⭒DAMN⭒

There was no sound of displaced air, no shift in the wind. He simply occupied the space three inches from your nose, his massive frame cutting off the last bleeding gold of the sunset. His right hand snapped downward, his fingers curved into an institutional locking mechanism intended to clamp onto your collarbone. It wasn't an attack meant to break bone; it was a jurisdictional pin. He wanted you frozen, cataloged, and rendered inert before his new batch of students could realize the school’s security perimeter had just suffered a catastrophic internal error.

But you didn't freeze.

Your cursed energy didn't flash, spark, or explode outward in a theatrical display. It bled off your skin like a heavy, dark oil—thick, completely lightless, and cold enough to make the moisture in the air drop into instant condensation. You didn't waste a single millisecond trying to push against the passive barrier of his Limitless. You knew the math behind his infinity; you knew that fighting the distance between you was a statistical impossibility.

Instead, you targeted the precise structural space his hand was trying to occupy.

Using the raw weight of your presence, you forced the air molecules directly beneath his palm to densify, crystallizing the atmospheric wavelengths until they locked solid into a microscopic, diamond-hard dead zone.

Gojo’s fingers hit that invisible wall of your dark oil, stopping short by a single millimeter.

Before he could adjust his output or slip his infinity around the obstruction, your hand shot upward. Your fingers locked tightly around his bare wrist. The dark residue trailing off your skin hummed with a low, vicious vibration that transferred directly into his arm, bypassing the filtration of his technique by unbinding the very coordinates he was attempting to anchor himself to.

The force of the sudden, static impact didn't make a sound, but a web of clean, hair-thin cracks spiderwebbed through the stone path beneath your boots, the rock unweaving into fine white powder where your weight settled.

Gojo’s smirk dropped completely.

Even with the thick black blindfold obscuring his eyes, you could feel the absolute, rigid shock radiating through the bones of his arm. For the first time in his career as the Strongest Alive, someone had physically anchored him. Someone was holding him in place by twisting the fundamental reality beneath his fingers.

"Don't try to place me, Satoru," you said. Your voice was entirely level, flat, and pure ice. "I told Yaga I’d accept the assignment. I never said I’d let you touch me."

The narrow pocket of air between your palms began to boil. A heavy, distorted friction snapped violently against the transparent blue hum of his technique. He was too close; you could taste the dry ozone rolling off his uniform, could feel the terrifying, passive capability of his body pulsing right under his skin like an engine that never turned off.

"You've got to be kidding me," Gojo muttered.

The theatrical, sing-song cadence he used to mock the world was gone. His voice was quiet, dangerous, and laced with a toxic streak of buried anger that dated back a decade. "Years of radio silence. We find your paperwork filed under 'unrecoverable casualty' in the secondary archives. And now you show up on Yaga's leash flaring that energy?"

"It isn't Yaga's leash," a dry, measured voice cut in from the shadow of the doorway.

Kento Nanami stepped out onto the stone walkway. His posture was characteristically straight, his hand resting deliberately on the hilt of his wrapped, blunt blade. He didn't look at Gojo, and he didn't look at you. His covered gaze was fixed entirely on your dark fingers wrapped around Gojo's wrist—and the way the stone beneath your feet was continuing to slowly turn into dust.

"Release him," Nanami ordered calmly, though the muscles along his jaw were clamped tight enough to crack a tooth. "The calibration field is finished. You are under administrative protocol, not a personal interrogation. Satoru, step back."

Gojo didn't break the tension. His wrist remained locked in your grip, his muscles like iron beneath your palm. "Stay out of this, Nanami. This doesn't fall under the business hours of a Grade 1."

"It impacts the structural safety of this entire campus," Nanami shot back, his voice dropping an octave, becoming sharper and heavier. He took two deliberate steps forward, physically inserting his presence into the narrow, pressurized space between you and the Special Grade. He looked down at you, his eyes hidden behind those gold, rimless lenses, but his face was tight with a sharp, historical grief.

"We all remember what happens when her energy spikes without an external threshold," Nanami said, the words clipping cleanly through the cold evening air. "We all remember what happens when she loses her grip and things start unweaving. I will not have a repeat of that tragedy here. Not around these kids. Not again."

The mention of the past hit the courtyard like a physical drop in barometric pressure.

The ghost of a classmate you hadn't named in ten years—the memory of flesh and bone unweaving into fine gray ash under your own panicked teenage hands—made your dark residue flicker for a split second. The density of your hold wavered.

But you didn't flinch. You didn't pull away.

Instead, you tightened your fingers around Gojo's wrist for one final, bruising second, letting a microscopic spark of that same unbinding heat hum against his bare skin—just enough for the Strongest Alive to feel the raw, terrifying nature of the power that had dismantled a boy he used to call a friend.

Then, you let go. Your hand dropped smoothly back to your side.

"The monitors recorded minor fluctuations because I chose to let them, Nanami," you said, stepping back from both of them until the distance between you was clinical, professional, and cold.

You turned your back on the two strongest men at the school, your boots grinding the dust of the ruined stone path into the dirt as you walked toward the dormitory steps without asking for permission.

"Keep your protocols for the kids," you thrown over your shoulder, your dark energy dissolving into the twilight behind you. "If I were actually unstable, this mountain would already be a crater. Let’s not pretend either of you could stop a Special Grade like me if I decided to let it go."

Gojo didn't follow you. He stayed exactly where he was, his hand slowly dropping back into his high-collar pocket, his mouth drawn into a thin, grim line that his students had never seen before. Beside him, Nanami’s hand remained white-knuckled on the hilt of his blade, his eyes fixed on the micro-fractures left in the rock where you had stood.

The heavy silence of the courtyard lingered on your skin like frost long after you left Satoru and Nanami behind, the administrative tension of the campus following you like a shadow as you retreated into the old wood structures. It was only when the heavy cedar doors of the hidden dormitories clicked shut behind you that the cold air finally shifted, trading the sharp, ozone-heavy pressure of the Strongest Alive for the stagnant, hollow dark of the interior corridors.

The long, cedar-planked corridors of the hidden dormitories were dark, the shadows stretching thin and distorted under the pale moonlight filtering through the high, paper-screen windows. It felt less like a hallway and more like an old, hollow throat, swallowing you whole as you walked further away from the courtyard.

The air in this part of the campus was stagnant, smelling of old straw matting and the dry, paper-thin husks of wintering insects. Externally, your expression remained an impenetrable mask of stone. Internally, the name Nanami had dragged into the light—the historical stain they kept locked in the secondary archives—was clawing at the edges of your thoughts.

Special Grade.

In the modern bureau of jujutsu, that title meant you were a tactical independent variable—a baseline entity capable of overthrowing a nation if left unchecked. But ten years ago, before you vanished into the white noise of the provincial districts, it had just been a label they slapped onto a child whose biology was failing to contain its own output. They thought it was an unstable technique. They thought your emotional state was the variable that made the molecular bonds of physical objects dissolve whenever your energy spiked.

They didn't understand that the unweaving wasn't a failure of your control. It was the natural state of your cells trying to correct the artificial synthesis Kenjaku had performed on you before you were old enough to speak.

Your boots clicked against the floorboards in a steady, unhurried rhythm. You looked down at your hands as you walked, your skin completely clear in the gloom, yet you could still feel the phantom heat of that mission ten years ago—the way the world had felt like wet paper, tearing apart because you hadn't known how to hold the boundaries of your own energy.

"Hey! Wait up!"

The voice was entirely too loud for the suffocating atmosphere of the building.

You stopped, turning slowly as the pink-haired boy from the courtyard came jogging down the corridor toward you. He had completely ignored whatever orders Gojo or Nanami had given the students about returning to their quarters. He stopped a few feet away, rubbing the back of his neck, his amber eyes wide with a mix of raw curiosity and total awe.

"Sorry, didn't mean to sneak up on you," the boy said, giving you a genuine, goofy grin that looked entirely out of place in a school meant for executioners. "I just... man, I saw what you did out there with Gojo-sensei. I’ve never seen anyone actually grab his arm like that. The whole air went completely flat. Are you a new teacher? Or a Special Grade or something?"

You regarded him coolly. He was so intensely human. Fragile. Loud. Completely oblivious to the fact that he was currently housing a god of calamity inside his ribcage like a laboratory animal.

"I’m an anomaly, kid," you said, your tone flat and devoid of any welcoming warmth. "Go back to your room."

"Ah, don't worry about me, I'm tough!" The boy took a half-step closer, entirely unbothered by the warning. "But seriously, your energy felt really strange when you passed by us. It made my skin crawl, but not in a bad way—more like a shockwave right before lightning hits, or—"

The boy choked.

The transition happened in less than a microsecond, a sickening, violent hitch in reality.

His amber eyes instantly rolled into the back of his head, his body freezing mid-stride as his consciousness was forcibly snuffed out. The ambient moonlight filtering through the windows turned an oily, violent shade of crimson, the shadows on the walls twisting into jagged, predatory shapes.

Before the boy could hit the floorboards, his right hand flew up, completely independent of his own skeleton.

A jagged, wet slit tore open across the back of his palm, blood wells filling instantly as a mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth split into a horrific, wide grin.

Sukuna didn't speak. He didn't waste time on dialogue. He lunged.

Using the boy's arm like a whip, the King of Curses snapped his hand forward, intending to sink those teeth straight into your wrist—to bite through the skin, to draw blood, to taste the exact biological composition of the person who had altered the atmosphere of the courtyard. He wanted a taste of the anomaly to verify what his thousand-year-old instincts had felt from inside his cage.

You didn't blink, and you didn't take a step back.

Your dark, heavy energy erupted from your palm. You didn't try to dodge the strike; instead, you targeted the physical matter of the boy's arm, instantly seizing the muscles and bone, forcing them into absolute, rigid stasis an inch from your face. Before the mouth could snap shut around your flesh, you slammed your bare palm down over its jaw, pinning the teeth together with a sickening crunch of cartilage.

"Get back in," you hissed.

You flared your cursed energy, driving a sharp, lethal pulse of your power directly through the wound. You targeted the spiritual layer with surgical precision, avoiding the boy's physical tissue to ensure you didn't tear his arm apart, and forced that unbinding, suffocating weight straight into the innate domain of the King of Curses.

For a fraction of a second, the wooden corridor vanished entirely.

Inside Sukuna's mind, a massive shockwave of black, dense energy flooded his mountain of skulls. The crimson sky of his domain cracked like glass, and the raw pressure physically shoved his four-armed spiritual manifestation backward, slamming him hard against the base of his throne. The dense weight burned his throat, fragmenting his aura as he was forced to swallow a lungful of your lightless residue.

In the physical hallway, the boy gasped violently, his eyes snapping open as consciousness flooded back into his body. The mouth on his hand was forced shut, pinned beneath the heavy pressure of your fingers until it completely dissolved back into his skin, leaving nothing behind but a faint, dark bruise across his knuckles.

He stumbled back, clutching his wrist, his chest heaving as if he had just run a miles-long sprint in total darkness. He looked down at his hand, then up at you, completely unaware of what had just transpired in the deep of his own soul.

"What... what just happened?" the boy muttered, his voice trembling slightly. "My arm went completely numb. It felt like... like it wasn't there anymore."

You stood over him, the last remnants of your dark residue trailing off your fingertips like liquid smoke before vanishing back into your skin. Your heart was pounding against your ribs, but your face remained an impenetrable mask.

