He groaned and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, trying to drive back the ache that throbbed behind them. How much had he drunk? He remembered the feast. He remembered the soldiers laughing, the wine flowing, your hand in his beneath the table. He remembered the fire on the beach and the stars wheeling overhead and the giddy, overwhelming relief of knowing that he was finally, finally going home.

The soldiers, Jace sat up so fast that the furs tangled around his legs and nearly sent him sprawling. The soldiers. The ship. They were leaving at dawn. He had to get up. He had to get dressed. He had to—

He stumbled out of the bed and through the winding passages of the cave, his bare feet slapping against the cold stone. The light grew brighter as he ran, golden and warm, and then he burst through the cave entrance and stopped dead at the edge of the cliff.

The beach was empty, his eyes swept the shoreline, back and forth, back and forth, searching for the tents and the longboat and the supply crates. He looked for the ship, the great Velaryon warship with its three masts and its silver seahorse banner, riding at anchor in the bay.

There was nothing there, the white sand stretched out below him, pristine and unmarked. The sea glittered in the morning sun, calm and blue and utterly empty all the way to the horizon. No ship. No sails. No sign that anyone had ever been here at all.

"What..." Jace's voice came out hoarse, cracked. He turned and ran down the path to the beach, his legs still unsteady, his heart pounding against his ribs. He reached the sand and walked through the place where the camp had been, his eyes scanning the ground for any trace of the soldiers. A footprint. A scrap of cloth. A ring of stones where the fire had burned. A spilled cup. Anything.

The sand was smooth and unblemished. The tide had come in during the night and erased whatever marks might have been left behind.

"Jace?" Your voice drifted down from the cliff above, calm and curious. "What are you doing?"

He looked up. You were standing at the mouth of the cave, barefoot, wrapped in one of your flowing dresses, your hair loose around your shoulders. The morning light caught the soft curves of your face and made your eyes gleam.

"The soldiers," Jace called up to you. "The ship. Where are they?"

You tilted your head, your brow furrowing slightly. "What soldiers?"

The question hit him like a physical blow. He stood there on the empty beach, staring up at you, waiting for you to laugh or smile or tell him it was a joke. You only looked back at him with mild, patient confusion.

"The soldiers," he repeated, his voice rising. "The Velaryon soldiers. Six of them. They came yesterday in a warship. They landed on the beach. We had a feast. You served them roast pork and wine. They were going to take us home this morning."

Your expression did not change. That small, puzzled frown remained, as though he were speaking a language you did not quite recognize.

"Jace," you said gently, "I think you must have dreamed it."

"I did not dream it." He was breathing hard now, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. "They were here. They said my mother sent them. You spoke to them. You—"

He stopped, you were walking down the path to the beach now, your bare feet moving sure and steady over the rocks. When you reached the sand, you came to stand beside him, and your hand rose to rest against his cheek.

"You had a great deal of wine last night," you said, your voice soft and soothing. "More than I have ever seen you drink. Sometimes wine can make dreams feel very real."

Jace shook his head, pulling away from your touch. "It was not a dream. They were here. They were real."

"Then where are they now?" You gestured at the empty beach, the empty sea, the empty horizon. "Where is the ship? Where are the footprints? Where is the fire? If six men camped on this beach last night, where is the evidence of it?"

The sand was smooth. The sea was empty. There was no smoke rising from the ashes of a campfire. There were no tent pegs driven into the earth. There was no ship, no longboat, no sign that anyone but the two of you had ever set foot on this island.

"I do not know," he said, and his voice sounded thin and uncertain even to his own ears. "I do not understand."

You stepped closer, and your hand found his cheek again, and this time he did not pull away. Your palm was cool against his flushed skin.

"You have been through so much," you murmured. "Your body is still healing. Your mind is still healing. Dreams and memories and wishes can all blur together. But you are here with me, and you are safe. That is what matters."

Jace stared down at the sand. His head was pounding. His thoughts were tangled, slipping over each other like stones in a landslide. He remembered the feast so clearly, the taste of the roast pork, the sound of the soldiers' laughter, the weight of your hand in his. He remembered the banner snapping in the wind, silver seahorse on sea-green. He remembered the lead soldier kneeling in the sand, the shock and relief on his weathered face.

But the beach was empty.

"Perhaps you are right," he said slowly, and the words felt like surrender. "Perhaps I dreamed it."

You smiled, and your smile was warm and gentle and full of something that might have been relief. "Come back inside. I will make you something to eat. You will feel better once you have eaten."

He let you lead him back up the path and into the cave. He let you sit him down at the stone table. He let you place a plate of fruit and fresh bread in front of him, and he ate without tasting it, his mind still chasing the fragments of the dream that had felt so real.

That was what you had called it. A dream. And perhaps you were right. Perhaps the longing for home had grown so strong that his mind had conjured a rescue where none existed. Perhaps the wine had done the rest, weaving the longing into something that felt like memory.

Perhaps.

He did not think about it for the rest of the day, it was not until late afternoon that he noticed the pigs, he was walking past the enclosure without any particular destination in mind, his feet carrying him along the familiar path, when he stopped and frowned.

The pigs had always been numerous, he had never bothered to count them exactly, but now, looking at the enclosure, he could see that there were more than there had been the day before. Many more.

The sows jostled and grunted. The piglets tumbled over each other in the dirt. They were fat, healthy animals with glossy coats and floppy ears, rooting in the churned earth of the enclosure, there were at least twice as many pigs as there had been the day before.

Jace stood at the stone wall and stared at them. The pigs stared back, their small dark eyes unblinking, he stood there for a long time.

—

Days later, Jace found the hole by accident, though later he would wonder whether anything on this island ever happened by accident at all. He had been exploring, something he did more and more often now, wandering the island's paths and cliffs and hidden coves as if searching for something he could not name. He had walked further than usual that afternoon, following a thin stream that wound through a cleft in the cliffs, its water cold and clear and tasting faintly of minerals when he cupped his hands to drink. The stream led him deeper into the interior than he had ever gone before, past stands of flowering trees whose blossoms released a sweet, drowsy perfume, past moss-covered boulders that loomed overhead like the shoulders of buried giants and that was when he saw it.

A dark opening in the rock face, half-hidden by a curtain of flowering vines that spilled down from the cliff above in cascades of white and purple. The vines were thick and tangled, but they did not quite conceal the gap behind them. An opening wide enough for a man to walk through without ducking his head.

He should not have gone in. He knew that, even as his feet carried him forward, even as his hands reached out to push the vines aside. A voice in the back of his mind, the voice that had once belonged to a prince trained in caution and suspicion, whispered that he should turn around and walk back to the sunlit meadow and forget he had ever seen this place. But that voice had grown very quiet in the months he had spent on this island, and something else had grown louder.

The darkness swallowed him whole. He stood motionless for a long moment, waiting for his eyes to adjust, one hand pressed flat against the cool stone of the wall. The passage sloped downward, the floor worn smooth by the passage of time or water or the tread of feet. He could not see more than a few feet ahead, but he could feel the space around him opening up, widening into something larger than a simple tunnel. The air was dry and still, the silence so complete that he could hear his own heartbeat thudding in his ears.

He walked deeper, the passage twisted once, then twice, then opened abruptly into a chamber so vast that Jace's footsteps echoed back to him from walls he could not see. Thin shafts of daylight pierced down through cracks in the ceiling high above, illuminating the space in pale, dusty columns that fell across the floor like the bars of a cage made of light and in those columns of light, Jace saw them.

Armor.

Dozens of sets, perhaps hundreds, arranged against the walls and stacked in corners and laid out on stone slabs that rose from the floor like altars. Breastplates and greaves and gauntlets and helms, their surfaces catching the thin light and throwing it back in dull gleams. Some were polished and gleaming, as if they had been cleaned and oiled with meticulous care. Others were rusted and crumbling, their edges flaking away into red-brown dust, their shapes barely recognizable beneath the corrosion of years or decades or centuries. Swords and axes and spears and maces, their blades dull with age and disuse, their hilts wrapped in leather that had rotted away to nothing.

And clothes, stacks and stacks of clothes, tunics and breeches and cloaks and boots and belts and gloves. They were piled against the walls in drifts that rose nearly to the ceiling, some of them neatly folded as if awaiting a return that would never come, others tossed carelessly into corners in tangled heaps of faded fabric. Some were new, the dyes still bright, the wool still soft, the linen still crisp and clean. Others were ancient and moth-eaten, their threads crumbling at the slightest touch, their colors bleached to ghostly echoes of what they had once been.

Jace stood in the center of the chamber and turned in a slow circle, his breath caught in his throat, his heart hammering against his ribs like a fist beating against a locked door. The scale of it was incomprehensible. There were so many. Too many. More than one person could ever need. More than a dozen people could ever need. More than a hundred people could ever need. This was not a collection. This was a graveyard for the belongings of the dead.

His eyes caught on a breastplate near his feet, and the world tilted sideways, it was newer than the others. Its metal still held a faint gleam beneath a thin layer of dust, and its leather straps were still supple, and on its chest, embossed in silver that caught the light like a blade, was the seahorse of House Velaryon.

He remembered the lead soldier kneeling in the sand, his weathered face breaking into shock and relief. He remembered the feast on the beach, the crackling fire, the roast pork and the wine and your hand in his beneath the table. He remembered waking to find the beach empty and the sea bare and you standing at the mouth of the cave with your head tilted and your brow furrowed, asking him what soldiers he meant, telling him it was only a dream, only a dream, nothing more than a dream.

The soldiers who had never been here. The soldiers he had only imagined. Their armor was lying at his feet.

He stumbled backward. His heel caught on a gauntlet and sent it skittering across the stone floor with a sound like a startled crab. The noise echoed through the chamber and died away into silence, and Jace stood there with his hands shaking and his mind blank with a terror so absolute that it felt almost like calm. He could not think. He could not breathe. He could not make sense of what he was seeing, and some part of him understood with terrible clarity that making sense of it would destroy everything he had built on this island. Every moment of peace. Every hour of love. Every whispered word in the darkness. All of it balanced on the edge of this pit, and if he looked down, if he truly looked, he would fall.

"What are you doing here?"

He spun around so fast that his boots skidded on the stone floor, his heart slammed against his ribs, once, twice, a frantic drumbeat of pure animal terror.. "Nothing. I was only looking, I wanted to understand—"

"You were only looking." You stepped out of the shadows and into the thin light that filtered down from the cracks in the ceiling, and the expression on your face made his stomach drop. The gentle warmth he had come to love was gone. The softness was gone. Your jaw was tight, the muscles corded beneath your skin, and your hands were clenched into fists at your sides, and your eyes were fixed on him with a glittering intensity that pinned him in place like a butterfly on a board. "At what, precisely? At the belongings of dead men? At the evidence of my sins? At the proof that I am not the gentle, lonely woman you thought you loved?"

Your hands unclenched and clenched again, the fingers curling and uncurling in a rhythm that seemed almost involuntary, as though you were strangling something invisible.

"I asked you a question, Jace." Your voice dropped, soft and dangerous. "What are you doing here?"

He should have been afraid. He was afraid. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up, and his heart was beating so hard he could feel it in his throat, and every instinct he possessed was screaming at him to run. But something else rose up inside him too, some scrap of the prince he used to be, some stubborn remnant of the boy who had faced down enemies on the battlefield and never flinched. He straightened his spine and met your eyes and refused to look away.

"Why are they here?" he asked, gesturing at the armor that surrounded them. "All of these. Dozens of sets. Hundreds, maybe. The soldiers who came for me, their armor is here. The same breastplate, the same sigil. It wasn't a dream was it? What happened to them?"

You stared at him. A muscle in your jaw twitched.

"It does not matter."

"It matters to me."

"It does not matter, Jace." Your voice was rising now, cracking at the edges, splintering into something raw and desperate. "It should not matter, Jace. Those men are gone. Let them stay gone. Let the past stay buried. We were happy. We were so happy. Why could you not leave well enough alone?"

"Because I need to know the truth."

"The truth will not make you happy. The truth will not keep you warm at night. The truth will not hold you when you wake from nightmares and tell you that everything is going to be all right."

"The truth is the truth. I deserve to know it."

You laughed, it was sharp and bitter and jagged, the laugh of someone who had been hurt too many times to believe in fairness anymore. "You sound just like them. Every single one of them. They all wanted the truth. They all thought they deserved to know. And do you know what happened when they found it?"

Jace did not answer. He did not need to answer. The armors answered for him.

"What happened to the soldiers?" he asked instead. His voice was very quiet. "The ones who came for me. The ones whose armor is lying at my feet. What did you do to them?"

Your face crumpled, the coldness shattered and the fury crumbled and underneath it was something far older and far more terrifying, a grief so immense it had calcified into rage over centuries of solitude. The tears that spilled down your cheeks were real, hot and sudden and utterly convincing.

"Why do you want to leave me?" you screamed, the sound echoed off the stone walls and came back multiplied, a chorus of accusations that battered him from every direction. Your voice was raw and ragged, shredded at the edges, and the pain in it was so enormous that Jace felt his own heart clench in response. The anger that had been building in him, the righteous fury at being lied to, began to waver. How could he be angry at someone who was in so much pain? How could he accuse someone who was so clearly suffering?

"Why do you want to leave me?" you cried again, and your voice broke on the last word. "Why do they always leave? Every single one of them, they wash up on my shore and I save them and I nurse them back to health and I give them everything I have, everything I am, and they tell me they love me, they look me in the eyes and they swear they love me, and I believe them every time, every single time I believe them because I am so desperate to be loved by someone, anyone, and then they remember. They always remember. And they always leave. They always want to go home. Why am I never enough? Why am I never enough for anyone?"

The question hung in the air, raw and bleeding. Your chest was heaving. Your hands were shaking. You looked at him with those burning eyes, and Jace felt his resolve crumbling, you were not a monster, you were wounded, a woman who had been abandoned and betrayed so many times that she had forgotten how to trust. How could he blame you for what you had done?

"I love you," he said, and his voice was shaking but he meant it with every fiber of his being. "I love you. I do. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone."

"Then why do you want to leave me?" Your voice was small now, wounded, the fury draining away to reveal the vulnerability beneath. "If you love me, why isn't that enough? Why do you need to go back? Why can't you just stay here with me? Why do you need a mother and brothers and a war and a throne? Why can you not just stay here and be mine?"

"Because I have a family." He was pleading now, hating himself for the pain he was causing you. "Because I have a mother who needs me and brothers who are waiting for me. Because there is a war, a war I was fighting, a war I was supposed to win. Because I have a duty."

"A duty." You laughed, but it was a broken sound, a laugh that was really a sob. "Duty. Honor. Family. I have heard all of this before. Every single one of them said the same thing. They had to go back. They had responsibilities. They had people who needed them. And what about me? What about what I need? I needed them. I loved them. And they left me anyway. They all left me. Just like you will leave me."

"I don't want to leave you," Jace said, and the words felt inadequate, pathetic. "I want to go home, yes. I want to see my mother. I want to protect her from the enemies who would see her dead and her throne stolen. But I want to take you with me. I want you to meet her. I want to marry you properly, before the whole court, with a septon and a cloak and vows spoken in the light of the Seven. I want to make you my queen. When I sit the Iron Throne, you will sit beside me."

He reached for you, desperate to comfort you, to wipe the tears from your cheeks. You did not pull away, but you did not lean into his touch either.

"I do not care what you did to these men," he said, his voice low and fierce. "I do not care what you have done. I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved anything in my life. I just want you to come with me. Please. Come with me."

For a long moment, you were silent, then you shook your head. Slowly. Miserably. With the exhausted certainty of someone who had heard these same promises too many times to count.

"It is not true," you whispered. "They always say this. When my brother sends them here, they always tell me they love me. They always promise they will stay. They look at me with those earnest eyes and they swear they are different from the others, and I believe them. I always believe them. Because I want to believe. Because I want so desperately for it to be true. And then they remember who they were before, and everything changes."

You pulled your hands out of his grip and wrapped your arms around yourself, your shoulders hunching inward as though you were trying to make yourself smaller, harder to hurt. Jace felt a surge of protectiveness so strong it almost knocked the breath out of him. He wanted to hold you. He wanted to shield you from everything that had ever hurt you.

"They remember their old lives," you continued, your voice barely above a whisper, "and they tell me they will save me. They tell me they will break the curse and take me away from here and marry me in a real sept with real vows. They promise me everything I have ever wanted. And for a little while I let myself hope. I let myself believe that this time will be different. This time the love will be real."

Your voice caught on the last word, splintering into something that was almost a sob. Jace felt tears prick at the corners of his own eyes. Gods, how could anyone have done this to you? How could anyone have been so cruel?

"But they never mean it," you said. "They are only saying what they think I want to hear. They are only trying to placate me, to buy themselves time, to find a way to escape. And when they try to break the curse and they fail, when they realize their love is not strong enough, when they understand that they do not really love me at all, they run. They try to leave. And I—"

You stopped. Your hands were trembling violently now, the fingers twisting together in front of you.

"What do you do?" Jace asked, though he already knew the answer. He knew it, and it horrified him, and yet somehow he could not bring himself to judge you for it. You had been hurt. You had been betrayed. You had been left alone for so long that you had forgotten what it felt like to be held. How could anyone expect you to react with grace when another man tried to abandon you?

"I do not let them leave." Your voice was barely a whisper, so quiet he had to lean closer to hear it. "They do not get to leave. They do not get to go back to their families and forget about me while I rot here alone. They stay. They stay here with me. Forever."

"The pigs," Jace said.

"They are happier as pigs," Your voice took on a defensive edge, almost childlike in its insistence. "They do not remember their old lives. They do not feel the disappointment. They do not want to leave. They are content. They have food and shelter and each other. I take care of them. I take better care of them than anyone ever took care of me." Your eyes searched his face, looking for understanding, looking for absolution. "They are better off this way. I gave them peace. I gave them a life without pain. Do you know what my brother gave me? Do you know what it feels like to be left here, alone, for centuries, with nothing but the sound of the waves and the crying of the gulls and the knowledge that no one is ever coming for you?"

Jace's throat was dry. "Why did you not do it to me?"

"Because I thought you were different." Your voice was small now, so small it was almost swallowed by the shadows of the cave. "Because when I looked at you, when I held you through the fevers and listened to you talk about your home and your family, I thought—I hoped—that you might really love me." A tear slid down your cheek, and you did not wipe it away. "I thought you would stay."

The guilt hit Jace like a physical blow. You had hoped. You had let yourself hope, despite everything, despite centuries of betrayal and abandonment, and he was about to become just another name on the long list of people who had disappointed you. He was about to leave you, just like all the others. He was about to prove that your hope had been misplaced, that love was a lie, that no one would ever truly choose you.

"I am sorry," he said, and he meant it with every part of himself. "I am so sorry. I do not want to leave you. I want to stay. I want both things. I want to go home, but I want you to come with me. Can I not have both things?"

"No one ever wants both things." You pulled your hands away, and your expression was hardening again, the vulnerability sealing itself back behind walls of old resentment. "They want to leave. They always want to leave. As soon as they remember their old lives, they want to leave. And when they realize they cannot break the curse, they run. They all run. And I have to stop them because if I do not stop them they will leave me alone again, and I cannot be alone again, Jace, I cannot, I would rather die than be alone again—"

"What curse?" Jace cut through your spiraling words, his voice urgent. "You said they could not break the curse. What curse?"

"It does not matter," you said. Your voice was empty now, drained of all the fury and grief that had filled it moments before. "You are going to leave me too. You are going to try to break the curse, and you are going to fail, because no one has ever succeeded, and then you are going to run. Just like all the others."

"Tell me what the curse is. Please. Let me help you."

You stared at him for a long, long moment. The candles flickered in their alcoves, their flames guttering in a draft he could not feel. The armor gleamed dully in the shadows, the relics of a hundred men who had stood where he was standing now and made the same promises he was making. Somewhere far away, muffled by stone and distance, the pigs grunted in their enclosure. The men who had failed. The men whose love had not been strong enough.

"My brother exiled me here," you said finally. Your voice was flat now, reciting facts rather than feelings, as though you had told this story so many times that the words had lost all meaning. "Centuries ago. So long ago that the world I came from does not exist anymore, and when I disobeyed him, when I refused to do what he asked of me, he put a curse on this island as punishment. I cannot leave. No ship will carry me. No boat will bear my weight. If I try to swim, the sea itself will rise up and drag me back to shore. I am bound here, bound to this rock, until the curse is broken or the world ends."

"How do I break it?"

You looked at him, and your eyes were ancient and exhausted and utterly without hope. Jace felt his heart twist. You had been disappointed so many times. You did not believe he could do it.

"There is a cave," you said. "Behind the waterfall on the western cliff. There is a statue inside, a statue of me carved from black stone, wrapped in chains. I cannot enter the cave. It is spelled against me." Your hand rose unconsciously to your neck, as if feeling for the links of a collar that was not there. "If the statue is broken, the curse will be lifted. The chains will fall. I will be free."

"Then I will break it."

"It is not that simple." Your voice was quiet now, almost gentle, and there was something in it that felt like a warning, a kindness, an attempt to protect him from the disappointment you were certain was coming. "Only a man who knows my true nature can destroy the statue. Only a man who has seen what I am, what I have done, every monstrous thing I have committed in my long and miserable existence, and still loves me truly. Not charmed. Not tricked. Not fogged by the magic of this island. Real love. Clear-eyed love. Love that looks at the worst of me and does not flinch." You paused. "If his love is false, if it is only gratitude or loneliness or the lingering effects of my enchantments, the statue will not break. It will not even crack. And I will know. I will know that his love was a lie."

"I am not them," he said.

"You are. You are exactly like them."

"No." He stepped forward and took your face in his hands, his thumbs brushing the tears from your cheeks. "I am not them. I am going to break the curse. I am going to set you free. I am going to take you away from this island and give you the life you deserve. I swear it."

"You cannot promise that."

"I can. I am." He pressed his forehead against yours. "I love you. I know what you are. I know what you have done. And I love you anyway. I love you not despite the worst of you but because of it. Because the worst of you was born from pain, and I want to heal that pain. I want to be the one who finally proves to you that love is real. That you are worthy of it. That you have always been worthy of it."

You let out a sound that was half laugh and half sob. "You are a fool, Jacaerys Velaryon."

"Take me to the cave behind the waterfall," he said. "Let me prove it."

"Alright," you whispered, as if you had expected him to ask. "I will take you. But do not say I did not warn you."

You turned and walked out of the cave, and Jace followed you, his heart pounding and his mind clear and his love for you burning in his chest like a flame that no wind could extinguish. He was going to save you. He was going to be the one. He was going to prove that love was stronger than any curse, stronger than any magic, stronger than centuries of solitude and betrayal.

He had to be the one. The alternative was unthinkable.

—

The walk was silent, you led him along the familiar path, the meadow with its strange flowers swaying in the breeze, the grove of fruit trees with their golden bounty hanging heavy from the branches, the rocky outcropping that overlooked the western shore where the sea stretched out blue and endless and utterly indifferent to what was about to happen. The waterfall was roaring louder than usual, or perhaps it only seemed that way. Perhaps it was the blood pounding in his ears. Perhaps it was the weight of what he was about to do pressing down on him like a physical thing, a stone laid across his chest that made every breath feel shallow and insufficient.

You stopped at the edge of the pool, where the water churned white with the endless cascade. Your face was pale. Your hands were shaking at your sides, the fingers twisting together in that nervous gesture he had come to recognize, the one that always made him want to pull you into his arms and promise you that everything would be alright.

"There," you said, pointing, Jace squinted through the spray. Behind the curtain of falling water, barely visible through the silver torrent, was a dark opening in the rock face. A cave mouth, smaller than the one you lived in, half-hidden by the cascade. It looked like something that did not want to be found.

"I cannot enter," you said, and your voice was quiet, almost reverent. "The spell prevents me. The moment I step through the water, I am pushed back. It burns." You wrapped your arms around yourself, your fingers digging into the flesh of your upper arms. The gesture was meant to look vulnerable, meant to make him feel protective. It worked. "You have to go alone."

Jace nodded. He had expected this. Of course he had expected this. The hero always had to face the trial alone. That was how these stories went.

"I will come back," he said.

You did not answer. Your eyes were fixed on the waterfall, dark and terrified, and your lower lip trembled just slightly, just enough for him to notice.

"Hey." He touched your chin, turning your face toward him. Your skin was cold beneath his fingers. "I will come back. I promise."

"Everyone promises." Your voice was barely a whisper, and there was something in it that snagged at his heart like a fishhook. "Everyone who has ever stood on this shore has promised to come back."

"I am not everyone."

He kissed your lips and for just a moment he felt something move beneath the surface. A flicker. A pulse. Something that was not quite human. Then the moment passed, and you were just you again, fragile and frightened and looking at him with those sea-glass eyes that held all the sadness in the world.

He turned away before he could lose his nerve. He dove into the pool, and the water closed over his head like a fist.

The cold was shocking. It was more than cold. It was the absence of warmth, the absence of life, a cold that sank into his bones and wrapped around his heart and squeezed. He surfaced gasping, his breath torn from his lungs in a ragged gasp, and swam toward the waterfall with strong, desperate strokes. The roar grew louder as he approached, a wall of sound that pressed against his eardrums until he could hear nothing else. The spray blinded him, stinging his eyes, filling his mouth with the taste of minerals and stone. The current tried to push him back, tried to shove him away from the cave entrance as if the water itself did not want him to pass.

But he kept swimming. He had promised. He had promised he would come back, he reached the rock face and pulled himself up onto a narrow ledge, slick with moss and running water, his fingers scrabbling for purchase on the wet stone. The cave entrance yawned before him, dark and silent and somehow hungry, as if the darkness itself was waiting for him to step inside. He looked back once. You were still standing at the edge of the pool, a pale figure in a pale dress, your hands pressed to your mouth. You looked like a ghost. You looked like a memory of someone who had died a long time ago.

Then he turned and walked into the darkness.

—

The cave was small, smaller than he had expected. The passage was short, barely twenty paces, the walls rough and wet beneath his trailing fingers, the floor sloping downward into the heart of the rock. The roar of the waterfall faded behind him, muffled by the stone, until the only sound was the drip of water and the soft scuff of his bare feet on the rock and the steady, insistent pounding of his own heart.

The passage opened into a round chamber no larger than your bedchamber back in the main cave. The walls were smooth and wet, glistening with moisture, catching the light and throwing it back in a thousand tiny reflections. The only illumination came from somewhere above, a thin shaft of daylight that pierced through a crack in the rock and fell in a single golden beam onto the center of the chamber. It was like something out of a sept, that beam of light. It was like the light that fell on an altar, or a tomb, or a place where something sacred had been buried and forgotten.

And in the center of the chamber was the statue.

It was you, smooth and luminous, carved with such skill that it seemed almost alive. The surface of the stone had been polished to a soft gleam, catching the golden light and holding it, and the details were so fine that Jace could see the individual strands of hair. The statue knelt on a stone pedestal, its head bowed in an attitude of submission or prayer, its face frozen in an expression of such profound sorrow that Jace felt his chest tighten just looking at it. The eyes were closed. The lips were slightly parted, as if caught in the middle of a sigh. The shoulders were hunched forward, the spine curved, every line of the body speaking of exhaustion and despair and the weight of an eternity spent alone.

And the hands, the statue's hands were raised in front of its chest, palms facing each other, fingers slightly curled as if holding something invisible. And around those marble wrists, coiled so tightly they seemed to be part of the stone itself, were two snakes.

No. Not snakes. Bracelets. Golden bracelets, each one shaped like a serpent eating its own tail. But the serpents were not connected to each other. They were separate, independent, each one locked around a single wrist, each one devouring itself in an endless cycle of consumption and renewal. Their golden eyes gleamed in the shaft of daylight, bright and watchful and aware. Their scales were so finely detailed that Jace could count every one, each scale overlapping the next in perfect, reptilian precision. Their jaws were clamped tight around their own tails, and their bodies were wound around the marble wrists in coils that looked tight enough to bruise.

They were not chains. Not exactly. They were something worse. They were a trap that could not be escaped because there was nothing to break. The snakes held her wrists, and her wrists held the snakes, and neither could let go, and the whole thing was a perfect, closed loop of imprisonment that had no beginning and no end.

Jace stood in the darkness at the edge of the chamber, staring at the statue. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat, in his temples, in the tips of his fingers. His hands were slick with water and sweat. The marble figure knelt in its beam of light, motionless and patient, and the golden snakes watched him with their glittering eyes, and the silence was so complete that he could hear the blood rushing through his own veins.

He bent down and picked up a rock from the floor of the cave. It was heavy, sharp-edged, big enough to do damage. He turned it over in his hands, testing its weight, feeling the rough edges bite into his palm. Break the statue. Break the curse. Simple. You had told him what to do. You had told him it was simple.

He took a step toward the pedestal.

"Are you quite certain about this?"

Jace froze, the voice was male. Low and smooth and echoing, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It bounced off the wet stone walls, slid through the darkness, coiled around him like smoke, like water, like something that had been waiting in the shadows for a very long time. It was not a human voice. It was too resonant for that, too layered, as if many voices were speaking at once in perfect, dissonant harmony.

"Who is there?" Jace demanded. His voice sounded too loud in the silence, too harsh, too frightened. He hated how frightened he sounded.

No answer. Just the dripping of water. The distant, muffled roar of the falls.

"You should think very carefully before you do something you will regret for the rest of your life. Which, I should warn you, may not be very long."

Jace spun around, the rock raised like a weapon. The chamber was empty. The passage behind him was empty. The shadows pressed against the walls, still and silent and utterly unoccupied.

"I said who is there?"

"A friend." The voice was almost gentle now, almost kind. It was the voice of a father speaking to a wayward son, a mentor guiding a confused student. "Someone who does not want to see you make a mistake you cannot undo. Someone who has watched this same scene play out more times than I can count, and who is very, very tired of seeing young men throw their lives away."

Jace's grip tightened on the rock. The edges cut into his palm, grounding him. "Show yourself."

"I cannot. I am not really here. I am just a voice in the dark. A warning. A kindness, if you will let me be." The voice paused, and when it spoke again, it was softer. Sadder. "I am the only person on this island who is actually trying to help you, Jacaerys."

"Don't listen to it," Jace muttered to himself. He turned back toward the statue. "It's just another part of the curse. It's trying to stop you. She said there would be things trying to stop you."

"Is that what she told you?" The voice sounded amused now, deeply and darkly amused. "That the curse is the villain? That she is the victim? How very convenient for her. How very convenient that she has a story that makes her the helpless damsel and everyone else the monster. She tells that story very well. She has had centuries of practice."

Jace ignored it. He stepped closer to the pedestal. The marble woman knelt in her beam of light, motionless and sorrowful. The golden snakes glinted.

"She is very beautiful, isn't she?" the voice continued, and now it was almost conversational, almost casual, as if they were two old friends discussing the weather. "Of course she is. She's had centuries to perfect the act. The dresses. The smiles. The way she looks at you like you are the only man in the world, like you are the answer to every prayer she has ever whispered into the darkness. It is all very convincing. It is meant to be. She has been refining it for longer than your entire bloodline has existed."

"You do not know anything about her."

"I know everything about her." The voice was sharper now, the amusement draining away to reveal something harder underneath. "I know what she is. I know what she has done. I know how many men have stood exactly where you are standing now, holding a rock just like that one, thinking they were going to be the one. The special one. The one whose love was strong enough." A pause, heavy with meaning. "Do you know how many of them succeeded?"

Jace did not answer.

"None. Not one. In all the centuries she has been trapped on this island, not a single man has broken that statue. Do you know why? Because it cannot be broken. It is a trap. It is the bait, and you are the fish, and you are swimming toward it with your mouth wide open."

"You are lying." Jace's voice was shaking now. He hated that it was shaking. "You are just another part of the curse. You are trying to stop me from freeing her."

"I am trying to stop you from destroying yourself." The voice was closer now, seeming to come from just behind his left shoulder. He spun around, but there was nothing there. Only shadows. Only the dripping of water. "Let me ask you something, Jacaerys. Can you remember your mother's name?"