"Go back to your dorm," you said, your voice carrying a heavy, cold authority that left no room for teenage curiosity. "And tell your landlord that if he tries to bite me again, I’ll dissolve his throne into ash."

You turned and walked away into the dark, leaving the boy shivering alone in the corridor.

Deep inside his domain, sitting among the bones, Ryomen Sukuna wiped a drop of imaginary fluid from the corner of his mouth. The crimson sky above him was still trembling, the mountain of skulls vibrating from the aftershocks of your intrusion.

A slow, terrifying, and deeply depraved smile stretched across his face.

A human woman whose energy could invade his domain and disrupt the fundamental bonds of reality without her body turning to mush. His primitive instincts didn't just recognize your strength; they registered the absolute impossibility of your biology. A body that could actually synthesize pure, volatile cursed energy without burning out.

"Kenjaku..." Sukuna whispered into the dark of his domain, his voice trembling with a sudden, awakening obsession. "What a magnificent, taboo little thing you’ve left behind for me."

Midnight arrived without stars.

You sat on the edge of the tatami mat in your temporary quarters, staring into the dark. You hadn't changed out of your uniform, and you hadn't turned on the small copper lamp by the door. The air in the room felt thick, heavy with the lingering scent of old wood and the faint, persistent vibration of Master Tengen’s barriers humming beneath the floorboards.

To anyone else, the room was a quiet sanctuary. To you, it was a containment cell with better aesthetics.

The wooden latch on the window clicked.

The frame slid open without a sound, the cold mountain air rushing into the small space. Satoru Gojo materialized on your windowsill, one boot dangling inside your room, his tall frame completely cutting off the pale moonlight. He had pushed his black blindfold up just enough for one brilliant, glowing blue eye to lock onto you through the dark. The Six Eyes were pulsing, the iris spinning slightly as it scanned the microscopic layout of your body, reading the chemical and cursed fluctuations like an open book.

"You have a very strange scent on you tonight," Gojo said. His voice was entirely stripped of his usual playful theater. It was quiet, steady, and terrifyingly cold. "It smells like copper. Like old blood. Like him."

You didn't stand up, and you didn't reach for your energy. "Are you tracking my scent now, Satoru? I didn't know the Strongest doubled as a hound."

Gojo leaned forward, his white hair falling over his forehead, his blue eye narrowing with an intensity that felt like a physical weight pressing against your chest. With the Six Eyes, he wasn't just looking at your cursed energy; he was looking at the faint, ancient friction of a deliberate design woven directly into your molecular bonds. He could see the biological impossibility—the way your cells handled energy like a curse rather than a human.

"I’m not playing," Gojo whispered, leaning closer until he was just inches outside the boundary of your face. "Something happened in that corridor with the kid. Sukuna flared, and then your energy spiked into something that shouldn't exist in a human body."

He reached his hand out, his fingers stopping a fraction of an inch from your cheek, held back by his passive infinity.

"If he takes an interest in you," Gojo said, his voice dropping into a dark, lethal register, "if your body becomes something that threatens the natural order of this world... I have to kill you. You know that, right? The higher-ups would demand your execution before sunrise, and I wouldn't have a reason to stop them."

He stared at you, a raw flash of buried grief and anger flickering in his uncovered eye—a remnant of the boy who had lost Shoko, Geto, and his youth to the choices made by monsters. "Tell me you didn't come back just to make me do that. Look me in the eye and tell me you aren't a ticking bomb."

You leaned forward, deliberately pressing your face close to his hand, your heavy, dark cursed energy flaring to life around your skin. The black residue met his blue Limitless, creating a sharp, low hum of friction that vibrated through the floorboards of the room.

"You can try, Satoru," you said, looking straight into his brilliant blue eye. "But we both know that if a Special Grade and the Strongest Alive actually go all out, there won't be a Jujutsu High left for you to protect. I am not the girl who broke years ago. I am the exception to your rules."

You leaned back, the dark pressure swirling lazily around your shoulders in the moonlight.

"So either sit down and talk to me like an equal, or get out of my room."

Gojo stayed frozen on the windowsill for a long, agonizing second, his breath shallow, his eye locked onto yours. Slowly, the corner of his mouth twitched into a sharp, dangerous line.

"...You really are a piece of work," he murmured.

The click of the wooden latch sliding back into place was the only sound that followed his departure. Gojo didn't use the door; he vanished back into the midnight air the same way he had entered, leaving the window slightly ajar. A thin, freezing draft cut across the floorboards, carrying the scent of cedar and old moss from the mountain woods outside.

You didn't move from the tatami mat for a long time.

The administrative pager on the low tatami table buzzed at 4:30 AM, its harsh electronic hum cutting through the remaining cold tension left in your quarters after Satoru’s departure.

When you answered, it wasn't Satoru's mocking cadence or Nanami's mechanical tone that came through the small speaker. It was the heavy, gravelly resonance of Principal Masamichi Yaga.

"Your solo deployment to the Chiba prefecture has been put on hold for twenty-four hours," Yaga stated, his voice completely flat over the line. "The higher-ups reviewed the structural data from your intake calibration yesterday afternoon. They are deeply uncomfortable with a Special Grade's baseline density being unleashed in an unmonitored sector so soon after a ten-year absence. They want a final, definitive test to ensure your stability before you are cleared for independent field operations."

You leaned back against the wall, staring into the gray, pre-dawn shadows bleeding through the slightly ajar window. "A test. So they're sending me to a sandbox?"

"No," Yaga replied heavily. "They want to see how your technique behaves in close proximity to others. Satoru is taking the new first-years to an entry-level extermination in Roppongi this morning. You will accompany them as an additional observer. Consider it your final evaluation. If you pass today—if you can handle being around civilian structures and high-value students without your energy causing collateral unweaving—your clearance will be approved. You'll be on a train to your real mission by dawn tomorrow. Fail, and the higher-ups will reinstate your isolation protocol before sunset. Don't touch a curse unless Satoru gives the order. Show them you can handle a crowd without flattening the block."

The line clicked dead before you could answer.

By 8:00 AM, the morning rain over Tokyo didn't clear the heat; it just made the air thick, sticking your high-collared uniform to your skin. Yaga’s words from dawn still tasted like ash in your mouth. Babysitting. A Special Grade reduced to a shadow-watcher because the old men in the executive suites were terrified of what happens when you breathe too hard.

You didn't join the staff for breakfast, choosing instead to wait on the concrete steps overlooking the main training field. The heavy, dark oil of your cursed energy was completely retracted beneath your skin, but the grass near your boots still leaned away slightly, reacting to the passive, lightless pressure you couldn't fully turn off.

"Hey! There she is!"

A loud voice cut through the damp morning air before you could even turn your head. Jogging down the gravel path was the pink-haired boy from the corridor the night before, his bright red hoodie hood pulled up against the drizzle. He didn't look injured from the previous night's brief possession, but his amber eyes were wide with excitement.

Right behind him walked a boy with messy black hair, his hands jammed deep into his uniform pockets, his dark eyes fixed on you with a sharp, guarded intensity. Bringing up the rear was a girl aggressively twisting the strap of her leather tool belt, looking thoroughly annoyed by the weather.

"Sensei said we're doing a joint field exercise today because a 'heavy hitter' just rejoined the roster," the girl muttered, stopping at the base of the steps and sizing you up with a critical, uncompromising glare. "I thought he meant a Grade 1 who actually knows how to dress, not someone who looks like they just crawled out of an isolation ward."

"Hey, be nice!" the pink-haired boy hissed, giving you a frantic, apologetic wave. "She's the one from last night! The one who made the air go all flat!"

"I don't care about the air. I care about my hair," she snapped back, though her fingers moved instinctively closer to the nails lining her belt. She could feel it now—the same creeping, freezing sensation the boy had described. It was the atmospheric weight that always preceded a Special Grade.

"She’s not a Grade 1," the dark-haired boy spoke up, his voice quiet, steady, and entirely devoid of his classmates' casual chatter. He hadn't taken his eyes off the micro-fractures in the stone steps where your boots rested. "The administrative ledger listed her deployment clearance as an independent variable. That only applies to one tier."

Before the girl could process the implication, a massive, obnoxious hand clapped down onto the dark-haired boy’s shoulder.

"Correct as always!" Satoru Gojo materialized out of thin air, a bright blue shopping bag from a Ginza bakery dangling from his index finger. He was wearing his standard dark uniform and his blindfold was firmly in place, but the cheerful, sing-song cadence of his voice carried a sharp, underlying edge that was directed entirely at you.

"Since you've been playing ghost for the last ten years, you missed orientation," Gojo said, stepping past the teenagers and gesturing to them with a dramatic flourish of his hand. "Let's do a quick round of introductions so you know who you're babysitting today."

He pointed his thumb at the pink-haired boy first. "This loud one is Yuji Itadori. His current hobby is swallowing ancient fingers and trying not to die." Yuji gave you a goofy, half-apologetic grin.

Gojo shifted his hand to the dark-haired boy. "Megumi Fushiguro. A first-grade talent from the Zen'in bloodline, even if he hates admitting it. He plays with shadows." Megumi simply gave you a terse, respectful nod, his eyes remaining incredibly sharp.

"And finally," Gojo finished, gesturing to the girl, "Nobara Kugisaki. Our resident small-town critic. She uses a hammer to fix structural issues, mostly in people's faces." Nobara crossed her arms, huffing slightly but offering a defiant tilt of her chin.

Gojo stepped to the top of the stairs, his tall frame cutting off the gray morning light as he stopped right next to you, looking down through his blindfold.

"Today we’re taking the kids on a little field trip to the Roppongi district," Gojo announced, spinning the bakery bag around his wrist. "An abandoned apartment complex with a nasty infestation of localized Grade 2 curses. Standard protocol says I handle the oversight, but since our resident anomaly decided to accept an active roster slot... I figured we’d see if you still remember how to play well with others. Or if you’re just going to turn the whole neighborhood into dust before the kids can even draw their weapons."

You stood up slowly, your face an unreadable mask of stone as you looked past his blindfold.

"The kids won't be in any danger from me, Satoru," you said, your voice entirely level and pure ice. "You, on the other hand, should make sure your infinity is dialed in. I don't like people standing on my shadow."

The drive to Roppongi was packed into a standard administrative black minivan. Satoru sat in the front passenger seat, aggressively humming along to a pop song on the radio, while you were relegated to the back row, sandwiched between Nobara and Megumi. Yuji had claimed the middle seat, his head darting back and forth between the window and you like a tennis match.

The silence on your side of the car was thick, a dense physical buffer that kept the three teenagers pressed against their respective doors.

"So," Nobara finally broke the tension, her voice sharp as she leaned forward to look past Yuji. "You don't talk much, do you? Special Grade. I thought that meant you’d be carrying some massive cursed tool or covered in cool scars. You just look like you're going to a funeral."

"Nobara, don't be rude!" Yuji whispered loudly, his amber eyes darting to you with a mixture of awe and residual nerves from the previous night. "She's practicing her focus! Right?"

"She's keeping her baseline output from altering the vehicle's telemetry," Megumi muttered from your left, his hands steady on his lap. He didn't look at his classmates; his dark eyes were fixed entirely on the subtle way the leather of the seat beneath your thighs seemed to lose its sheen, the material dulling into a dry, brittle gray wherever your uniform brushed it. "Am I right? If you let your guard down, the engine blocks of the cars next to us on the highway would start unbinding."

You didn't look at any of them. Your gaze remained fixed on the neon signs of the entertainment district filtering through the rain-streaked glass. "Fushiguro is smart," you said, your voice low and level. "You two should listen to him. Curiosity is a quick way to lose a limb when you don't understand the physics of the person sitting next to you."

The car pulled to a sharp halt in an alleyway behind a massive, rotting concrete apartment complex. The building was an urban corpse—sixteen stories of stained stucco, shattered glass, and yellow police tape, completely out of place against the gleaming glass towers of modern Roppongi.

"We’re here!" Satoru announced, kicking his door open and stepping out into the drizzle with an exaggerated yawn.

The kids scrambled out behind him, grateful to escape the pressurized cabin of the minivan. You stepped out last, your boots clicking cleanly against the wet asphalt.

An auxiliary manager was already waiting by the entrance, his fingers locked in a ritual hand sign. "I will now erect the veil," he stated mechanically.

"Emerge from darkness, blacker than black. Purify that which is impure."

The sky above the complex unwove. A thick, viscous black fluid spilled across the morning light, cascading down an invisible dome until it locked out the sounds of the city. The drizzle became a heavy, suffocating weight, the ambient temperature inside the perimeter dropping instantly until your breath turned into pale white plumes.

Satoru turned around, his blindfold catching the faint, oily reflection of the veil. He pointed a long finger at Yuji and Nobara.

"Alright, kids! Itadori, Kugisaki, you two are up," Gojo said, his theatrical grin returning. "There’s a cluster of Grade 2 curses nesting on the upper floors, born from the misery of bankrupt residents. Go inside, clear the rooms, and don't break anything you can't afford to replace."

He then turned his blindfold toward you, his arms dropping into his pockets.

"Fushiguro and I will stay out here to keep our guest company," Gojo added, his voice dropping into that quiet, dangerous register that was meant only for your ears. "The old men are watching through the perimeter tags. Remember the rules of your evaluation: you don't cross the threshold unless a student is about to become a corpse. Let's see how much restraint that Special Grade title actually buys you."

The concrete lobby of the building swallowed the two first-years, their footsteps fading into the stairwell until only the dripping of rainwater from the rusted gutters remained.

Outside, the silence under the black dome was clinical. Satoru leaned lazily against the hood of the black minivan, his ankles crossed, seemingly completely absorbed in checking his fingernails. Megumi stood five paces away, his shadow stretching long and jagged across the wet asphalt under the unnatural light of the veil.

You stood perfectly still in the center of the alleyway. The air inside the perimeter was shifting, the negative emotions of the city thickening into a foul, greasy pressure.

"They're taking too long," Megumi muttered after ten minutes, his hand instinctively rising to form the hand sign for his Divine Dog. His fingers were trembling slightly—not from fear of the curses inside, but from the sheer, suffocating density radiating off your skin.

"Relax, Megumi-chan," Satoru drawled, not moving an inch. "Nobara is just giving Itadori a lecture on urban shopping logistics. Let them work."

Suddenly, the glass windows on the fifth floor didn't just shatter; they erupted outward in a violent spray of crystalline dust.

A choked, wet roar echoed from the stairwell, followed by the heavy, rhythmic thud of something massive dropping down the center of the elevator shaft. The localized Grade 2 curses hadn't stayed separated. The negative energy inside the abandoned complex had experienced a sudden, unnatural spike, forcing the individual entities to synthesize into a singular, bloated, multi-limbed mass that was currently tearing through the internal concrete walls.

"Ah," Satoru murmured, his blindfold tilting toward the upper floors. "A fusion anomaly. That’s a bit heavy for an entry-level exercise."

Inside the lobby, a scream cut through the dark—Nobara’s voice, sharp and laced with sudden, genuine panic as a massive, translucent gray hand smashed through the front glass doors, pinning her tool belt against the concrete pillars. Yuji’s cursed energy flared instantly, a chaotic, blue-and-gold spark as he tried to punch through the creature's thick, calloused hide, but his fists were sinking into the blubber without causing structural damage.

Megumi snapped his hands together. "Divine—"

"Stay back, Fushiguro," you ordered.

Your voice wasn't loud, but it carried an administrative weight that physically froze Megumi’s hands mid-sign.

"Hey," Satoru’s voice dropped into a dangerous, warning growl, his frame straightening up from the car hood. "The rules of the evaluation were clear. You don't cross the threshold unless—"

"I’m not crossing the threshold," you said flatly.

You didn't take a single step toward the building. Instead, you reached down and took a deep, controlled breath, loosening the internal seals on your baseline technique.

Kūkan Kairi - Spatial Unbuilding

The dark, lightless oil of your cursed energy didn't flash or explode; it bled out from beneath your boots in a heavy, liquid wave that raced across the wet asphalt. It ignored Satoru, it ignored Megumi, and it flowed straight under the cracked foundation of the apartment complex, scaling the concrete stairs like a subterranean tide.

You didn't target the curse. You targeted the precise coordinate of the air surrounding the creature's core.

With a sharp, microscopic twitch of your index finger, you tightened the density of your lightless residue.

Inside the lobby, the air around the massive, fused curse instantly turned into a complete vacuum. The atomic glue holding the creature's synthesized cells together was violently uncoupled by the friction of your energy. There was no explosion, no theatrical spray of blood, and no impact.

Megumi watched, his eyes widening in absolute horror, as the massive, multi-limbed curse simply unwove in mid-air.

Its limbs, its eyes, and its heavy, gray hide instantly disintegrated into a weightless, fine gray ash that fell to the floorboards like a silent blanket of indoor snow. Nobara dropped to her knees, gasping for breath, her clothes completely clean. Yuji stood blinking in the dust, his fists still raised, looking around the empty lobby in total confusion.

The entire building stayed perfectly intact. Not a single pane of remaining glass broke. The structural integrity of the civilian architecture hadn't suffered a single micro-fracture—but the curse had been entirely erased from existence in less than a second, dismantled at a molecular level from twenty paces away.

The dark oil slid smoothly back across the asphalt, retreating into your skin until the air returned to its standard, humid morning temperature. Your face remained an unreadable mask of cold stone.

Megumi let his hands drop to his sides, his breath shallow as he looked at you. "What... what kind of technique is that?"

Beside him, Satoru stood entirely rigid. His hands were out of his pockets, his lips drawn into a thin, grim line. With the Six Eyes, he had seen the math behind what you had just done. You hadn't used a crude explosion of power; you had performed surgery on the fundamental layout of the space inside that lobby, filtering out the curse's specific biological frequency while leaving the students and the building completely untouched.

It was an absolute, flawless display of perfect control.

You turned your back on the building, your boots clicking cleanly against the wet pavement as you walked toward the perimeter edge without waiting for the kids to come out.

"Tell the higher-ups my evaluation is finished," you thrown over your shoulder, your voice cutting through the cold drizzle. "Have my train ticket to Chiba ready by dawn tomorrow, Satoru. I’m done babysitting."

Gojo didn't answer. He stayed exactly where he was, his blindfold fixed on your retreating figure as the black dome of the veil began to dissolve above, letting the cold morning light bleed back over the fractured streets of Roppongi.

The anomaly had passed the test. And the old men in the executive suites no longer had an excuse to keep you in a cage.

Taglist:

Masamichi Yaga did not phrase it like a question, more like a confirmation that something unchanged had managed to persist longer than expected.

You didn’t respond right away.

There was a faint shift on the line, paper sounds, breath measured through habit rather than emotion.

“I’ll be direct,” Yaga said after a moment, voice steady, institutional, the kind of tone that didn’t belong to urgency but to decisions already finalized elsewhere, “there is an assignment that requires your involvement.”

A pause followed, not for hesitation, but for alignment, as if he was ensuring the words matched the structure of what he intended to communicate.

“Special grade level.”

The phrase sat in the air differently than it used to, not as classification, but as justification.

You exhaled once, quietly, and the silence that followed wasn’t empty—it felt occupied, like something old had just been reopened without permission.

Yaga continued before you spoke, “current teams cannot maintain stability within the affected zone. Coordination failure rate exceeds acceptable threshold. We’ve exhausted standard response structures.”

Another pause, shorter this time.

Then, more precisely, “you are being reactivated.”

The word didn’t land like nostalgia. It landed like procedure.

There was a subtle sound on his end, like he adjusted his grip on the receiver or turned slightly in his chair, but his voice remained unchanged.

“This is not a request,” he added, not harshly, but definitively, as if removing interpretation from the sentence was part of the protocol.

For a moment, neither of you spoke, and in that silence the distance between then and now felt artificially thin, like something had been pulled forward without properly accounting for everything that had happened in between.

Because you had not been contacted in years.

Not since missions stopped being assigned.

Not since coordination stopped being reliable around you.

Not since the incident that never settled into a single version.

Not since Haibara.

Yaga’s voice shifted slightly, lower, more precise.

“You will receive full briefing upon arrival. The situation is evolving faster than predicted models can stabilize.”

Another pause, this one heavier, as if he was choosing not to add unnecessary language to something already too defined.

Then—

“I expect you to understand why you are the only viable option.”

The line stayed open for a second longer than necessary, like neither side was willing to end the contact first, and in that space the present felt slightly misaligned, as if the act of being called back had already begun altering the structure of time around you.

And then, finally, the silence became complete again.

Yaga did not resume immediately, and for a moment the line held that same controlled silence, not hesitation but pacing, as if the information was being delivered in measured segments not for clarity but to prevent misinterpretation once spoken.

“It began three weeks ago,” he said at last, his voice even and unchanged. “Initial classification was grade one. Containment and exorcism were carried out under standard protocol, and the team reported a successful operation.”

You exhaled quietly before answering, your tone steady enough to turn the statement into a correction rather than a question. “And it wasn’t.”

Yaga did not react audibly. “Subsequent verification did not confirm the same outcome,” he continued. “A second team entered the area within the hour, and their report contradicts the first in all relevant aspects. According to them, no exorcism took place.”

Your fingers tightened slightly around the phone. “So which one is wrong?”

“Neither report can be confirmed as incorrect,” Yaga replied after a brief pause. “Both remain internally consistent.”

The silence that followed carried more weight than the explanation itself.

“A third team confirmed partial engagement with a curse that did not match either prior description,” he continued.

You let that settle before speaking again. “So it changes.”

“No,” he said without hesitation, and then added with quiet precision, “the outcome does.”

That distinction lingered longer than it should have.

“Since then, every deployment has produced inconsistent results,” Yaga went on. “Entry times do not align, exit points shift, and recorded sequences fail to match across observers. In some cases, personnel recall events that cannot be verified by any external record, while in others the record exists without corresponding memory.”

“In other words,” you said, your voice quieter now but more exact, “they’re not experiencing the same thing.”

“Yes.”

No elaboration followed, only confirmation.

“Coordination has degraded to the point of operational failure,” Yaga said. “Barrier stabilization has been attempted repeatedly, but parameters do not hold and the area resists consistent definition. Casualties have been limited so far, but only because engagement cannot be maintained long enough for escalation.”

You let out a short, humorless breath. “For now.”

He did not disagree.

“This is not adaptive behavior from a curse,” he continued. “It is a breakdown in shared continuity.”

You were quiet for a moment before asking, “You’re sure about that?”