He opened his mouth but nothing came out, the name was gone. It had been there a moment ago, he was sure of it. He could see her face, silver hair and sad eyes, could feel the shape of her in his memory. But the name, the name would not come.

"Your brothers," the voice continued, relentless and calm. "How many brothers do you have? What are their names?"

"I have brothers. I know I have brothers." His voice sounded desperate, even to his own ears. "Luke-Lucerys. And the others. The little ones."

"You are reciting words. You are not remembering. She has taken them from you, piece by piece, day by day. She has been stealing your memories since the moment you arrived. The food she feeds you. The wine she pours you. The herbs she puts in your medicine. They do not just heal your wounds. They erase you. They hollow you out. They make room for her."

Jace's mind was blank. Empty. There was nothing there but fog, thick and white and impenetrable, where his memories should have been.

"She has taken them from you," the voice said, and now it was almost gentle again, almost pitying. "Piece by piece. Day by day. Every moment you spend in her presence, she is stealing more of who you are. Your family. Your home. Your past. Your very self. And you call that love? You think that is what love looks like?"

"She saved my life."

"She kept you alive because she needed you. There is a difference. She needs a man to break the curse. She always needs a man to break the curse. That is how it works. That is how it has always worked. She lures them in with her beauty and her vulnerability and her sad, sad story, and she makes them love her, and then she sends them here to die. Because no one can break the curse. No one. The statue does not break. It has never broken. And when the man fails, when he realizes his love is not strong enough, she has her excuse. She was right all along. No one really loves her. So she turns them into pigs and waits for the next shipwreck, the next castaway, the next fool who will believe her lies."

He kept going "You think that is love?" The voice laughed, a soft and pitying laugh. "You think a woman who erases your past and steals your future and traps you on an island where you can never leave loves you? You think any of this is real?"

"I love her." Jace's voice cracked. "I know I love her. That is real. Whatever else she has done, my love for her is real."

"Oh, it feels real. I am sure it does. But do you know why it feels real?" The voice paused, letting the question hang in the darkness. "Because she makes it feel real. That is what she does. That is what the magic does. It wraps around your mind and makes you think you are feeling something true. But it is not true, Jacaerys. It is a trick. A trap. You have been ensnared since the moment you opened your eyes in that candlelit room and saw her kneeling beside your bed like a worried bride."

Jace's arm was lowering. The rock felt heavier now, so heavy he could barely hold it. His hands were shaking. His whole body was shaking.

"She told me you would say things like this," he said, but his voice was weak. Uncertain. "She told me the curse would try to stop me. She warned me there would be voices."

"The curse is not stopping you. I am not the curse. I am the only thing standing between you and an eternity of rooting in the dirt with all the other men who believed her lies." The voice was right next to his ear now, so close he could feel the cold breath of it against his skin. "Do you want to know the real story, Jacaerys? Do you want to know who she really is?"

He did not answer. He did not want to know. He wanted to cover his ears and run back through the waterfall and hold you in his arms and forget this voice had ever spoken to him. But his feet would not move. His body would not obey him.

"She is not a victim," the voice whispered. "She is not a lonely woman trapped by a cruel brother. That is a story she invented centuries ago because it makes men feel protective. It makes them feel noble. It makes them want to save her. The truth is much simpler, and much uglier. She is a goddess, a thing that was worshipped before your ancestors crawled out of the mud. And she was imprisoned here not as punishment, but as containment. Because she is dangerous. Because she feeds on devotion the way a spider feeds on flies."

"You are lying."

"Am I? If you break that statue," the voice said, "she will be free. And the moment she is free, she will have no more use for you. Her love for you, such as it is, will vanish. It is not real love, Jacaerys. It is bait. It is a lure. It is the promise of everything you have ever wanted, dangled in front of you to make you do what she needs. And once you have done it, once you have served your purpose, she will discard you like all the others."

"Stop." Jace's voice cracked on the word.

"That is the part she did not tell you, is it not? She did not tell you that her love is conditional. She did not tell you that it lasts only as long as she is trapped. The moment she is free, the magic breaks both ways. The chains fall from her wrists, and her love for you falls with them."

"You are lying." Jace's voice was a raw whisper, barely audible over the distant roar of the waterfall. "You are the curse. You are trying to stop me from freeing her."

"She told every man before you the exact same story. Word for word. The cruel brother. The lonely exile. The curse that can only be broken by true love. She told it to the knight in rusted armor whose bones are rotting in that cave. She told it to the merchant captain whose shield is propped against the wall. And you are just the latest audience."

"Stop."

"She does not love you. She cannot love you. She is not capable of love. She is capable of hunger, and she calls it love because that is what makes men stay. But it is not love. It has never been love. It is just need. Just appetite. Just the endless, grinding loneliness of a creature that consumes everything it touches and is still never full."

Jace opened his eyes. The statue knelt in its beam of light. The golden snakes watched him with their glittering, knowing eyes. The marble face was frozen in its expression of eternal sorrow.

What if the voice was right?

What if none of it was real?

What if he broke the statue, and your love disappeared, and he spent the rest of his life chasing a ghost?

What if he was just the next fool in line?

"Go back," the voice whispered. "Go back to the beach. Build your boat. Leave this place while you still can. While you still remember enough of yourself to want to leave. She will try to stop you. She will cry and plead and tell you she loves you. But it will be a lie. It has always been a lie. Go back, Jacaerys. Go home. Save yourself."

—

You had been waiting for hours. You stood at the edge of the pool, your bare feet sinking into the damp sand, your eyes fixed on the curtain of falling water. The roar of the waterfall filled your ears until you could hear nothing else, but you were listening for something beneath the roar. A shout. A crash. The sound of stone breaking. The sound of a man drowning.

Anything. Please, anything.

Jace surfaced at the edge of the pool, gasping, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, his skin slick with water and gleaming in the sunlight. He pulled himself onto the sand, his chest heaving, his arms trembling with exhaustion, and for a moment he just knelt there on his hands and knees, catching his breath, water streaming from his body in rivulets. You just stared at him, searching his face for some sign of what had happened, some clue in the set of his jaw or the light in his eyes. Was the curse broken? Had he succeeded? Had he been the one, the only one, the man whose love was finally strong enough?

"I did it," he said, and his voice was warm and triumphant and full of a joy you had never heard from him before. "I broke the curse."

You stumbled forward, your legs barely supporting you, your hands reaching for him before your mind had fully registered what he had said. "You—you did? It is broken? I am free?"

"You are free." He rose to his feet, still smiling, and opened his arms to you. "You are free, Y/N. We can leave. Together. Just like I promised."

A sob tore from your throat, raw and jagged and utterly involuntary. You threw yourself into his arms, your body shaking, tears streaming down your face in hot, messy rivulets. He caught you and held you tight, his hands warm on your back, his lips pressing kisses to your hair, your temple, your cheek, his voice murmuring reassurances that you could barely hear over the pounding of your own heart.

"I love you," you gasped, the words tumbling out between sobs, unstoppable, irrepressible. "I love you, I love you, I love you—"

"I love you too." His voice was soft. Tender. Everything you had ever wanted to hear. "I told you I would save you. I told you I was different. I told you I was not like the others."

He kissed you, it was a deep kiss, a passionate kiss, the kind of kiss that spoke of relief and joy and a future finally within reach. You melted into him, your body pressing against his, your hands sliding up his chest, his shoulders, his neck, tangling in his wet hair. The waterfall roared behind you, but it sounded different now, less like a threat and more like applause. The sun was warm on your skin, warmer than it had ever been. You were free. You were finally, impossibly free. After centuries of solitude, centuries of hoping and losing and hoping again, someone had finally loved you enough.

You did not notice anything until you felt the cold metal snap shut against your skin, you tore away from him, stumbling backward, your hand flying to your wrist. Something was there. Something heavy and cold and horribly, sickeningly familiar. You looked down, and the world stopped.

A golden snake. Coiled around your forearm, its tail clamped in its own jaws, its scales gleaming in the sunlight with a wet, organic sheen. Its eyes were bright and watchful and alive. It was warm against your skin, warm like something that had a heartbeat, warm like something that was feeding.

Identical to the ones in the cave. Identical to the ones that had bound the statue for centuries, the statue that was supposed to be destroyed, the statue that he had told you he had broken.

But the statue was not destroyed. You knew that now with a cold, creeping certainty. He had not broken it. He had done something else. Something worse.

"What—" Your voice came out strangled, barely a whisper, the words catching in your throat like bones. "What is this?"

Jace was still standing by the water's edge. His smile was gone. His face had changed, shifted into something you did not recognize. The warmth in his eyes had drained away, replaced by something flat and cold and terribly, terribly calm. He looked at you the way a scholar might look at a pinned insect, curious and detached and utterly without feeling.

He raised his own arm.

The matching snake was coiled around his wrist. Twin to yours. Identical in every detail, from the curve of the scales to the glint of the golden eyes. Linked by nothing visible. Linked all the same. You could feel it, the connection between them, an invisible chain that stretched from your wrist to his and bound you together tighter than any iron ever could.

"I could not break the curse," he said. His voice was calm. Too calm. The voice of a man who had made a decision and was at peace with it. "The statue would not break. I struck it with the rock, and the rock shattered. I struck it with my fists, and my knuckles bled. I threw myself against it, and it did not even crack." He paused, his dark eyes fixed on yours, unblinking. "The voice, your brother, he told me the truth. He told me what you really are. He told me what you have done. He told me what you would do to me the moment you were free."

"No." You shook your head, backing away from him. Your wrist was burning where the snake touched your skin, a cold fire that spread up your arm and into your chest. "No, Jace, whatever he told you, it is a lie. It is always a lie. He is trying to trap you, he is trying to turn you against me—"

"Is it a lie?" He tilted his head, regarding you with that terrible calm. "He told me the curse made me love you. He told me you have been feeding on my devotion since the moment I opened my eyes. He told me you would leave me the instant you were free."

"That is not true!" You were screaming now, your voice raw and cracking. "I love you! I have never loved anyone the way I love you! You have to believe me!"

"Then why can I not remember my mother's name?" His voice cracked on the word mother, just slightly, and beneath the coldness you saw something flicker. Something wounded. Something that still hurt. "Why can I not remember my brothers' faces? Why did I wake up this morning and realize that I could not recall the sound of my father's voice, or the color of my brother's eyes, or the name of the dragon I rode into battle? You took everything from me. Everything I was. Everything I loved. You hollowed me out and filled me with yourself, and you expected me to believe it was love?"

"I did not mean to!" You were sobbing now, the tears hot and bitter on your cheeks. "I did not want to take your memories, i loved you so much i did not want you to leave me."

"You loved being loved." His voice was flat. Final. "There is a difference."

You stared at him. Your chest was heaving. Your wrist was throbbing, the golden snake pulsing against your skin like a second heartbeat. You could feel it now, the thing that bound you together. It was not just a chain. It was a tether. A leash.

"The statue forced you to have a physical body," Jace said, and his voice had shifted again, becoming almost conversational. Almost pleasant. "You are not mortal. You are not human something that was bound to this island and trapped in the stone. The chains kept you here. The statue kept you solid. Touchable. Real." He paused. "Without the statue, you would have no body. You would be nothing but mist and memory. Is that not what your brother wanted? To keep you contained? To keep you in a form that could touch and taste and take?"

You did not answer. You could not answer. Your throat had closed around the words.

"I could not break the curse," Jace said, and he took a step toward you, his bare feet silent on the sand. "I could not destroy the statue. But I could transfer it. I could take the chains off the stone and put them onto something else. Something living. Something that could carry them." He raised his arm again, showing you the snake coiled around his wrist, and his smile returned. It was not a kind smile. "You are not bound to the island anymore. You are bound to me."

The world tilted. The roar of the waterfall seemed to fade, replaced by a high, thin ringing in your ears. The sun was too bright. The sand was too soft. The golden snake was too warm against your skin.

"You—" Your voice would not work. "You did not—"

"I did." He was still calm. Still cold. Still looking at you with those eyes that used to be so full of love. "The voice told me it was the only way. The only way to make sure you could not leave me. The only way to make sure your love was real. The only way to be certain that when I woke up tomorrow, you would still be there, and the day after that, and the day after that."

"You trapped me."

He laughed. It was a soft laugh, a quiet laugh, but there was nothing warm in it. "I freed you. You can leave the island now. The chains that bound you to this rock are gone. You can walk onto a ship and sail away and see the world again. Is that not what you wanted? Is that not what you have been begging me for since the moment we met?"

"You bound me to you!"

"And you bound me to you first." His voice sharpened, the calm cracking for just a moment to reveal the fury underneath. "You made me love you. You made me forget my own mother's name. You drugged my food and whispered in my ear and wrapped yourself around my mind so tightly I could not tell where you ended and I began. You trapped me on this island long before I ever trapped you. The only difference is that my chains were made of kisses and lies, and yours are made of gold."

"I loved you!" The words tore from your throat, raw and ragged. "I loved you! Everything I did, I did because I loved you!"

"You made me forget my mother's name," he said again, and his voice was quieter now, almost sad. "Do you understand what that means? Do you understand what you took from me? She is out there somewhere, fighting a war, grieving a son she believes is dead, and I cannot remember her name. I cannot remember her face. I know I love her. I know I owe her everything. But when I try to picture her, there is nothing there. Just fog. Just you."

You opened your mouth, but no words came. What could you possibly say? What defense could you offer that would not sound hollow and selfish and monstrous?

"You stole my memories and drugged my food and lied to me for months," Jace continued, and now he was walking toward you, closing the distance between you with slow, deliberate steps. "You let me believe I was going home. You let me build a boat I was never going to finish. You let me dream of a future that did not exist. And when I found out the truth, when I confronted you in that cave full of dead men's armor, what did you do? Did you apologize? Did you offer to help me leave? No. You cried. You made yourself the victim. You told me how lonely you were, how sad you were, how much you had suffered. You made me comfort you. You made me feel guilty for discovering your lies."

He stopped in front of you, close enough that you could feel the heat of his body, close enough that you could see the pulse beating in his throat. "And I did feel guilty," he said. "I felt so guilty that I almost forgot what you had done. I almost let myself believe that you were the victim. That I was the one who had wronged you by wanting to go home. That is how good you are at this. That is how deep your hooks go."

"Please." Your voice was barely a whisper now. "Please, Jace, I am sorry. I am so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I only wanted to be loved. I only wanted—"

"I know what you wanted." He reached up and touched your face, his fingers gentle against your tear-streaked cheek. The gesture was almost tender. Almost loving. It made your skin crawl. "You wanted someone to stay. You wanted someone to choose you. And now someone has. I have chosen you. I have chosen you over my family, over my throne, over my memories, over everything I ever was. I have given up my entire life to be with you. Are you not happy? Is this not what you wanted?"

"You have made me your prisoner."

"I have made you my equal." His thumb traced the curve of your cheekbone, wiping away a tear. "We are connected now. Bound together. What happens to one of us happens to the other. If you leave, I will feel it. If you try to run, I will know. And if you try to hurt me—" He shrugged. "The snakes will not let you. They protect what they hold. That is what the voice told me."

"The voice. He told you to do this?"

"He gave me a choice. Break the statue, free you, and watch you leave me the moment we set foot on the mainland. Or bind you to me, keep you close, and never wonder again whether your love was real." His smile returned, and it was the saddest smile you had ever seen. "It was not a difficult choice. I love you. I cannot lose you. So I made sure I would never have to."

You stared at him. The man you loved. The man who had just destroyed you. The man who had looked at your chains and decided to put them on himself rather than break them, because he could not bear the thought of you walking free.

"This is not love," you whispered. "This is possession."

"Is there a difference?" He tilted his head, his dark eyes glittering. "You tell me. You have been doing this for centuries. You tell me where love ends and possession begins. You tell me whether what you felt for me was really love, or just the desperate hunger of a lonely creature who needed someone, anyone, to fill the void. You tell me whether I am any different from you, or whether I am just the first man who was willing to sink to your level."

You opened your mouth. Closed it. The words would not come.

"Exactly," Jace said. "You cannot tell me. Because you do not know either. Because you have been confusing love and hunger for so long that you cannot tell them apart anymore. And now I am the same. You have made me the same." He leaned closer, his lips brushing your ear. "We are equals now. Partners. Two monsters bound together for eternity. Is that not romantic? Is that not what you always wanted? Someone who would never leave you, never abandon you, never choose anything over you?"

"You are insane," you breathed.

"I am what you made me." He pulled back and looked into your eyes, and his expression was unreadable. "You wanted me to stay. I am staying. You wanted me to love you. I love you. You wanted me to be different from the others. I am different. I am the one who did not run. I am the one who looked at the chains and chose to wear them. I am the one who gave up everything to be with you." He cupped your face in both hands, gentle and terrible and utterly inescapable. "Why are you not happy? If you really loved me, you would be happy. This is what you wanted. This is what you have been asking for since the moment we met. Someone who would stay. Someone who would choose you. Someone who would never leave."

He kissed your forehead, and his lips were warm, and the golden snake pulsed against your wrist like a second heart.

"I am going to build us a boat," he said. "A real one this time. One that can carry us both back to Westeros. And you are going to meet my mother, and I am going to take back my throne, and you are going to be my queen. Just like I promised. Just like we planned. The only difference is that now I know you will not leave me. Now I know your love is real. Because it has to be. Because you have no choice." He pulled back and smiled, and his smile was beautiful and broken and utterly terrifying. "You are free now, Y/N. Free from the island. Free from your brother's curse. Free from the statue and the chains and the centuries of solitude. You can go anywhere you want. You can do anything you want. The whole world is open to you." He took your hand, the one with the golden snake coiled around the wrist, and pressed it to his chest, over his heart. "As long as you never leave my side."

You looked down at the snake. At his hand holding yours. At the invisible chain that stretched between you, unbreakable and eternal.

"You are a monster," you whispered.

it was your choice, you reminded yourself, repeating the mantra that had kept you upright for the last twelve weeks. you chose to walk out of his room. you chose not to call.

"he's not your father," your roommate and best friend, trinity, had argued just the night before.

she had been pacing the worn linoleum floor of your shared campus apartment, her eyes tracking you with a mix of fierce worry and frustration while you sat on the bathroom floor, throwing up into a plastic trash can.

"dean is a lot of things. he's a flirt, he's loud, he's a massive distraction, and he lives in a house that smells like stale beer and hockey sweat. but he isn't a monster. you have to tell him, or i swear to god i'm going to find tucker at the rink and have him do it for you." she sighed as you shook your head.

you knew trinity meant well.

you really, truly did.

she was the one who bought you saltine crackers at two in the morning, the one who held your hair back, and the one who looked up single-mother grant programs on her laptop when you were too exhausted to think.

she wasn't trying to force your hand out of malice; she just hated seeing you carry an entire universe on your shoulders when there was a perfectly capable guy who helped put it there.

but trinity didn't have your history.

she hadn't grown up listening to the bitter, cautionary tales of a mother who got pregnant at a college party by a boy (your father) who vanished into thin air the second the test turned pink.

she hadn't seen the quiet, exhausting toll of a woman working two jobs just to buy school supplies, always reminding her daughter that boys with bright smiles and big reputations were nothing but a beautiful trap.

to you, dean di laurentis was the ultimate manifestation of that danger.

he was briar university's golden boy, a hockey legacy with a jawline carved by the gods and an easy, effortless charm that made everyone in his orbit feel like the center of the universe.

he possessed a reputation for a rotating door of admirers that preceded him everywhere he went, from the campus coffee shops to the crowded lecture halls.

you had been one of those quiet admirers for semesters, harboring a private, desperate crush from the safety of the upper student section at the arena.

you were a psychology major, someone who spent her days analyzing behavior and defense mechanisms, yet you couldn't analyze yourself out of the way your chest tightened every time he took the ice.

then came a party in early november.

emboldened by a little too much vodka and the sheer, infectious electricity of the team's victory, you had actually pursued him.

you hadn't just watched from the corner this time; you had walked right up to him at the kitchen island, matched his easy, arrogant banter with a sharp wit he hadn't expected, and when the chance arose to leave the noise behind and go up to his room, you took it.

and god, he had been wonderful.

that was the part that terrified you the most.

he wasn't the careless, selfish playboy you had braced yourself for; he was attentive and entirely intoxicating.

he had asked you questions, looked at you like he actually wanted to hear the answers, and held you like you were something fragile and precious.

but when you woke up the next morning wrapped in his sheets, the freezing weight of reality had set in.

the morning sun filtered through his blinds, illuminating the hockey trophies on his dresser and the stray red plastic cups on the floor.

you were just a tuesday night after a massive win.

to save yourself the humiliation of a polite, dismissive text three days later, you had gathered your clothes from the floor, slipped your shoes on, and walked out of his life before he even stirred.

three weeks later, the morning sickness had started.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

"patient 114?" a nurse called out, holding an electronic chart and looking around the waiting room with an expressionless, practiced gaze.

you swallowed the lump in your throat, stood up completely alone, and smoothed down the front of your sweater.

you walked past the couple, feeling the immense, crushing gravity of a secret that was growing bigger by the second.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

the briar u campus was experiencing an unseasonably warm spring afternoon two months later.

winter had finally cracked, leaving the quad packed with students lounging on blankets, tossing frisbees, and desperately trying to absorb enough vitamin d to survive the final stretch of the semester.

you sat under the deep, cool shade of a massive oak tree near the psychology building. you were wearing a loose dress—a highly tactical choice. at five months, you couldn't hide the changes with just oversized hoodies and clever posture anymore. the dress camouflaged the distinct, rounded curve of your belly perfectly, as long as you remained sitting down with your knees pulled slightly toward your chest.

you opened your heavy developmental psychology textbook, trying to focus on a chapter about early childhood attachment styles, but the heat and the persistent, dull ache in your lower back were making your eyes heavy.

your mind kept wondering how you were going to afford a crib and how you were going to explain to a child one day why their father was just a face on a hockey trading card.

more than anything, you were determined to continue your studies.

you hadn't spent years maintaining a high gpa just to drop out.

you were going to graduate from briar, baby or no baby.

your due date was calculated for mid-august, right before the fall semester began.

it was going to be a logistical nightmare, juggling a newborn and upper-level psychology seminars, but you were already mapping out a rigid study schedule in your planner.

you would survive it.

you had to.

a loud, booming laugh echoed across the lawn, instantly making your chest tighten so fast you lost your breath.

you looked up from the pages.

a dozen yards away, the hockey team was walking back from an afternoon workout at the campus gym.

they were a loud, boisterous pack, trailing duffel bags over their shoulders and laughing at some inside joke.

at the very center of the group was dean.

his damp hair was pushed back from his forehead, his gray briar athletics t-shirt clinging to his chest, and that trademark, effortless smile was polished across his face as he joked with garrett graham.

your hand moved automatically to your stomach, protectively covering the life growing inside you.

you pulled your massive textbook higher up against your chest, freezing like a deer caught in the high beams of a semi-truck.

please don't look over here. please just keep walking to the dining hall.

dean was laughing, his shoulders shaking as garrett gestured wildly, but as his eyes scanned the quad, his gaze inadvertently drifted toward the shade of your tree.

you looked down instantly, staring so hard at a paragraph on cognitive dissonance that the black ink blurred into meaningless lines.

dean paused mid-stride.

his brow furrowed, his sneakers digging into the soft grass.

the easy, permanent smile faltered as a sharp, incredibly vivid memory flashed through his mind.

the specific, soft scent of your skin, the quiet, grounding confidence you had shown when you walked up to him at the party, and the sudden, confusing sting of disappointment he had

felt when he woke up to a cold, empty bed.

he had looked for you for weeks after that night.

he had asked around, looked through social media, but briar was a massive university, and you had intentionally made yourself a ghost.

"hey, dean, you coming or what? the burrito place fills up fast on thursdays," tucker called out, noticing his friend had suddenly dropped back from the group.

"yeah. go ahead, man. i'll catch up with you guys in a minute," dean muttered, his eyes locked entirely on the girl under the oak tree.

he started walking across the grass.

every step he took felt like a countdown to an explosion you couldn't prevent.

you saw his shadow fall over your open textbook, blocking out the filtered sunlight, before you finally forced yourself to look up.

"hey," dean said. his voice was softer than it usually was, completely stripped of the loud, easy bravado he carried around his teammates.

he rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncharacteristically nervous, his fingers twitching against his duffel bag strap. "it's... you. right? from my place, a few months ago? you kind of vanished into thin air."

"dean. hi," you managed to choke out. your heart was hammering against your ribs so violently you were certain he could see it through your clothes.

your palms were slick with sweat against the cardboard cover of your book. "yeah. i—i have a class to get to, actually—"

terrified of what he might see if he looked too closely at your posture, you scrambled to gather your things.

but your balance was off, your center of gravity completely shifted by the pregnancy.

your coordination failed, and the heavy psychology textbook slipped from your fingers, hitting the grass with a dull thud.

papers and highlighters tumbled out.

you instinctively reached down to grab it, but the physical restriction of your five-month belly made the movement clumsy.

as you bent over, the fabric of your dress pulled tight across your torso, outlining the unmistakable and beautifully rounded curve of your stomach.

dean bent down at the exact same time to grab the book for you, his large hand reaching for the cover, but his movements froze entirely.

from his angle, right at eye level with your lap, there was no hiding it.

the truth was standing between you, loud and undeniable.

dean's eyes widened, the blue of his irises bright with absolute shock.

his mind, usually so quick with a joke or a strategic play on the ice, ground to a screeching, chaotic halt.

he looked from your stomach, up to your terrified face, and back down again.

the timeline crashed into his head like a brutal body check against the boards. late fall. the championship party. five months ago. the night she left.

"is that..." dean's voice cracked, losing all of its usual suave composure. he dropped the textbook entirely back into the grass, his hands hovering in the air between you as if he were afraid to touch reality, his fingers trembling slightly. "wait. hold on. is that mine?"

panic, cold and sharp as ice water, flooded your veins.

the judgment of the campus, the ghost of your mother's past, the terrifying fear of him laughing or calling you a liar—it all hit you at once, blinding your senses.

you grabbed your tote bag, shoving the loose highlighters inside with trembling hands, and pushed past him, your boots skidding on the dirt.

"i have to go, dean. just leave it alone."

"hey, wait. please. stop." dean scrambled after you, his long, athletic strides easily catching up before you could even reach the paved pathway.

he didn't grab you roughly, but he placed a gentle, pleading hand on your forearm, just enough to anchor you, his grip warm and remarkably steady despite his shock.

when you spun around to face him, you had tears blurring your vision, the quad spinning around you.

dean looked entirely breathless, his chest heaving under his t-shirt as he stared at you. there was immense shock in his eyes, yes, but beneath it, moving in like a tidal wave, was an intense, unexpected expression of sheer protectiveness.

"please don't run away again," dean whispered, his gaze dropping down to the curve of your dress, then right back up into your tear-filled eyes. "just... talk to me. please. you don't have to run."

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

an hour later, you were sitting in the farthest corner booth of a quiet, dim, off-campus diner that was usually empty between the lunch and dinner rushes.

the jukebox in the corner was dark, and the only sound was the low sizzle of the kitchen grill behind the counter.

dean had bought you a grilled cheese sandwich and a massive, condensation-covered glass of milk.

he hadn't forced you to say a word since he had guided you into his car. he just sat across from you, his large frame filling the vinyl booth, watching you with an intensity that made your skin prickle, his hands clasped tightly on the table.

"why didn't you tell me?" he asked quietly, breaking the long silence.

his fingers traced the ring of water left by his glass on the tabletop. "i've been racking my brain for the last hour trying to figure out if i did something wrong that night. what did i do? did i hurt you? did i make you feel like i wouldn't care? did i say something stupid?"

"no," you said, your voice cracking as you looked out the window at the passing traffic.

your fingers tore off a tiny piece of the sandwich crust, though your stomach was too twisted to eat. "you were great, dean. it wasn't you. it was... everything else. it was me."

"it's obviously not just you," he said gently, leaning forward, his eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that demanded honesty. "help me understand. please. because waking up to an empty room was bad enough, but finding out you've been carrying this around for five months by yourself? that hurts."

and then, because the weight of the last twenty weeks was simply too heavy for your shoulders to bear anymore, the dam broke.

the psychological walls you had meticulously built up over years crumbled into dust.

you told him everything.

you told him about your mother.

you told him about growing up in a tiny house where every bill was a crisis, listening to the story of a popular college athlete who had promised your mother the world under the red solo cup lights of a fraternity house, only to pack his bags and transfer schools the second the word baby was spoken.

you told him about the terrifying statistics of single-parent households you read in your text books, the deep-seated fear of being a burden, and the agonizing weight of those clinic appointments where you sat alone in a sea of happy, supportive couples.

"i looked at them, dean," you whispered, a tear finally escaping and slipping down your nose. "i sat there every month, watching these guys hold their wives' hands, carrying their bags, looking at the sonogram photos like they'd just won the lottery. and i was just... patient 114. i didn't want to see the look on your face if you thought i was trying to trap you. i didn't want to see you walk away like he did."

dean listened to every single word, his body perfectly still.

his jaw clenched tighter and tighter with every sentence that left your mouth, not with anger directed at you, but with a profound, simmering fury at the ghost of the man who had raised you to believe that all men were cowards.

his chest rose and fell heavily.

when you finished, wiping your cheek with the back of your hand, dean didn't hesitate.

he reached across the table, his arm bridging the distance between your separate worlds, and took your hand in his.

his palm was rough from hockey sticks, warm, and incredibly solid.

"i am not him," dean said, his voice dropping an octave, completely fierce and steady. there was no hesitation in his eyes, no panic, no calculation. "i don't care about my reputation. i don't care that we're still in college. this is my kid, too. and more importantly, it's you. i'm not going anywhere. do you hear me? i am right here."

you looked down at his large hand covering yours, desperately wanting to believe the warmth of it, but the old survival instincts were hard to kill.

"dean, you don't have to pretend for my sake. you have a life. you have scouts coming to games, you have a professional career ahead of you, you have your friends—"

"hey," he interrupted gently, his thumb rubbing circles against the back of your hand, mimicking the gesture you had envied in the waiting room months ago. "let's make a deal. no pressure. i know i have a lot to prove to you. just let me be your friend. let me carry your bags. let me take you to the doctor. let me show you that you don't have to do this alone anymore."

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

true to his word, dean shifted his entire universe within forty-eight hours.

the transformation was nothing short of a statistical anomaly to anyone who knew him.

the guy who used to sleep until noon on days off and survive on cold pizza and protein shakes was suddenly standing outside your dorm building at 9:00 am.

he would be waiting in his idling car, the passenger seat already stocked with saltine crackers and pre-packaged ginger ale because he had spent the previous night reading medical forums about morning sickness trends in the second and third trimesters.

at first, it was kind of awkward.

you were protective of your routine, used to relying only on yourself and trinity but dean was persistent in the most gentle way possible.

he became your shadow on campus.

he would meet you outside your difficult seminars, completely unbothered by the lingering stares and whispers of his teammates or the girls who used to follow him around the quad.

he would silently take your heavy canvas backpack from your shoulders, slinging it over his own massive arm alongside his hockey gear, and walk at your slower, deliberate pace without a single complaint.

"you know people are talking, right?" you asked him one afternoon as you walked toward the library, your hand resting on the small of your aching back.

"let them talk," dean said, shrug of his shoulders easy and unbothered. "they're just jealous i get to hang out with the smartest girl on campus. besides, tucker tried to ask me about it yesterday, and i told him if he didn't shut his mouth i would chuck him into the net during practice. he hasn't brought it up since."

you couldn't help the small laugh that escaped you, the sound surprising even yourself.

dean looked down at you, his eyes softening at the sound, a faint spark in his gaze that made your stomach do a completely different kind of flip.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

by the sixth month, your apartment had become a secondary storage unit. dean had told his parents. you had been terrified of that phone call, expecting high-society rejection, but his mother had apparently gone into full grandmother mode within thirty seconds.

huge boxes began arriving weekly—baby blankets, organic cotton onesies, a high-tech stroller, and specialized maternity pillows.

but the most significant change was inside dean's shared house. he had cleaned out the small spare room on the first floor, moving out old fitness equipment and broken hockey sticks.

in its place, he had moved in a massive, incredibly plush velvet rocking chair.

"what is this?" you asked, standing in the doorway of the room during a saturday visit where he had insisted on making you lunch.

"it's a glider," dean said proudly, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel as he stood behind you. "i read that the movement helps with lower back pain during the third trimester.

and, you know... just in case you ever want to visit and your back hurts, you have a place that's yours."

you looked at the chair, then at the hockey star who had bought it, feeling the cold, icy edges of your old trauma melting away a little bit more every day.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

the true turning point came during the eighth-month ultrasound appointment.

the clinic waiting room looked exactly the same as it had during your first trimester—same low hum, same couples holding hands.

but this time, the space felt completely different. you weren't hiding under an oversized sweater, and you weren't staring at a frayed thread.

you were sitting next to dean. his large frame was crammed into the small plastic waiting room chair, his knees nearly touching his chin, but he didn't look impatient at all.

he was reading a pamphlet on newborn sleep cycles with a level of concentration usually reserved for analyzing a rival team's defensive plays.

"patient 114—sorry, i mean, by your last name?" the nurse called out, correcting herself with a warm smile as she recognized you.

you stood up, and before you could even reach for your purse, dean was already on his feet, grabbing your coat and slinging your tote bag over his shoulder.

he extended his free hand to you, his fingers open, waiting.

you hesitated for a fraction of a second before sliding your hand into his, letting his warmth steady you as you walked down the narrow hallway.

the ultrasound room was dim, the monitor glowing with a soft blue light.

you laid back on the paper-covered table, pulling up your shirt to expose the massive, high, tight curve of your eight-month belly.

dean sat in the chair right next to your head, his eyes wide as the technician squeezed the cold, clear gel onto your skin.

he didn't look away for a second, his grip on your hand tightening as the technician pressed the transducer against your stomach.

at first, there was only static—a rushing, hollow sound of fluids and movement. then, with a slight adjustment of the plastic wand, the audio cleared, and a loud, rhythmic sound filled the small room.

thump-thump, thump-thump.

"there we go," the technician said gently, pointing a finger at the grainy, gray-and-white screen. "there's a strong heartbeat. looks like baby is growing right on schedule."

you looked over at dean, expecting him to look overwhelmed by the sheer finality of the sound.

instead, you found him staring at the monitor with thick, silent tears streaming straight down his cheeks.

his jaw was slightly slack, a soft, breathless laugh escaping his lips as he stared at the little flickering shape on the screen.

"that's... that's our baby," he whispered, his voice thick and raspy with an emotion so raw it made your own eyes well up with tears.

he leaned over the edge of the table, completely unbothered by the technician's presence, and pressed a gentle, lingering kiss to the back of your knuckles, his forehead resting against your hand for a long moment. "look at that, sweetheart. we made a little athlete. listen to that pace."

in that exact moment, the final, stubborn, defensive walls around your heart—the ones built by your mother's warnings, the ones built by years of watching men walk away from hard things—completely crumbled into nothing.

you realized that trinity had been right from the very start. dean wasn't your father.

he was entirely, undeniably his own man.

and he was already a father.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

by the time your ninth month arrived, the unseasonably warm spring had turned into the suffocating heat of late summer.

walking across the campus pavement felt like trekking through a desert, and your ankles had reached a level of swelling that made shoes feel like instruments of torture.

the platonic friendship dean had insisted on maintaining had grown desperately fragile over the last few weeks—not because it was failing, but because the sheer, undeniable gravity of the romantic tension between you had become too loud to ignore.

every touch lingered a second too long; every look held a weight that had nothing to do with doctor's appointments or crib instructions.

one evening, a thunderstorm was rolling in over the campus, the sky a bruised purple color that brought a temporary coolness to the air.

you were sitting on the plush sofa in dean's living room, surrounded by a mountain of freshly washed baby clothes that needed to be sorted into bins.

dean's teammates were away for the weekend, leaving the house uncharacteristically quiet, save for the low rumble of thunder outside.

dean was sitting on the hardwood floor right by your feet, a bottle of lavender lotion in his hand.

he had your bare, swollen left foot resting on his knee, his large, calloused thumbs working in slow, rhythmic circles across your arch with a level of focus that made your heart ache.

"dean?" you said softly, breaking the steady sound of the rain against the windowpane.

"yeah, sweetheart?" he murmured, his gaze remaining down on his hands, his thumbs never stopping their steady, soothing pressure.

"why are you doing all of this?" you asked. the question had been sitting on your tongue for weeks, a final, lingering piece of uncertainty that needed to be aired out. "the baby isn't even here yet. you've spent every weekend for months building furniture, reading parenting manuals, handling my moods, and taking care of me. you didn't have to go this far just to prove you're a good guy. you proved that a long time ago."

dean stopped his movements.

his hands remained cupped around your foot for a long, silent moment while the thunder rolled outside the house.

slowly, deliberately, he let go of your foot and shifted his weight, rising until he was kneeling on the floor right in front of you, his face level with yours.

he reached up, his hands large and incredibly warm as he placed them gently on either side of your face, his thumbs wiping away the sudden, familiar spike of anxiety in your eyes.

"you really are a psychology student, aren't you? always trying to find the hidden motive," he said, a soft, incredibly tender smile breaking across his lips—a smile that was completely devoid of his usual arrogance, leaving only the raw truth underneath. "i stopped doing this just for the baby a long time ago."

your breath hitched in your throat, your fingers tightening against the fabric of the baby blanket in your lap. "dean..."

"i love this kid, yeah. i would do anything for them," he confessed, his blue eyes burning into yours with absolute, unshakable certainty. "but i fell completely, totally in love with you. i love how fierce you are. i love how hard you tried to protect this baby from the world, even when you were terrified. i love the way you laugh when you think i'm being an idiot. i don't want to just be a great co-parent, and i don't want to just be the guy who carries your backpack. i want the whole thing. i want you."

your tears, warm and entirely relieving, spilled over your eyelashes, wetting his thumbs.

for the first time in your entire life, the ghost of your mother's past was entirely gone, vanished into the air like smoke.

there was no trap here.

there was only the beautiful, terrifying, certain reality of the man kneeling in front of you.

"took you long enough to finally say it," you whispered, a watery, breathless smile breaking through your tears.

dean let out a low, rough laugh as he leaned up the remaining few inches to press his lips against yours.

the kiss was sweet, slow, and full of a million quiet promises he had already spent the last four months keeping.

it tasted like rain and lavender lotion and home.

his fingers slid through your hair, holding you close, while his other hand moved down, flattening completely against the large, warm curve of your belly, feeling the faint, rhythmic kick of the life you had created together.

when he finally pulled away, just enough to breathe, he rested his forehead against yours, his thumbs tracing your cheekbones.

"we're going to be completely fine," dean whispered against your skin, his voice a fierce, unbreakable vow meant for both you and the little heartbeat inside you. "the three of us. i promise you. i'm right here."

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

the rhythmic click of a ballpoint pen was the loudest sound in the massive, tiered lecture hall.

you sat in the middle row of your advanced cognitive psychology seminar, your notebook laid out flat on the folding desk, your hand flying across the page to copy down the professor's slides on memory retrieval mechanisms.

beside your desk, tucked safely into the wide aisle, sat a heavy car seat wrapped in a soft navy blanket.

inside, just thirteen weeks old, rowan di laurentis was dead to the world.

his tiny fists were curled up next to his cheeks, a soft, rhythmic whistle puffing past his parted lips with every breath.

when the professor paused to switch slides, you glanced down, your heart swelling with a fierce, possessive warmth.

rowan had been born right on schedule in mid-august, and while the rest of your class spent the last week of summer partying, you and dean had been operating on two-hour sleep cycles, mastering the art of the swaddle, and staring at this tiny boy like he held the secrets to the universe.

some of your classmates had looked surprised to see you walk in three months after college had began with a stroller, but you had just offered them a polite, unbothered smile.

you were going to be a psychologist and rowan wasn't a reason to stop—he was the reason to run faster.

you dipped your hand down, gently brushing your index finger against rowan's minuscule knuckles.

his tiny hand instinctively locked around your finger, holding on tight even in his sleep.

you smiled, unhooked your finger, and went right back to typing your notes.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

across campus, the atmosphere was entirely different.

coach jensen's whistle blew, a sharp, piercing sound that sent the players scattering toward the benches for a two-minute hydration break.

dean skated hard over to the boards, his chest heaving under his heavy briar jersey, his face flushed red from the intense cardio drill. but he didn't reach for his water bottle first.

instead, he skated right toward the end of the team bench where a familiar, high-tech stroller was parked just behind the safety plexiglass, safely out of the way of any stray pucks.

trinity was sitting on the bench next to it, typing on her phone, fulfilling her promised shift of baby duty while she studied for her own classes.

dean ripped his heavy padded gloves off with his teeth, dropping them onto the ice, and leaned over the boards.

rowan was awake now, wearing a miniature, custom-made briar hockey jersey over his onesie, his massive brown eyes staring up at the bright stadium lights.

"how's my little winger doing?" dean breathed, his voice dripping with an absurd, high-pitched softness that made garrett graham laugh from three feet away.

dean reached over the plexiglass, his hand gently resting against rowan's tiny chest, his thumb stroking the soft cotton of the jersey. "you being good for auntie trinity? you watching daddy's skating form?"

rowan let out a tiny, erratic gurgle, kicking one foot up.

"he's been perfect," trinity said, looking up from her phone with a smirk. "a lot better behaved than you usually are during practice, di laurentis. now drink some water before jensen screams at you."

"yeah, yeah," dean grinned, finally grabbing his water bottle and taking a long swig. he looked back down at his son, a fierce, determined spark in his blue eyes.

balancing division one hockey and fatherhood was the hardest thing he'd ever done, but he had never felt more alive.

he was going to give his kid the world, and he was going to do it right alongside you.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

later that evening, the summer heat finally broke as dusk settled over the town.

dean's black suv pulled into the gravel driveway of a small, neat house on the edge of the university district.

the porch light was already on, casting a warm, golden glow over the front steps.

dean hopped out of the driver's seat, walking around to your side to open the door before you could even reach for the handle.

he offered you his hand, pulling you up gently, his fingers lingering against your palm before he turned to unbuckle rowan's car seat from the back.

you walked up the steps together, the familiar scent of garlic and homemade pasta sauce drifting through the screen door long before you even knocked.

before your knuckles could even touch the wood, the door swung open.

your mother stood there, her apron tied around her waist, her eyes instantly bypassing the two of you to lock onto the plastic car seat in dean's hand.

a massive, radiant smile broke across her face, smoothing away the lines of a lifetime of hard work.

"there's my grandson," she beamed, her arms already reaching out as she stepped onto the porch.

dean smiled, handing the car seat over with a practiced ease that showed just how natural this had become for him.

"hi, mom. he slept the whole ride over." you smiled as your mother carried the seat inside, cooing at the sleeping baby.

you and dean stood on the porch for a quiet second.

dean looped his arm around your waist, pulling your back flush against his chest, his chin resting comfortably on the top of your head as you both watched your mother unbuckle her grandson through the front window.

there was no ghost of the past in this house anymore.

there was no fear of a running man or a broken promise.

there was only the smell of a warm dinner, a grandmother's laughter, and the solid, heavy weight of the man who had promised to stay—and meant every single word.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

the dining room of your childhood home was small, but tonight it felt entirely full. the air was thick with the rich, comforting scent of your mother's signature marinara sauce, a recipe that had historically been reserved only for birthdays or the rare moments when a budget stretch allowed for a celebration.

dean was sitting at the worn wooden table, a space that had only ever known the quiet presence of two women.

his massive, athletic frame practically engulfed the modest chair, his broad shoulders casting a long shadow against the floral wallpaper.

yet, he looked completely at ease.

he had rolled up the sleeves of his cotton blue shirt, exposing his forearms as he expertly navigated a massive bowl of spaghetti, passing it to your mother with a respectful, easy smile.

"seriously, alisha, this is incredible," dean said, calling your mother by her first name just as she had insisted he do three visits ago. "if you ever want to open a restaurant near campus, the entire hockey team would probably fund it. tucker survives entirely on frozen burritos and sheer willpower. he would cry if he tasted this."

a sound of genuine, lighthearted laughter escaping her lips as she leaned over to scoop another portion onto his plate. "don't flatter a woman, dean. but please, eat up. god knows you burn enough calories on that ice rink."

you watched them from across the table, your fork twirling slowly in your pasta.

a strange, dizzying wave of emotion hit your chest.

for twenty-one years, this room had been a fortress of caution.

it was the place where you sat while your mother meticulously balanced checkbooks, reminding you that reliance on anyone else was a vulnerability.

it was where you learned to be fiercely independent, wrapped in the protective armor of her warnings.

and now, briar university's golden boy was sitting in the center of it, arguing playfully with her about whether garlic bread should be baked or broiled.

from the corner of the room, a soft, low grunt came from the portable bassinet.

rowan was waking up, his tiny limbs stretching beneath his blanket.

before you could even set your fork down, dean's hand was already moving.

he caught your eye across the table, offering a reassuring nod.

"i got him, sweetheart. finish your dinner," he murmured, his voice dropping into that quiet, intimate tone he reserved just for you.

you watched as he stood up, his tall frame moving with a practiced, gentle fluidity as he navigated the tight space between the table and the bassinet.

he reached down, his hands completely cradling rowan's tiny torso as he lifted him out.

rowan let out a tiny, soft squeak, his little face puckering before he settled instantly against dean's chest, his small head tucking perfectly into the crook of his father's neck.

dean walked back to the table, shifting rowan effortlessly to one arm while he picked up his fork with the other, completely unfazed by the logistics of eating one-handed.

your mother stopped eating.

she watched dean—watched the way his thumb absentmindedly traced small circles on the back of rowan's custom jersey, the way his eyes constantly flicked down to check on the baby's breathing, the way he didn't even hesitate to put his own comfort second.

when she looked back at you, her eyes were bright with a quiet, profound sheen of tears.

she didn't say anything out loud but she didn't need to.

the unspoken apology and the sheer validation of your choices was entirely written in the soft smile she gave you across the table.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

by eleven o'clock, the drive back to the campus apartment was quiet, save for the hum of the car tires against the asphalt and the steady, rhythmic breathing of a fast-asleep baby in the backseat.

the apartment was dark when you unlocked the door.

trinity was out for the weekend, leaving the small living space peaceful.

dean carried rowan inside, the car seat clicking quietly as he set it on the floor, while you carried the diaper bag and the heavy tote containing your psychology textbooks.

you dropped the bags by the kitchen counter, a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion finally settling into your limbs.

finals week was creeping up, the stack of case studies you needed to analyze was growing, and your body was still recovering from the monumental task of bringing a human into the world.

you leaned against the counter, closing your eyes for just a second.

two warm hands slipped around your waist from behind, a familiar, solid chest pressing into your back.

dean buried his face in the crook of your neck, his breath warm against your skin.

"hey," he whispered, his lips brushing against your jawline. "go take a hot shower. i'll handle the nighttime bath and get him down in his crib."

"dean, you have a 6:00 am video review session" you protested softly, turning around in his embrace to look up into his tired, beautiful blue eyes. "you spent three hours on the ice today. let me do it."

"absolutely not," dean smiled, a faint, stubborn dimple appearing in his cheek.

"we're a team, remember? you aced your seminar quiz today, you took ten pages of notes, and you didn't complain once when rowan spit up on your favorite sweater earlier. let me take the night shift, sweetheart. go relax."

you stared at him, the old, defensive instinct to say 'i can do it myself' rising to your throat out of sheer habit. but looking at the absolute, unwavering certainty in his gaze, you let it go.

you let the breath out of your lungs, your forehead coming to rest against his chest, right over the steady, pounding rhythm of his heart.

"thank you," you breathed into his shirt.

"anytime," he murmured, pressing a lingering, sweet kiss to the crown of your head before stepping back and picking up the sleeping bundle from the floor.

half an hour later, you stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped in a plush robe, your skin warm and smelling of vanilla soap.

the apartment was silent.

you padded softly down the short hallway toward rowan's small nursery.

the dim, amber light of the moon-shaped nightlight illuminated the room.

dean was sitting in the massive velvet glider he had proudly bought months ago.

rowan was freshly changed, wrapped tightly in a swaddle blanket, fast asleep against his father's bare chest.

dean was rocking back and forth in a slow, hypnotic rhythm, his hand completely cupping the back of rowan's head.

he wasn't asleep.

he was staring down at his son, his expression so fierce, so intensely protective, it took your breath away.

in his lap, balanced precariously on the armrest of the chair, was his hockey playbook, his eyes flicking between the diagrams of defensive strategies and the tiny, perfect face of the boy in his arms.

he was balancing it all. the pressure of the scouts, the demanding expectations of his legacy, the exhaustion of college life—he was holding it all in his hands, and he wasn't letting a single piece drop.

you leaned your shoulder against the doorframe, a soft smile tugging at your lips.

dean looked up at the sound of your breathing, his eyes softening instantly as he caught sight of you. he didn't speak, not wanting to break the fragile silence of the nursery, but he extended his free hand toward you, his fingers open.

you walked across the small room, sliding your hand into his warm palm.

dean pulled you down gently until you were sitting on the wide armrest of the glider beside him.

he leaned his head against your hip, his grip on your hand tightening into a silent, unbreakable vow.

you looked down at the two of them.

the future was going to be chaotic.

there would be exams to study for while rocking a crying infant; there would be away games where you would have to manage the nighttime routine alone and there would be endless loops of exhaustion.

but as the glider rocked gently in the quiet apartment, the absolute certainty of his warmth against your skin told you everything you needed to know.

the pattern was broken.

Still, kindness, he thought, could make even an unwanted marriage bearable. Everything else could be learned in time.

The rumors, unfortunately, offered very little hope of that.

Some called the king's younger daughter gentle to the point of foolishness, while others claimed she possessed the wildness of Old Valyria itself. There were whispers that she disappeared from court for days at a time, that she drank wine before the sun had set, that she climbed rooftops with her ladies-in-waiting, wandered the city in disguise, and laughed whenever septas reminded her of her duties. Others dismissed her as odd, insisting she spoke more to ravens than noble lords and spent entire afternoons wandering the castle alone.

No two stories resembled one another. The only detail upon which everyone agreed was that she was... peculiar.

He had intended to reserve judgment until they met. That intention became rather difficult when she failed to appear at all. She did not stand beside her father during his arrival, nor his welcome feast.

His sister and King Viserys greeted him warmly enough upon his arrival, clasping his arm like an old friend and speaking at length about tournaments, knighthood, and the honor of joining their two houses before finally apologizing, almost absentmindedly, for his daughter's absence.

"The princess has been feeling unwell," the king said with a tired smile. "She has retired early."

It sounded innocent enough yet Gwayne did not miss the look and sighs exchanged between his father and sister. She looked toward the doors through which the princess ought to have entered, her disappointment obvious before she carefully concealed it behind practiced courtesy.

No one explained further. No one ever seemed to.

By the end of the feast, Gwayne found himself wondering less about the alliance and more about the girl herself.

Was she truly ill? Or had she simply refused to meet the man she was expected to marry?

-

By the time the castle realized you were gone, you had already vanished into the night.

It was hardly the first time.

The servants searched the places they always searched first, the library, the dragonpit where you often disappeared to sit with the hatchlings long after the keepers had retired, the godswood where you sometimes spent entire afternoons reading beneath the heart tree. Even your ladies-in-waiting were questioned, though they could offer little beyond nervous shrugs and uncertain smiles. They had grown accustomed to your disappearances years ago.

Tonight, however, was different as you had no intention of returning.

You sighed as you reached the wall at the far end of the gardens. For a moment you stood there and pondered about when your father announced your betrothal. Your first thought had been your dreams.

Fragments scattered across years of restless nights, all circling the same terrible feeling that settled deep within your chest whenever you imagined standing beside the man you had been promised to. You had seen cages and felt a sorrow unlike anything you had ever known.

Somewhere between those two moments lay a future you could neither understand nor prevent. And for the first time in your life, you did not wish to discover which vision came first.

So you did the only thing that had ever made sense whenever the dreams became too heavy and you left.

That single thought drowned out every other, beating steadily against your ribs as you gathered your skirts in one hand and planted your slipper against the ancient garden wall. Time seemed to press in from every side so you quickly pushed yourself upward, fingertips stretching desperately toward the thick oak branch that hung just beyond your reach. The bark brushed your fingers before slipping away again.

You frowned, it had seemed much lower when you were a child. Surely you had climbed trees twice this height without a second thought. Determined, you shifted your footing higher against the moss-covered stone, ignoring the way your slippers slipped against the wall.

Just a little farther...

"You appear to be losing your battle."

The voice behind you was warm, low, and entirely too amused.

You startled so violently that your foot slipped from the stone altogether. Landing rather less gracefully than you would have liked, you spun around, silver hair whipping over your shoulder as you searched the darkness for its owner.

A man stood several paces away beneath the shadow of an elm tree, the hood of a dark traveling cloak obscuring most of his face. Moonlight caught only the edge of his jaw and the outline of broad shoulders, leaving the rest hidden in darkness.

You did not recognize him nor did you particularly care to.

You were in far too much of a hurry.

"May I help you?" you asked, though the impatience in your voice made it abundantly clear you hoped he would do precisely the opposite.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," he replied pleasantly. "It seems you are the one in need of assistance."

His tone was infuriatingly calm as though finding a princess attempting to climb the garden wall in the middle of the night was an entirely ordinary occurrence.

"I am not," you answered briskly. "So you may leave."

You turned back toward the wall without waiting for his reply, already reaching for the branch once more. Behind you came the sound of unhurried footsteps.

"I will," he said. "But I confess, I am rather curious as to what you're doing."

You closed your eyes for the briefest moment. "I am not doing anything."

"You are trying to do something."

"I am not."

"You are."

A sigh escaped you. Not the graceful sort of sigh expected of a princess, but one born entirely of exasperation. You turned sharply, fixing the stranger with a look that had intimidated far older men than this.

"Who are you, anyway?" Stepping closer, you tried to make out his face beneath the hood, though the shadows remained stubbornly loyal to him, "Reveal yourself."

"I am simply a guest in the Keep."

The answer only irritated you further, "What an exceptionally mysterious guest." You dismissed him with a wave of your hand before turning back toward the wall yet again. "Well then, perhaps you can make yourself useful and lift me."

There was the briefest pause, "I'm sorry?"

You looked over your shoulder as though he were being intentionally difficult. "If you lift me onto the wall, I can manage the rest."

The corner of his mouth twitched beneath the hood. "I see."

"Come now," you urged, gesturing impatiently toward the branch. "Make haste."

His amusement seemed only to deepen. "Well, if I must assist you, I should ask why you intend to climb the wall."

You groaned dramatically. "If you must know..." Your fingers wrapped around the branch again as though the conversation itself inconvenienced you. "...I am leaving."

"Are you?"

"I am taking my dragon," you said matter-of-factly, testing whether the branch might support your weight, "and flying somewhere very far away. And do not trouble yourself with informing the King or my betrothed. I shall be long gone by the time either of them discovers it."

A beat passed.

"Ah." There was laughter hidden beneath the single syllable, "So your betrothed is the reason you're running."

You shrugged, "He is certainly one of them."

"And they won't notice you've disappeared?"

A small, incredulous laugh escaped you. "Well, of course they will," you looked toward the branch again, "Now, please. Enough questions."

You pointed toward the wall with all the authority expected of a princess issuing commands. "If you would simply lift me over the garden wall, I'll reach the dragonpit before anyone notices."

The stranger looked from you to the wall and back again then he sighed with theatrical regret. "I have absolutely no intention of helping you."

You stared incredulously, "I beg your pardon?" You whirled around fully, prepared to remind this remarkably stubborn man exactly who he was refusing. As you did, he reached up almost absentmindedly and pushed back the hood that had hidden his face.

Moonlight settled across familiar features and you instantly recognized the face you had seen in your sleep numerous times. Everything inside you seemed to stop.

"...It's you."

The irritation vanished from your voice so completely that it almost startled you. Gwayne watched the change with quiet fascination. Only moments ago, you had looked ready to order him dragged from the gardens for daring to delay your escape. Now you simply stood there, staring at him with an expression he could not begin to understand.

He smiled despite himself, "You know who I am?"

You didn't answer immediately. Instead, your eyes lingered on his face, searching it with unsettling intensity, as though comparing the man standing before you to someone only you could see.

When you finally spoke, your voice was scarcely louder than the breeze moving through the trees, "I've dreamt of you."

The words were so unexpected that Gwayne forgot entirely what he had meant to say. His smile faded into quiet confusion, "You've... what?"

You seemed almost surprised that the words had escaped you. Your gaze dropped to the ground before lifting once more, softer this time, almost hesitant. "I've dreamt of you."

Silence settled between them.

Gwayne had heard the stories. The king's second daughter was said to possess the old gift of dragon dreams. He had dismissed them as little more than another courtly tale but standing before you now, he found himself less certain.

You did not look mad.

Nor did you resemble the reckless drunk whispered about by servants and lords alike. He noticed there was no heavy scent of wine clinging to your breath, no unsteady sway in your posture, no careless laughter born from too many cups. If you had drunk anything at all, it had been little more than enough to soothe an anxious mind, and judging by the shadows beneath your eyes, even that had failed.

More than anything, you looked tired. Painfully so.

Not the sort of tired that followed a late feast or too much dancing, but the deep exhaustion of someone who had spent far too many nights fighting battles no one else could see.

His expression softened. "Am I so terrible in your dreams," he asked, a small smile returning to his lips, "that you've resorted to climbing garden walls in the middle of the night to escape marrying me?"

He had meant it lightly yet the smile disappeared from your face so quickly that he regretted it almost at once. Your fingers tightened in the folds of your skirts until the silk wrinkled beneath your grasp.

You said nothing.

For the first time since he'd found you, the lively, impatient princess who had argued with him over a wall simply... vanished. In her place stood a frightened young woman trying very hard not to let it show.

His amusement melted into concern, "...Princess?" He took a cautious step forward, "Are you all right?"

You instinctively stepped back.

"I only jest," he said quietly.

Your voice was barely audible, "I must go."

Before he could answer, you slipped past him, gathering your skirts as you hurried back toward the castle, silver hair disappearing into the darkness between the garden paths.

Gwayne remained where he was for several moments after you'd gone. He should have let you leave, instead, he found himself watching the empty path where you had vanished, turning over those four impossible words in his mind.

I've dreamt of you.

Whatever those dreams had shown you, they had filled your eyes not with hatred but with sadness. And though he scarcely knew you, something deep within him recoiled at the thought that he might one day become the cause of it. For reasons he could not explain, he left the gardens that night with only one quiet resolve settling in his heart.

Despite the late hour, the waiting room had been packed and any glance your way felt like something intrusive and prodding. You had been fully ready to wait the whole night before you could be seen but after your vitals had been taken and triaged, the doctor had pushed you to the front of the line and into the next available room.

So here you sit, the paper beneath you crinkling every time you squirm and try to find a far more comfortable position before giving in entirely and leaning over to your side. You support yourself with your elbow and try to ignore the prodding pain in your backside.

"Good evening, I'm Dr. Abbot, what seems to be the problem?"

Your stomach drops; just your luck that the doctor assigned to help you fish out your newest toy is panty-dropping handsome. A silver fox through and through, he looks downright delectable with those large freckled arms that seem to be bursting through those black scrubs. If it had been any other day, you might've turned on the charm, flirt your way to a dinner date or more.

But it's 1:37 AM, you have a fuzzy, bunnytail plug stuck inside you and you're desperate to just get home without your asshole gaping.

"Um." You glance at the iPad in his hand, hoping that whoever saw you first recorded it in your chart so you wouldn't have to repeat yourself. But the handsome doctor is waiting patiently. "I have something… stuck inside me."

"Ah. I'll see what I can do. Roll over for me, sweetheart."

The night shift always brings on the weirdest cases that after all his years of working, nothing could phase him at this point. Seeing you, looking so uncomfortable and startled on the exam table, ranks so low on said weird cases that he misses the note Crus had left on your chart and went right in on the usual greeting.

"… what seems to be the problem—?"

Butt plug lodged in anus, patient reports mild pain and heavy discomfort.

Jack rereads the sentence a few times before he looks up at you. Pretty albeit shy, your cheeks flushed and your gaze seemingly land anywhere but him. When you listen and roll over onto your stomach, he swallows the instinctive 'good girl' that threatens to spill from his lips.

He tugs on a fresh pair of gloves, strengthening his spine and fortifying the usual mask of professionalism he wears. You're laid out on your stomach now, the blankets of the exam table tugged down to right below your ass. Before he could ask you to lift your hips, you do so on your own, knees spread apart.

Face down, ass up.

He swallows thickly as he gently nudges the seam of the hospital gown apart at your spine. What greets him has heat boiling in his gut: a fuzzy pink, bunny cottontail buttplug nestled right in between your asscheeks.

"Alright, I'm gonna touch you back here, see how deep it's in there before we try extraction," he murmurs. You whimper when he gives an experimental but gentle tug. "Is there any stinging sensation?"

"Nuh-uh," you mumble into the pillow.

Jack swallows again as the cottontail plug gives beneath his grip, his other hand pushing your left asscheek aside. "Let me know if I pull too hard, alright?"

You nod and he sees the way your moves against the pillow.

"Words, please."

Your thighs clench as you fight off the simmering heat that your frustratingly hot doctor starts with those two simple words. "Yes, I will." An honorific sits behind your teeth (daddy? sir? whichever, it seems to fit him regardless of what you use) but you swallow it down.

Meanwhile, Jack tries to ignore the tell-tale sheen between your thighs, keeps his gloved hands where they need to be. His mind races through horrific, bloody accidents of the week prior to keep his other head from wandering. "Good," he mutters.

Silence falls between you two as Jack gently adds medical-grade lubricant, apologizing at the cool temperature of it against your heated skin. After a few rotations of the plug, you clamp your teeth around the hospital gown to stifle any wayward moans.

"Mm—" You whimper anyways and Jack stills. "I'm okay—! Just, uh— is it almost out?"

Jack clears his throat; he's grateful you can't see him or the creeping blush up his neck. "Almost. I gotta take it slow to avoid any possible injuries."

The thought makes you lightheaded but you ground yourself back into reality before your mind can start jumping to worst case scenarios. "That makes sense."

He twists the plug and a flare of arousal blooms in your core, more pleasure than pain now. "So," he clears his throat again, an attempt at normalcy. "What do you do for work?" He mentally pats himself on the back at the inane question, hoping it'll be enough to distract you as he attempts at another tug.

You squeak anyways as your ring of muscles expand at the widest part of the plug. Jack adds more lubricant. "This," you manage to say.

Jack's dick gives a willfull throb but he forces it down with the degloving case from the night before. "O-Oh?"

"I… stream? I'm an adult streamer, oh fuck—!"

Your ass is gaping slightly as Jack inadvertently tugs the whole plug out with little warning, an involuntary reaction from your reveal. "Shit— sorry, sweetheart. Don't move—"

The silicone toy hits the metal tray beside you in a dull thud, the fluffy end of it peeking above the lip of the tray, while you feel his gloved digits gently probe around the ring. "Just making sure there aren't any abrasions, any cuts or irritation before we finish up here." He sees your head nod against the pillows so he continues on with his examination.

Your ass is firm beneath his touch. Pilates, maybe. Or strength training. His jaw clenches as he forces his mind to the present again, resumes the exam before carefully covering you up with the hospital gown again. "You're all good, sweetheart, you can turn onto your back now."

A part of him feels a sick sense of satisfaction at the way you squirm from the easy use of petnames. He's always been a natural flirt, that roguish charm that calms patients enough for him to diagnose, but it's a touch more fun when it works on someone as pretty as you.

"Thank you, Dr. Abbot."

But the gentle cadence of your voice cuts through him and shame trickles in like molasses. When did he turn out to be such a perv? Maybe the night shift is getting to him. He clears his throat, assuming his professional stance, but your smile turns wicked and there's something mischievous in your gaze that he can't quite place.