There was a slight delay before he answered. “No. I am certain only that it does not behave like adaptation.”

It was the closest thing to uncertainty he would give.

“For internal purposes, the phenomenon has been classified as an Unmatched event.”

You almost laughed, but the reaction never fully surfaced. “You gave it a name.”

“It required one.”

Of course it did.

“Standard teams rely on synchronized perception, stable feedback, and consistent environmental response,” Yaga continued. “None of those conditions can be guaranteed within the affected zone.”

“And you think I can operate in that,” you said, not with disbelief but with clarity.

“Yes.”

The answer came without hesitation.

“And more importantly,” he added, his tone lowering slightly—not with emotion but with precision—“your presence will not further destabilize an already unstable system.”

That was the reason, stated without decoration.

You took a moment before responding. “So I’m compatible now.”

“You are functional within those conditions.”

Not better. Not safer. Functional.

You let that settle.

“You’re sending me in alone,” you said.

“Yes.”

There was no discussion in it.

“Primary objective is observation and confirmation. Do not prioritize exorcism unless the structure stabilizes sufficiently to support it.”

A brief pause followed.

“If it stabilizes.”

You shifted slightly, the space around you feeling faintly off in a way you recognized too well. “And if it doesn’t?”

“Then you withdraw.”

“And if I can’t?”

This time the pause stretched longer, not uncertain but calculated. “Then you proceed according to your own judgment.”

You closed your eyes briefly. “Right.”

There was a faint shift on his end before he continued, and when he did, the direction of the conversation changed just enough to matter.

“You will not proceed directly to the site.”

You stilled.

“You will report to Jujutsu High first.”

Your voice sharpened slightly, though it remained controlled. “For a briefing?”

“No.”

The answer came immediately.

“For calibration.”

The word settled heavily between you.

“The instability within the affected zone cannot be contained under standard parameters,” Yaga continued. “Before deployment, we need to confirm how your presence interacts with it under controlled conditions. A barrier environment has been prepared. Limited exposure. If the structure holds, you proceed. If it does not, deployment is reconsidered.”

You let out a quiet breath. “So you need to see if I make it worse.”

“We need to determine whether the system degrades further in your presence, or remains unchanged.”

That distinction was deliberate.

“And you couldn’t do that without calling me back,” you said.

“No.”

Another pause followed.

“Because it has begun to resemble something we have already recorded.”

Your grip tightened again. “And that is?”

There was a longer silence this time.

“A failure in shared continuity that we were unable to contain.”

The words did not need elaboration. They did not need a name.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

“This will not resolve itself without intervention,” Yaga said at last.

It was not a warning. It was a conclusion.

You let the silence stretch once more, long enough to understand that this was not really a choice in the way choices were usually presented.

Then you spoke, your voice steady, stripped of anything unnecessary.

“I’ll come back.”

A brief pause followed, and when Yaga answered, nothing in his tone changed, but the confirmation was there.

“Your arrival has been accounted for.”

The call had ended with no real sense of closure, only instruction, and the remainder of the journey to Jujutsu High felt less like travel and more like being carried forward by something already decided, as if the act of arrival had been accounted for long before you agreed to it.

The gates came into view without ceremony, emerging gradually as the road narrowed and the surrounding space shifted in a way that made the transition feel less geographical and more administrative, like crossing into a system rather than a place.

Security registered your presence without stopping you.

That in itself was the confirmation.

Inside, the structure of Jujutsu High remained familiar in form but not in feel, as though the building had preserved its layout while quietly adjusting everything that gave it continuity, leaving only the outline of recognition intact without the stability that normally accompanied it.

You moved through the corridors unescorted.

No one interrupted your path.

Some sorcerers looked up as you passed, their reactions brief and inconsistent, as if recognition itself was struggling to settle into certainty before they chose to ignore it entirely.

The inconsistency was not loud, but it was present enough to register.

At the end of the corridor, the door was already open.

Masamichi Yaga stood inside, as if your arrival had been factored into the room’s state rather than introduced into it, his posture unchanged, his attention already aligned with the expectation that you would be there.

“You're here.” he said.

You stepped fully inside, and the door closed behind you without emphasis, the sound marking the end of transition rather than the beginning of interaction.

Yaga did not offer you a seat, nor did the room suggest you needed one.

Instead, he gestured once toward the space beside him, where a second presence had already been waiting in quiet observation.

The man did not move immediately, and when he did, it was without urgency, as though the decision to speak had already been weighed before the moment arrived.

“You’re later than the schedule indicated,” he said.

His voice was calm, precise, and carried the kind of restraint that came from efficiency rather than discomfort.

Kento Nanami regarded you briefly, not as an unknown, but as a variable already introduced through prior briefing and now being confirmed in physical form.

“I wasn’t aware I was being scheduled in the first place,” you replied.

“I wasn’t assigned to your arrival,” Nanami said. “I was assigned to your verification.”

That distinction mattered more than it should have.

The moment the calibration field fully activated, the air in the room shifted in a way that was not immediately visible but undeniably present, as though the space had stopped behaving like an environment and had started behaving like a controlled assumption, held in place by rules that were not natural to it but enforced regardless.

Nanami did not acknowledge the activation itself. There was no change in his posture beyond a subtle adjustment of weight distribution, minimal and efficient, the kind of movement that suggested he had already accounted for every possible variation in what might happen next and was simply refining his position within that expectation.

His eyes stayed on you.

Not in a way that suggested anticipation or concern, but in a steady, uninterrupted focus that made it clear he was not looking at you as a person in this moment, but as an operational variable whose behavior needed to be observed under constraint.

“You’re standing too neutrally for someone entering a field like this,” he said after a moment, voice level, almost conversational in structure but stripped of any softness that would make it feel like commentary rather than assessment.

There was no judgment in the tone, but there was also nothing that softened the implication that neutrality itself was something he considered suspicious under these conditions.

You glanced at him briefly, not fully turning your attention away from the boundary forming at the edge of the room. “And what would you prefer I look like.”

“That depends on what you are trying to prove,” he replied immediately, without delay or consideration for how the question might have been intended. “If you are stable, there should be no visible adjustment to environmental pressure. If you are unstable, that should register before you enter the field fully. Anything between those two states will be noise.”

The way he said “noise” made it clear it wasn’t just undesirable, it was functionally irrelevant.

The barrier boundary continued to stabilize, the faint distortion at its edge becoming more defined as the system finished resolving its internal structure, locking the room into a divided state where one side remained unchanged and the other began operating under conditions that did not fully correspond to physical continuity.

Nanami shifted his gaze briefly toward the boundary, then back to you, as if verifying alignment between expected output and current configuration.

“You were present during an operation that produced inconsistent witness reports,” he said after a pause, his voice unchanged, but the pacing slightly more deliberate now, as if he was ensuring each part of the statement held its weight before continuing.

It wasn’t phrased as accusation, but it didn’t need to be, because the structure of the sentence already assumed its conclusion.

“And now you’ve been placed as the reference point for whether inconsistency originates from environment or from you.”

The word “placed” carried more weight than necessary, not because it was emphasized, but because it implied lack of agency in a way that was precise rather than emotional.

You didn’t respond immediately, not because there was uncertainty, but because any answer would require choosing between interpretations that all simplified something that refused to remain consistent under observation.

Nanami didn’t look away from you as the field settled, his posture unchanged but his attention narrowing in a way that made it clear the rest of the room had already been dismissed as irrelevant.

“So this is what they’re sending back in,” he said, his tone even, but stripped of any neutrality that would make it sound like observation rather than judgment.

You glanced at him briefly. “You already knew that.”

“I knew what was written,” he replied, just as calmly. “I don’t rely on reports that require correction afterward.”

The words landed cleanly.

Too cleanly.

A short silence followed, tight enough to feel intentional.

Nanami shifted slightly, not closer, but enough to make the distance between you feel deliberate rather than incidental.

“They also said the last operation failed to remain consistent across witnesses,” he continued, his voice still controlled, but quieter now, more precise. “That timing didn’t match. That outcomes didn’t align.”

A pause.

“You were part of that.”

Not accusation.

But not neutral either.

You didn’t answer.

He didn’t wait for one.

“They sent someone in with you to stabilize the situation,” Nanami added, almost as an afterthought, though the phrasing was too exact for that to be true. “Someone who wasn’t supposed to be affected by variance.”

Another pause, just long enough.

“That didn’t hold either.”

There it was.

Not a name.

Not needed.

The space between you tightened, not visibly, but in the way silence becomes something you have to actively stand inside.

Nanami’s gaze didn’t shift.

“So I’m not interested in what this is supposed to be,” he said. “I’m interested in whether it repeats.”

You met his eyes properly now, steady.

“And if it doesn’t,” you asked.

He didn’t hesitate.

“Then we confirm it was an exception.”

A beat.

“And if it does,” he added, quieter, sharper in a way that didn’t need volume, “then we stop pretending it was.”

The implication didn’t need to be stated.

You held his gaze for a second longer.

“Then watch,” you said.

Nanami didn’t move.

“I am,” he replied.

And this time, it didn’t sound like observation.

It sounded like judgment already in place, waiting for confirmation.

The calibration ended without collapse.

That alone altered the atmosphere of the room more than failure would have.

For several seconds after the barrier dissolved, nobody moved immediately, as though the absence of catastrophe itself required verification before anyone was willing to trust it. The geometric lines of cursed energy embedded into the walls faded slowly, dissolving layer by layer until the pressure in the air finally loosened enough to breathe through properly again, though something strained still lingered beneath it, thin as thread and impossible to separate from the silence left behind.

You stepped out of the field without visible exhaustion.

No instability.

No loss of control.

The monitors had recorded minor fluctuations, nothing more. Enough to justify caution, not enough to justify alarm.

And yet the room did not feel reassured.

Masamichi Yaga reviewed the final readings in silence, broad shoulders unmoving beneath the dim overhead light while data continued scrolling across the screens beside him in steady streams of information that now seemed almost disappointingly normal.

Across the room, Kento Nanami remained exactly where he had been for nearly the entire procedure, posture precise, expression unreadable, though something in the sharpness of his gaze had changed after the final fluctuation in the barrier.

Not softened.

Never that.

If anything, it had become more focused.

Like the calibration had not answered his suspicions.

Only refined them.

The quiet stretched long enough that it became impossible not to feel it pressing against the room’s edges.

Then Yaga finally spoke.

“The field remained operational,” he said evenly. “No structural deviation beyond accepted tolerance.”

His attention lifted toward you briefly.

“You’ve been cleared for active assignment.”

The words should have sounded official.

Instead, they sounded cautious.

Measured.

Like authorization given with full awareness that it could still become a mistake later.

You nodded once without answering.

There was nothing else to say.

Nanami still hadn’t spoken.

Not since the field dissolved.

But you could feel his attention on you even without looking directly at him, cold and unwavering in a way that made the silence between you feel less resolved than suspended.

As if he were still waiting.

For what, exactly, neither of you said aloud.

You turned first.

The sound of your footsteps against the wooden floor carried unnaturally clearly through the room as you crossed toward the exit, and for one brief second, just before your hand reached the door, you felt Nanami’s gaze sharpen almost imperceptibly against your back.

Not warning.

Not concern.

Recognition.

The door closed behind you with a muted sound that immediately swallowed the oppressive atmosphere of the calibration room whole.

The corridor outside felt cooler.

Larger somehow.