"Really, I can't thank you enough," you say as you carefully roll over to settle in an upright position. "But, um… is it possible if I can keep the toy?"

He lets out a little laugh and nods. With his hands still gloved, he retrieves a plastic bag from one of the cabinets and places the toy in before handing it to you. "'course you can. Just make sure you prep yourself better next time."

Jack nearly winces at the crass statement but you reward him with a bemused giggle. "Don't worry, I learned my lesson. It's a good thing I'm testing it out first before a stream. It'd be so embarrassing if I got it stuck inside me while I was live," you share and he tries not to look too eager as you share more about your unorthodox occupation.

"Do you… do that often?" The question falls flat and he makes up for it with an embarrassed chuckle, discarding his gloves in the nearby waste basket. "Jesus, tell me if I'm overstepping here."

You laugh again and Jack's positive he isn't as funny as you make him to be but he'd gladly make a fool of himself if he got to hear that sound again. "You're fine. Trust me, I've heard worse."

"What if I want to be the best you've heard?"

Your brow rises up in mild surprise. "Was that a line, Dr. Abbot?"

"Maybe."

"It's not very good."

"It's also 2 AM, sweetheart."

You cross your arms, tilt yout head to the side and it feels like he's being taken apart. "Do you make it a habit to flirt with your patients?"

"Just the pretty ones— oh, yikes. Yeah, that one was bad," he concedes with a light laugh. "I may be a flirt, but you're trouble. Now… think you can behave while I go grab your discharge papers?"

Your smile is saccharine sweet. "Of course."

He chuckles and shakes his head, nudging the door open with his hip before he exits. The rest of the evening goes by routinely: you sign off on a few papers before changing back into your clothes. Dr. Abbot is nowhere to be seen until you're walking towards the exit, your gait a tad bit crooked, and he's leaning against the counter by the nurses' station.

"Thanks again, doctor."

The wink you give him nearly stops his heart, your easy demeanor returning now that you aren't battling the embarrassment of having a butt plug stuck inside you. When the door shuts behind you and the chaos of the emergency department resumes around him, Crus Henderson cackles behind his chart.

"What?" Jack frowns.

The smile Henderson gives him is downright sinister. "You're not slick, old man."

"It's fine." Shen materializes beside him with an obnoxiously loud slurp of his perpetually full iced coffee. "Technically, she isn't your patient anymore. And Crus and I won't tell."

"There's nothing to tell—!"

The two share knowing grins before walking off. "Sure, Abbot. Sure. Wait 'til you're off to look her up though."

Jack splutters. "I'm not going to look her up—"

In the quiet of his bedroom, Jack looks you up.

The sun's already filtering through his window blinds and it feels like some social transgression to be searching up porn during the day. But he's showered and clean with his prosthetic off, tucked under his covers and leaned against his headboard. The cursor's blinking up at him, taunting him. He doesn't even know where to begin but he's got your full name, wonders if it's enough to even catch a trace of you on social media.

He types your name in anyway on instagram and his breath leaves him in a rush when your profile sits at the top of the search results. Your profile pic is innocent enough, smiling brightly, but upon further inspection, your shoulders and collarbone is exposed right where the photo is cut off; an implication that you've got nothing on below the edge of your profile. Once he manages to tear his gaze away, his eyes snag onto the amount of followers you have. Four million. An impressed whistle escapes him as he starts to scroll.

Your photos are still pretty tame, nothing more risque than a bikini shot of you at the beach. To anyone that isn't regularly watching adult streamers, you look like any other influencer of the modern age. Wholesome photos of you are attached as well, displaying your interests and hobbies that has Jack falling deeper and deeper into your orbit.

It's nearly noon when he realized he may have spent the previous hours just looking up your social media sites. One thing that did stick out like a sore thumb (aside from your jaw-dropping photos) had been the lack of use of your real name. He understands the reasoning, knows its for safety especially with the kind of career you're in, but the affectionate nickname you use for yourself and what your subscribers use has a lick of jealousy flaring in his chest.

Dollface. Doll. Dolly.

He scrolls back up before the little monster in his chest grows and a nondescript url catches his eye, the hyperlink sitting pretty beneath your bio. Before he could secondguess himself, he taps it and his phone brings him out of instagram and into his browser app where your website loads on his screen.

While Jack isn't some tech-savvy genius, he's confident enough to say that your page must've been done by a professional. Summer pastels greet him, a variation of your profile pic on instagram (more skin, more sultry—) sitting on the top left of the screen with 'DOLL'S CORNER' splashed on the top of the page and a drop down menu that he decides to explore later.

It's arranged like some sort of blog, your most recent status marked as eight hours ago where you're complaining about some ache. He bites back a smirk before he scrolls down your older posts. There's many videos, ranging from 'get ready with me!'s and 'shopping hauls' with pretty thumbnails, but the one that steals his attention are the ones that are grayed out — almost pixelated with a pink heart-lock graphic in the center.

[ UPGRADE YOUR TIER LEVEL TO ACCESS THIS VIDEO! ♡ ]

His thumb hovers over the lock-graphic before he gives in.

The screen loads and he's taken to a new page, marked by different tiers and different price points.

BESTIES — free! access includes: - get ready with me - weekly vlogs - shopping hauls SWEETHEARTS — weekly subscription. ($) - everything besties has to offer! - short-form lewd content - locked photos from the vault - audios LOVERS — monthly subscription. ($$$) - everything sweethearts and besties has to offer! - midnight live-streams - personalized short-form videos - personalized audios

Jack blinks twice. He continues to scroll before he catches a three-day free trial for all the paid tiers. He bypasses it and taps a single month purchase for access to the LOVERS' vault (after creating a profile and naming it simply with his initials). His dick stirs in his pajamas as the screen loads before it confirms his payment.

All the grayed-out videos are unlocked but rather than an aesthetic thumbnail with pretty collages like your free content, they're blurred out images of you within the video — enough to imply exactly what's going on in each one.

He scrolls on to see another video of you trying on outfits, specifically lingerie. Figuring this is as close as it'll get to dipping his toes in the metaphorical pond of your NSFW content for now, he hits play.

The video starts off with your pretty face adjusting the camera before you settle back on a white rug, surrounded by opened boxes. You greet the camera and it feels like a blow to the gut to see you in your element. If he thought you were pretty in the emergency room, under the garish lighting of the bright fluorescents, you're a goddamn bombshell with perfect makeup and flattering lighting.

As you address the camera, he begins to wonder how exactly you could be an adult streamer when you have content like this until you bring out the haul for the video. White ivory boxes detailed with cream ribbons, baby pink boxes wrapped nicely with ebony lace and tulle. He catches a name on one of the boxes: La Perla.

Jack shifts in his seat, bats away the creeping guilt of watching a young woman try on lingerie, but the charge was confirmed on his card already; it's too late for regret.

(He fears there isn't any regret in the first place.)

Fortunately for his heart (or unfortunately for his twitching cock), you had edited the videos to cut through the actual process of changing into them and rather just show off the full sets.

You didn't seem to have a preference for color, each piece ranging from a monochromatic black to butter yellow lace. Either way, you look gorgeous in all of them and Jack isn't ashamed to admit he's about to blow in his boxers, untouched, at just the sight of you in lingerie.

When the video ends, he replays it but makes it a point to keep his hands out of his pants for now. Instead, he drops a like and a simple comment:

@.swatdoc. — You're magnificent.

Confident in the anonymity of his profile, he puts his phone away to finally catch up on sleep.

Across the city, your phone buzzes with a new notification as you have breakfast on your island counter. Despite the waves of engagement you get on your content, you still keep the notifications on and the newest one brings forth a flutter in your stomach. Compliments are a nickel apiece when it comes to your career but the simplicity of this one and the lack of crudeness that follows steals your attention.

You take a bite of your food as you tap the notif, bringing on the new account profile. While most are kept blank, this man has a profile pic of his back facing a gorgeous sunset. Despite the fact his face is unseen, you recognize those salt and pepper curls.

In the following days, Jack begins to make it a habit to check on your daily statuses. You don't post daily on instagram but you post stories and he enjoys your little activities, likes how everyone seems to be so kind to you. It makes him wonder if your followers are aware of your evening activities, of your content tucked safely away behind a paywall.

Even in the comments section in both the SFW and NSFW side of your content, he realizes you've amassed a loyal following comprised of women that it nearly hides the lewd and desperate remarks from your male subscribers.

@deathreverse : that top is gorggggg!!! ♡

@pearlessance : your makeup is stunning, drop a routine next babes!!

@enam3l: absolutely obsessed w you!! ♡

@mariasont: that shade of pink suits you BEAUTIFULLY

In your last NSFW video, it's you in bed, a thin blanket draped loosely along your frame. There isn't an intro like your lingerie haul, just getting right into it as if the viewer catches you in the middle of the act: your hand sliding beneath the fabric, the camera shaking slightly as you rearrange your position to lay back against the mountain of pillows.

Jack's mimicking the position on his day off, his own back cushioned against his headboard as he watches in rapt attention. His readers are sliding off his nose but he adjusts them as he hits the volume increase button twice. He wants to hear you, addicted to the way you sound so sweet whimpering around your fingers.

Obsessed with the way your moans can sound so goddamn endearing.

He doesn't let the video play on, his hand still sitting obediently above the waist band of his sweatpants as he tries to catch his breath. He scrolls onward instead, stops at a tamer video of you shopping at a boutique.

@.swatdoc. — Gorgeous as always, bunny.

The cursor blinks as he secondguesses the petname. No one's called you anything other than 'doll' or 'dolly' or some iteration of baby or babe. Bunny's innocuous enough, Jack decides, and taps 'comment'. It'll be an inside joke for himself, for the evening you may as well tipped his world upside down when you'd come into the pitt for a stuck bunny buttplug. You get thousands of comments a day, the likelihood of you recognizing him is abysmally low.

The little pep talk he gives himself soothe the minor anxiety spike as he continues to scroll on, amusing himself with the way your bright personality seems to shine through even with the nasty videos that has his cock twitching to life.

He distracts himself with the comments section instead of exiting the video.

@.deathreverse — jesuuus christ, ur so fucking hot

@.deathreverse — let me rip that gorgeous top off you plsplspls

@.pearlessance — let me make your moans my ringtone and i'll never miss a call

The women commenting are far more entertaining to read through, the creativity of it all always taking him aback, despite the usual stab of jealousy. At this point, his parasocial streak of possessiveness is something he's learned to ignore, to let sit beneath a layer of faux indifference.

He's just a fan now among millions, he'll bask in the anonymity your popularity affords him.

You might be obsessed with your most latest subscriber. A Mr. Swatdoc with the silver curls.

Realistically, it may be the hot doctor that had seen you through the most mortifying ordeal of taking out a buttplug at two in the morning but the profile pic doesn't give you much and his profile is blank aside from his chosen screen name (swatdoc) and his age (48).

Regardless, your heart does a funny little twist whenever he appears in your notifications (only on your SFW posts, interestingly enough) whether it's a like or an extra tip but your stomach drops when his newest comment adds a new petname.

Bunny.

You sit up in bed when the notification comes through. Gorgeous as always, bunny. The fucking bunny, cotton-tail buttplug. The same one that Dr. Abbot had all but talked you through it as he gently removed it from your asshole. You glance up to see the damned toy sitting on your dresser right across from your bed, mocking you.

The bed dips beneath as you shift your weight, rolling around in bed as you reread that goddamn nickname over and over again. Bunny.

As your eyes bore into your screen, your phone buzzes.

[@.swatdoc liked your vlog!]

[@.swatdoc commented: Can't get enough of you, bunny.]

A sudden wave of confidence (or perhaps impulsiveness) washes through you and you tap his comment. And in quick succession, you like his comment and tap on his profile. Then his inbox. And finally:

doll : doctor abbot???

Jack drops his phone like it burned him. He sits up, nearly kicks off his blankets in his chaos as his heart falls right out of his ass. He didn't even know there was a messaging system on your website but there it is, that red notification bubble on the top right. He taps it and there's the chatbox.

He contemplates on lying, on playing dumb but he respects you far too much to lie to you. A heavy sigh escapes him as he resettles back into his bed and his cock sheepishly sits limp against his inner thigh.

swatdoc : How did you know it was me?

doll : i'd recognize those silver curls anywhere ♡

Huh. The little heart emoticon blinks up at him, maybe even glows. His cock gives a hopeful twitch.

swatdoc : Let me get this right. You aren't weirded out by me finding your website?

doll : you pulled my buttplug out of my ass, doctor. i think we're even.

swatdoc : Sounds fair.

doll : i do want to ask, strictly as a survey yknow, just to make sure i'm reaching subscriber satisfaction expectations. but is my nsfw stuff not hot enough?

swatdoc : I don't know how to answer that.

doll : you aren't liking any of my nsfw videos…….. am i not your type?

He can imagine it, that wry little grin when you tease the camera, makes him want to fuck it out of you—

swatdoc : Just trying to be respectful. Or as respectful as I can be given the circumstances, sweetheart.

doll : i think you're super respectful, i see the tips you've been leaving….. thank you btw ♡

swatdoc : You're welcome, bunny. doll liked your message!

The activity light near your name goes off and he figures you might've logged off. His thumb drags up the screen to exit the page, sets his phone down and attempt at sleeping. But in the midst of his dark bedroom, there's a stirring in his gut that he can't seem to shake. An itch he needs scratching.

Time fluctuates, slips through his fingers as he finds himself on a popular porn website, the light of his phone illuminating his hazel eyes. He scrolls and scrolls past countless videos, the thumbnails made to entice anyone in his position, and yet frustration starts to grow larger than the lust that's been simmering beneath his heated skin.

None of the actresses look like you.

The thought floors him and he pauses when he finds a woman with a similar body type as you, wears her hair the same way you do. Her moans are a bit too pitchy but he punches the volume down and when his hand slides beneath his sweatpants, he doesn't feel guilt. And when he cums, it's your name spilling from his lips.

"You seeing anyone?"

Jack doesn't look up from the iPad as Robby settles in beside him, ready to take over for day shift as night shift starts to filter out. "What are you talking about?"

"Y'know. Dating? Getting out there? 'cuz Peaches has someone—"

"Not interested, brother, but I thank you for your service." Jack smiles but it's forced, halfway towards a grimace, and places the iPad down with a little too much force. He stomps off to the locker room. Robby and Dana watch his retreating back before they share a look.

"What's his problem?" Dana mutters, her glasses sitting low on the slope of her nose.

Robby chuckles and shakes his head. "No idea."

The truth is— Jack does have a problem. That problem is you.

He thought he'd been good, kept his hands to himself when he gets to his usual routine of stalking your website, and lets his fantasies run wild when he switches over to another porn site to find an actress that looks like you.

But then you had kept texting him, messaging him on your website that the line he's drawn between staying respectful and admiring you from afar against his baseless desire of wanting to fuck you 'til you cry is starting to blur. Of course you have no idea of this line, no clue of the existence of the boundaries Jack's made for himself.

You have no idea that Jack wants more than a physical interaction with you and he has no idea how to ask you out without coming off like a complete pervert.

doll: dr abbot?? swatdoc: You know you can call me Jack, sweetheart. doll: take me out first then i'll feel comfortable enough to call you whatever you want.

Jack nearly shortcircuits at your reply and he fights the urge to hide his phone, shove it in his pocket to deal with later. It'd just look too suspicious and with Shen's eyes on him, he knows he'd blab straight to Lena who'd definitely gossip with Dana. While Dana's known to keep a secret, anything involving him and a potential partner is a surefire way for her to tell Robby.

swatdoc: You mean it, bunny? doll: spending time with you? of course ♡

Jack chuckles and swipes his palm across his stubbly mouth, absolutely incredulous at your gumption.

swatdoc: I meant a date. Not just one night. This old man isn't built for casual. doll: okay old man. take me out to dinner then ♡ it'd give me a chance to redo the first impression you have of me swatdoc: I think it was a perfect first impression, bunny. doll: you saw my ass, of course you thought so!!! swatdoc: I was actually enamored by your charming personality. Your ass was a bonus. doll: … flirt. you're smooth dr abbot. doll: so when's our date? swatdoc: My next day off is in a couple days. How's saturday night looking for you? doll: i'm free !!! gonna come pick me up? swatdoc: If you're comfortable with it, I'd love to. So, saturday at 7? doll: i trust you ♡ and yes, i'll see you then.

He gets a text from you the following day (you'd admitted filching his number from the profile he's made on your website) and after a brief facetime call to prove your identity, he receives your address with a playful tag of: don't be late, dr. abbot.

Saturday's only a couple days away and yet he's fidgeting. He's got a night shift to get his mind off things but even Lena can see he's distracted. While he managed to wave away his colleagues' concerns, he wonders if he's the only one this anxious or nervous for the date.

[ Doll updated her status! ] — 2 secs ago. — Butterflies. ♡

A wave of notifications flood your phone despite the simple status update but you couldn't care less— not when you've got every possible combination of a date outfit laid out on your bed and nothing looks good. You have time, of course, there's nothing stopping you from going out shopping but the extra options might just exacerbate your indecision.

A pitiful whine escapes you as the paralysis of all your options land you flat on your back atop your mattress, clothing wrinkles be damned.

Whether or not the both of you are ready, Saturday evening arrives quickly.

The only information Jack had given you about the date aside from taking you out for a nice, classic dinner was to 'look nice'. As charming and handsome as he is, you resent the fact that he's like every other man his age: allergic to details. Somehow you manage to put on something simple but flattering, a black cocktail dress with a hemline that skims above your knee and a sweetheart neckline that teases your cleavage along with a bold, red pair of stilettos. Pairing it with a matching clutch, you deem yourself ready after a final swipe of lip gloss across your pouty lips.

"Here we go…" you murmur to yourself. Just as you dab at your lower lip with the pad of your ring finger, your doorbell rings. Seven on the dot.

Your heels click against the floor as you open your door to be greeted with Jack in slacks and a navy blue button down… as well as a bouquet of your favorite flowers. You gasp first, greetings momentarily forgotten in favor of taking the offered bouquet for a sweet sniff. Jack's compliments die on his tongue when he truly sees you, nose buried in the petals.

"How'd you know these were my favorite?" You ask as you step back, head tipping to wordlessly invite him in as you seek out a vase.

"I watched your vlogs," he shrugs with a shameless little smile. "I picked up a few details."

Maybe he shouldn't be as stunned as he is now — he's seen you in various states of dressed and undressed at this point — but you've truly left him speechless when you had opened the door, wearing that little black dress that hugs your body perfectly.

He's grateful that you notice the flowers first, cooing and gasping at the curated arrangement rather than noticing his thunderstruck stupor. It gives him a moment to clear his throat, admire the way you smile at the bouquet.

"You look divine," he murmurs as he follows you inside, watches you putter around your open space kitchen to place the flowers in water. And maybe it's his ego that's got him this taken by you; knowing that perhaps only he alone gets to see this side of you, bashful and charming. When you blush at his compliment, he feels like the king of the world.

"You don't look so bad yourself," you tease with a playful wink, taking his offered hand as he leads you out the door.

Jack's a gentleman when he helps you into his car, glancing aside momentarily when your dress rides up upon seating. He's a gentleman when you make it to the fine-dining restaurant ("Heard the new executive chef just received two Michelin stars!" you share excitedly), opening doors for you and keeping a respecful hand at the small of your back. He pulls your chair out for you, too. Perhaps the bar is in hell but you're undoubtedly impressed and giddy, basking in his undivided attention as you wear your heart on your sleeve for the rest of the evening.

"… and they all looked at it like it was something alien. It was a fax machine—!" Jack laughs, regaling you with the infamous July 4 analog nightmare from hell at the pitt. Dessert is lain between you two, half-eaten and momentarily forgotten as the two of you had been lost in conversation. He'd been worried that he might gross you out or bore you with his job as an ER physician but you had asked and prodded for more gory details, nose scrunching adorably when he explained what a degloving was.

"Okay, fax machines are basically obsolete," you counter with a giggle, lips parting as he feeds you a bite of cake. He waits patiently for you to chew before you continue on. "No one uses them anymore!"

Jack shakes his head in mock disappointment before you return the favor and feed him a bite from your own fork. "Sweetheart, these are vital skills!" Something warm flutters in his chest when you reach up to absentmindedly wipe away a bit of frosting from the corner of his lips, your painted nail skimming across his skin with the movement.

"How about this, I'll call you on the off chance I'll ever need to use a fax machine," you say dryly. A chuckle escapes Jack, low and grumbly that it has your thighs clenching together beneath the table.

"Sure. Or call me whenever, I'll always answer."

The ease of his flirting never fails to make you flustered and Jack capitalizes on it whenever he gets the chance. Like clockwork, you giggle and glance aside, a pretty blush on your cheeks as you look anywhere but his eyes. It's a wonderful side of you that he's steadily growing obsessed with. Yes, your online persona in your SFW space is charming and enchanting while you're essentially a succubus — sex incarnate — when the sun drops low.

But this is you, unabashedly you, and Jack can't get enough of it. He wants more than what you probably expect from him, a warm body to occupy his bed (judging from the stories you've shared about past experiences), and he's ready to go above and beyond to prove to you that he's willing to do whatever it takes so that he could call all of you his.

"Hey, how are we doing? Dessert's good?" The head-of-house manager of the restaurant cuts in seamlessly; he seems to have a good sense of when to enter a conversation.

You smile brightly and Jack nods. "It's delicious, thank you. Every dish has been fantastic," you gush.

"Wonderful, that's what I like to hear," the manager crows before he straightens out his tie. "You two are a beautiful couple. Are we celebrating an anniversary?"

Now it's Jack's turn to get bashful. "Uh, no, a first date, actually."

The manager looks taken aback but he bounces back with a low chuckle, two hands on his chest in subtle apology. "If it helps, the chemistry you two have is undeniable. Truly. But anyways, I came by to ask if you two would like to join us in the garden party out back or maybe a nice little kitchen tour?"

Your eyes shimmer with excitement and Jack gives a yes, offering his hand for you to take. The manager smiles and claps once. "Perfect, let me take you to where the magic happens."

After meeting the famed head chefs and even sampling a few of the desserts at the pastry station, you're positively glowing as the two of you step out to where a small get together of other guests mingle by picnic tables. A few guys that may be the line cooks are handing out beer and soda, giving off a more relaxed vibe than the one inside. It's pleasant and when you feel a chill, Jack's draping his jacket along your shoulders without a word.

"Thanks," you hum, eyes fluttering as you take in his warm and musky cologne that seeps in from the collar. He chuckles and places a hand on the bottom of your spine.

"Of course," he murmurs then tips his head to wear the drinks are being passed around. "Did you want any—?"

"No, I think I'm stuffed. Did you…?"

Jack shakes his head and the nerves from before the date nearly come back in full force. You aren't naive, you know what kind of expectations your job gives people whenever you go on dates. While Jack's been a gentleman the entire evening, you can't deny the fact that him being a subscriber to your NSFW content does skew the way he must see you.

The drive back to your place is quiet and calm, your hand folded delicately in his as he drives. He walks you to your door but much to your surprise, he doesn't step past the threshold.

"I had an amazing time," he says first, his lined eyes crinkling as he gives you a warm smile. "I'd really like to see you again."

You nod, leaning against your doorway as you realize his hand has found yours again. Your joined fingers sway slightly. "Me too. I… I really liked tonight."

He smiles wider as if you've erased any doubts he's had. "Good. I'll, um. I'll let you get some rest. I'll call you when I get my next day off, alright?"

"Yeah, sounds good."

"Great." And with a smooth and unhurried motion, he leans in for a kiss to your cheek, chaste and sweet. "By the way, I want you to know I'm all in. I'm not trying to waste your time or make you think I'm here for the physical aspect. I like you, sweetheart. Truly."

And with a final pinch of your chin, he steps away and bids you good night before walking off. Later that night, you realize you haven't stopped smiling until you climb into bed, alone but completely content.

When morning comes, Jack sends you a good morning text before he cleans up around the house, settle in before his shift later that evening. He doesn't check his phone 'til noon and when he does, he sees a text back from you and a notification from your website.

[Doll just posted a video!] — 3 hours ago.

His stomach drops. While he truly has no issue with you continuing your camgirl career, something twists inside him at the thought of you getting off the night before without him. Is it that feeling of missing out or is it the fact that he hadn't been there to fulfill that need of yours?

Regardless, his heart is pounding when he taps the notification. The video loads and a breath of relief leaves him in a rush.

[New video!] Get un-ready with me! — Skincare Routine.

He chuckles and leans against the kitchen counter, turns his phone sideways to see you fill his screen in the same dress from the night before. You must be in your bathroom, he notes, as you relay your steps carefully to your audience.

"I know everyone will be asking but I just came back from a wonderful dinner. Food was absolutely divine, I'm already considering going back soon. But…" A bashful smile curls onto your lips and Jack's beaming. "The company was even better. Anyways— moving onto the foam cleanser…"

Your routine ends after you apply your serums and creams, signing off on the camera. The comments section pop up immediately.

@.mariasont — your skin looks so good but you look GLOWINGGG

@.pearlessance — were you on a date?? that dress is fantastic!!

Jack chuckles when he sees that you've dropped a like on that commenter about a date but nothing more. Fan the rumors without confirming anything, looks like you're a tease in more ways than one.

Unable to help himself, he scrolls down his contacts and taps yours. The phone rings once, twice, then—

"Jack?"

"Hey, sweetheart. Is this a bad time?"

You sound a tad bit out of breath but you reassure him nonetheless. "No, no, you're fine. What's up?"

"Well, I—" He interrupts himself with a shy laugh. "I don't know if it's too soon but I'd like to take you out again. My next day off is next week on Friday."

"Oh!" You sound positively pleased and Jack can picture you biting your lower lip to hide that smile he's obsessed with. "Yeah, I can make that happen. Are we doing dinner?"

"No, I was thinking of visiting the aquarium this time around."

"The aquarium…"

He bites back a grin, can picture the excitement simmering beneath the slight trepidation of your words. "That's right. Unless there's something else—"

"No, it's perfect!" You cut in with a little giggle. "Jack, did you watch all my vlogs?"

"Of course I did. And it truly can't be that much of a hardship to learn how much you love the place when you've got vlogs of you there nearly every month," he teases. "But if it's something you like to do on your own—"

"No, no, it's fine, Jack, I'd love to." He can hear the way your voice softens. "I can't wait."

"Alright, it's a date. I'll see you next Friday, sweetheart."

Friday doesn't come fast enough this time around. You've got an outfit bought and ready to go, a simple skirt with a blouse that you might've picked to match his eyes. Jack's on time yet again, two PM on the dot, and while he still keeps his hands to himself, he basks in the way your hand constantly seeks out the crook of his elbow.

You regale him with fish facts throughout each wing of the aquarium and he watches with besotted eyes when you basically glow at the sight of the jellyfish. Conversation ebbs and flows and he's pressing soft kisses into your hair like he can't quite help himself.

By the time you've both made it back to his car, he helps you in while placing the massive jellyfish plushy he bought you at the gift shop onto your lap. It's silly and absolutely wholesome.

It's made you undeniably horny for him.

You appreciate it though, you see how he's gone above and beyond to show you that he wants a relationship out of this. He doesn't expect you to be 'easier' because of your job as a camgirl nor does he think he's entitled to anything more than a kiss on the cheek because of what you show online.

And it's making you want him so bad that you feel like the pervert in this situation.

At your doorway, he's got a hand on your waist this time and your arms are draped loosely around his neck while still holding onto the jellyfish plush that's dangling behind his back.

"Today was lots of fun," you say first, nearly chest to chest with him. He nods, feeling the way you shiver when his thumb rubs circles against your hip bones. Above the fabric of your shirt.

"It was," he agrees as he basks in the sweet scent of your perfume. This close, you're practically intoxicating. "I enjoyed the little fish facts too, didn't know my date was a lovely encyclopedia—"

Your eyes roll playfully at the teasing jab, exaggerating your movements as you unwind your arms to step out of his embrace. "If you hate me, just say so—"

"Now hold on, I never said it was a bad thing," he chuckles and you let out a quiet squeal when his grip tightens, pulling you back into his arms. "Thought it was cute."

"Sure you do," you tease back and you realize he's pulled you even closer now. His voice is a rumble, low and gravelly as the distance between your lips is beginning to diminish.

"I do." He murmurs, his nose brushing against yours. "This okay?"

You nod, throat bobbing. "More than okay," you whisper.

His gaze drops from your eyes, back to your lips, before they close the distance. Your heart thunders in your chest as your arms tighten around his neck to pull him lower. He goes easily, smiling against your lips. He doesn't deepen it, though, just steals a handful of more feather-light kisses that elicits a string of giggles from you, your foot popping up and your back bending slightly backwards as he dips you and showers you in affection.

Eventually, he reluctantly pulls away but not without giving you one more kiss. "Have a good rest of your evening, sweetheart," he murmurs. "Make sure you lock the door behind you, yeah?"

You nod, sighing dramatically as you lean against the back of your door as he steps out to the hallway. "I will. Can I see you again soon, Jack?"

His poor little heart thunders wildly at your adorable expression, half-pleading and half-fond. "Of course, princess. Maybe we can do something like this again, maybe a museum or that fair?"

You perk up with a nod. "That sounds like fun."

"Good. I'll see you soon, darling."

You sigh dreamily and blow him a kiss before shutting the door. You lean against the paneling and groan into your hands.

In the silence of your apartment, you wail— "Why won't he fuck me?!"

The time between your last date to the aquarium to your next one at the museum, you and Jack continue to text. Whether it's you giving him advice for a dish he's making or asking his opinion on which top would look well for a brunch you're attending with your girlfriends, the conversations never slow nor do they ever bore.

And in between those texts, Jack is happily gorging himself on your content while only getting off on actresses that hold resemblance to you. It's twisted and he knows it's wrong but he pictures your face in the shower sometimes, thinks of the way your teeth sink in your plush lower lip as his hand tugs at his cock.

You, however, hold no qualms as you drive the dildo deep in your cunt on late evenings, whimpering for the camera you've got set up. You always make it a habit to just plead, whine and beg more than you might naturally would with a partner, but when Jack's on your mind, you have nothing to exaggerate; you just get way more vocal as you think of his strong hands on your waist. The way he had commanded that kiss without being overbearing.

That kiss alone had wrung out three orgasms from you without the camera on.

Maybe it should've been enough to tide you over but as you start your usual midnight livestream the evening before your next date with Jack, a new title spills past your lips in the throes of your first climax. It shouldn't be a surprise at how easily the name comes to you, especially with how natural it seemed for Jack to take care of you—

"'m cumming, daddy—!"

The pings on your laptop nearby that you use for monitoring the chats go wild, the bell ringing that signified the amount of tips that just flooded your inbox from the title alone. You slump over as you catch your breath from where you've been riding your suction dildo, whining softly to yourself as the toy slides out of you. Your inner thighs are quivering as you lift your gaze to the laptop screen.

"Thanks for stopping by," you croon to the camera before shutting off the stream.

Across the city, Jack palms at his bulge, mouth slightly agape as he tries not to cum in his sweatpants like a teenager. "Fuck."

"I didn't really take you to be a museum kind of guy."

"I'm not. Not really… My friend's fiancée recommended it to us, thought we might like the new exhibit," Jack shrugs as he keeps you near with a hand around your waist. The new exhibit had garnered a sizable crowd and the last thing he wants is to lose you. Especially since you seem preoccupied with the information pamplet, both hands holding it open to read while relying heavily on Jack's firm hand. He likes it, the thought of you trusting him so readily.

You hum in acknowledgment before peering above the page. "The map says the new Caravaggio exhibit is that way… I think." Jack chuckles and peers over your shoulder, both of his hands firmly on your waist. You hold the pamphlet up higher for him.

"You aren't wrong," he muses as he reads over the map. You swallow nervously, you can feel the heat of his body seep against your backless top, the way his voice gets all low and gravelly when he's talking just to you. "It's past the abstract wing. Can you fold that up for me, sweetheart? I wouldn't want you to trip over your feet if you can't see where you're going."

You nod instinctively. "Yes—" You swallow back that title that sits at the back of your throat whenever Jack gets so… passively dominant. "Yeah, of course."

He chuckles and lets his arm fall along your lower back, a hand at the dip of your waist as he leads you towards the exhibit. The entire time as you two parade around the wing, Jack keeps you close. It sparks a light in your core, your inner thighs clenching with need when he unwittingly turns on your desire to be taken care of. But he seems so unbothered by it, humming to himself as his thumb slips beneath your blouse to rub your skin while he reads the information beside the painting.

The two of you are admiring Caravaggio's Narcissus when something comes to mind. "Why'd you call me 'bunny'? In my comments?"

He glances down at you, taken aback by the sudden question. "I… thought it'd be nice to have a nickname of my own for you. It reminded me of our first meeting."

A fond smile curls upon your lips. "Why haven't you called me that since we started dating?"

Something fond crosses over Jack's face, leaves as quickly as it came. His hand squeezes your side. "I didn't think it was appropriate. Thought it might make you uncomfortable if I called you that in public."

"I liked it. Like it. I still do," you trip over your words with a flustered smile. "It's like our own little inside thing. Um—no pun intended."

Jack chuckles and that wide smile he gives you has you pushing against your toes to press your lips to his. He hums fondly, nips at your lower lip. "Alright, I'll keep that in mind, bunny."

You kiss him again.

For the next couple of months, you start to see Jack regularly. Dinner dates (whether it's at the first restaurant he's taken you to or he cooks for you at his place) or movie nights, or even him just coming over to unwind after a long shift. Your posting schedule doesn't shift, only rearranges itself to make room for Jack.

A month in, you'd sat him down and tentatively but firmly told him that you wouldn't be stopping just because of your dates. Jack had accepted it without question, took it as if it was what he expected in the first place.

So you continue your usual schedule. Vlogs and short-form content for your SFW socials and full streams for your NSFW audience. Suggestive photos to tide your subscribers over 'til the next full video.

Jack, on the other hand, looks positively giddy with himself. Sure, he's cumming in his fist nearly every night but he's determined to make sure you know that he wants more with you. Fuck. He sounds like a broken record but he's obsessed; the last thing he wants is his dick to ruin this for his heart.

But his good mood is translated into his night shifts, cracking jokes even with angry patients. It has Shen watching over in confused concern, always taking a double-take when he has the chance. Parker and Crus decide that it's just Jack going through a new wave, a new fixation that's probably tiding him over.

Or a girl— but that's Robby's problem to mull over, not theirs.

They get their chance when Jack's scheduled for a double (something he makes up to you with another extravagant VIP dinner the day before), dropping a hint to their chief that their night-shift attending's been weird all week.

The ambulance bay doors slide open in a 'whoosh' for Dr. Robinavitch, passing by Javadi who's talking to Trinity about making mutuals with some big-shot on her Tiktok and Dennis catching up with Perlah about his weekend, to get to Jack in the locker room.

"So. Shen's said you've been weird."

Jack chuckles lightly, throws his stethescope around his neck, and shuts his locker. "I'm seeing someone."

Robby startles. "Oh. That's— brother, that's great."

"What, didn't think I'd admit it so quickly?" Jack grins and pats his shoulder as he steps around his friend.

"No, not really." Robby follows him out, tugging on both ends of his stethoscope. "I'm happy for you. What's her name?"

"Nah, that's all you're getting out of me, Robinavitch."

The sun's setting as Jack turns the page on the novel he's been reading to you. You're sitting between his legs and your back against his warm chest, stretching out on the gingham blanket you've brought as the two of you find cover beneath the large tree.

Today's date had been completely spontaneous. When his schedule had been unwittingly cleared up, he had driven straight to you to take you out for a late lunch picnic at the small fair that's set up for the weekend. With the sandwiches finished off and you'd run off to buy cotton candy for the both of you to share, Jack had fished out a novel in his back seat to pass the time and enjoy the nice weather.

His hand is absentmindedly rubbing your exposed thigh, the skirt of your sundress riding up just enough for him to explore the smooth skin. His cheek is pressed against the top of your hair while you absentmindedly trace shapes atop his jean-clad thighs.

"Feelin' restless, bunny?"

"Hm?" Jack's question draws you out of your stupor, so content in his arms that it takes him a few attempts to get your attention. "No, just… really cozy."

"Yeah?" He presses a line of kisses down your jaw and neck, eliciting a soft squeal from you. Jack would've continued showering you in kisses but he grunts, reluctantly pulling away to rub at his aching prosthesis.

You frown. He's mentioned losing a limb before, knows that he wears a prosthetic leg, but you've never seen him this uncomfortable. "Jack, we could head home if it's hurting—"

"I'm fine—"

"Jack." He pauses and turns his attention to you, your brows furrowed and your lips in a line. "Come on, we can just take it easy at your place. You said you're more comfortable in your crutches, right?"

"Yeah." You can see when he finally gives in, his shoulders rounding out as he presses a kiss to your shoulder. "Yeah, alright. Let's go."

Once the both of you get to your feet, you hold out your hand. "Gimme the keys, I'll drive to give your leg a break."

"I don't think so."

"Jack."

"Bunny."

It takes a second but he concedes there too, pulling you in by the shoulders for a swift kiss to your lips. "You're lucky you're cute, sweetheart."

Jack's place is almost as familiar as yours now. He watches you saunter around his place, dropping his keys into the dish bowl on the table by the door, place your things on the loveseat before rummaging through his fridge for a beer.

When you reach him where he's seated on his couch, prosthesis set aside to hand him a beer, he gently tugs you onto his lap before popping the tab open for your can first. "Thanks," you hum, taking a sip while he opens his. His arm is strong around your waist and the easy strength he holds for you, the possessive touch he's got whenever you're near... it sparks a flicker of heat inside you and as you turn, straddling his lap to kiss along his jaw. His scruff is rough against your glossy lips but it only has you mewling.

"Bunny…" he groans as his large hand splays along the expanse of your back, supporting your weight while you tip back just enough for him to place his beer behind you on the coffee table. His eyes flutter shut, basking in your sweet kisses, as temptation guides his hand lower to cup your perky ass. It's your moan, drawn out and desperate, that pulls him out of the heat that's settling thick in his head. Reluctantly, his hands rise back up and an indignant whine spills from your throat—

"Jack, why won't you fuck me?"

He nearly chokes on his spit at your question and when he looks up, you look adorably put out, lower lip jutting out. Your gaze is glassy, lips kiss-swollen. His thumb comes up, presses against your mouth to drag down your lip slowly. "Bunny, why do you think I won't fuck you?"

"You— you've only ever kissed me. You've only liked my non-sexual content. You—"

"Baby," he shushes you gently, releases your lip to cradle your jaw. "It's not that I'm uninterested in you. Trust me— I am. I just didn't want you to think this was all some ploy to just get you in bed with me."

Another whine rises up within you. "But it's been months, Jack."

"Sweetheart, I wanted to make sure you know I was serious. It wasn't just for you, but for me, too. Had to make it known to you that I'm here for the long haul," he murmurs and when you nod in understanding, his lips find yours for a kiss that's got you clenching your thighs. Your back arches back when he leans further in, lips parting to let his tongue probe against yours.

"Gonna… mm— fuck me now?" You pant against his mouth, lashes kissing the tops of your cheeks when his lips drag down your neck to mark your collarbone with marks.

His chuckle is raspy against your skin. "I'm gonna make love to you, bunny. Come on—"

"Why not here?" You whimper, giving your hips a slow roll against his. You can feel his bulge, stiff through his jeans, against your panties.

"I'm not having you on my couch, darling. Not for our first time. We can defile the rest of my house later."

You giggle as you reluctantly get to your feet, knees nearly knocking together while Jack goes for his crutches. "Do you promise?"

"I promise," he chuckles, following you into his bedroom. His mouth goes dry, easy dominance deflating momentarily when he watches you crawl onto the center of his bed, your sundress hemline rucked up to reveal the pretty white lace panties you've got on beneath. His eyes follow the fabric, disappearing in between your ass cheeks, before they flit back up when you turn and lean against his headboard.

You're in your doll mindset now, your hands dancing across your body to give him a show. But while your videos are choreographed, almost clinical to a certain degree to entertain an audience, Jack sees the way your hand trembles just before you drag the neckline of your dress down, tempting him to just rip the fabric off you.

But he's a patient man, understands that this is just as much for you as it is for him. He can see the way your arousal heightens with each teasing touch. "Take it off for me, bunny, just for me."

He must've said the right thing because a broken moan spills from your lips, nodding as you cross your arms and drag the hem of your dress up to reveal a matching bralette to your panties. The bed dips beneath his weight when he joins you, settling down onto the mattress just as you toss a leg over to straddle his waist again.

"Ah, shit," he hisses when he glances down, sees the way the fabric of your panties are nearly translucent with your slick. His hand creeps down to rub your swollen clit through the damp fabric, tilting his head back up to watch your reaction. He doesn't shut his eyes when your open mouth drags along his cheek, a poor approximation of a kiss as you shut your eyes to savor the way his fingers deftly tug the panties aside to dip within your folds. A pathetic moan escapes you. "This all for me, bunny?"

"Mhm, yes—"

"She's drippin' just for me, fuck," he chuckles as his middle finger teases your entrance, enamored by the way your hips rock clumsily against your palm. "Mm, look at that."

It's filthy, the way Jack leans back against the headboard with his head ducked down to watch your cunt practically suck in his fingers, his other hand keeping your panties tugged aside for his viewing. "Please, I wanna feel you," you beg, voice hitching high in a way he's never heard before.

"You sound so sweet for me, bunny," he murmurs as he redraws his fingers from you, tasting you with a voracity that makes you even wetter. "You've been so good for me, pretty girl, don't worry… I'll give you what you want."

And while Jack sounds so benevolent, your lips finding his in a grateful kiss before you're scrambling off to lay on your back under his guidance while he undresses next, it's all a facade to conceal the way he's barely able to hold it together now that he's got you: heart, soul, and now body.

He settles on top of you, lips finding your shoulder for a brief moment of sweet affection despite the filth that's fallen from his lips from earlier, and makes a home between your thighs. You might've teased him for picking missionary as your first time, giggle at how insistent he is on keeping things old fashioned despite your unorthodox relationship, but then the tip of his cock prods against your entrance, mouth dropping slightly as your head falls back against the pillows— he's huge.

"Ngh— Jack…" you whimper as the stretch leans more towards pain than pleasure at first, eyes shut as you feel Jack's lips skim across the side of your neck. "S'too big…"

His chest rumbling, he chuckles in your ear, nips at your jugular. "Don't worry, bunny. I can make it fit."

Lust and adoration intertwine in your core as he pushes deeper, your walls adjusting for his girth while your nails dig into his freckled shoulders. After what feels like an eternity, Jack's fully sheathed in you, pressing kisses along your brow and temple.

"So fuckin' tight—" he grunts, attempting a shallow thrust that has you two moaning in unison. "You ready for me, bunny? Gonna start movin'."

You feel absolutely full, can feel Jack in your gut, but you nod, legs hooking around his waist. "Ready," you manage to say, releasing one shoulder to cradle his jaw for a searing kiss. He pulls out and thrusts in without hesitation, his lips parting for his tongue to taste yours. The two of you make out like teenagers, sloppy and uncoordinated, while his cock drives into you slowly, your body shifting higher up the bed until his hand comes up to cradle the top of your head before it hits the headboard.

He swallows your moans with a grunt of his own, tasting your desperation with each rock of his hips. But when his lungs start to burn for oxygen, he reluctantly pulls back only to be rewarded with your vocal cries for more. He's heard your noises before, almost four million people have, but he's never witnessed you like this, so gorgeously needy on his cock, your moans more like broken whimpers and hiccups interlaced with his name. So unbelievably vulnerable, laid out just for him.

It has him driving his cock even deeper into you, eager to hear the way your mouth sounds around his name whenever he hits that specific spot.

"No, no, no— don't get shy on me now, bunny," he coos, dropping a hand to cup your cheek to guide your eyes on him. "You sound so sweet for me, let me hear you…"

His words elicit another gasp of his name as one particular thrust has you seeing stars, the coil in your core tightening as his hand comes down to rub your clit in time with each rock of his hips. He can feel his own climax but he keeps it at bay, laser focused on your own pleasure.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck… Jack—!" You wail as the coil snaps, his cock buried to the hilt before he fucks you slow and deep to carry you through your climax. With you taken care of, he chases after his pleasure next, hips snapping against yours in a brutal pace that has your toes curling in sweet ecstasy.

His forehead drops to rest on yours, breaths mingling while his own moans pitch into a needier grunt, veering into whimpers while he talks you through it. "Feels so fuckin' good, bunny… s'like your pretty cunt was made just for me… oh fuck— she's just sucking me in," he pants.

The string of dirty talk kickstarts something inside you and you feel that familiar tightness in your core, hiccuping moans bubbling past your kiss-swollen lips as he drives his cock deeper. "Jack— 'm… hah— gonna cum—!"

"Yeah?" He huffs, a cocky half-grin in his lips as he drags his scruffy jaw along your cheek. "Gonna give me another, bunny? Come on… gimme one more," he coos while his pace starts to falter, losing its steady rhythm as he gets closer and closer to his own edge.

When you cum for the second time, he's quick to follow right after, your convulsing walls eliciting his own release right into your waiting cunt. A part of him panics — he didn't wear a condom nor did you say anything about being on any kind of contraceptive — but he feels your heels dig into his lower spine to keep him from moving. The concern still sits at the back of his mind but he lets himself get lost in the sensation of finishing inside you, his thrusts slowing to a halt before carefully laying on you.

"Holy shit," you breathe out, a blissful smile on your lips with your eyes fluttering shut. When Jack pulls out, you offer a slight wince but curl onto his chest as he rolls over onto his back. Your head nestles onto his pec, his arm winding around your bare shoulders. When you turn your head to kiss his freckled collarbone, he chuckles and squeezes you gently.

Jack hums wordlessly. Basking in the moment, he lets himself sink into the warmth of you beside him. There really isn't any need to talk for now and the both of you would've been content to let the moment settle in…

Had it not been for your growling stomach.

His laughter cuts through your embarrased whine, rolling over to hide your face into his chest completely. "Don't laugh—" you pout but he just jostles you gently, gets you to look up at him where he can kiss your nose.

"Stay here, I'll clean you up first," he promises and rolls out of bed. Grabbing his crutches, he heads over to his attached bathroom for a warm, dampened towelette. He cleans you between the thighs, gentle and careful as he drops a kiss to your knee. "About earlier—"

"I'm clean," you interject. "I don't have any partners and I'm on the pill."

He nods, relieved as he tosses the towelette into his laundry basket. "I'm clean, too. I haven't… not since my late wife."

Your smile is heartachingly tender. He's spoken about his late wife before, wears the ring on a chain close to his heart, and how he and his therapist have decided that he's in the right place to move on.

"We can both get tested if you want," you offer. "I don't want anyone else but you."

It's an invitation to a conversation he's been waiting on for a month now and he dives right in. The bed dips as he sits at the edge, a warm and calloused hand on your thigh. "I only want you, bunny. That's not ever gonna change." He cups your jaw, warm and possessive in a way that'll never fail to light a fire in your heart. "Can I be yours, sweetheart?"

You nod with a giggle bursting past your lips. "Yes—! Of course, yes," you swoon with your arms around his neck, his hand releasing your jaw in favor to hug you 'round the waist.

"Yeah?" His pretty crows' feet deepen when he smiles at you, chuckling when you nod again with an eager bob of your head as you gently scratch at his scruffy jaw. "Gonna go steady with me, bunny?"

A laugh escapes you, nose scrunching up at his dated language. "Always and forever, old man."

Although the months you've spent with Jack before the both of you made it official had you feeling like cloud nine, the next following weeks could only be properly labeled as the honeymoon phase now that you're officially his girlfriend. With Jack's night shift schedule and your unorthodox posting timelines, the two of you manage to make it work.

Speaking of work, you had been adamant that because he's your boyfriend, you had no plans on stopping the camgirl site and told him so the morning after. Jack had blinked and nodded as if it'd been something he had already expected. His only caveat was that you'd at least make your new relationship status public knowledge to your subscribers whether it's as simple as a status post on your website. You went above and beyond by posting a selfie with Jack's arm around your neck, his bicep smushing your cheeks while you grinned dopily at the camera.

While your followers had fawned over your new man, occasionally posting faceless boyfriend pics of Jack, you made sure to keep his identity secret as your highest priority whenever he'd make some sort of cameo in your SFW videos.

"Babe, you gotta stop jumping in the frame, I'll have to edit you out—!" You laugh in your most current video, holding out the camera high and up just enough to capture your hand crooked around Jack's arm as the two of you walk the aisles of the farmer's market.

He chuckles and dutifully stops ducking his head. "Just move the camera when I kiss your cheek, bunny. And even if my face shows, I thought you could just slap on an emoji or something on my face when your assistant edits them."

The camera captures the way you look up, a playfully deadpan expression on your features. "You wanna put more work on Francine?"

"You're right, I'll behave."

The clip ends there and the views skyrocket, nearly matching your most infamous videos on your NSFW side. It's gotten so popular that Victoria's talking about it during work hours, in awe of the fact that she's mutuals with you despite the fact that she's gone viral on Tiktok herself.

For once the pitt has a handle on chairs and triage, allowing Victoria to show Dennis her newest editing style, inspired by Doll's Corner. He perks up, recognizes the voice through the walls of the apartment he shares with Trinity.

"Oh, I think Santos is also subscribed to her," he grins.

Victoria frowns. "Subscribed…? Her website's free, Dennis."

Trinity walks past before circling back. "What's free?"

"Oh, um— Doll's corner." Victoria holds out her phone, displaying your instagram profile. "She has her own website but Dennis mentioned that you're subscribed to her…?"

"She avoids her SFW content, probably because it'd feed the parasocialism since Doll seems to be exactly her type," he grins, always eager to have something over his lovable but prickly roommate.

"She's not my type, she's just hot—"

"Hold on, what do you mean SFW content? Isn't all her stuff SFW…?" Victoria cuts in, eyes wide as she scrolls up and down the webpage. Trinity snatches the phone and taps the top right menu button of the page, scrolls towards the 'PRICING' tab before offering the phone back.

Dennis interrupts. "She doesn't really advertise her adult content, it's more of a… if-you-know-you-know situation. You're cool with that, right?"

Victoria swallows, goes through the 'free' content of your camgirl side while her mind races with the blurred and suggestive content, before nodding with a wide-eyed grin. "'Course I'm cool with it. Just— I didn't expect it. Yeah, I'm cool. Dennis, are you subscribed—?"

"No, no—" Dennis startles with a flustered laugh. "It's not really my thing, but I know Dr. Ellis had found her account too. She's popular."

The youngest MS4 merely nods and wanders off, looking very scandalized. Dennis and Trinity watch her go before shrugging, unaware that the true reason why Victoria's so shocked is that she had suspected Doll's newest boyfriend might be Dr. Jack Abbot.

Your SFW content views continue to skyrocket (especially the shortform video where you had Jack flex his bicep for the camera before placing a piece of dessert on top, eating right off his freckled arm before he's pulling you out of frame for a kiss).

There's already been a few questions asking if your boyfriend (lovingly dubbed as Mr. Doll by your subscribers) would ever participate in your content. You haven't gotten around to answering them, leaving them untouched as you post your usual photos and videos for your loyal subscribers.

The truth is, you aren't even sure how to bring up the topic to Jack nor would you know how to figure out the logistics of including your boyfriend without jeopardizing his identity. But the problem is solved a week later where you're in your bedroom, filming a toy haul with a new PR package from a sex toy company.

You're in the throes of your orgasm, nothing on but a bunny tail plug nestled in your ass while you ride a massive silicone pink dildo with some device that literally creampies you. You've got your back to the camera, the cute plug front and center, when your knees drop and you bottom out on the toy with a final moan.

You'd been so lost in your 'review' that you didn't realize Jack had come by early, leaning against the doorway with a dark little grin that you've come to associate with 'playtime'.

"Havin' fun, bunny?" he asks, the camera picking up on his voice sounding like velvet over gravel.

Your giggle is breathy and sweet. The camera captures the way your neck arches, looking over your shoulder to meet Jack's eyes who stays firmly out of the shot. "Mhm, I am."

"Did that thing… finish in you?" When you give him another resounding giggle and nod, he shakes his head with a fond chuckle. "I'll give you five minutes to catch your breath before it's my turn, sweetheart."

When you'd given the video to Francine, your assistant, to edit, she had sent over the last clip where Jack had come in and asked if you wanted it out. Deciding that it seems safe enough to keep since he's not even within the frame and that people have heard his voice before, you told Francine to keep it in.

Later that night, you receive an tsunami of positive comments, most of them fawning over the way Mr. Doll seems to adore you even while making content for the rest of your depraved audience.

@.pearlessance: holy shit HIS VOICE???

@.deathreverse: i bet he talks you through it omfg

@.mariasont: i just KNOW your man is fine

@.enam3l: give us one audio file of him cumming PLEASE

You're wrapped up in Jack's arms later that evening, your back settled against his chest as you read over the comments with him. He's got his strong arms around your middle, lazy kisses pressed to your bare shoulder as the cold edge of his readers bump along your jaw.

"You're stealing my fans, Jack."

"No, they like the way I make you flustered, bunny. There's a difference."

"Maybe," you hum as you swap apps to your instagram, scrolling mindlessly before you pause. "Jack?"

"Yeah, sweetheart?"

"Would you… want to be in my cam videos? Just as your voice," you clarify with a shy smile. The curve of his smile is pressed against your neck.

"I'd be honored," he croons. "Maybe you could play with yourself for the camera, let me talk you through your orgasms."

Your cheeks burn, thighs clenching as you rub them together. "Mhm."

"Use your words, bunny."

"I'd like that a lot, sir."

That had been a new revelation. You've called Jack 'daddy' jokingly outside of the bedroom before, just something to steal his attention whenever you're particularly needy (whether it's for something sexual or not). And while he liked it, judging by the fond and flustered grin on his lips, he had sat you down and told you what title actually does it for him.

Sir.

It never did anything for you, thought it might've been too simple or even too formal to ever be used in bed, but it fits Jack perfectly. An older man with his experience and status along with a natural inclination to dominance doesn't need something as desperate as 'daddy' to insert control in the bedroom.

"Good girl," he rasps and takes your chin to turn your head, planting a heated kiss onto your lips. "How about we pick a day for it, hm? Put it on your calendar."

When you nod again, he chuckles and nips at your lower lip. "Can we do it now?"

Despite your eagerness, you and Jack had decided on a Sunday evening the following week, opting for a pre-recorded video rather than a live show.

Like always, you've got your tripod set up at the foot of your bed with you front and center. You have mood lighting set up, nothing too garish and bright and classically 'porno' but rather something warm to get you comfortable. The only difference is Jack seated behind the camera, manspreading like it's his fucking job in those grey sweats you've moaned about a week ago.

"You ready, baby?" Jack's voice is caramel sweet but you know it'll dip lower when he hits the record button. When you give a nod, he reaches up to press the button.

The red light blinks at you but Jack clears his throat. "Eyes on me, bunny."

Your gaze is magnetized to your boyfriend's, feeling deliciously exposed with the way his eyes drink you in. Tonight, you've got on a lingerie set he had bought just for you: a babydoll pink bralette with a matching thong and garters. In the hollow of your neck is a delicate, cursive 'j' on a chain.

"You look gorgeous, sit up for me, sweetheart. Let the camera see your new outfit," he drawls lazily and your eyes drop down to his large hand, gripping his bulge through the sweats.

The camera captures the way you look behind it, your gaze unfocused and your cheeks flustered, but you never disobey sir's words as you sit up on your knees. Your hands dance along the lacy straps, brushing across the sheer panels that hold up your tits. Jack's attention is fixed on you, his teeth digging into his lower lip as he strokes himself through his sweatpants.

"That's it, bunny. Play with those pretty titties for the camera," Jack murmurs.

He continues to take the lead and it's almost alarming at how good he is, how easy it is for you to completely forget you're still filming. He eventually has you propped up against your mountain of pillows, knees bent and thighs spread out.

"Add another finger for me, bunny."

You've already got two in, your middle and your ring finger, while your other hand is groping at your exposed tit. "Sir, I can't—"

"Sure you can, pretty girl. You've taken my cock, haven't you?" Jack chuckles meanly, his hand tugging at his cock now. Your eyes are locked on his length and he capitalizes on it, rubbing his thumb across his tip.

"Yes, but—"

"Come on, bunny, one more. You can do it."

The camera captures the way you whimper, gasping around nothing when you add your index finger into your sopping cunt. Even the lighting catches the shine of your slick against your inner thighs; Jack's got you edging yourself and you're ready to beg.

The stretch burns in the best way, not in the same breadth as Jack's cock, but enough that it has you plunging your fingers so fast that it sounds lewd against the camera.

"Can I cum, sir, please—" You choke out, hand beginning to cramp from the speed and angle you have that Jack notices it immediately. If you've been a bit less preoccupied with your own impending orgasm, you would've noticed that your boyfriend had been staving off his own climax, gripping the base of his length until he's finally given you permission.

Behind the camera, he continues to talk you through it but his voice isn't as measured, it's strained and a tad bit pitchy — his tell-tale sign that he's about to cum soon.

"Cum for me, bunny, let me see you make a mess on yourself," he coaxes and once you take the final fall, he's quick to follow, white ropes of his release painting his thighs and the floor beneath. "So fuckin' hot, Jesus Christ—"

Your cramping hand drops from between your legs as you slump against the pillows completely, legs splayed out for the camera to watch the way your clit throbs from the overstimulation. Jack tucks himself back in and takes the camera, detaches it from the tripod mount to approach your bedside.

"Let's see the mess you made, gorgeous," he murmurs, his voice wrecked as he props a knee up to hover above your overstimulated frame. You giggle up at the camera, taking his free hand (the same one that had been wrapped around his cock moments ago) and gently lick the traces of his release clean off his fingers. He curses under his breath before he affectionately pinches your chin. It elicits a soft laugh from you and the look you give him beyond the camera does something to his chest, a word that tastes something sticky sweet (and maybe starts with the letter 'L'), that he suddenly wishes this part is just for him.

But he moves lower, the camera panning down to where your panties are tugged loosely aside where your puffy, slick cunt is on display. It's lewd and nasty, the way his free hand strokes through your folds before he's bringing up his fingers for a taste. The satisfactory moan he lets out sends a thrill up your spine.

His hand travels to the swell of your thigh, to your hip where he tugs your panties off. The camera jostles as he shoves the soiled, lacy fabric into the back pocket of his pants, before he pulls away.

"I think your fans earned enough of you. Say goodbye, bunny, it's my turn for a taste."

The last thing the camera sees is a wave of your hand before it's set aside roughly, filming your ceiling and capturing the way your giggle melts into a breathy moan before the video and audio cuts.

—

"So when are we meeting the lucky lady?"

The sun sits high as Jack lounges on the roof on a chair that he's brought up a few months back. Robby had brought his own chair a week later, pleased to see his best friend behind the railing this time. The two are relaxing, stealing a few moments of solitude before handoffs are completed.

"Not yet," Jack grunts as he takes a sip of the pressed juice you've packed for him. You've been given a massive PR package of some health brand and he'd been willing to take half of the crate off your hands. "Soon."

Robby gives him a sidelong glance. "Are you ashamed of her or somethin'?"

"No. No, definitely not. I just want to keep her to myself a bit longer before you and Peaches poach her off me." Jack chuckles. "Relax, brother. I'll bring her around soon."

"Alright, I'm holding you to that," Robby chortles before he gets to his feet, back cracking while he stretches. "Go home, Abbot."

Before, Jack would've kneedled, maybe dragged his feet a bit longer to keep from returning to an empty house. He's always craved company, even moreso at the passing of his late wife. But this time, he grabs his backpack and rucks it over his shoulder, offering a casual wave of his hand.

"Ain't gotta tell me twice. I got a pretty girl waiting for me at home."

—

Later that evening, Victoria Javadi's sitting outside on the benches with the rest of day shift, drinking a beer she hopes would taste better after every sip. After turning twenty one, she still didn't see the appeal of drinking beer but after her sneaking suspicion that her night shift attending might be dating the influencer she's admired for so long, she realizes she might need it.

Her thumb punches the 'low' volume button on the side of her phone as she pulls up your tiktok account. Your account has only grown since you've started including your mystery man; the tiktok trends that center around playful pranks or cute videos snipped from longer vlogs with your partner are the ones that hit a million views first.

She takes a deep breath and taps your most recent one, a clip that looks like it had been cut from your last get-ready-with-me vlog, judging by the outfit you have on. You greet the camera as usual, holding out two different purses before leaning this way and that to get all angles of your outfit. Your attention is stolen, however, when the voice of 'Mr. Doll' cuts in from behind the camera.

"You ready, sweetheart?"

You pout, your gaze looking beyond the camera. "I don't know which bag to bring."

"What do you need a bag for?"

"My lip gloss…" you reply sheepishly and a throaty chuckle from Mr. Doll follows, soft and fond.

"The second one, bunny. Come on, let's go."

The video loops and Victoria lets it play before her thumb rewinds the video back herself, listening to that voice before her gasp gets caught in her throat.

Mr. Doll is Jack Abbot.

—

In another apartment across the city, Trinity takes advantage of the empty home and hunkers down in bed. It's a guilty pleasure, she knows, but with the stress of residency along with Garcia's emotional unavailability, she figures a bit of her wage going to one of the most hottest camgirls couldn't be the worst vice in the world.

She scrolls through the paid content of yours with a soft sigh, sinking deeper into her mattress before opting for one of the newer POV content. It's a new series you've started, something that kicked up in popularity from a couple weeks ago when your partner had taken the camera to film you himself after he talked you through your orgasm.

Trinity hasn't had the chance to check it out herself, a bit hesitant considering the POV shots may ick her out if she actually sees a penis when she's been thinking of inserting herself as the viewer on top of you. But curiosity kicks in as she plays the most recent one, heat simmering low in her core as it starts out with you undressing as always, straddling your partner this time as he films you from below.

"I can feel you—" you gasp, your hands braced on the stomach beneath you as it pushes your tits together. Your hips roll, sinfully smooth while the strap of your sheer tanktop drops off one shoulder. It keeps falling, revealing a single breast, but you pay it no mind, too busy dry-humping the body beneath you.

"You're soaked for me, bunny… am I gonna feel you through my boxers?" The man grunts and something tugs at the back of Trinity's mind, a sick sense of deja vu or familiarity. She ignores it, eyes straining to try and focus only on you.

You giggle. "Maybe… can't help it, daddy gets me so wet—" You pause, eyes wide at your little slip.

"'Daddy'?" The familiar male voice repeats and the camera catches the man's hands travel up, sliding between the valley of your breasts to curl around your throat possessively. A ditzy grin spreads across your lips, eyes nearly rolling back as you lean your neck forwards into his palm.. "Is that my name now, bunny? Want me to be your daddy?"

The video plays on but Trinity couldn't focus, not when horror sets in alongside disgust and mortification when her brain finally places where she's heard that voice before. Once it clicks, she gags and pauses the video, tosses her phone across the room as full-body shudders wrack her whole frame.

When Dennis comes home late, it's to find Trinity on the couch, spacing out with a security blanket swaddling her prone frame. Panic sets in and he rushes forward, his fist rubbing her chest out of habit tp see if there's any response to pain—

"Ow, fuckin' quit it—!" Trinity snaps, smacking his hand away as she glares up at him.

He lets out a sigh of relief before crossing his arms. "What the hell happened to you? Was it Garcia—"

"No." A haunted look passes over his roommate's eyes. "Worse. I think I found Dr. Abbot's girlfriend."

—

With your six-month-iversary fast approaching, you and Jack are running out of excuses to keep putting off the inevitable 'meeting of the friends' ceremony. Your own friends are eager to meet the older man that's been starring in most of your content and Robby's starting to threaten break-ins and impromptu dinners if he doesn't get to meet the woman that's made his best friend so happy.