For the first time since returning to Jujutsu High, there was no direct observation fixed on you, no monitors, no barrier calculations, no restrained scrutiny hidden beneath professional procedure.

Only quiet.

You exhaled slowly as you walked.

Evening had begun settling over the campus while you were inside. Pale gold light stretched across the long wooden hallways in fractured bands through the windows, dust drifting lazily through them like suspended ash, and for a moment the school looked painfully familiar in a way you hadn’t prepared yourself for.

Nothing had changed enough.

That was the problem.

The same corridors.

The same architecture.

The same silence resting beneath the structure like something preserved instead of lived in.

Memory moved through the place too easily.

You hated that.

Your pace slowed slightly as you descended the outer steps leading toward the courtyard, the cool evening air brushing against your skin with a softness that felt strangely unreal after hours spent inside compressed barrier pressure.

And then—

voices.

Young.

Loud enough to echo.

The sound reached you before the words themselves did, cutting cleanly through the stillness of the campus with the careless energy only students seemed capable of carrying inside a place built around death.

“Seriously, what kind of teacher disappears in the middle of training?!”

“Oh, relax,” another voice answered lazily, amused in a way that instantly tightened something low in your chest. “You survived, didn’t you?”

Your steps stopped before you consciously realized they had.

Silence fell inside your head all at once.

Because years did not matter to a voice like that.

You would have recognized it anywhere.

The realization hit with uncomfortable immediacy, sharp enough to pull old instinct to the surface before thought could intervene, and suddenly the evening air no longer felt cold enough.

Ahead, near the lower stone path of the courtyard, four figures stood gathered loosely beneath the fading light.

Three students.

One teacher.

The first thing visible was white hair catching gold beneath the sunset.

Tall.

Black uniform.

Hands buried casually inside his pockets like the world had never once presented him with something capable of genuinely disrupting his balance.

Satoru Gojo was half turned toward the students, smiling at something the girl was aggressively complaining about while the dark-haired boy beside her looked exhausted enough to already regret participating in the conversation.

The pink-haired one laughed.

Gojo laughed too.

Then he looked up.

And the entire atmosphere shifted.

It happened instantly.

That was what made it breathtaking.

His smile vanished first—not fully, not enough for someone unfamiliar with him to immediately understand something was wrong, but enough that the expression stopped reaching his face altogether.

Then his body went still.

Completely still.

The students noticed the change almost immediately.

The girl frowned first. “…Sensei?”

No response.

Gojo was staring at you across the courtyard like he had seen something impossible emerge from a grave nobody expected to open again.

And for the first time since you had known him, truly known him, Satoru Gojo looked caught off guard.

His blindfold concealed his eyes, but somehow that only made the intensity of his attention worse, because without seeing them directly you could feel the full weight of recognition settle onto you with suffocating precision.

The air between you tightened violently.

Not cursed energy.

History.

Years collapsed inside a single second of eye contact.

Your throat felt strangely dry.

Nobody moved.

The evening wind passed softly through the courtyard, stirring fabric and loose strands of white hair while the silence stretched sharper and sharper between you both.

Then, very slowly, disbelief curled into something else at the corner of Gojo’s mouth.

Something quieter.

More dangerous.

“…You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said softly.

Not joking.

Not this time.

The students looked between you both in growing confusion.

The boy with pink hair opened his mouth slightly, clearly trying to understand why the strongest sorcerer alive suddenly looked like reality itself had failed to behave correctly.

And then his expression changed.

His hand flew to his face hard enough to stagger his balance.

“Oi—?” the girl started.

A pulse of cursed energy surged through the courtyard.

Ancient.

Monstrous.

Gone almost immediately, but not before every instinct in your body recognized it.

The atmosphere thickened violently for half a second.

The dark-haired boy tensed on reflex.

Gojo’s attention snapped sideways instantly.

But your body had already gone still.

Because beneath the fading remnants of that cursed energy, something had laughed.

Deep inside the boy’s shadow, unseen by everyone else present, four eyes opened slowly in the dark.

Because your words did not sound angry.

That is what makes them catastrophic.

If you had screamed, maybe Quinn could have defended himself against it. If you had cried, maybe he could have mistaken it for emotion sharpened by pain. Even if you had insulted him, blamed him, accused him of ruining your life, there would have been structure to fight against, something reactive, something temporary.

But this—

“I wouldn’t still be standing here waiting to see if you leave again.”

—doesn’t sound temporary.

It sounds learned.

And Quinn feels the difference instantly.

You see it happen in real time.

Not dramatically. Not visibly enough for strangers to notice. But you know him well enough to recognize the exact second the sentence stops being something he’s hearing and becomes something he’s understanding.

Because there is only one way someone learns to expect abandonment that specifically.

Practice.

His jaw tightens once before relaxing again, but the composure comes back unevenly now, rebuilt instead of natural, and for the first time since he stepped into your line of sight across the street, he looks like someone who no longer fully trusts his footing.

The silence stretches.

Long enough that Jack finally shifts where he stands a few feet away, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and dawning comprehension, his gaze moving again between you and Quinn and then lower, involuntarily returning to the unmistakable curve beneath your coat like his brain is still trying to reorganize the scene into something less serious than it clearly is.

But there is no less serious version of this anymore.

“Wait,” he says slowly, the word rougher than before, less controlled. “Can someone explain what's going on?”

Nobody answers him immediately.

The cold air presses against your skin, sharp against your cheeks, and you become suddenly aware of the weight of your own breathing, the way your body has instinctively curled inward around Noah without you consciously deciding to move at all.

Jack notices that too.

Luke notices everything.

He stands slightly behind his brother, quieter than everyone else, but his silence has transformed from uncertainty into observation now, every detail locking into place one after another with unnerving precision.

The tension between you and Quinn.

The protectiveness radiating off Maddie and Amelia.

The way Quinn looks at you like he forgot how to blink.

The fact that your hand hasn’t left your stomach once since this started.

And beneath all of it: history.

Complicated enough to leave visible damage.

Quinn finally answers.

“Yeah.”

Just one word.

Low.

Controlled.

But hearing him say it aloud changes something immediately.

Jack exhales like the air was knocked out of him without warning, one hand dragging over the back of his neck as he looks away briefly, eyes unfocused now, thoughts visibly colliding too quickly to sort through.

Luke’s reaction is quieter but somehow heavier.

His posture stills completely, settled.

Because now it’s real.

Not speculation. Not a misunderstanding.

A baby.

Quinn’s baby.

Your baby.

An entire future standing in the middle of the sidewalk wrapped inside years of unresolved damage neither of you managed to outrun.

And suddenly the fight itself matters less than the realization that there is now a child positioned directly inside the aftermath of it.

Maddie folds her arms tighter across her chest. “Okay,” she says flatly, looking between everyone like she’s already exhausted by the emotional disaster unfolding in front of her. “Absolutely not.”

Nobody looks at her.

Quinn’s eyes are still fixed on you with the same unbearable intensity that’s existed since he crossed the street, like the rest of the world has become background noise he physically cannot prioritize over you standing there carrying something that suddenly feels far more real than it did over the phone.

Because over the phone there was distance.

Distance made things abstract.

Distance allowed control.

This doesn’t.

Now he can see the subtle change in your posture, the exhaustion sitting faintly beneath your eyes, the instinctive way your body compensates when you shift your weight from one foot to the other. He notices how carefully you’re standing. How your coat stretches slightly differently now. How your hand remains curved protectively against Noah without conscious thought.

And Quinn realizes with sickening clarity that your pregnancy did not pause while he was gone.

It kept happening.

Every day.

Every appointment. Every symptom. Every fear. Every decision.

Life continued building itself whether he participated or not.

The realization lands harder than he expected.

Hard enough that he almost takes a step closer before stopping himself at the last second.

Your eyes catch the movement immediately.

So do Maddie and Amelia.

The shift is subtle but instantaneous, both of them adjusting position again without speaking, protective instinct overriding politeness completely now.

Quinn notices that too.

Of course he does.

And somehow that hurts worse.

Because they move around you naturally.

Comfortably.

Like they’ve already learned how to support you in ways he hasn’t.

Jack finally looks at Quinn directly. “How long?” he asks quietly.

Quinn’s attention drags away from you with visible effort. “What?”

“How long have you known?”

The question hangs sharply in the air.

Quinn hesitates for half a second too long.

And Jack catches it immediately.

“You’re kidding,” he says, disbelief beginning to edge into his voice now. “You’ve known for a while?”

“It’s complicated.”

Luke lets out a quiet breath beside him, something almost humorless. “That usually means yes.”

Quinn’s jaw tightens again.

You watch it happen silently.

Like pressure finally exposing cracks that were always there underneath.

“I was going to handle it,” Quinn says finally, the words measured carefully, controlled so tightly they almost sound detached.

Maddie actually laughs.

“Oh, that’s comforting.”

“Maddie,” you murmur softly.

“No,” she replies instantly, eyes sharp now. “No, actually. Because what exactly was the plan here? Fly across the country, stare dramatically at each other for a while, and then suddenly become emotionally functional?”

Jack winces slightly.

Luke looks down briefly like he’s actively trying not to react.

Quinn doesn’t even glance at Maddie this time. “I didn’t come here to fight.”

“No,” you say quietly. “You came here because you thought showing up fixed the part where you left.”

The sentence lands cleanly.

Quinn goes still again.

And Jack finally begins understanding the timeline underneath the tension.

Not the details, but enough.

Enough to realize this wasn’t one argument. One breakup. One misunderstanding.

This was abandonment stretched across months.

And you survived it without expecting rescue.

That realization changes the entire emotional gravity of the situation.

Jack looks at you differently after that.

Not with pity.

With sudden, uncomfortable respect.

Because you’re standing here composed while carrying something unimaginably vulnerable, and somehow Quinn is the one visibly losing control of himself.

Luke notices it too.

The steadiness in you.

You are not collapsing under this confrontation.

You already survived the part that almost destroyed you.

This, this is just the aftermath finally catching up.

The cold wind shifts through the street again, pushing strands of hair across your face, and for the first time since the confrontation began, exhaustion flickers across your expression—not emotional exhaustion.

Physical, subtle, but real.

Luke notices the way your shoulders tense slightly afterward, the instinctive repositioning of your stance.

So does Amelia immediately.

“You need to sit down soon,” she says quietly to you.

The intimacy of the statement changes the atmosphere again.

Because it’s automatic. Practiced. Routine care.

Which means this hasn’t just affected you emotionally.

Your friends have been building their lives around supporting you physically too.

Something sharp passes across Quinn’s face at that realization.

Something dangerously close to guilt.

Maddie sees it and exhales sharply through her nose before looking around at the middle of the sidewalk, at the strangers beginning to glance over from a distance now that the tension has become impossible to fully hide.

“This conversation is not happening in the street,” she says firmly.

Nobody argues.

Because suddenly the outside world feels unbearable.

Too exposed. Too public.

Too small to contain the weight pressing between all of you.

Maddie turns toward the apartment building first, already moving like she’s made the decision for everyone.

Amelia stays close to you immediately.

Luke glances once at Quinn.

Jack rubs a hand over his face slowly before following behind them.

And Quinn—

Quinn hesitates.

Because he understands instinctively that stepping into your apartment changes this permanently.

The street still held distance. Escape. Movement.

Inside becomes real.

Inside means seeing the life you built without him.