It isn't that you're scared Jack's friends and colleagues won't like you or that he's ashamed of you— it's just the fact that the two of you are becoming grossly codependent, refusing to let the other one out of each other's sight for too long. Inviting friends into your circle would only lessen the amount of time you two have for each other and the two of you would much rather prefer extending your honeymoon period first.

Unfortunately, the decision is taken out of yours and Jack's hands when you wake in the morning to an abnormal amount of bleeding. Your period's supposed to start soon but with the sudden heavy flow and the sharp pain in your abdominal, fear licks up your spine.

Something isn't right.

You carefully bring yourself out of Jack's bed, whimpering at the massive stain you've left, before hobbling over to your phone. What awful timing— your actual doctor boyfriend isn't in to check you out himself but rather he's stuck at the ER working a double.

With the amount of time you've spent with Jack, he's ingrained it into you to always listen to your body, to get help rather than attempting to self-diagnose or to undermine your pain level, so you call 9-1-1 with a shaky voice.

When the operator confirms that an ambulance is on the way, you remember to add one final thing: "Can you take me to PTMC, please?"

—

"Female, mid to late 20s, heavy vaginal bleeding and sharp abdominal pain. Reports of nausea and vomiting with a fever of 102 degrees," the EMT barks out, pushing your gurney through the ambulance bay as the cacophany of the emergency department greets you. When the ambulance had arrived at Jack's place, you'd been barely able to stand upright, chills racking your frame.

Your mind is fuzzy, the fluorescent lights above you spinning like soup while you're pushed into an available room. A couple of nurses trail after a doctor, a penlight flashing in your eyes as said doctor introduces herself.

"Hi, I'm Dr. King, are you taking any kind of birth control or—"

"My IUD," you whimper, eyes squeezing shut as you try to fight through the pain that seems to steadily increase with each passing moment. "Is it—I heard it can be displaced?"

Fast paced conversation erupts around you, swapping differentials and possible diagnoses before scissors are cutting through your pajamas to reveal your bloody panties. A hand presses against your upper abdomen, a gentle palpating movement that tears out a cry of pain from you.

"Order a CT," a doctor barks. "Can't do much until we see what's going on in there."

Dr. King nods and promises to take care of you after you've been pushed some painkillers to tide you over until it's your turn. As you get wheeled off, she notices a delicate cursive 'j' tattooed right above your hip bone.

—

After some time, you're dressed in a hospital gown, waiting for your CT results as the painkillers they've given you keep the pain at bay for the meantime. Your phone sits in your lap, screen on to your text thread with Jack. You know he's somewhere in the department, most likely saving lives, but your texts are unread and it's gnawing at the pit of your stomach.

"Hi," a voice calls out and it's a sweet looking young man, around your age as he rubs in the hand sanitizer. "I'm Dr. Whitaker. We have your CT results and it looks like a displaced IUD. Did anything happen recently or…?"

Your cheeks burn bright red. "Um. Rough sex, I guess?"

Dr. Whitaker's face colors red as well. "Oh—! Um, well, yeah. That'll do it. The CT scans revealed some slight perforation in your uterine lining so we'll go ahead and get that out for you, it'd be a minor procedure so you'll be up and walking in just a few hours."

"Great, thank you," you sigh in quiet relief but as you ponder something, Whitaker sticks around, like he knows you've got a request. "Um, is there a Dr. Abbot in?"

He nods. "Yeah, he's one of my attendings. Has he treated you before?"

"No, actually—"

"Bunny—?!" The curtains slide open and Jack rushes in, concern choking up his syllables when he sees you looking slightly gaunt and exhausted in a hospital gown. Dennis' eyes widen as he steps aside; he's never seen his attending look so disheveled and unkempt. "What happened?"

"Jack, I'm fine, it was my IUD," you explain, looking up while he checks over your vitals. "It… got displaced. I wonder whose fault is that." Your dry tone has Jack looking sheepish and Whitaker looking everywhere but the both of you. It's already taken all of his professionalism to keep from reacting when he recognized you as Trinity's past obsession. She still wouldn't say why she unsubscribed until he realizes the secret boyfriend is Dr. Abbot.

"Sorry, sweetheart," Jack murmurs into your hair as he kisses your forehead. "I'll make sure they'll bump you forward so you can get out of here faster."

You nod and your lower lip juts out, slipping into that sweet mindset that Jack can't get enough of; cotton candy delicate and adorably delectable. "Promise?"

"Yeah, I promise, bunny." His voice takes on that gravelly tone that you've become obsessed with and when you tip your head up, he closes the distance and kisses you briefly.

At that moment, the curtain slides open again. "Whoa— sorry for interrupting, folks." You pull away, fiery cheeks on display, to see another taller doctor enter. "Dr. Whitaker, can you go help Dr. Santos in Central 13? I'm Dr. Robinavitch, you can call me Dr. Robby. You must be the infamous 'Bunny'."

Jack groans and playfully hides his face into the top of your hair as the name registers as your boyfriend's best friend. You smile prettily and offer your hand to shake when Dr. Robby approaches, giving your name instead. The man seems nice but only Jack has the privilege of calling you 'bunny'. "It's nice to meet you, Dr. Robby."

"Just Robby," he insists before he flips through your chart. "Looks like you're up next for the laparascopy. Do I wanna know what happened?"

Your blush deepens. "No, not really. This is an awful first impression."

Robby chuckles, scratches the back of his head. "It's not so bad, all things considered. But now that I finally have both of you here, what do you say to dinner with my partner and I? She's been eager to meet you."

You give Jack a sidelong glance. "Who else did you tell about me?"

"Nearly everyone," Robby cuts in while Jack gives a shrug.

"I didn't give details. I just liked talking about you, sweetheart. That so bad?"

A pleased smile curves upon your lips. "Not at all. I love how obsessed you are with me," you tease. Your boyfriend's eyes roll before patting his friend's chest.

"Alright, come on. Let's get her rolled into the OR so I can take my girl home."

—

As promised, recovery goes by swiftly and a new IUD is put in place. Discharge is expedited when you're dating one of the attendings and soon, Jack's coming into your room with a fresh set of clothes from his locker.

"I liked those panties," you huff as you step into Jack's black sweatpants, leaning against the bed as he kneels down to roll the legs up for you.

When he stands to full height, he helps you into the faded 'ARMY' sweater. "I'll buy you more, bunny." He tugs you in by the waist to steal a few more kisses. "Just glad you're okay. You almost gave me a heart attack when I saw your name on the board."

"Sorry," you pout as Jack sweeps a thumb across your cheekbone. "I tried texting but I—"

"No, baby, you're fine." He hushes you with another soft kiss. "It's good you came in when you did. Come on, I'll take you home."

His arm is thrown around your shoulder as he guides you out through the ambulance bay. The both of you are lost in your own little world, exchanging soft laughter and playful kisses, that you don't see the haunted look in Santos' eyes as she scurries out of the way or Javadi watching in the way someone can't look away from a car crash.

When the ambulance doors shut, Dana leans over the counter to address Robby.

"That the girlfriend?"

"Sure is."

An amused grin curls onto the nurse's lips. "I think I remember her. I see where the nickname 'bunny' comes from."

"What's it mean?"

"I'm not saying a damn thing, Robinavitch."

The first time you came in, he’d handed you over to Shen. You were a sprained wrist and a BAC that explained the wrist, sixteen other things were louder, and Shen was free then. 

He’d clocked you for half a second on his way to a GI bleed in bay nine: girl on the gurney, one heel too high on, and one somewhere in the greater metropolitan area, some little pink lace-trimmed thing sliding off one shoulder, telling Shen with enormous seriousness that she was so sorry, she didn’t usually do this, she’d had a singular margarita. Only.

Singular. He’d categorized it under the thousand other single margaritas he’d sworn to in this department and forgotten you before he’d reached the bleed. 

The second time, he didn’t take you either, but he noticed the wrist. 

Same wrist. Different night — a Saturday, three weeks in, the sort of shift where the waiting room sounded like a kennel — and he caught it sideways while he reviewed another chart. It was the same left wrist, taped this time, the nails on that one hand done in some soft pinky color gone chipped at the tips as though the week itself outlasted the manicure, somebody walking you through the discharge paperwork you clearly were ignoring. Something thought for him instead of him thinking much for it, some pattern-recognition thing buried under twenty-some years of reading bodies fast, the same instinct that made him glance twice at something almost normal. A wrist that kept coming back, he supposed. A thread snagging on a nail, there and gone. 

The third time, it was Shen, breezing past the station with his Dunkin, saying over his shoulder, “Frequent flyer’s back.” 

He shrugged, not yet placing that you were the frequent flyer, and went to bed four.

And that — somewhere between the third time and a number he stopped keeping an honest count of — was where it stopped being a chart and became some sort of thing. A bit, he’d say. The nights the bars let out and the board lit up, he’d find himself reading the incoming names a half-second longer than triage required, and feeling something wrong in his chest when yours wasn’t in them. 

Pittsburgh was notoriously interesting, Jack learned through you, in that it apparently contained an infinite supply of ways a girl could get herself in trouble. He was convinced he could’ve drawn a map of the city by your injuries. There was the ankle, of course, a recurring grievance, always the shoes, never your fault. There was one time you’d burned your hand on a curling iron getting ready tipsy and come in more upset about the makeup you’d had to redo (because of crying it off) than the blister. The night you’d gone over in a parking lot because you refused to look at the ground while walking — looking at the ground, while drunk, you informed him, was how you trip — and the time you sliced your finger open trying to shotgun a White Claw with a key because someone had bet you couldn’t. You were really proud of the last one, you’d won the bet. 

You were never the same disaster twice, he had to give you that. A little too keen on busting yourself up here and there, sure, but at least it was the wrist once, then a knee that met a curb, then a memorable evening involving a fence you’d been certain you could clear. You came in apologizing — always apologizing, to him, to the nurses, once, memorably, to the wall — and you came in sweet, which was the part that got under him, because drunk people in this ER were a lot of things and sweet was rarely one of them. 

“Mmm,” you hummed the fourth or fifth time, the second your eyes found him through the gap in the curtain, going boneless with relief like Jack was the cavalry and not the man who was meant to flash light into your eyes for thirty seconds. “The pretty one.” 

Jack let out a huff. “Thanks, doll.” 

“Doll,” you repeated, the word going gummy in your mouth. “He calls me doll.”

“Eyes open. Follow the light.” 

“You call everyone that, Dr. Abbot?” you said, his name coming out in a cluster like you were losing thread of it, the Abbot dissolving into something closer to a hum. 

“Sure do,” he lied. “Track the light.”

You looked at his mouth, then his hands, then back up, a slow uncoordinated sweep because your eyes had stopped reporting to anything in particular, much less what they had to. Pupils blown wide and lazy. He thumbed your eyelid up a fraction to get the light where he needed it; your lashes were clumped and starry with whatever mascara had survived the night. 

He held the penlight steady and waited you out. He had nowhere to be. That was the thing about the dead hours after bars closed; the bleed had been signed up to the floor, the chest pain turned out to be a panic attack and a large energy drink, and there was just you, and the saline ticking into your arm one slow drop at a time. 

“What’d you get up to tonight?” he murmured, thumb finding the pulse at your wrist, counting without meaning to.

“S’fast ‘cause you’re here,” you said, sounding very pleased with yourself.

“Sure it is. Where’d you hurt yourself tonight?”

“... stairs,” you said after a moment, like your brain had to run a few laps to get to the word. 

“Oh, yeah?” He hummed. You lifted your free hand a little off the mattress, lost track of it, and dropped it back down. “How many?” 

“Mm. Four?” You squinted at the ceiling. “Maybe three. I dunno. Not the Great Wall or somethin’. Promise.” 

“I believe you.” He nodded, then turned your forearm to the light, finding the scrape you’d come in with. It was gravel-burn, raw, the heel of your hand and a stripe up your wrist. Nothing that needed more than cleaning. You watched him do it with your head tipped against the pillow, gone quiet so the talking had run out for a second, which never lasted.

“Should I get a better first aid kit?” you asked, then clenched your jaw for a second like you felt something was wrong with it. “S’I don’t have to bother you all the time?” 

“Might be a good idea to invest,” he said. He pulled the swab through the gravel-burn slowly, and you hissed and tried to pull back the hand on reflex. “Easy.” He kept it, his grip light yet unmoving around your fingers. “Almost done. Don’t fight me.”

You hummed, like you wanted a different answer.

Jack wet his lips, shaking his head slightly. He worked the grit out of the scrape, a fleck of it catching raw skin, and he tilted your arm to the light, getting it on the second pass, and wiped it on the gauze. Your hands twitched in his, and he pressed your fingers flat to the mattress with his thumb, and they stayed.

“You’d have to do it yourself, though,” he said. “Bathroom sink at three in the morning with one hand.” He reached for fresh gauze. “You’d make a mess of it.”

You frowned at the ceiling, nodding. “Sounds a little bad.”

“It’s a lot bad.” He laid the gauze over the scrape, thumbed the tape down at the edge of your wrist slowly, smoothing it flat where it wanted to lift. His knuckle dragged once over the thin skin there, and he felt your pulse jump under it. “You’d scar, probably.” His thumb passed the chipped polish, the chunky gold ring you’d kept on, even for this. “You’ve got nice hands. Shame to wreck ‘em over the sink.”

It took you a second. “You think so?”

“Don’t wreck ‘em.” 

“You like when I come in,” you said, delighted. 

“What I’d like,” he said, flat, lifting his eyes to yours, “is you off the stairs and down to the one drink.” His thumb settled over the back of your hand again. “But if you’re set on flinging yourself down, then you come here. Deal?”

Your fingers had curled around two of his somewhere in there loosely, without you noticing. He felt them settle, and he held very still so as to not spook you. He chose to not acknowledge it or look at it.

“Deal,” you mumbled, somewhere far off, probably forgetting the front half of the terms. 

He let it go at that, taping down the last edge and turning over your wrist once more to be sure of it. Then he set your hand back on the mattress, yours still loosely hooked through his, going nowhere.

“Anyone out there to get you home?” he asked. 

“Dunno.” Your nose scrunched. “Was gonna Uber.”

He sighed through his nose. “Where’s that girl — the one you came in with last time? Why don’t you call her?” 

“That’s annoying, Dr. Abbot,” you said, almost in a whine. 

“Yeah?” He kept looking at the wall behind you. “What’s annoying about a ride home?” 

“Calling people. Making it a thing.” Your free hand flopped vaguely. “Then they gotta come get you, and they’re all — have to be nice about it, but you can tell.” Your nose scrunched. “It’s a whole production.”

He pressed his thumb flat back over your hand where your fingers were still caught in his. 

“Oh? Nothing annoying about it, sweetheart. You call, she comes. Simple as that.” He turned to face you. “But if you insist on it, I’m not signing you off until you’re good enough to go home alone. So you call your girl, or you sit right here and keep my department company till you’ve cleared enough that I’ll sign off on it.” 

Your eyes narrowed as you looked at him as though he’d spoken a different language. “Second one?”

“Obviously you pick that one,” he said. 

He pulled the stool over and sat. For a few minutes, he had nowhere to be, and now, apparently, neither did you.

It wasn’t that you simply didn’t let people help you, either. Jack had never seen anyone so committed to being simply fine. Jack had met the stoic kind before; construction guys who walked in with rebar through a forearm acting like it was a small inconvenience; old ladies who’d been having a heart attack since last Tuesday and didn’t want to be a bother. But Jack had always believed those people to be suppressing, and you were just convinced, somewhere down in the foundation, that needing anything was an imposition. 

That was also why the shoes confused him so much. 

“This is the same damn ankle,” Jack said, turning your foot in his hands, watching the swelling outside of it. 

“You don’t have to remind me. Most men buy me a drink before they get this familiar with my ankles,” you said, then groaned as you looked at his eyes going over the swelling. 

“No drink.” He pressed along the bone. “Not my fault you keep handing your ankle to me.” 

You tipped your head back against the pillow, groaning again. “Dr. Abbot, they look so bad. I feel like I’m pregnant.” 

“I can do a quick blood draw and we can rule it out.” His palm flattened on the mattress beside your feet, leaning over to meet your eyes again. “But I think it’s those heels of yours, doll.” 

Your eyes snapped to him. “Don’t be a dick, Dr. Abbot.”

He tilted his head, then pointed at the laminated paper stuck to the wall. “Aggressive behavior of any kind toward healthcare workers is a felony.” 

“Then arrest me, doctor. I’ll die on this hill — and they’re not heels.” Your lips pursed, and the corner of your mouth kicked up. “Cuffs may be a little forward for a date, but I won’t stop you.” 

“Aren’t you just so sweet,” he muttered. “What are they, then?”

“Bottega Lido Mules.”

The words meant absolutely nothing to him — could’ve been a pasta dish, a town in Italy, a wine — but they clearly did to you, so he remembered them. 

“That’s nice, doll. They’ll be the reason I see you again.” 

“Maybe, ‘cause I’ll never stop wearing them.” 

You said the words your whole face, hands coming off the mattress to make the point with a drunk theatrical conviction as you argued something that genuinely mattered to you. Jack thought, not for the first time since he’d met you, that you’d have been magnetic stone-sober at a dinner party, the kind of girl that made a table lean in. It was just that he only ever got the 3am version.

At least you had a hill you’d die on and didn’t apologize for, Jack supposed. 

“You married, Doctor?” you asked as he started icing your ankle. 

“No,” he said, holding your eyes for a second. “Why — you got a boyfriend I should know about, then?” 

He almost wished you did have one. He wished that there were somebody whose name you’d have said just now who’d be in the waiting room with his jaw tight because you’d gone and hurt yourself again. Somebody who’d take care of the ankle when you walked out of here in crutches, who took the keys when you had too many. He wished there was a person in the world whose job you were. 

And you weren’t his first patient who he’d understood to not have someone taking care of them. He knew that if he carried them all, he’d drown inside a month if he tried to be the person nobody else had been. He’d never once had it turn into a wish, standing here with an ice pack in his hand going slack in his hand because he was too busy resenting someone who didn’t exist for not being in the waiting room. 

He wondered when down the line you’d stopped letting the people in your life around you be the ones you could call, became a girl who said sorry for bleeding and had nobody, nobody, and looked at him like he was the warmest place she’d been in all week.

You laughed. “If I had a boyfriend, would I be laying it on so thick?” 

He let out a breath through his nose, despite himself. “Stop wearing the heels, doll. Not nice to not have a foot.”

The next time you came in, it was a Thursday. With some pileup of bad luck, you came in somewhere past one with a split lip and a story about a dance floor he only half got the shape of. Jack hadn’t even been assigned to you yet, he’d just seen your name on the board, and reassigned himself quietly enough that dared anyone on shift to comment. Nobody did. 

“Lip’s not bad,” he said, tilting your chin up under the light, thumb at your jaw. The split was already going fat and shining at the center of your lower lip, and he found his eyes stayed on your mouth a second past the part that was his job, on the soft unhurt swell of it under the hurt. He moved his thumb. “Doesn’t need anything. You bit it when you fell down. That’s all.”

“S’throbbing, Doctor,” you mumbled, the word coming around muffled around the split. 

“It’ll throb. You’ve got a swollen lip.” He let go of your jaw and reached for the penlight. “Eyes on me.” 

“I was so cute before this,” you said through a groan. 

The huff that came out of him was almost a laugh, dragged out against his own will, and he shared a fleeting look with Bennet — a fairly new nurse — who had tilted his head briefly and was too afraid to meet your eyes.

“Alright. Still the prettiest girl I’ve treated tonight,” Jack said when your brows had furrowed together.

“You treat other girls?” 

“It’s a hospital,” he said. “Few hundred a week.”

Your face looked wounded. “Few hundred.”

He leaned in slightly, faking a whisper. “You’re my top three.”

You were further gone than usual tonight. He’d noticed it the second he came around the curtain, the way your head was having a hard time holding itself up, the loose unmoored swim of your eyes that took longer than it should to find his finger. A piece of hair had come loose and stuck to the gloss at the corner of your mouth and you hadn’t the coordination to deal with it, and he had the unprofessional impulse to, and didn’t. 

Bennet kept working the blood pressure cuff up your arm, half an eye on you, half on his own work. 

“Track the light,” Jack murmured. “Slowly.”

“Too bright.”

“Tough.” The corner of his mouth moved up slightly. “You can bat your lashes at me when we’re done. Right now, I need ‘em open.” 

You batted them anyway, slowly and theatrically, just to be a problem about it. They were long, and the theater of it was so ridiculous, and Jack had to bite down the inside of his cheek to keep his face flat to wait you out, until you gave up and tracked the finger. Your pupils were reactive, equal, and lagging half-a-beat behind. He clicked the light off. 

“Too bright,” you said again. 

“It’s off,” he drawled, chuckling. 

Bennett thread a line into the back of your free hand, and you watched him sink it with a drowsy focus. 

“Why’s it go in the back of the hand?” you mumbled. “More nerves there. Hurts more. Why not the — inside. By the elbow.” You tilted your head slightly to let your eyes wander to the crook of your arm. “Bigger vein. The antec—antecubital,” you said carefully, sounding out each syllable, afraid of messing it up. You wet your lips and turned to face him, then Bennet. “Why’s nobody use the good one?” 

Jack pursed his lips and looked at you for a moment. 

“Saves the good one,” he said, catching up, eyes going back to your chart. “AC vein blows easily when somebody’s moving around, and you —” He tipped his head at you, raising a brow, the squirming drunk of you. “ — Are gonna move around. Back of the hand’ll hold. I’d rather you be sore than re-stuck twice ‘cause you couldn’t sit pretty for thirty seconds.” He paused as he saw your eyes glaze over. He sighed. “Ask me how I know that about you.” 

You’d gone busy, lips moving slightly like you were repeating it back to yourself so it’d stick, and Jack felt something in his chest shift a degree as he watched you do it. 

He sighed, dragging a palm over the lower half of his face. “Where’d you learn that, then?” 

“School,” you said to the ceiling, a small hint of pride taking over your voice. “M’gonna become a nurse. Gonna be good at it.”

Bennet snorted, finishing the tape. “Gonna be patching up drunk girls just like you then, huh,” he said. “Full circle.”

Jack watched the pride go out of your face slowly, like a house losing its power. Your chin dropped and your eyes slid from Bennet to the curtain as your hand fisted in your lap. 

“Yeah,” you said, almost curiously. “Guess so.” 

Jack’s jaw clenched involuntarily. It wasn’t the guy’s fault, not really. It was a nothing joke, the sort the whole department tossed off a hundred times a shift, the gallows shorthand that kept you sane at two in the morning. Jack had made worse about patients who’d never know, about drunks who wouldn’t remember, about exactly this, exactly girls like you. He’d just never had one of them go quiet before, watched the bright thing fold itself up and get tucked away. 

“Bennet, you done?” 

“Yeah, line’s good — ”

“Then go take vitals on six. I’ve got her.”

Bennet went, and it was just the two of you again. 

Jack pulled the stool over with his foot and sat — lower than he had to, level with you, taking himself out of the column of people standing over you tonight and telling you what you were — and waited until your eyes came up off the curtain and found him.

“There she is,” he said when your eyes found him. He turned your taped hand over under the light like there was still something to do with it. There wasn’t, he just wanted his hands on something of yours while he undid what the room had done. “Look at me. Nothing good on the curtain.” 

“How’s school treating you then, doll?” he asked, aiming for offhand and not steering you off whatever Bennet had knocked loose.

“Hard,” you said, but a small smile had crawled up your lips. “But I like it.” Your shoulders came up loosely.

“Yeah?” He kept his thumb moving over the back of your hand slowly, like he could press the bright thing back up to the surface where it belonged. “I think you’ll be good at it.” 

It was such a strange feeling, Jack distantly noticed, to feel this utter conviction. He was rarely sure of anything good anymore. Sure of plenty else; sure within ten seconds of a bad rhythm which way the night was going to break, sure of which of the kids wheeled in at 2 am he’d see again and which he wouldn’t, a grim accumulated certainty that had nothing in it he’d ever wanted to be right about.

The job had made him an expert on the downslope of things. He could read the exact moment a body wanted to quit better than he could read most of what people said to his face. And here you were, and he was so sure of the other direction, and he felt the same weight of it behind his sternum, except it had swung and pointed at something good for once. You were going to be excellent at this. 

It bothered him a little, how much he wanted to be there to see it, whoever you were going to be once you stopped washing up on his floor on the worst nights of your week. He’d known you, what, a handful of shifts as a frequent flyer, a bit, a name his eyes unconsciously caught on. He had no business feeling certain of anything about you, and he was, and he’d let himself feel it. 

Your eyes found him properly again. “Liar.”

He huffed out a short laugh. “Tell you what. You finish that program, you get through all that mess where they try to drown you.” His thumb smoothed over the tape. “Then you come find me here and we’ll see if we can get you here with me on nights. Clearly you’re at your finest then.” 

It was maybe something silly to say, and Gloria may have his head for it. He had no actual standing to say anything like it, even though you’d never remember it. He knew better; hope was a controlled substance in his field and he was stingy with it on purpose, because he’d seen the withdrawal.

But God, he’d love to see the part of you he could only catch glimpses of through the wreck like a light under the door. He’d love to be the one who taught you which arrogance to keep and which to let the job take away. He’d love, plainly and without anywhere to put it, to watch you become who you’d just told him you were going to be. 

It was a lot of loving for a girl who’d been in his department and wouldn’t recall his face or a word of this by tomorrow morning. He was getting sentimental, or old, or both; the years stacked up behind his eyes until he started mistaking everything for a second chance at something. 

Your lips moved. “So I can patch girls up like myself?” 

“Nah.” He kept looking at your hand. “You can patch up old bastards like me, too.” Then, he pointed his index finger of his free hand at you, mock-stern. “Gotta make sure you’re not at point three BAC, though. Will have to do that work to get you working with me.”

“Mm.” Your eyes flickered up to the ceiling, weighing it with the enormous gravity of the very drunk as though he’d posed a very real proposition to you. “Okay. For you, I’d stop.”

“For me?” he repeated, mostly to buy himself a second.

“Mm-hm.” You turned your face to him and said it with such ease, no glance away to leave yourself an exit. “You’re worth not drinkin’ over.”

Your words went in clean, the way the best and worst things do, under the ribs where he kept nothing armored because nobody ever aimed there. Jack felt the back of his neck go warm and was abruptly, intensely grateful for the light that wouldn’t display it. 

Jack huffed, having to look away at the floor then. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all year, and you’re not gonna remember it. Hell of a thing.” 

When he made himself look back up, you’d tipped your face into the pillow, watching him from the side with your eyes gone soft and heavy, the smile arriving unguarded across your mouth. The split tugged one corner of it, that small wince folded right into the sweetness, and you seemed to not feel it. 

He had the sudden, idiotic wish to have met you on a night you’d remember. To have perhaps caught you when you fell at the bar, to have been the stranger whose arm happened to be there, not the doctor it eventually routed you to. Perhaps he could’ve been a man in your night instead of a stop in it.

He shook his head. “You’re trouble, you know that, right? Saying all these nice things. What’s a man supposed to do with that?” 

He’d have liked to have been remembered, was the bottom of it. By you specifically. He’d spent decades being the man people were grateful to and glad to forget.

“What’s your name, Doctor Abbot?” you asked, drowsy.

He looked down at his badge, then back up at you. “Take a wild guess?” Then, he added, “You never looked at my badge?” 

“Sorry. Didn’t read.” 

“Don’t apologize to me. It’s Jack.”

Jack was doing his usual rounds this Friday, on a rush from a chest pain in two that turned out to be a panic attack and a kid in five who’d put a kitchen knife through the meat of his own palm trying to halve a frozen bagel when Ellis caught him by the elbow at the board.

“Heads up, Abbot,” she said, grinning. She nodded toward triage, toward the doors. “Bed three. Your, uh—” The grin tipped over, delighted with itself. “Girlfriend’s got a boyfriend.” 

It was a running thing now. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth time you’d washed up on his shift the staff had started on it — your frequent flyer, your stray, your girl’s back — and Jack had stopped bothering to deny it because that’d only feed it, and he’d learned not denying it had a way of starving the joke faster. 

He looked, and was immediately able to notice what you weren’t doing more than what you were; you weren’t grinning at the ceiling, weren’t doing that boneless sweet-relief thing. You were sitting up too straight on the bed, hands folded in your lap, and there was a guy fitted to the chair beside you with one arm slung along the back of yours and a hand resting on your knee like he’d put it there to mark the spot. He was saying something low to the side of your face, and you were nodding at it, and not looking at anybody.

Jack felt a muscle tick in his jaw, immediately not feeling anything nice about the situation. “I got it — you mind taking six for me? I’ll come in a couple minutes.” 

By the time he’d made it to you, he’d settled his face into something unbothered. You could read it, he’d realized at some point during your frequent visits, and that only meant he had to be on his better behavior around you. 

“Evening.” He pulled the curtain half-round behind him, glanced at the chart clipped to the foot of the bed, then at you. “What’d we do tonight?”

“She caught an elbow,” the guy answered. “Some asshole on the dance floor. It’s nothing — she’s fine. She’s just a lightweight, aren’t you — ” A little squeeze on your knee. “ — didn’t even really need to come in, but y’know. Better safe.” 

You weren’t a lightweight, he immediately wanted to correct. He’d seen you put away enough over the months to know your tolerance better than this guy apparently did; he knew the difference between the nights you were genuinely wrecked and the nights you came in clearer than you let on, and looking at you, tonight, you weren’t anywhere near the state implied. 

“You,” he said, tipping his chin in your direction. “Not him. Where’d it get you?” 

You lifted your hand up from your lap and touched your cheekbone, movement slow, and Jack stepped in and tipped your head up toward the light with two fingers under your chin, thumb resting just shy of the scrape. The skin had gone dark along the bone, tender, an elbow’s worth of it. Nothing that needed more than an ice and a night, but you were still holding still under his hand and not meeting his eyes, and that he didn’t like at all. 

“It’s okay,” you said. “Really. S’not even — ”

“Let me be the judge of that, sweetheart. Gettin’ paid for this.” His eyes flicked down to yours and caught, holding it there a second with a small question in the rise of a brow, before he went back to the bone, thumb tracing the edge of the bruise so light you barely felt it. A small frown pulled at the corners of his mouth at the sight. “Follow my finger. Eyes only.” 

You followed, pupils fine and equal. No concussion in it. 

“She’s fine, I told you,” the guy said from the chair, a little laugh under it like he was inviting Jack in on something. “Hardly. She bounces back.”

Jack clicked the penlight off and turned to the side. “Gonna need the room.”

“I’ll stay.” The hand went back to your knee. “I’m all good here.”

“Can’t clear a head strike with people in the room. You get it.” Jack tilted his head to the side, raising a shoulder. “Liability. Coffee machine’s down the hall. Give me two minutes with my patient.”

The easy smile on the guy’s lips went thin around the edges, looking for a thing to push against and not finding it. He stood up slow, making a show of it, squeezing your knee and letting you know he’ll be back in a minute, babe, a hand trailing your shoulder on the way past, all of it aimed less at you and more at Jack holding the curtain. Jack pressed his lips in a thin line as he met the guy’s eyes. 

The second the curtain closed behind him, a breath left you, tiny and involuntary, and your shoulders came down in the empty room. 

“Sorry, Dr. Abbot,” you murmured. “I keep being a mess at this place.” You took in a short, almost shaky breath. “Sorry.” 

“None of that,” he almost grumbled, penning your chart. “Your folks down here, sweetheart?” 

“No,” you said to your lap, picking the edge of the blanket. “Back home. A few states over.” You let out a laugh. “Just me out here. S’nice.” 

Jack forced a small smile, having to look at the ceiling while you looked down at your lap, shaking his head, more of an action for himself than for you. He pulled the stool over with his foot and sat, getting level with you. 

“What’s goin’ on with you, huh?” he asked quietly, making sure there was nothing sharp in his tone at all. “Honest. I like seeing you but not like this bruised up with a guy who talks for you.” His thumb found your wrist. “So talk to me. What’s going on?” 

“He’s fine,” you said. “Just likes being around.”

Jack tilted his head, dipping his head to meet your eyes that were still facing down. “Not the important part of the question, and you know it.” 