But then you start walking too, one hand still resting protectively over Noah, your movements slower now than they used to be, steadier, careful in ways that quietly reveal how much your body has changed while he was gone.

And Quinn follows anyway.

Because despite everything, he cannot seem to stop following you anymore.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅

The elevator ride is unbearable.

Not because anyone says anything.

Because nobody does.

The six of you stand suspended inside the small metallic space while the city continues moving outside unseen, the low mechanical hum of the elevator filling the silence in uneven waves, and every person inside seems hyperaware of everyone else’s breathing, posture, presence.

Maddie stands closest to the buttons, arms folded tightly across her chest like she’s physically restraining herself from speaking again. Amelia stays near you without making it obvious, her shoulder brushing yours every now and then with the quiet steadiness of someone reminding you wordlessly that you are not alone.

Across from you, Quinn looks wrecked in ways only someone who knows him well would recognize.

To anyone else, he still appears composed.

Still controlled.

But you know the difference between Quinn calm and Quinn containing.

Right now, he looks like containment stretched dangerously thin.

Jack keeps glancing between the two of you like he’s trying to solve a puzzle that keeps rearranging itself faster than he can understand it. Luke says nothing at all, but his silence has become observational now, sharp and unnervingly attentive, absorbing details nobody else seems to consciously register.

The elevator dings softly.

Doors opening.

Movement finally returns to the group.

The hallway feels narrower with all of you inside it, quieter too, every footstep amplified against the carpeted floor as Maddie unlocks the apartment door and pushes it open without ceremony.

Everyone pauses for half a second before entering.

Because somehow this feels more invasive than the confrontation outside.

This is your space.

Your life.

And Quinn realizes immediately, stepping over the threshold, that he has absolutely no idea what your life looks like anymore.

The apartment is warm compared to outside, soft light spilling across familiar furniture and half-finished domestic details that suddenly feel intimate under the weight of observation. A blanket draped over the arm of the couch. A half-empty glass of water beside a stack of books. One of Amelia’s hoodies tossed carelessly over a chair.

Evidence that life continued here every single day without him.

The door closes behind everyone with a quiet click that sounds strangely final.

Nobody seems to know where to stand.

Jack lingers awkwardly near the kitchen island while Luke remains a few steps behind him, both suddenly looking too large for the apartment somehow, their presence disrupting the carefully balanced quiet that normally fills the space.

Quinn’s eyes move slowly around the room.

Searching.

You shrug off your coat carefully, slower than you used to move before pregnancy shifted the mechanics of your body, and the second the fabric falls away fully, the reality of Noah becomes impossible to ignore anymore.

Jack visibly looks away for a second, out of recalibration.

Because until now, some part of his brain was still trying to soften the situation into something smaller than it actually was.

But there is nothing small about seeing your brother’s ex-girlfriend visibly pregnant in an apartment filled with traces of the life she built while he was gone.

Maddie heads straight for the kitchen with the restless energy of someone who needs movement to avoid exploding emotionally. “Anybody want water?” she asks flatly.

Nobody answers immediately.

“Cool,” she mutters. “Excellent communication skills from everyone involved.”

Amelia quietly guides you toward the couch, her hand brushing lightly against your arm. “Sit down before your back starts hurting again.”

Quinn notices that instantly.

Again, it’s the casualness that destroys him.

The familiarity.

The fact that your discomfort is already integrated into the routines of everyone else here.

He should’ve been part of that.

The realization lands like something physical.

You lower yourself carefully onto the couch, adjusting automatically until the pressure against your lower back eases slightly, and Quinn watches every movement with a focus so intense it borders on painful.

Not because you look weak.

Because you look practiced.

Like you’ve learned how to carry this alone.

Jack slowly walks further into the apartment, gaze catching on details one after another now that he’s finally looking properly.

A bottle of prenatal vitamins near the sink.

A folded baby blanket draped carefully over the armchair.

Medical paperwork stacked beside your laptop.

Tiny things.

Ordinary things.

But together they create something impossible to ignore: this is real.

Luke notices the ultrasound photo half tucked beneath a notebook near the counter.

He doesn’t mention it.

Doesn’t need to.

The room already feels heavy enough.

Quinn still hasn’t sat down.

He remains standing near the doorway like his body hasn’t fully adjusted to being here yet, like some part of him still expects this to become temporary if he waits long enough.

Then his gaze catches on something small, almost invisible.

A white note stuck casually to the fridge beneath a magnet.

Pick up Noah’s prescription vitamins.

The world narrows instantly.

Noah.

The name hits differently seeing it physically written.

Not theoretical anymore. Not hypothetical. Not “the baby.”

Noah.

A person. A son. Already woven into daily life deeply enough to exist on grocery reminders and handwritten notes.

Quinn stops breathing for half a second.

You notice.

Of course you notice.

His eyes stay fixed on the note longer than they should, and something inside your chest tightens painfully because you suddenly remember the first time you said Noah’s name aloud after choosing it, how terrifyingly real it felt.

Now Quinn is having that moment too.

Just months later than you did.

Jack follows Quinn’s gaze eventually.

And understands immediately.

“Oh,” he says quietly.

Somehow the softest reactions hurt the most.

Maddie notices the direction of everyone’s attention and immediately looks annoyed on your behalf. “Can we not stare at the baby name like it’s a hostage negotiation?”

Jack blinks hard, dragging his focus away instantly. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” you say quietly.

But your voice sounds tired now.

The emotional adrenaline from outside is beginning to wear off, leaving behind something heavier, slower, harder to hold upright.

Quinn finally speaks again.

“You named him.”

The sentence comes out rougher than he intended.

You look up at him evenly. “Yes.”

Silence again.

Because what else is there to say?

Of course you named him.

Pregnancy kept happening whether Quinn was emotionally prepared or not.

Life demanded decisions anyway.

Luke watches Quinn carefully now, studying the subtle fracture lines appearing beneath his composure one by one.

The problem is Quinn always believed preparation meant control.

But there is no control here.

No version of this where he can rewind the months he missed or insert himself retroactively into moments that already happened without him.

You already became Noah’s mother.

Without Quinn there to witness it.

That truth is sitting visibly in every corner of the apartment.

Maddie hands you a glass of water without asking if you want one first.

You take it with a quiet thank you, and Quinn’s jaw flexes again watching the exchange.

Again that terrible realization: someone else learned your needs in his absence.

Jack finally sinks onto one of the kitchen stools, rubbing both hands over his face slowly. “Jesus Christ.”

Nobody responds.

Because honestly, what response exists for this?

Amelia leans against the wall near the couch, watching Quinn with open distrust now. “So,” she says evenly, “what exactly was the plan?”

Quinn looks at her briefly. “I didn’t come here with a plan.”

“That’s worse,” Maddie says immediately from the kitchen.

“No,” Quinn replies, tension sharpening slightly, “what’s worse is everybody acting like I don’t care.”

You laugh softly then.

And somehow that sound affects him more than anger would've.

“You don’t get credit for caring once it becomes real to you,” you say quietly. “It was already real to me the entire time.”

The sentence cuts through the room cleanly.

Jack closes his eyes briefly.

Luke looks down at the floor.

Because that— that is the center of all of this.

Not whether Quinn cares now.

Whether he cared when it cost something.

Quinn looks like he wants to answer immediately, but nothing comes out.

Because the truth is complicated enough that any response sounds insufficient before he even says it.

And the worst part is, he knows that now too.

The apartment falls quiet again, but it’s no longer the same silence from outside.

This one is heavier.

Domestic.

Intimate.

The kind of silence built from realizing there are entire chapters of someone’s life you can never get back once you miss them.

Jack stands abruptly after a minute, unable to sit still anymore. “Luke.”

Luke looks over.

“Kitchen.”

It isn’t really a request.

Luke nods once and follows him without argument, both disappearing around the corner into the small kitchen area while Maddie pretends not to obviously eavesdrop.

Quinn’s eyes remain on you even after they leave.

And for the first time since he arrived in Vancouver he looks afraid.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅

The apartment settles into an uneasy division after Jack and Luke disappear into the kitchen.

Maddie stays near the counter pretending to reorganize things that don’t need reorganizing, Amelia quietly scrolling through her phone beside the window while keeping half her attention fixed on you, both of them giving space without truly leaving.

And Quinn—

Quinn remains standing for another few seconds like he’s forgotten how to exist naturally inside this apartment, like his body hasn’t caught up to the reality that he’s here, in the middle of a life that continued building itself while he was somewhere else trying not to think too hard about what distance was costing him.

Then finally, slowly, he sits down in the chair across from you.

Not beside you.

Across.

Like even now there’s still something careful in him, something aware that closeness is no longer his right.

The room is quiet enough that you can hear the faint hum of traffic outside the windows.

Quinn leans forward slightly, forearms resting against his knees, hands clasped together tightly enough that the tension shows in his knuckles.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks.

Because the problem is no longer the fight.

The problem is everything that came after it.

And somehow that feels infinitely harder to explain.

Quinn breaks first.

“What happened?”

The question comes out low.

Raw enough that it strips away the last layer of composure he walked in with.

You look at him for a second without answering immediately, studying the exhaustion sitting beneath his eyes, the tension he’s still trying and failing to fully contain.

“What do you mean?”

His jaw tightens faintly. “After.”

One word.

But you understand it instantly.

After the call. After the silence. After he left. After everything shattered and kept moving anyway.

You lean back carefully against the couch cushions, shifting slightly when pressure pulls across your lower back again, and Quinn notices immediately, eyes flickering downward instinctively before forcing themselves back to your face.

The movement is so automatic it almost hurts.

You exhale slowly.

“What happened,” you repeat quietly, “is that I was pregnant.”

The sentence lands simply, brutally.

Because there’s no drama inside it, just fact.

Quinn’s throat moves slightly when he swallows.

You continue before he can respond.

“At first I kept thinking you’d call.”

Your gaze drifts briefly toward the windows, toward the gray Vancouver skyline beyond the glass.

“Then I thought maybe I should call you.”

A pause.

“Then I stopped knowing what I was supposed to do.”

Quinn lowers his eyes for a second.

You notice immediately that he looks worse when he’s quiet.

Less protected somehow.

“I found out officially two days after our fight,” you say.

His head lifts immediately.

“You already suspected before that.”

“I knew enough to take a test.”

Silence again.

You rub your thumb absently across the side of the glass still resting in your hands, your voice remaining level despite the pressure tightening slowly inside your chest as the memories unfold again.

“I remember sitting on the bathroom floor for almost an hour afterward because I didn’t know who I was supposed to tell first.”

Quinn closes his eyes briefly.

Not dramatically.

Just once.

Like the image physically hit him.

“And eventually,” you continue softly, “I realized the answer was nobody.”

Something sharp flickers across his face.

Guilt. Regret. Self-hatred.

Maybe all three.

You don’t stop.

Because now that it’s begun, the truth keeps moving on its own.

“I went to the first appointment alone.”

His breathing changes slightly.

“They showed me the heartbeat.” Your voice catches faintly there before stabilizing again. “And I remember thinking it was unfair that you didn’t hear it too.”

Quinn looks down immediately, forearms tightening against his knees.

The silence from the kitchen deepens behind you, suspiciously still now.

They can hear this.

Everyone can.

But nobody interrupts.

“I kept trying to decide whether I hated you,” you admit quietly. “And the problem was I didn’t. Not really.”

Quinn drags a hand over his mouth slowly.

“That would've been easier,” you say.

He nods once before he can stop himself.

Like he knows.

Like some part of him wishes you had hated him too because hatred would’ve simplified things into something cleaner than this unbearable emotional middle ground you both got trapped inside instead.

You shift again slightly against the couch, discomfort tightening across your spine.

Immediately Quinn notices.

Immediately Amelia notices too.

“You need another pillow?” Amelia asks softly from across the room.

You shake your head gently. “I’m okay.”

But Quinn hears the practiced nature of the interaction instantly.

Another tiny piece of evidence.

Another reminder that other people stepped naturally into spaces he left empty.

The realization is slowly dismantling him from the inside out.

“I learned how to do things without expecting you there,” you say finally.

The sentence settles heavily into the room.

Quinn looks up sharply.

And there it is.

The real wound.

Adaptation.

You adapted to surviving without him.

“That’s not—” he starts quietly before stopping himself halfway through.

Because what exactly can he argue against?

You look exhausted suddenly.

Not emotionally, deeply.

The kind of exhaustion that sits in the body after carrying too much for too long.

“I had to think about everything differently,” you continue softly. “Food. Sleep. Work. Doctors. Insurance. Whether I could still afford this apartment. Whether I could do this alone if I had to.”

Quinn’s expression changes instantly at the last sentence.

“If you had to?”

You meet his eyes steadily.

“Yes.”

The word lands like concrete.

Because you mean it completely.

Quinn leans back slightly like the force of it physically pushed against him.

You watch the realization spread slowly across his face: while he was spiraling privately, trying to regain control of his own emotions, you were making contingency plans for single motherhood.

Quinn’s eyes remain fixed on the curve beneath your sweater like he still can’t fully comprehend how life kept moving this far without him, how something that once existed only as fear and possibility has become visible enough to alter the way you sit, the way you breathe, the way every person in this apartment unconsciously moves around you now.

And suddenly, all at once, the reality of time hits him.

Not abstract time.

Not months on a calendar.

Real time.

Doctor appointments. Sleepless nights. Morning sickness. Fear. Planning. Adjustment.

All of it happened while he was somewhere else trying to convince himself distance was temporary.

You shift slightly against the couch again, one hand pressing briefly against the side of your stomach before settling back into your lap, more discomfort than pain, but Quinn notices instantly anyway.

His brow tightens. “Are you okay?”

The concern in his voice comes too fast, too instinctively.

And instead of softening you, it irritates you immediately.

Your eyes lift sharply toward him. “You don’t get to act shocked that pregnancy is uncomfortable.”

The sentence lands hard.

Quinn stills.

Not because of the words themselves, but because of what’s underneath them.

You’re angry.

Still angry.

Deeply, structurally angry in a way that hasn’t faded just because he showed up looking wrecked and remorseful.

“I know,” he says quietly.

“No, I don’t think you do.” Your voice remains calm, but the restraint inside it makes it sharper somehow. “Because if you did, you would understand that this didn’t pause while you were figuring yourself out.”

Maddie looks down immediately like she physically refuses to interrupt now.

Even Amelia stays silent.

Quinn absorbs the hit without defending himself this time, jaw tightening faintly as he looks away for a second, staring at the floor like it might offer him something steadier than the reality sitting in front of him.

But there is nothing steady here anymore.

“You think coming back means I suddenly forget what this was like?” you continue, exhaustion threading more visibly through your voice now. “Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to realize your body is changing every day and not know if the person who helped create this is even going to stay long enough to see it?”

Quinn looks back up immediately.

“I’m here now.”

The second the words leave his mouth, he regrets them.

You laugh softly again, but there’s no humor in it whatsoever.

“That’s exactly the problem,” you say.

The apartment goes painfully quiet.

Because everybody understands what you mean.

Being here now does not erase not being there before.

And Quinn finally looks like he understands that too.

You lean back carefully into the couch cushions, fatigue beginning to settle more visibly into your body now that the adrenaline from outside has worn off, one hand moving absently across the underside of your stomach as if grounding yourself through muscle memory more than affection.

Quinn watches the motion like it physically hurts him.

Because it’s intimate in a way he no longer has access to.

Not romantic intimacy.

Maternal.

Protective.

A version of you that developed without him witnessing it.

“I picked his name while sitting in a parking garage after an appointment,” you say quietly after a long silence. “Because I couldn’t stop thinking about how unfair it felt that I was making all these decisions alone.”

Quinn’s shoulders tense hard enough that Jack notices it immediately from the kitchen doorway.

Nobody interrupts.

Nobody moves.

The apartment feels suspended around your words now.

You look at Quinn steadily.

“You don’t get to show up halfway through this and act like the hardest part was deciding to come back.”

His gaze drops instantly.

Because he knows you’re right.

The horrifying thing is he didn’t fully understand how right until now.

Until seeing the apartment. The vitamins. The routines. The exhaustion in your posture. The practiced way your friends move around you. The reality of Noah existing already inside a life Quinn missed piece by piece.

And suddenly he understands the real consequence of leaving:

you learned how to survive without needing him.

That realization terrifies him more than fatherhood itself.

Quinn drags a hand slowly across his face before looking back at you again, expression stripped down now to something painfully honest.

“I didn’t know how to handle it.”

Your eyes sharpen immediately.

“And I did?”

The question cuts cleanly through him.

Because no of course you didn’t.

That’s the point.

You were terrified too.

The difference is nobody gave you the option of disappearing until you felt emotionally ready.

And Quinn finally begins understanding the imbalance of that reality in full.

The weight of it settles visibly into him, pressing his posture lower, quieter, less certain.

For the first time in years, Quinn looks like someone who genuinely does not know how to fix the situation standing in front of him.

And maybe worse like someone realizing it might not be fixable at all.

The silence after your last sentence feels dense enough to press against skin.

Nobody moves immediately.

Not because there’s nothing to say, but because there’s suddenly too much of it, too many truths sitting exposed in the middle of the apartment without anywhere left to hide them. The soft hum of the refrigerator fills the kitchen in uneven waves, absurdly ordinary against the emotional devastation hanging in the room, and for a moment the contrast makes everything feel unreal.

Quinn stays where he is in front of you, elbows resting against his knees now, hands clasped tightly together, staring at the floor like he’s trying to physically reconstruct the timeline in his head.

Every missed moment.

Every silence.

Every day you carried this without him.

The problem is no longer that he left.

The problem is that life kept moving while he did.

Jack watches his brother carefully from the kitchen doorway, unease settling heavier into his chest with every passing second, because he has known Quinn his entire life and he has never seen him look like this before.

Not angry.

Not defensive.

Lost.

Luke notices it too.

But unlike Jack, Luke’s attention keeps drifting back toward you.

Toward the exhaustion beginning to show more visibly in your posture now that the adrenaline has fully faded, the subtle way you shift every few minutes trying to relieve pressure from your back, the effort it’s taking to remain emotionally upright while Quinn unravels in front of you.

And suddenly Luke understands something important:

you have already been carrying both sides of this situation for months.

Emotionally. Physically. Practically.

Meanwhile Quinn is only now arriving at the emotional starting line.

The imbalance of that realization settles heavily over the entire room.

Maddie finally breaks first.

“Okay,” she says abruptly, pushing herself off the kitchen counter with crossed arms and visibly thinning patience. “I’m gonna say something that nobody here is saying because apparently we’re all committed to emotional suffering tonight.”

“Maddie,” Amelia warns quietly.

“No, because this is insane.” Maddie gestures vaguely between you and Quinn. “He shows up after months, looks emotionally constipated for thirty minutes, and suddenly everybody’s acting like we should clap because he developed object permanence.”

Jack blinks hard.

Luke coughs suddenly into his fist to hide what might almost be a laugh.

Quinn drags a tired hand over his face. “Can you not?”

“No,” Maddie replies immediately. “Actually, I can’t.”

You close your eyes briefly.

Not because she’s wrong.

Because you’re exhausted.

Amelia notices instantly.

“You need to sit properly,” she says softly, already grabbing another pillow from the armchair before you can protest.

Quinn watches her slide it carefully behind your lower back with practiced familiarity and something painful flickers across his face again.

Jack catches it this time.

The jealousy.

Watching other people become essential to your life in spaces he assumed would still belong to him.

The realization clearly unsettles him.

Maddie notices too, because of course she does.

Her expression sharpens immediately. “Don’t.”

Quinn looks up tiredly. “Don’t what?”

“Look at us like we stole something from you.”

The sentence lands sharply.

“We were here because she needed someone to be.”

The room goes silent again.

Quinn doesn’t answer.

Because he can’t.

Jack exhales slowly, finally stepping fully out of the kitchen. “Okay, I think maybe everybody needs to breathe for like five seconds.”

“No offense,” Maddie says flatly, “but you arrived twelve minutes ago.”

Jack points once in acknowledgment. “Honestly? Fair.”

That almost breaks the tension.

Almost.

But then Luke speaks for the first time in several minutes, voice quieter than everyone else’s but somehow cutting through the room more effectively because of it.

“What exactly happens now?”

The question settles heavily.

Because nobody actually knows.

Not you. Not Quinn. Not even the baby growing steadily in the center of all this chaos seems to come with instructions.

Your eyes drift downward briefly, exhaustion pressing harder against you now in slow waves.

The truth is you stopped planning past survival a long time ago.

You focused on manageable things because thinking too far ahead felt dangerous.

Quinn notices the change in your expression immediately.

“What?”

You shake your head once. “Nothing.”

“That wasn’t nothing.”

The frustration that flashes through you is immediate now, exhaustion stripping away some of your patience.

“You can’t disappear for months and then suddenly interrogate every expression on my face like you earned access to it.”

The words hit hard enough that Jack physically winces.

Quinn goes still.

Again.

The worst(best) part is he keeps deserving it.

That’s what’s slowly dismantling him.

Not that you’re angry.

That you have reasons.

Quinn leans back slowly in his chair, both hands dragging through his hair now, composure visibly fraying around the edges in ways he can no longer fully hide.

“I know I fucked this up.”

The sentence drops heavily into the apartment.

Nobody speaks immediately because it’s the first fully unguarded thing he’s said since arriving.

Maddie’s expression softens slightly despite herself.

You look at him for a long moment before answering quietly, “I don’t actually think you wanted to hurt me.”

Quinn’s eyes lift instantly.

“And somehow,” you continue softly, “that almost makes it worse.”

Jack looks down immediately.

Luke exhales quietly through his nose.

Because they understand exactly what you mean.

Intent matters.

But consequences matter too.

Quinn’s throat tightens visibly. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” you say carefully, exhaustion making your honesty feel heavier now, “if you hurt me on purpose, then I could hate you cleanly. I could make you the villain and move on with my life.”

A pause.

“But you loved me once, in your own strange way.”

The sentence barely rises above a whisper.

“And then you left.”

Nobody in the apartment breathes normally after that.

Quinn looks destroyed.

Because there it is.

The center of the wound stripped completely bare: you never doubted he loved you.

You doubted whether love made him stay.

And that distinction is catastrophic.

Jack slowly sits down at the edge of the armchair like his legs stopped trusting themselves properly.

Luke remains standing near the wall, arms crossed tightly now, gaze distant and thoughtful in a way that suggests he’s reevaluating his brother entirely in real time.

Because this situation no longer resembles a messy breakup.

This is bigger.

A child changes the scale of emotional damage.