You sighed. “Sorry, Jack.”

“Quit it. The only thing I want from you tonight is some honesty, alright?” 

A corner of your lip kicked up, even though the dimness in your eyes held. “Your eyes look really pretty tonight.” 

“Heard that one before,” he drawled. “Had ‘em fifty years. Try a new one.” 

“Your neck’s going red,” you mumbled, fingers reaching up to press flat to the warm of his skin, right there below the jaw, like you just had to feel whether it was true.

Jack stilled. Your fingers were cold on his neck. He distantly registered his pulse was probably going under your fingertips, and you’d feel it if you held there a second longer. And then you caught yourself, hand snapping back to the blanket.

“Sorry. Sorry — I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that — ” you said, the words coming out in a taut string. 

“Easy,” he said, voice coming out rough. He swallowed. “Got me all flustered and now you’re gettin’ all shy?” 

You huffed a small laugh, your hand still fisted in the blanket where you’d snatched it back. “I’m not allowed to do that. I don’t think.” 

“Had no idea you knew how to behave,” he leaned a little back from the stool, crossing his arms. “Should I be worried about that guy out there?”

“Jealous, Doctor?” 

He rolled his eyes slightly, not responding. 

You sighed when you realized he wasn’t taking the bait. “He’s fine. He just likes being around.” 

He stood off the stool and reached for the discharge clipboard at the foot of the bed.

“Whatcha doing there?”

“My job.” He clicked the pen. “Clearing you. You’ve got no concussion. You’re not dying tonight.” He scrawled on the paper. “And I’m writing you a script for the bruise and a code for an Uber — ”

“No, no,” you said immediately. “Please don’t do that.” 

He raised his hand with the pen, palm open. “You never let me Uber you back when you’re alone. At least have this.” Your face scrunched up, and he could practically feel the guilt building in you. “Don’t need to use it now. Or ever. You can keep it for whenever.” He set the slip on your lap before you could push it back at him, the matter completely closed on his end. “Goes in your phone case. You can forget it exists until you need it.”

“You can’t keep handing me stuff — ”

“Department’s got a whole stack. You’re not special.” He capped the pen, though the corner of his mouth made it slightly visible that his words were false. “Don’t flatter yourself, doll.”

You looked down at the slip, your thumb worrying the edges of it. “I don’t like taking things.” 

“I noticed. A few hundred times now.” He tucked the pen back in his scrub pocket, and his voice came down a notch. “If it really makes you feel so bad, though, then maybe we can start taking care of ourselves so you don’t have to keep ending up here?”

Jack was in the middle of hand-off, Robby doing his thing before Robby left and did whatever the hell he did. They were at the board, Robby running down the floor. It was six-fifteen in the ugly hour, the in-between where the day shift was dragging itself toward the door and the night hadn’t started biting yet, the light through the ambulance doors gone gold and slanted and almost decent for once.

And then the doors slid, and you came through them. Jack’s attention peeled to you the second your shape entered the room, except this was wrong, he distantly registered. It was daylight and six in the evening and you were on your own two feet, upright and, assumedly, sober and walking in through the front like a person as opposed to a patient. You were wearing a jacket that swallowed you, and he assumed underneath it was shorts of some sort. He could see a stripe of navy cotton peeking from under the collar of your jacket as you adjusted a tote bag on your shoulder. 

You looked, frankly, like a completely different species from the one he scraped off bed four on weekends. The jacket was too big — his first thought was that it was a man’s, and his second thought, which he didn’t care for, was about whose — sleeves shoved up to your forearms, a stripe of soft navy cotton on the collar, and below it bare legs and shorts and sneakers that had likely never seen the inside of a club. Your hair was up and a little damp at the temple and your face was scrubbed clean.

You looked like somebody’s whole good day, he thought. You looked around around the waiting room with slightly widened eyes, a lost expression coating your features like you’d built up a lot of nerve to walk in here and had no idea what to do with it. 

“ — and the tox screen is still pending, so don’t let them,” Robby was saying. 

“Mhm,” Jack said, attention already halved. 

And Bennet, breezing past the triage desk with cheerful obliviousness, caught your figure and said, out loud, “Don’t tell me you’ve started day drinking. It’s barely past six, you gotta pace yourself — ” He let out a small laugh at his own joke, and kept walking, and didn’t see the way it landed. 

Your body stiffened, and you looked like a deer in headlights. Your mouth opened, some sort of flustered apology forming, he was sure. 

Jack let out a short groan, shaking his head. He set the tablet on the counter, already moving to cross the floor toward you. “Finish the hand-off with Shen. I gotta go deal with something.” 

Robby said something at his back — deal with what? — but Jack was already gone, crossing the floor slowly but somehow still eating the distance fast, and he watched you spot him coming and watched the relief crash over your face. Except you were sober now, in the daylight, and your whole face was going soft and grateful and just slightly wrecked at the sight of him.

He stopped a couple feet short of you, closer than a doctor, further than he stood to you at night. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands — there was no chart to hold (he should’ve brought the tablet) or wrist to take or a penlight to shine — so he clasped them behind his back, and tilted his head to get a better look at you. 

“Hi,” you breathed.

“Hey,” he said, eyes doing a quick once-over to make sure you really didn’t have any new injuries.

You shifted the tote under his gaze and clutched whatever was in the bag a little tighter.

“Jack —” you started, stopped, like the name had come out wrong. “ — Dr. Abbot.” You winced, pinching your eyes shut for a second. “Jack?” you tried to say again, smaller, your eyes flicking up to check his face to check if you’d overstepped. “Sorry, I don’t know which — ”

“Jack’s great.” His mouth tugged up, despite himself. “You’ve called me a lot worse. Jack’s a step-up.” 

You let out a startled little laugh, your mouth coming over your mouth like you could catch it, as your body eased a degree. 

“I’m sorry — I don’t — God, this is so embarrassing. I’m sorry.” 

“You know how many times you’ve apologized to me? Quit it.” He rubbed a finger over his lips. “What’s got you here today, then?”

“Um, I came to see you.” He raised a brow, and you let out a short breath, then continued, “I might not remember a lot of it, but I remember you took really good care of me. And my friends who came in with me sometimes said you took really good care of me.” The words came out softer now, flowing, more earnest. “Even though I was a mess. Especially when. So I just wanted to —” You shrugged, smiling slightly. “ — come say thanks.”

Jack felt the complete warmth of you land somewhere he kept no armor. “It’s the job,” he said quickly, before he could stop himself. “You didn’t have to come down here for that. That’s — it’s what we do. Anybody on shift would’ve done the same.” 

Your expression faltered for a moment, and your eyes dropped to the tote at your side as your shoulders came in. You shook your head, a small motion, then smiled again. 

“Right. No — yeah, of course.” You chuckled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make it a — I know it’s your job.” You shifted the bag, then shifted your weight from one foot to another. “Still, though. You did, so I wanted to.” 

Jack already wanted to take his words back, but he couldn’t, so he just shook his head. “Hey, you’re my problem, though. So thank you. For the thanks. We’re even.” 

Your shoulders eased and you nodded. “Well, I also have something for you.” You hauled a container out of your tote and held it out to him with both hands before you could chicken out. “It definitely doesn’t make up for all of the times you helped me.” You looked down at the container. “And I don’t know if you’re lactose intolerant, or have a peanut allergy or anything. I’m sorry if you do — I can — ”

“I’ve got a cast-iron everything. The cookies won’t kill me.” When you pushed the container further to him, he took it off your hands, eyes quickly scanning the round chocolate chip cookies, forcing a smile down. He swallowed whatever had lodged in his throat. 

“These are homemade?” He weighed the container in both hands, absurdly. You nodded. He swallowed whatever on earth had lodged in his throat at that.“Didn’t have to do all that for me.” 

“I wanted to,” you said quickly. “I wasn’t sure how the food here is, so thought it might be a nice change.” 

“Worse than you’re imagining,” he said, then tipped his head to the side as the memory crawled into his brain, uncalled for. “You’ve actually thrown a sandwich across the room.” 

Your palm came up to your mouth, and you let out a muffled, “I’m so sorry.” 

Jack snorted, shaking his head. Then, after a moment, he cleared his throat before it could get away from him. He looked back toward the board, then at you, knowing time was slipping and he’d have to go back to work and you’d have to go somewhere else, most likely. 

“You got finals or anything coming up soon?” he asked. 

Your lips curved down, and you nodded. “Yeah, in a couple weeks.” 

“Am I gonna be seeing you getting wheeled in wasted?” 

“I want to say no,” you said, smiling a little crooked. “I’m working on it. But I’ve said that before and ended up here. So.” You shrugged, lips jutting out like you were also unimpressed with yourself. “Ask me again in a couple weeks, I guess. I’d like it if you didn’t, though.” 

“Then quit doing the hard nights alone,” he said, leaning in just slightly. “You keep yourself off the stairs, and you can come bother us instead here with a textbook.” He raised a brow as he held your eyes. “We’ve got a family room that’s almost always empty at night.” 

“I couldn’t — ”

“Won’t be a bother. Trust me. You’d be silly not to use people’s help when they’ve clawed through the same exams to get the badge. You get stuck, somebody’ll know it cold.” He shrugged. “Half of ‘em are bored out of their minds some nights. You’d be doing us a favor.” 

You let out a breath, brows pinching together. “That’s — yeah.” You let out a short laugh, looking away for a second. “I’d like that. A lot. Thank you, really. As long as you don’t mind.”

“This is a teaching hospital, doll. I don’t mind, so long as you don’t mind the company. Might be nice for me, too.”

You smiled and for a moment, neither of you moved to end it. Then you shifted the tote back up your shoulder, and Jack felt the pull to keep you here one more second before he could stop himself. 

“Go home,” he said gruffly. “And I’ll be looking for you. So actually turn up, don’t make me look for nothing.” 

The whole sun of you came up at that, stunned, like you hadn’t expected to be looked for by anyone. Jack felt the ground go quietly out from under him, the vertigo of having reached for a person’s happiness on purpose and connected, of being, for once, the cause of a face doing that. He’d gotten so used to delivering news that took the light out that he’d forgotten it ran the other way, too.

“I’ll turn up. I promise.” 

He nodded, clearing his throat and turning for the board, bidding you a throaty goodbye. 

“She’s the girl that everyone on night talks about?” Robby asked immediately, falling into step beside him. 

Jack looked at him sideways, shaking his head. “You got something to say, too?”

“No,” Robby said, rubbing his palm at his chin like he was holding something in. “You like her or something?”

Jack halted for a second, pointing his index at Robby as he lowered his chin. “You shut up. She’s gonna be a nurse.” 

“Oh, yeah,” Robby laughed. “Looks like she’s gonna be your nurse, old man. You’ll need it soon enough.”

Thank god you did turn up. Jack had the sense that maybe he’d scared you off altogether by his offer, and the line he’d toed had two very alternate spectrums: you’d find a new hospital altogether to go to in the metropolitan area after your falls or poisonings, or you’d be here a lot more often, which he still wasn’t sure would’ve been often enough. 

The first time you came in, it was well past midnight and Jack had unfortunately not been able to catch you off the bat because he was in an emergency surgery. He’d walked out of it with his blood-stained surgical gown still on to be met with the sight of you by the nurse’s station, writing something down on the back of a discharge form for Lena, with another Tupperware laying on the table. He made the guess that you’d brought the whole floor something and were three minutes from having Lena eating out of your hand. 

You’d found a corner of his department and made yourself a small soft home in it inside of ten minutes, and you were leaning in, and Jack stood there for a moment with the bad night still ringing in his ears and felt something unclench in his chest by a fraction.

“ — no, but you gotta,” you were saying to Lena in earnest as Jack approached closer. “If you put the brown sugar in while the butter’s still hot, it’s just — it’s a different cookie.”

“You taking the recipe, Lena?” Jack asked then, fully submerging into the knot you’d made with his charge nurse. 

You turned to face him, a smile forming on your lips almost immediately, and then your eyes dropped over him, to the gown, the rust-brown stain dried dark across the front of it, the set of his shoulders. 

“I am,” Lena replied. “Gonna make these for the kids.” She punctuated her sentence by holding up one of the cookies. 

“Gonna make some for us, too, then?” Jack asked, raising a brow, and settled his elbows over the table. He turned his neck to face you properly, putting on his best smile.

Lena laughed shortly. “I don’t like you enough.” She pushed off the counter with some forms in hand. “Her, maybe. You can have whatever she leaves behind.” She shot you a look that was almost warm before she went and disappeared down the hall. 

“Could be you someday,” Jack said, tilting his head in the direction of Lena’s chair. 

You shook your head, then pushed the container in his hands. “I’ve got to graduate first. And pass pharm, which is currently — ” You patted your tote bag, textbooks heavy. “ — trying to kill me.”

Jack nodded toward the family room, placing the container on the table for a second beside him. “C’mon, then, doll. Let’s see what the pharm’s doing to you.”

“You don’t have to — ” Your eyes flicked down the gown again. “You just came out of surgery. You don’t have to help me study.”

“Actin’ like I’m the one who got the surgery,” Jack muttered, chuckling slightly. He was already peeling off the gown one-handed, balling it up to toss. He started walking, and you followed behind him. “C’mon. It’s pretty empty right now.” 

It’d been pleasant that night and the few after to have five to ten minute increments of sitting with you helping you study in between doing his actual job. He’d duck in between things — a lull after discharge, the dread stretch while he waited for a CT scan, the ten minutes a trauma took to roll in once the call came — and you’d be there in the family room with your stack of cards on the couch. He’d drop on the chair across you or the couch beside you and pick up wherever you’d left off like he hadn’t left at all. Then his pager would buzz and he’d be gone, and you’d still be there an hour later when he came back, and he’d sit back down, and both of you’d pretend this was a completely normal way to study.

It’d annoyed him the first night how badly the flashcards were failing you; he’d seen you stare at the words and your eyes would glaze and slide right off it like they were greased. You’d memorized or retained nothing. And then he’d said, half to himself, a story for the why to click, and he’d watched it lock in you. 

So he’d stopped quizzing you primarily off the cards and started telling you stories instead and you’d talk it back to him, reasoning out loud, getting there in the saying of it the way you never got there on the page. 

The nights stacked up. The first week, you’d sat at a table across from him. By the second, you’d migrated to the chair beside him. Your coffee, the one by the far end of the table, was right by his elbow. Lena started leaving a second cup at the station when she saw you come in, his and yours, and never commented.

You’d stopped apologizing for taking up his time somewhere in there. He noticed when you’d started saving him the worst looking cookie on purpose because he’d once told you he liked the ugly ones. He’d noticed when you learned the rhythm of his pages; you’d go quiet and just hand him the next card when his eyes drifted to the board through the window of the door, would have it ready when he came back, like you’d kept his place for him while he was off keeping someone alive. 

He noticed that he more than looked forward to it. Somewhere in the dead middle of a bad shift, his feet would take him toward the family room before his brain could catch up on the why of it all. An empty table on a night you didn’t come in sat wrong with him, a tiny disappointment he didn’t have anything in him to figure out why.

Sometimes, like now, you’d get distracted. Jack had learned. He’d walked into the family room to see you and Ellis folded into opposite ends of the couch, the flashcards abandoned in a fanned mess on the cushion between you, both of you mid-argument and enjoying yourselves too much.

“Poaching my study hall, Ellis?” he said, finally moving in. 

Ellis pointed one stern finger in your direction as she pulled herself off the couch. “Do the crossword, not the sudoku.” 

“She’s gonna make you a worse student,” Jack said to Ellis’s back.

“She’s making me a worse doctor,” Ellis said cheerfully, already at the door. “I’ve been here twenty minutes. I have patients.” She turned to you one final time. “Crossword. You’ll thank me later.” 

She gave Jack a knowing look on her way out, one he didn’t want to read too much into, and she was gone, the door swinging shut behind her in one slow plunge. 

You watched the door settle, and the entire wattage of your attention turned to him. He hadn’t gotten used to that, and he didn’t think he ever would. “Looks like I’ll never be a nurse.” 

“Don’t say things like that.” He came around and lowered himself onto the couch beside you. “What’re you stuck on? Hit me.”

Your palm met his upper arm, a small smack. 

He narrowed his eyes at you. “Hit me all you want. You’re not getting out of this.” 

“But Jaaaack,” you drawled, tipping your head back on the couch. “Not here to study today.”

His eyes flickered over to your form briefly as he gathered the cards and squared them. “Oh, no? What’re you here for then?”

“Dunno.” You pulled your knees up to the couch. “Didn’t wanna be at mine. And work was a lot and boring.” You turned to face him then, a small smile growing on your lips. “Thought I’d bother yours instead.” 

He set the squared deck on his knee. “Lucky me.”

He’d caught it, though, how you’d folded the sad thing in the middle of the sentence where it’d draw the least attention and moved on before it could sit. He let it move on, but he kept it. The image of you on a Tuesday, work behind you, and the choice you’d made was to drive to a hospital rather than go home to your own quiet. He was getting a picture of what that quiet looked like and learned that he didn’t like it very much.

“Work was boring, huh,” he said, though he couldn’t imagine what a fun day looked like as a waitress. “You working more?”

“Mm. Saturday girl quit, so now I’m on Saturdays, too.” You picked at your sock. “S’okay. Tips are good. I learned that old guys tip better when you call them ‘sir.’” 

He huffed. “Do they?”

“Huge. It’s a cheat code.” You tilted your head at him, smiling shyly. “You’d tip well, I think. You’d overcompensate.” 

“I’m not gonna sit here and get profiled by you in the only few minutes where I can catch my breath.” He held the card up, front to himself. “And I tip twenty-five percent like every functioning adult, thank you.”

You groaned. “Where can I get tipped more than that?” 

“You don’t want me to answer that.”

“I do. I do. I’m a broke student. Point me to the money — where should I apply?” You shifted on the couch, fully facing him now, the cards apparently abandoned for the moment. “C’mon. You’ve lived a hundred years. You’ve gotta know where I can make some quick cash.” 

“You’re sweet to me, doll,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. He set the cards down and looked at you, genuinely considering it now. He tried to ignore the fact that you likely had money troubles and tried to think about how he could actually help. “Define quick.” 

“Like — by next Thursday.” 

“Legally?”

“No.” 

“Legally, you can sell plasma. Twice a week, they pay you, you sit there with a juice box.” 

Your nose scrunched. “I don’t love needles in me sober.”

“You’re gonna be a nurse.”

“In other people. That’s totally different.” You waved it off. “Next. What else?”

“Sleep studies pay you to sleep. Egg donation pays a whole lot but it’s a whole process, not a Thursday deal.” He was ticking them off on his fingers, now fully committed. “Medical research’ll pay you to test things. Phase-one trials. You take an experimental drug and they watch you for side effects.”

“That’s the one.” You sat up. “How much?”

“No,” he said immediately, shaking his head. “Absolutely not. I bring you in here to keep you from blacking out. I’m not gonna have you volunteering to get poisoned for a quick four hundred bucks.” He pointed at you. “Maybe start laying on the ‘sir’ a little too thick from now on.” 

“Sir.” You tested on him directly, dropping your voice, leaning in an inch, lashes going slow. “Could you help me out, sir? Tips have been so slow, sir.” 

He turned his face away from you, now making himself look out the window. “I’m not entertaining this.” 

“Oh, but sir.” You’d fully abandoned the cards now, scooting closer, a hand under your chin, the picture of innocence. “I’m just a girl. A poor, hardworking girl trying to be a nurse. Don’t you want to help me out, sir?”

“I am trying.” He pulled up the flashcards. “If it’ll help, I’ll bring my SWAT buddies into your place and they can run up a tab.” He waved a card in front of your face, trying to get your attention back to it. “You do this, I’ll have eight cops eating mozzarella sticks in your section by Friday, overtipping ‘cause I saved their lives. Won’t even have to call ‘em sir.” 

“Right. No, that’s — ” You let out a little laugh too quickly, eyes widening at his words, and you took the card out of his hand mostly to have something to do with yours. “You don’t have to do that. Obviously. I was kidding — ” You batted the whole thing away with a shake of your head. “God. No. I’m okay, I promise. I was kidding.”

“I’m half-kidding,” he said, raising a brow. “I do know those guys. It’s no skin off me. But it’s okay.” 

He let the offer sit like that, and he saw you pinch your eyes shut. He watched the whole thing happen on your face, the small involuntary recoil you always had when anyone offered you real kindness. You were bad at it. For a girl who lied so charmingly about how much she drank and how her night went, you had absolutely no poker face for being cared about. You had not the first idea how to hide it.

He found it unbearably endearing.

You opened your eyes and looked a little caught, a little sheepish as your thumb worried the corner of the card.

“You’re a strange girl,” he mumbled, fond, before he could stop it. “You know that?”

“Shit — Jack,” you said through a small laugh, shaking your head. “I don’t — I’m — ” You pressed your lips together and your shoulders came up almost to your ears in a stiff shrug. “Is there anything I can do for you? I can’t just accept — all your help.” 

He snorted. “What help? I give you a study room and review flash cards.”

“Let me do something. I’m a good cleaner — ”

His head went back slightly, shaking his head. “You’re really not.”

“Okay,” you continued, rallying. “A dog? Guys like you always have dogs they don’t walk ‘cause of their hours. I can walk dogs.” 

“No dog.” He raised his hand when he saw your mouth move again, stopping you. “You pay me back by passing your boards. You can pay me back plenty if you end up working here, doing good at the job.”

You went quiet for a second. “That’s just me doing my own thing. That’s not real.”

“That’s real to me.” He shrugged, like he hadn’t just made your whole future the price of his kindness. “I get a good nurse out of it someday.” He pulled himself off the couch. “And now I gotta go. Floor’s not gonna run itself.”

“Boo,” you said, pulling the entire deck on your lap now. “You’re the worst study partner. You leave constantly.”

Tonight, Jack had come into the family room after leaving you for a longer stretch of time than usual — a multi-vehicle situation that had eaten two hours and most of his patience — and found the studying had long since lost.

You’d migrated to the couch at some point. The textbook was open face-down on the cushion beside you like a small tented roof, your flashcards fanned across the middle seat, and you were folded in the corner with your knees pulled up and cheek mashed into the worn armrest, fighting your eyes and losing completely. You’d dimmed the overhead lights, lighting the lamp in the corner, the one nobody used, throwing everything low and gold.

He paused in the doorway. “You awake?” 

“Mhm. Need a cat nap, though,” you murmured.

Jack snorted, shutting the door behind him as he walked closer to you. “How far’d you get?”

“Far enough.” Then, you added, “Cat nap.”

“Sayin’ it like I’m gonna not let you have one.” 

Your eye cracked open a sliver, tracked him, then fell shut again. “Feel like you’re gonna make me do more cards.”

He toed the leg of the coffee table aside, reached down, and started clearing your mess off the cushions. He lifted the textbook and shut it around the receipt you’d jammed as a bookmark; gathered the flashcards and squared them in his palm; capped the highlighter and pocketed it. You watched the cleanup through one half-open eye, not lifting a single finger, your cheek staying flat to the armrest. 

“There. No more cards. You’re done for tonight, doll.” 

“Hooray,” you mumbled. 

He nudged your socked foot where it had crept up across the cushion. “C’mon. Budge up a second. Don’t want you wrecking your neck sleeping like that.”

You made a small sound of protest but you went, peeling your cheek off the armrest with reluctance. There was a crease pressed into your skin where the fabric seam had been and your hair was flat on one side and mushed on the other. You blinked up at him, swaying where you sat, eyes glassy and unfocused in the gold lamplight.

He sank into the space he’d cleared, the cushion dipping, tipping the two of you a fraction into each other. That was all the invitation your body apparently needed, because you folded into him without a beat of thought — too tired to second-guess it, he supposed — your temple finding the warm of his shoulder, your whole side melting against his. You drew your knees up and tucked them against his thigh. Your hand came to rest on his chest, palm flat, fingers spreading once before they went still. You exhaled after a moment, long and slowly, and burrowed your nose into his neck. 

Jack stilled. 

“Ten minutes,” you murmured, the words barely coming out as words.

He took his arm off the back of the couch and settled it around your back, broad hand spanning between your shoulder blades and drawing you that last fraction deeper into him. You went boneless with it, a small contended hum slipping out of you. 

Because he couldn’t help himself, he tipped his head down a fraction to say into your hair, “Been doin’ really well, y’know that, sweetheart?” 

You hummed, the sound of it vibrating against his throat, your fingers curling the faintest bit in his scrubs. “Thanks, Jack.”

“Gonna be a good nurse,” he murmured, thumb moving once along your shoulder. 

“Gonna work with you,” you mumbled, three-quarters gone. “You said.”

“Mhm.”

“Holdin’ you to it.” 

“Yeah, I know you are.” The corner of his mouth flicked up where you couldn’t see it. “Go to sleep. You can hold me to it in ten minutes.” 

When you didn’t answer for a second, Jack realized you were already gone. You were warm and trusting at his side, your hand slack over his heart, your breath sinking deep and even into his neck. 

Jack let his head tip back against the couch, pinching his eyes shut at the feeling of you, at the feeling you caused. His hand spread slowly across your back, feeling the breath go through you — the proof of you — and he let his thumb find the curve of your shoulder and rest there, keeping his eyes shut. He sat with the enormous fact of you, the girl he’d not seen anyone circle back for, gone soft and so pliant in his arms like she’d always belonged there, and he stopped pretending he wasn’t already lost. 

The ten minutes came and went. He let them. He’d have given you the whole night, the whole shift, the whole of whatever this was turning into. There wasn’t one place on the earth worth standing up for, and he’d known it for weeks, and only now, with your breath slow against his throat, did he let himself sit all the way inside of the knowing.

Jack came out of the OR and signed — albeit distantly, mind running a meter a minute about nothing good — what needed signing and said the things he was meant to, feeling the familiar piece of his own damn soul rotting away in the place those things went to rot. He knew the spot by now. It’d been decades of depositing them into the same place, and the place didn’t fill, exactly, but it never emptied, either. It just sat there, getting heavier, like things usually do when you keep adding to it and never take anything out.

This one would sit a while. Jack had started to sense it around the first year in this job; the ones that stayed had a weight, and you knew on the table whether you were getting one of those or whether it’d wash off by morning. This one wouldn’t.

He stripped his gloves, and somebody said something he answered without hearing, and then his feet simply walked past the board, carrying him down the hall toward the one door on the whole floor that wouldn’t have somebody else’s catastrophe behind it. 

His hand was flat on the door. He was still wearing the gown, and he looked down and registered it too late. He should’ve changed it, left the thing in the dirty bin with the rest of what the shift had taken, the way he always did before he came to you, kept the two halves of the floor separate on purpose. 

He opened the door. You were on the couch, one leg tucked under you and the other foot on the floor and a half-empty cup of coffee on the table going cold. You’d been doing something on your phone, or nothing, when the door opened, and you looked up with the easy expectant expression on your face you always had before it dropped. He watched it melt.

“Hey,” you said, making your voice soft.

“Hey.” His voice came out rough, and he almost winced as he heard it himself. 

You set your phone face-down on the cushion and unfolded yourself from the couch and stood, crossing the room to close the gap between you. You stopped in front of him and looked up, your brow doing a small worried thing, and he let himself be looked at.

“Sit down,” you said. “You look like you’re gonna fall through the floor.”

He distantly registered you walking him to the chair — your hand finding his forearm, a light touch — and he let you. He folded into the chair like the strings of his own body had been cut, his elbows finding his knees and head dropping.

He heard you move, small domestic sounds of you filling a cup, the tap somewhere down the hall turning on then shutting off. Then your socks were back in his eyeline, toes pointed to him.

“Here.” You crouched, came into his lowered field of vision, and pressed a cup into his hands — water, cold — and folded his fingers around it when they were slow to close. “Drink it all.”

He drank because that was the path of least resistance. The water caught something he hadn’t registered was bone-dry. You took the empty cup out of his hands when he was done, setting it on the table behind you, and then he felt your hands find his shoulders.

He flinched just slightly, the smallest involuntary thing, for nobody touched him like that. Nobody put their hands on him that weren’t shaking one of his or needing something from him. You settled your thumbs into the iron base of his neck and pressed slowly, working the knots the night, the days, the weeks, and probably the year had wound there.

Your thumbs were unsure of themselves — you weren’t good at it, you weren’t trying to be, you were simply trying — and that was somehow worse because it got further to him than skill would have; there was the unpracticed earnestness to it, like you’d simply decided his shoulders had been holding too much and you wanted to put your hands there to take some of it down. 

He felt his head drop lower, coming forward on its own, the tension bleeding out of his neck by degrees under your hands. Your thumbs found a place at the top of his spine that had been clenched so long that it had stopped registering as pain, and you pressed there, and a fraction let go. He felt his shoulders drop the inch they’d been holding up all night, and an uneven breath went out of him.

You kept your hands moving, your thumbs working the meat of his shoulders through the cotton, occasionally finding a knot and leaning your weight into it until it gave. 

His head tipped a little forward after a stretch of time — chasing, or simply falling — and it found the soft of your stomach. His forehead rested against the front of you, where you stood close in the gap between his knees. He hadn’t intended for it, or maybe he had, somewhere under where the intention happened, his body had chosen to stop holding its own weight and give it to the nearest thing that felt like it’d take it. His eyes were already shut, and he stayed there, hands coming up on their own to rest at the sides of your waist. His fingers anchored into the fabric of your shirt.

“Shitty job sometimes,” he mumbled after a moment.

“Yeah,” you said softly above him. “I bet it is.” 

Your fingers had found his hair, threading through the curls. Then, you added quietly, “But you’re really good at it.” 

His fingers tightened a fraction at the fabric on your waist as he let out a short huff. 

“Didn’t help him,” he said finally, the words coming out muffled behind his own mouth. “Whatever I’m good at didn’t help him.” 

“Maybe not.” Your fingers scraped carefully at his scalp. “I think you were the best shot he had.”

He breathed you in, choosing to let the words rest in his skull for a while instead of fighting them. 

“I’m — ” He heard you take in a breath and felt it go through your whole body. “I’m really grateful I met you, Jack.”

For some reason, he waited for you to take it back. There was a primally fast thing in him that told him that you’d take the words back, and he’d have understood.

“You don’t have to say anything,” you added. “I just wanted you to know. While you’re here being all — ” Your thumb moved at the back of his neck, tender and so gentle. “ — Figured it was a decent time to tell you I’m glad you exist.” 

He took in a shaky breath against you, fingers tightening again. 

“Thank you, sweet girl,” he said, and it sounded like it’d been punched out of him. “Likewise. More than you know,” he finished, his arms wrapping around the rest of your waist now, pulling you in like he could just fold himself smaller if he held hard enough.

Your fingers kept moving slowly in his hair, your other hand coming around the back of his head to hold him there. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d let anybody do this; as far as he could remember, he’d decided in some wordless permanent way that he’d carry his own weight from then on, that it was cheaper, that needing somebody was a bill that came due eventually and he’d rather not run the tab. 

“You should sit,” he said after god knows how long without letting go. “Selfish, keepin’ you standing here.”

“It’s okay.”

He hummed, thumb moving once at your waist. “Two more minutes then.”

“Whatever you need, Jack,” you said, voice quiet. “I’m not going.”

Jack’s phone lit up on the arm of the couch at 10:52, face-down, buzzing itself a quarter-inch off the leather before he caught it. 

He’d been working his way, with grim completionist patience, through an iceberg video you’d sent him three days ago with the message ‘THIS rabbit hole i need you to fall down.’ You’d followed it up by telling him, ‘do Not skip tiers!!’ He hadn’t skipped tiers. He was, in fact, ninety minutes deep and only about two-thirds down the pyramid, somewhere in the tier where a young man with a serious voice was explaining internet folklore he couldn’t believe was real. 

He was fairly sure it’d been invented by some teenager, but Jack only shrugged, distantly wondering why on earth anyone would spend the labor — the diagrams, alone — hoaxing a thing this elaborate for an audience of complete strangers. He also wondered why on earth you were so interested in this. As quickly as the thought arrived, he realized that he was working down the iceberg himself.

Working down a thing you’d handed him felt adjacent to sitting next to you, and his apartment had become the sort of quiet that made adjacent worth ninety minutes of contemporary folklore. He’d sooner have chewed glass than admitted it out loud.

It was a good apartment and an unwitnessed one. He’d realized somewhere in the past year it was untouched by any hand but his. Every object was exactly where he’d last set it down, for there was no second person to nudge the remote three inches or leave a hair tie on the counter or ask why there was a mug in the sink and no bowl. His leg was off for the night, propped against the arm of the couch, the whole standing weight from his night shift to SWAT calls finally set down somewhere it was allowed to stay.

So, the phone going off, went off loud in the silence that had become almost-permanent. Your name lit across the screen, and the picture with it (one you’d set yourself, commandeering his phone to do it). It was already strange that it was a call. You never called; you texted in floods, six messages deep before he’d gotten to the first, but the ringing meant the thing had gotten past the point where typing it out would hold. 

He looked at your laughing face buzzing on his phone for a second too long, the cold little instinct, and thumbed it green.

“Hey,” he said. “You know it’s almost eleven on my night-off. This better be good.”

You stayed silent for a second, and he could hear your breath and the hollow of a call connected in a car, the cooling engine’s tick and automotive acoustics. 

“Hey,” you said finally, and Jack felt it wrongly. The back half of the word had gone soft and unsteady at the end.

Jack was already sitting up. “Hey, yourself,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” He heard you swallow quickly. “Sorry. God, this is so dumb. You — were you asleep?” 

“I was almost through with your iceberg, if you want the truth.” 

You made a sound that tried to be a laugh but didn’t clear the runway, breaking apart halfway. “You watched it?”

“Almost.” His fingers were drumming against his prosthetic leaning by the couch now. “Are you out?”

“I’m —” You paused, then hummed like you were debating. “I’m kind of near your place, actually?” Your voice rose toward the end, like you were embarrassed or questioning it all yourself. “I know. It’s creepy. But I think I need to — talk to you.” 

“Yeah?” He tried to keep his voice light, though he could already feel something in his body start racing, panicking. “You break something?”

“No. No. Promise. It’s nothing like that.”

For some reason, that put a deeper hook in him. If it wasn’t a wrist, an ankle, or your body doing something it shouldn’t, then it was the other kind, and he had no idea how to hold something like that. He wasn’t sure what he could do with a sprain he couldn’t ice.

“Okay — ”

“Wait,” you interrupted, voice pitching higher, and he could see you were psyching yourself out. “I could just say it now, honestly. It’d probably be easier over the phone.”

Jack’s eyes widened a fraction at that. His stomach suddenly felt cold. 

“No,” he said, voice rougher than he’d intended. “I won’t make it hard. Whatever you want to say, I promise. Just — not like this, okay? Come here.” 

He listened to you breathe as you weighed it and knew, with bone-deep certainty, that he wouldn’t like what you were going to say. “Okay,” you breathed. “I’ll be there in fifteen.” 

Jack opened the door after the first knock, unembarrassed of waiting. You’d come as you were, a coat thrown open over sleep clothes, good wool hanging loose over a thin cami with lace at the collar and soft shorts and bare legs down to the sneakers you hadn’t laced properly. The second fact that registered to Jack was that you’d been crying; there was a soft ruin around your eyes, the mascara long gone, wiped with a sleeve somewhere back in the evening. Your hair was up and losing, a claw clip hanging looser than he believed it was meant to.

“Hi,” you said, eyes raising to meet his. “Thanks for letting me come by.”

Jack felt his shoulders rise to his ears just slightly at the formality. He felt like a bucket of ice had been dropped upon him because somewhere in the past few weeks, you’d stopped apologizing to him as much, which had felt like a small victory he never told you he was counting. And here it was again, your stiff little courtesy, the door swung back shut on a thing that had been open. Jack didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. 

“You don’t thank me for coming by,” he said gruffly, opening the door wider.

You came in, but only just. Before he could steer you to the warmth of his apartment, you were already reaching into the bag on your shoulder — hands shaking, he realized, with a fine tremor — and pulling out a folded piece of paper, creased hard down the middle and then again like you’d tried to bundle it up into a fist.

He unfolded it and smoothed out the edges, eyes looking for yours briefly, but you’d already looked away. Your bottom lip was between your teeth and you were looking at the ground. He forced himself to look down.

It was your pharmacology exam. Your cramped looping handwriting scattered the margins, a star drawn to one question because you starred everything. There was red pen all down the side and a number circled on the top. The number, Jack saw immediately, was not catastrophic, not a failure even. It was a low pass, the sort of grade that would’ve stung for Jack in his school days and evaporated by the next exam. He’d expected worse from the way you’d been shaking holding it. 

He looked back at you, confused more than anything. “Congratulations, you passed.” 

Your jaw tightened, and he could see your eyes go bright and wounded. “It’s a seventy-one.”

“That’s a pass.”

“Barely. Barely.” You took the paper out of his hands, folding it away like you couldn’t stand looking at it anymore. “And you helped me with this so much and I still couldn’t. I’m so tired of — ” You stopped, looking up at the ceiling as you pressed your lips flat. “It’s not about the test.”

“Okay.” He leaned back against the counter, giving you the whole floor of the room. “Talk, then.” 

You looked at him, and he watched you gather it all up, deciding, as it settled into your face, your mouth, whatever you’d come here to say.

“I don’t wanna waste your time anymore,” you said, tugging your bottom lip between your teeth as your eyes landed on the wall behind him. “I can’t — it’s not fair.” 

Jack felt the whole floor shift under him and felt his brows go up an inch as he tried to keep his face seem collected. 

“You’re you,” you continued. “You’ve got a whole life, a hard one, and I’ve been just — dumping mine on you. Making you sit there and hold my hand through studying and I’m — ” You shook your head, face going grim as you said the words. “It’s not fair to you. You’ve been carrying me for so long, and it’s not fair. None of this is yours to carry. I’m not yours to carry.” 

His nose scrunched just slightly, something like burning blooming at the center of his face. Something in his chest had cracked along the seam he had no idea was there, because he’d never had to look at it once straight on. It was easy to carry your own weight when there was no one asking to take some. It was easy to call solitude a principle when nobody had ever made the alternative real. And you had. You’d made it real for months, and here you were proposing — no, telling — to take it back, to hand him his loneliness again because of some measurement of fairness. 

The horror of how much Jack didn’t want it — how badly, how completely he didn’t want to go back to how it was before you — was the first honest look he’d taken at himself in longer than he could stand to count. 

“That so?” was all he could say, voice roughening as his brows narrowed at you. 

“Yes.” You mistook the roughness for agreement, or maybe you just needed to do so, because you kept going. “You don’t have to help me. The only thing I can think is you’re — you are a good person and I was there. And you help people, it’s what you do.” Your hand waved in the general direction of him as your voice cracked. “So help someone who’d actually make it worth it. Who won’t barely pass and keep getting too drunk and — ” You laughed slightly, and it was all wet and terrible, the sound. “I’m a bad use of you. You’re this — you are so much, Jack, and I’m a bad place to put it. So put it somewhere better.” 

Jack had to force a swallow when you ended your words with a sharp intake of breath, the pool behind your eyes slipping free slowly down your cheeks. You’d run out of anything that’d make you wipe it away now, and that undid him worse than the crying itself, that you were standing there and letting it fall, done hiding, wrung all the way out. 

“I’m sorry — ” he started.

“It’s okay,” you said immediately, shaking your head.

“For making you think that’s what it was,” he said, lowering his voice. “That’s on me, that you talked yourself into thinking this has been some sort of charity.” He cocked his head to the side then, wishing you’d look up at him. “But you’re gonna quit shaking your head for one minute, and hear the rest, ‘cause you got it wrong. All of it, backwards and upside down.”

He came off the counter and closed the space himself, until you had to lift your chin to keep his eyes. 

“I’m not a man who spends his nights on a stray out of the goodness of his heart. Ask anyone I work with what I’m like. I don’t have that lying around spare.” His jaw tightened. “So take the halo off. That’s not what this was.”

“Then why — ”

“You,” he said plainly, for he learned it cost him nothing to do so, and a lot if he didn’t. “I wouldn’t do this for just anyone. There’s nowhere else I want to put it.”

He watched everything in your face tighten at his words, the disbelief and reflex to argue all curdling underneath. 

“If you don’t want this.” Me. Me, he wanted to say. “Say it. I’ll leave you alone. You don’t owe me anything.”

“That’s not — ”

“But don’t act like it’s some favor for me.” He was closer now than he’d been. “Don’t tell me you’re leaving for my sake. That’s a lie.”

“It’s not — ”

“It’s a lie,” he said, voice going flat and so final, as he slowly nodded his head. He looked at you a second, lips coming between his teeth, then looked away as he felt something physical seize over his entire body.

Jack himself had to process the words as he said them, because he was only just realizing how much truth they held.

“You make it good.”

He forced himself to look back at you, and you had tilted your head now to look up at him, caught and still as stone, the arguing gone completely off your face now and replaced with something more frightened.

“Don’t — ” One of Jack’s shoulders came up in a half-hearted shrug. “You’re the one part of my day that doesn’t take anything out of me. Just — get that straight, sweetheart.” 

You were just looking up at him with your whole face undone, the tears gone still on it, as though his words had knocked your own clean out of you.

“I don’t know what to do with that,” you said quietly. “People don’t — that’s not a thing that happens to me, Jack. Being — ” Your sentence broke apart and your hand had come up and fisted loosely in front of his shirt without either of you deciding it should, holding on, holding him there. “I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Nothing.” His hand came up slowly and covered yours where it fisted in his shirt, holding it flat there against his chest. “It’s just true.”

You made a small, pained sound and dropped your forehead against his sternum, right where his hand held yours, and he felt the whole strung-tight weight of you gave at once and settled into him. He felt you breathe against his shirt at the same time he felt his own pulse going too fast on your knuckles; he wasn’t bothered enough to try and slow it, because there was no point now. You’d already found out. 

“Very grateful for you,” he murmured, his other hand pulled up to rest over the back of your skull. “Told you so earlier. Meant it more than you let yourself hear.”

You huffed against his shirt — half a sob, half a laugh, maybe the ruined cousin of both — and he felt it go through the cotton and land warm against his skin, felt your fingers uncurl a fraction from the fist they’d made then re-fist, like even now some part of you was checking he was still there to hold onto. 

Jack held still for it, same as you had in the family room for him. He was good at holding still, it was half the job, but this was a different kind — he supposed — where there was a plain animal willingness to be a wall for as long as you needed one and not move a muscle that might spook you out of it. 

He rested his chin at the top of your head, murmuring, “I don’t have to tutor you anymore, if that’ll help.” He swallowed, closing his eyes as he breathed in your faint perfume. “We can scrap the whole thing, if that’s what’s making you feel so bad.”

You stilled for a second, then made a small sound against him. 

Despite himself, despite it all, he let out a short chuckle. “S’okay. I’m the reason you got a seventy-one. You’re allowed to switch.” 

“You’re the reason it’s a seventy-one and not a thirty,” you said, and it came out muffled and immediate. You almost sounded cross, like you didn’t want the slander against him to stand even now.

After a moment against him, you added, “I don’t want to be just someone you help, I think. I don’t want to be somebody — I guess — that you’re just good to.”

When Jack hummed, you continued, “I don’t know what I wanna be instead. Just — a friend — or, I don’t know. Something that goes both ways.”

Jack’s chest swelled at the words. He felt that he’d have been anything you asked of him, simply because it had just become how it was. It was almost outrageous how, if you’d asked, he’d have handed it over, the whole rest of it, whatever you wanted the name to be, whatever box you needed him in.

A man his age was supposed to be past this. He was supposed to have calcified somewhere in the second decade of the job into something that didn’t reorganize himself around what someone he’d known properly only for the better part of the year had asked him.

“Consider it done,” he murmured, letting the word settle. Friend.

You breathed against him, and Jack felt himself want to remain exactly here and knew that he shouldn’t. He knew that the kind thing now was to give you somewhere to put your face that wasn’t his chest, some ordinary ground for you to set your feet back down on. 

“C’mon.” He got a hand on your shoulder and eased you off him gently, a slow, slow reclaiming of the eight inches of air between your body and his. He dipped his head to catch your eyes, which were pink-rimmed and swollen and doing their utter best to avoid his now that the worst was out of you. “Do you want me to order food?”

Your neck rolled back slightly as you met his eyes, caught slightly off-guard at the shift of tone. You blinked. “That was a lot, and now you’re asking about food?”

“It was a lot,” he agreed. He reached up and thumbed a smudge of leftover mascara from under your eye briskly, and you let him. “And now it’s done. So, food, and we can watch the stupid video you sent me before you head home.”

It had been six days since you showed up at his apartment, and Jack had embarrassingly counted every single one of them. You’d left his apartment somewhere past two with your eyes finally dry and a paper bag of his leftover Thai you’d protested and taken anyway, and he’d walked you down to your car and stood in the lot like some idiot in a movie until your taillights turned off his street, and then he’d gone back up to a quiet that felt, for the first time in years, like something had been in it.

Since then it had gone like it always had and nothing like it; you still turned up with flashcards and left a graveyard of half-drunk coffees on every surface. But he’d noticed how you started letting him sit closer now, let a compliment land without flinching off, and once, mid-story, had reached over and fixed his scrub top where it had folded under, casual as breathing. 

Friend was the word you’d settled on. Jack was thinking about that when Shen dropped into step beside Jack with a cup of fresh Dunkin sweating in his hand. 

“You know it’s not standard to let your girlfriend occupy the family room for three hours of your shift, right?” 

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Jack immediately clarified. It seemed more important to do now than it was earlier, when people only knew you when you came in as an emergency. Still, it felt wrong, like a key going in the wrong hole. “And you got a problem with it?” 

Shen lifted the coffee in surrender, unbothered. “You know we’ve grown to her. She and I do the Wordle every midnight.” Then, he spread one hand. “Administratively, she’s not staff. She’s not a patient. She’s not family of a patient. Which leaves the category I’d have to call —” He tilted his head, faux thoughtfulness. “ — Abbot’s girlfriend, and I don’t think that’s in the handbook.” 

“Try again,” Jack drawled, thumbing a form he wasn’t reading that didn’t need to be read. “She’s a nursing student getting hours of free tutoring off a board-certified attending. Put that in the handbook. Teaching hospital. I’m teaching.”

Shen shook his head, letting out a small laugh. “Alright. Alright. She’s not your girlfriend. Mind if I ask her out, then?” 

Jack snorted. “If you could only be so lucky.” 

“Clearly she has a type for attendings,” he pressed, grinning. “Or is it just the ones with gray hair?”

Jack looked at him sideways. “This is getting a bit weird, even for you.” 

“I’m happy for you, man. Even if you’re gonna make us all watch you not do anything about it for the next six months.”

“Mind your own damn business.”

“Sure,” he turned, lifting a hand over his shoulder as he went. “Close the blinds anyway. There’s a window on that door. Everyone can see her making you dumb.” 

Jack looked down the hall and set the form down before going there to close the blinds — telling himself it was for the window, for Shen’s real talk — and knowing, somewhere under that, that he was really just going to you. 

He could see you through the window in the door before he reached it, which was, he supposed, exactly Shen’s point. You had a textbook open in your lap and you were chewing the end of your highlighter, brow pulled in, mouthing something to yourself, working a card over your head. You’d pulled the sleeves of one of his old sweatshirts down to your hands, the one you’d swiped from his locker two weeks ago and never given back and that he’d never once asked for, because he’d found he didn’t want it back, found he liked seeing it swallow you.

You gave him a smile when he walked in. He reached up and tipped the blinds shut on the window with two fingers, the floor outside tipping away. 

“Why’d you close them?” you asked, slightly bored.

“Apparently the whole department’s been getting a show.”

You furrowed your brows then. “A show of what? Me failing?”

“Somethin’ like that.” He let it go at that, coming around and lowering himself onto the couch beside you, the cushion dipping and tipping you toward him a degree, what it always did that neither of you ever corrected. “How’s it going? Honest.”

“Honestly?” You blew out a breath, closing the highlighter. “I’d kill for a drink.”

“Oh?” Jack settled back against the couch, his arm coming up along the top of it behind you. “Telling that to the one man who’s seen what you look like at the bottom of the bottle.”

“Jaaaack,” you said, almost in a whine. “Let’s go to a bar.”

He snorted, dragging a hand down his face. “Now I’m wondering what’s pushing you toward the edge.”

He picked the flashcard you had set on the textbook, the one you’d been studying. He read the front of it without much intention — your handwriting was cramped and looping, a star drawn next to it — and turned over and checked the back. He did the same thing he always did, the story, the image; he’d done it a hundred times by now. He could do it half-asleep, and most nights he half was. 

You thought about it for a second, your bottom lip tugged between your teeth, then walked yourself to the answer. 

“Mhm. See. Good,” he murmured. He flipped the card to the back to check you, and you’d had it. Of course you’d had it, you’d had more of this than you ever gave yourself credit for. “Tell you what. Get the next three right, and I’ll get us a drink once your exams are done.” 

Your brows narrowed. “Bribe?”

“It’s an incentive.” He held up the next card, eyes on you. “Don’t think. Just answer me.” 

You did. One, then the next, then the one after. You were quicker now that there was something on the end of it, your lip caught between your teeth as you walked yourself there each time. He noticed you worked when there was something to earn. After all three, he hummed. “See. Good girl, there you go.” 

He felt you go still beside him, and his eyes flickered up to you to see your eyes dropping to your textbook. He stayed silent a second, eyes raking over you, your thumb running the worn edge of a card back and forth. 

Jack knew better than to point out how you being flustered was almost silly when he’d said the same words many times while taping you up or shining a penlight in your eyes. He let his arm stay where it was along the couch, hand not quite touching your shoulder, and watched the side of your face.

“You wanna do some more?” he said finally, voice coming out rougher. “Or are we done for the night?”

You held up a finger, as if telling him to wait.

“Okay, then,” he mumbled, leaning back further against the couch. “Take your time.”

After a second, he turned to say something dry to break the silence. You’d turned your head, too, and were closer than he initially realized, your eyes coming up off the card and finding his, near enough that whatever he had bubbling in his throat died there immediately. 

Jack hummed involuntarily. You closed the sound by pressing your mouth to his, the feeling of the plushness so very featherlight, there and barely there, the softest press. 

He went still as stone, every system in him locking at once. His hand was still along the back of the couch and his mouth hadn’t answered yours, not because he didn’t want to — God, he did — but because the entirety of him had gone still with the disbelief of it, with the you, here, choosing this — him — and the half-second of nothing stretched into a second, too damn long. 

He’d seized on you, the fact you’d nearly walked, had stood in his kitchen finding the kindest way to disappear, and here you were, closing the last of the distance yourself.

You pulled back like you’d touched a stove, a gasp leaving your mouth, replacing where his own had been. 

“Oh god.” Your hand flew up to your mouth, your eyes going wide before pinching shut completely. “I’m sorry — I’m so sorry, Jack. I read that so, so wrong. You’ve been so nice and I — fuck, I’m sorry.”

Jack made a pained sound that was lost somewhere in your ramble, at the sight of you snatching it back. Nothing had gone wrong. Jack knew you’d read nothing wrong, and that the only thing that had happened was that he’d been too slow, too stunned, too thirty-years-rusty to catch what had been handed to him in good reflex.

His hand came off the back of the couch and he caught your jaw, thumb on your chin as he pushed slightly against your skin. He was distantly aware that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so afraid about leaning in to kiss a woman, and went in to try and give you back the second he lost, mouth finding yours the exact way every bone in his body knew he should’ve the first time. 

You made a startled sound against him before the entirety of you melted. His mouth worked against yours, thoroughly, making sure not to fumble it twice. His thumb stayed on your chin, tilting your face the half-degree he wanted it, and when your lips parted on half a breath, his entire upper body leaned in to follow it, deepening it. 

It was you who moved first. Of course, it was you, always you. You followed it, the kiss pulling you up and forward, your knee coming over his thigh, and then you were settling over him. Jack let out the throatiest of a chuckle, still intent on keeping your mouth, as your hands slid from the front of his scrubs to his jaw. 

Jack’s hands caught yours on instinct — one at your waist, one at your hip — steadying you down to him, your hips still slightly in the air like you weren’t sure you could close the last of the distance, your weight held in the suspended air in the ache of almost, thighs braced on either side of his. 

Jack pulled back just enough to look at you, letting his head fall back against the back of the couch, dragging his eyes up the length of you poised over him. He blew out a short breath, the corners of his lips kicking up as his palm glided up and down on the side of your waist, catching onto your tank top on accident to show a sliver of skin at your lip — warm, soft, the band of your shorts sitting low — and he watched his own hand do it before he dragged his eyes back to your face.

“Nothing halfway with you, huh?” he said, the words practically coming out from his chest. His thumb rested against that bared sliver of you. “Climbing me at my work.”

You lowered your head, and your nose grazed against his. “You started it.”

“I did?”

“You closed the blinds.”

He let out a surprised laugh. “I can promise you I didn’t expect this when I did that.” 

Your lips ghosted over his for a second, and his chest swelled at the sight of you trying to tamp down the sweetest smile. “Problem?” 

“No.” The words came out immediately, because apparently somewhere in him, there was still something insatiable and teenage that had lurched up at the sight of you. “No. No problem.”

His hand spread flat and warm against the small of your back, fingers slipping under the hem of the top to your warm skin there, and he drew you down, finally, that last suspended inch collapsing as he settled your weight flush over him. 

He had to pinch his eyes shut a second, then open them again to take in the whole sight of you. His hand came up to your jaw. The light caught the loose hair at your temple, the bare line of your shoulder where the strap had slipped. Your mouth was full and flushed from his, parted slightly, your breath coming. The skin under his hand at your back was hot to the touch, and he spread his fingers wider against it just to feel more of it. 

You were trying not to smile. Your lip caught between your teeth, the corners pulling anyway. 

His finger perched against your jaw moved to your lips, dragging slowly across the lower one, parting it under the pad of his thumb. He watched it give, your breath warm against his skin. 

Your eyes flicked up to his as your lip closed around the first knuckle, your tongue hesitantly pressing flat against the pad, the wet heat of it catching him so completely off guard that the air went out of him in a rough exhale. His other hand fisted at the small of your back, turning over to gather the hem of your tank in his grip. 

“Oh.” His eyes had dropped to your mouth and fixed there, his jaw slack as his head cocked to the side. “Pretty.” 

His gaze was locked on the sight of his thumb disappearing past your lips, no hesitation in it, that same no-halfway boldness turned filthy and sweet all at once. The tired man in him went down all at once. 

His thumb dragged free, catching on your bottom lip and tugging it down before it slipped loose. His chest heaved harder now under the warm weight of you. 

“Where’d that come from?” he muttered gruffly, almost to himself, thumb pressing the slick of your own lip back against you. His palm moved to cradle your face, tapping your cheek softly once. “Can’t be doing things like that here, doll. I’m on call.” 

“Then don’t make it so easy.” Your lips brushed his thumb, then you moved down to press your mouth to the line of his jaw, the stubble catching your lips, then lower to the warm of his throat.

“You callin’ me easy?” he said through a chuckle, letting his head tip back. You scraped your teeth over the cord of his neck and felt the whole of him go tight underneath you, his fingers flexing hard into the bare skin of your back. 

“Alright.” His voice had dropped to stone. “You’ve had your fun.. No more of that,” he said, though made no move to stop you.

You peppered a line of pecks down his throat down to where his collar had started, your lips dragging over the jut of his collarbone through the thin cotton. He swallowed. One of your hands slid up to the back of your neck, fingers pushing into the soft gray at his nape, scratching light, and the other flattened over his chest, over the steady-then-not rhythm, fisting slow in the fabric just to feel him breathe wrong because of you.

You sat back an inch to look at him. His head was still tipped back against the couch, his throat bared where you’d left it momentarily pink and glossy, his eyes half-lidded. His hands had gone heavy and possessive at your hips, giving up pretending he wanted them anywhere else, you anywhere else.

You dragged your thumb over his bottom lip, watched it give, the same way he did to you. 

“Can I ask you something?” you asked, quietly, your hips settling more firmly into his lap. 

“Mm.” His hands spread wide, settling you down harder against him. “My social security number is — ”

You laughed. 

“Two-two-six — ”

“Jack — ” You swatted at his chest, the seriousness dissolving into something giddier. “I’m being serious. Stop.” 

“Okay, okay.” The corners of his mouth lifted up, and his hands squeezed slightly at your hips. He pulled his head up off the couch to meet your eyes properly. “Shoot. Doubt I could stop you.” 

“Are you seeing anyone?”

He let the question sit, humming. His thumbs moved idly at your hips, head tilting against the couch like the question required any real thought. “There’s a few women,” he said, lowering his voice as he looked at you, like he was letting you in on a secret. “There’s a nice lady who brings me fruit baskets.”

Your hand, on the flat of his chest, slid up slow to his throat and he kept talking like he didn’t notice.

“ — there’s this nurse on days who keeps leaving me her number at the station — ”

You leaned in and closed your teeth slightly on his earlobe. He let out a short laugh, one that was dragged out of him, his head tipped to give more of it to you without permission. 

“Alright. Okay,” he said as your nose dragged the line of his jaw. “Stop doin’ that. I don’t wanna explain teeth marks to the whole floor.” 

Your hips set firmer into his lap. “Jack,” you warned. “I can’t do this if you’re seeing fifty other women.” 

He sobered a degree, his thumb going still at your waist, his eyes coming up to actually hold yours. The joke drained out of his face as he realised the edge of seriousness you tried to tamp down, and he momentarily short-circuited at how it was even possible for you to wonder. 

“Hey.” His hand came up off your hip, pushed the hair back from your face and stayed there, cradling. “Until five minutes ago, there were zero women. Forget fifty.” 

Your only response to that was a smile and your cheek leaning further against his palm. He let his thumb move once across his cheekbone, watching the way your cheek turned into his hand. Your eyes drifted half-shut. There was a speck of dried highlighter ink on the side of your finger where it curled against his throat. The strap of your top had slid off your shoulder again; he looked at all of you and stopped bothering to pretend, even to himself, that he was looking at anything other than the only thing in the room he wanted.

“What about you? You seein’ anyone?” His thumb stayed where it was, but his voice had gone quieter. “‘Cause I’ve seen people bring you in. And I never liked one of ‘em.”

You huffed a small laugh, your nose grazing his. “Jealous, Doctor?” 

“Yeah.” He watched the laugh stall on your face at how easy he gave it up. “If there is, he should be worried. I’d like to take you on a nice date to change that.” 

“Ohhhh,” you drawled through a laugh. “There’s no one, but I won’t say no to the date.”

“Then you’ve got yourself one, doll.” He kissed you on it — short, sure, his hand still cradling your face — sealing the thing as the corner of his mouth caught yours before he pulled back. He let his forehead rest against yours for a second and breathed you in. 

Then, with a short groan, he tipped his head back off of yours. 

“I gotta get back out there.” His thumb was still moving at your jaw, clearly working against the very thing he was saying. “My work ethic’s going wrong and my residents might actually report me.” 

Then, his hands found your waist and he lifted you off, setting you off his lap and onto the cushion beside him where the entire thing had started. You landed with a small affronted sound, your hand fisting in his collar a beat longer before he had to let it go. 

You flopped back into the cushion where he’d deposited you, one hand pressed flat to your chest, the picture of wounded. “I guess it’s true what they say about old men. They use you. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.” 

He stood up and scrubbed his palm down his face like he could wipe the last ten minutes off it before he had to walk out and be a doctor again. He could still feel the heat sitting at the back of his neck and even though he’d tried to scrub your gloss off, he was sure there was a remnant somewhere the worst possible person would notice. 

“Yup, got exactly what I wanted. Thank you, ma’am.” His hand came down to rest at the top of your head and gave it a slow, condescending pat, ruffling the wreck of your hair worse than it already was. “I’m a terrible man. You’re welcome to stay here while I go be one somewhere else.” 

He made himself step back and snagged his pen off the table, the badge, the small armor of the job clipping back into place piece-by-piece. The whole time his eyes kept catching on you, sprawled and rumpled where he’d set you down, looking up at him like the night had gone exactly where it was supposed to. He’d seen this room a thousand nights. He’d never once not wanted to leave it. 

“Mm. Gotta go home. S’almost three,” you mumbled. “And you get off at seven.” 

“I do.”

“So.” You pushed yourself off the cushion, slow, gathering your hair back off your face and pushing up your strap, putting yourself back together piece by piece the same way he was, the night closing in on both ends. “I’ll go and let you be a doctor. You’ve been very neglectful.” 

“Don’t I know it,” he muttered. He watched you reach for your textbook, your highlighter, the flashcards, and sweep it all back into your bag, feeling the small stupid pull of not wanting the room to empty out. 

He stepped in before you finished, catching your jaw, tilting your face up to kiss you once more. You went still under it, the bag forgotten halfway zipped, your hand coming up to rest light on his chest. He pulled back an inch to look at you.

“Text me when you get home,” he said, thumb dragging along your jaw. 

You chuckled, brows pulling in. “It’s a ten minute drive.”

His fingers clumsily struggled to unfasten himself from Vermax, desperate not to share his dearest friend’s tragic end.

His first breath scraped his throat raw; the next burned with smoke.

Thwip.

Heat burst through his shoulder, sudden and blinding.

Thwip. Thwip.

The sky glowed a murky orange, smothered by smog and fire. Or was it the water blurring his sight?

He was cold. His chest hurt. He felt like he was floating.

I think I'm dying.

—

A shadow passed over his fading vision.

A touch to his cheek.

—

Cold on his lips.

Men were sinking before you.

You had seen them before, from afar.

But this one was sinking.

Slower.

You could hear his heart beating sluggishly. Could smell his blood.

How could a man smell like fire even underwater?

You took him south.

Men needed warmth, yes?

Yes. And food. Fish would do.

Plenty of fish.

—

This man had strange spikes.

They bled red when you touched them.

That isn’t right, is it?

No. So you took them out.

This man’s blood tasted like ash.

Pain radiated through Jace as he sprawled across rough stone, the air thick with damp salt. A cough clawed up from his chest, pain blooming in his sternum and neck as he rolled, spitting seawater and blood. Time had slipped by—hours, maybe a whole night, lost since the chaos above. Then came the shaking, cold gnawing at his muscles as adrenaline faded.

He blinked. Grit stung the backs of his eyes, salt burning from the sea. Pain sharpened in his neck as he turned, forcing his breath to catch.

Too weak to rise, he curled on his side. Slowly, his vision cleared: rock walls bathed in the pool’s glow. Moonlight spilled through a small hole in the cave ceiling, trailing down with a gentle trickle of water. It might have been beautiful, if not for the pain that kept him tethered to the now.

His hand comes up to the sensitive skin just above his collarbone.

Something glittered in the water at the edge of his vision. The hairs on his neck bristled as it slipped past once more.

He waits a few seconds before shuffling forward—albeit awkwardly and incredibly painfully—to peer over the pool.

Nothing.

Maybe his battered mind was conjuring things in the haze of pain.

—

Jace isn’t sure exactly when he fell asleep, nor how he had moved to the back wall of the cave. It was peculiar, but he knew injuries brought on strange behaviour.

A sudden splash behind him made him jerk around, regret slicing through him as pain flared in every muscle.

Once the pain ebbed, he spotted a battered, half-dead fish on the stone, its fins trembling feebly.

Confusion is the first emotion Jace experiences in that moment. How does a creature in such a state have enough strength to fly itself ashore? Did it get those… strange injuries from doing that? How is—

There it was again. The same glimmer, only closer now.

He almost caught its shape, but it vanished, leaving only a fleeting shimmer behind.

Whatever it was that was bringing him food, Jace realised over the next few days. Which also meant it knew humans.

The thought made his stomach turn. Or, it was the raw fish.

—

Jace wakes to the sound of water trickling onto rock. His head is pounding. Body shivering.

His eyes flutter open for a mere second, exhaustion keeping him at the edge of his consciousness. Something, a soft, muted green colour, enters his view before he is gone again.