The apartment falls quiet again, but now the silence feels exhausted rather than explosive.

Like everybody is emotionally bruised from carrying too much truth at once.

Then suddenly you inhale sharply.

Not dramatically.

But enough that Amelia’s attention snaps toward you instantly.

“What?”

You press a hand briefly against your side, face tightening faintly.

“Nothing,” you murmur automatically.

Quinn straightens immediately. “What happened?”

“I said nothing happened.”

“You literally flinched.”

“I’m pregnant, Quinn. Sometimes things hurt.”

The concern on his face intensifies instead of easing.

“Should we call somebody?”

That almost makes Maddie lose her mind.

“Oh my God,” she mutters, dragging both hands down her face. “He’s acting like WebMD with emotional trauma.”

You actually laugh once.

Just one short, exhausted sound.

But it changes the atmosphere instantly.

Because it’s the first genuine reaction anyone’s gotten from you in the last twenty minutes.

Quinn notices immediately.

His expression shifts almost involuntarily at the sound.

Not happiness exactly.

Relief.

You notice that too.

And your face hardens again immediately afterward.

Because that’s the problem with Quinn:

one second around him still feels familiar enough to breathe in, and the next you remember exactly how devastating that familiarity became.

The emotional whiplash is exhausting.

You suddenly want everyone gone.

A moment where your body isn’t carrying the emotional weight of five different people at once.

Amelia notices before you say anything.

“You’re tired,” she says softly.

You shake your head automatically.

“Yes, you are,” Maddie replies immediately.

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve said ‘I’m fine’ like twelve times tonight,” Maddie says. “At this point statistically it’s impossible.”

Jack stands slowly, immediately understanding the shift in energy. “We should probably—”

“No,” Quinn says suddenly.

Everyone looks at him.

He looks at you.

Just honest in a way he hasn’t managed until now.

“Please don’t ask me to leave yet.”

The apartment stills again instantly.

Because there’s something devastating about the way he says it.

Like he already knows he deserves it. Like he already expects it.

And maybe worse like he’s afraid you actually will.

The apartment settles into silence again after Quinn’s quiet please don’t ask me to leave yet, but this time the silence feels different, heavier somehow, less explosive and more exhausted, like everyone in the room has reached the edge of emotional capacity and is now operating purely on instinct.

Nobody answers him immediately.

You least of all.

Because the problem is that his voice didn’t sound manipulative when he said it. It didn’t sound calculated or defensive or strategic. It sounded honest in the worst possible way, stripped bare enough that responding to it feels dangerous.

You lean back more carefully against the couch, shifting again when pressure pulls low across your back, and the movement is small, subtle, almost invisible, but Quinn notices instantly.

His focus snaps toward you automatically, concern flashing across his face before he can hide it, his body reacting before his brain catches up, and something sharp immediately twists through your chest.

Not because of the concern itself.

Because you used to love that he noticed things.

Now it just feels unfair.

Amelia watches your expression tighten. “You need to lie down.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re exhausted,” Maddie corrects immediately.

“I said I’m fine.”

“You also said that before almost passing out at work last week,” Maddie replies flatly.

Quinn’s head turns so fast toward her it’s almost alarming.

“What?”

The room goes still for half a second.

Maddie immediately regrets speaking.

You close your eyes briefly, already irritated.

“I wasn’t passing out.”

“What happened?” Quinn asks immediately, voice sharper now.

“Nothing happened.”

“You literally just said—”

“I got dizzy,” you cut in, your patience thinning visibly. “Because apparently growing an entire human affects blood pressure. Shocking development.”

But Quinn doesn’t relax.

If anything, he looks worse.

“What did the doctor say?”

You stare at him.

Actually stare.

And slowly, something cold settles into your expression.

“That’s not your question to ask like you’ve been here the whole time.”

The sentence lands hard enough to physically silence the room.

Jack looks away immediately. Luke exhales quietly. Even Maddie stays still this time.

Because there it is again, the line Quinn keeps running into over and over tonight.

He wants access to a reality he abandoned halfway through.

And every time he reaches for it too quickly, you remind him exactly why he no longer has it automatically.

Quinn swallows hard, jaw tightening visibly. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know,” you reply tiredly. “That doesn’t change the fact that you keep doing it.”

The exhaustion in your voice hits differently now.

Not angry anymore.

Worn down.

Quinn drags both hands through his hair roughly before standing abruptly, too much restless energy suddenly trapped inside him to stay seated anymore. He paces once across the living room, then back again, movements tight and uneven in ways that feel completely unlike him.

Jack watches carefully.

This is bad.

Quinn never paces.

“You think I don’t know I fucked this up?” Quinn asks suddenly, looking at you again, composure slipping further now. “You think I haven’t replayed every second of that call in my head?”

“You don’t get points for feeling guilty after disappearing.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

The question slices through him instantly.

You push yourself upright again slowly, one hand bracing briefly against the couch cushion before settling against the underside of your stomach, and Quinn’s eyes follow the movement automatically, helplessly, like every instinct in him is now tied to watching whether you’re okay.

You notice.

And this time it genuinely irritates you.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

Quinn blinks once. “Like what?”

“Like you suddenly remembered I’m carrying your child.”

Quinn actually recoils slightly.

Seeing you pregnant in person shattered the emotional distance he’d been surviving behind, and now every movement you make seems to physically affect him in real time.

You laugh once under your breath, exhausted and bitter all at once. “Interesting timing.”

“That’s not fair.”

“No?” Your eyes sharpen immediately. “Was I supposed to save the experience for you?”

The room goes dead quiet, because there is no answer that doesn’t incriminate him.

Maddie folds her arms tighter across her chest, protective anger simmering visibly again now that your exhaustion is becoming harder to hide.

“She needs sleep,” she says firmly. “This conversation should’ve ended twenty minutes ago.”

“She’s not a child,” Quinn replies automatically.

“No,” Maddie says coldly. “She’s pregnant and exhausted because she’s been doing this alone.”

That one lands too.

Everything lands tonight.

Every sentence feels like another crack forming somewhere inside Quinn’s composure, and the worst part is that nobody is exaggerating. Nobody is twisting the truth. Nobody is even trying to punish him anymore.

Reality is doing it naturally.

Luke finally pushes off the wall near the kitchen, speaking for the first time in several minutes. “We should probably figure out where everyone’s sleeping.”

The practicalness of the sentence almost feels surreal after everything else.

But immediately tension shifts again.

Because nobody actually knows the answer.

Maddie reacts first. “He’s not staying here.”

Quinn doesn’t even argue immediately.

He just looks at you.

Only you.

Jack notices instantly and quietly steps in before the silence becomes unbearable. “Luke and I can grab a hotel.”

“We’re not leaving him alone right now,” Luke says flatly.

Quinn exhales sharply through his nose. “I’m literally right here.”

“And clearly doing amazing,” Luke replies.

Normally the comment would’ve earned some sarcastic comeback immediately.

Tonight Quinn barely reacts.

Because all his attention is still fixed on you.

Waiting.

The apartment feels unbearably small suddenly, everyone suspended inside this awful fragile moment where the next sentence matters too much.

You’re tired.

So tired.

Emotionally, physically, mentally.

Your back hurts. Your head hurts. Your entire body feels stretched thin from carrying this conversation for hours.

And still Quinn keeps looking at you like the answer determines whether he can breathe properly tonight.

You hate that it affects you.

You hate that part of you still understands him instinctively enough to recognize what’s happening under his silence.

He’s scared you’ll send him away.

Because now that he’s here, leaving feels unbearable.

That realization should satisfy you more than it does.

Instead it just makes you tired.

You look away first.

“The guest room’s down the hall.”

Jack blinks. Maddie immediately straightens. Quinn doesn’t move at all.

Like he genuinely wasn’t expecting that answer.

Maddie turns toward you instantly. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“He doesn’t deserve—”

“I know.”

Your voice stays calm, firm, final.

You look back at Quinn then, expression unreadable from exhaustion more than emotion.

“This doesn’t fix anything.”

Quinn nods immediately. “I know.”

“You don’t get to walk in here and act like showing up erased what happened.”

“I know.”

“And if you leave again,” you continue quietly, “don’t come back.”

That one destroys whatever remained of his composure. The way the words physically settle into him like impact.

Because for the first time tonight, he fully understands this isn’t about whether you love him.

It’s about whether you can survive loving him twice.

Quinn lowers his eyes briefly before nodding once more, slower this time.

“I’m not leaving.”

Your jaw tightens faintly.

And maybe the most terrifying part of all is realizing that months ago, hearing those words would’ve healed you instantly.

Now they just hurt.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅

Taglist🩵

It’s strange how something as small as a staircase can suddenly feel different.

A few months ago you would have taken the steps two at a time without thinking about it. Now the climb stretches longer than it used to, each flight asking a little more of your balance, your breathing, your patience. It isn’t painful. It isn’t even particularly difficult. It’s just… different.

Your body has begun negotiating with gravity in ways it never had to before.

You glance down automatically.

Your coat is unbuttoned because the afternoon is warmer than the forecast promised, and the soft curve beneath your sweater is visible in the filtered light of the hallway window. It’s still subtle enough that strangers might hesitate before naming it, the kind of bump that sits in that in-between stage where it could almost be explained away if someone didn’t know better.

But you know.

Your hand drifts over the fabric without thinking.

“Okay,” you murmur quietly, more amused than annoyed. “Message received.”

The words aren’t really meant for you.

They’re meant for the small life tucked beneath your ribs, the one steadily rewriting the rules of your body without asking permission first. The one who seems perfectly content to grow and shift and stretch space wherever he needs it.

Your thumb traces a slow circle through the soft knit of your sweater.

“We take the stairs slower now,” you tell him. “That’s fair.”

Your voice is barely above a whisper, but the habit of talking to him has become second nature lately. At first it felt strange, almost performative, like you were pretending something that didn’t yet feel entirely real. But somewhere along the line the hesitation disappeared. Now the words come automatically, small updates and quiet reassurances spoken into empty rooms and car rides and grocery store aisles.

You don’t know if he can hear you.

You don’t know if it matters.

What matters is that the silence doesn’t feel empty anymore.

You push away from the railing and climb the rest of the stairs more slowly, the rhythm of your steps deliberate now instead of automatic. By the time you reach the hallway outside your office your breathing has steadied again, though you can still feel a faint warmth lingering in your chest.

You unlock the door and step inside.

The room greets you exactly the way you left it yesterday—your laptop closed on the desk, papers stacked neatly beside it, the soft hum of the building’s ventilation system filling the quiet. The familiarity is comforting in a way you didn’t expect work to become. Months ago routine felt suffocating, like a reminder that the world was continuing while your life had been thrown sideways without warning.

Now routine feels like structured.

Like something steady under your feet.

You drop your bag onto the chair and sink slowly into the one behind the desk, adjusting your posture instinctively before opening your computer. Sitting down requires a little more thought than it used to. If you lean forward too far there’s pressure across your stomach. If you slouch, your back complains.

You shift again, finally settling into a position that feels balanced.

“Alright,” you mutter under your breath as the screen flickers to life. “Let’s attempt productivity.”

Your hand drifts once more to your stomach, resting there for a moment.

“No promises though,” you add quietly.

Emails begin loading across the screen, each subject line another small reminder of the ordinary life you’re still living alongside everything else. Meetings. Deadlines. Questions from coworkers. It should feel overwhelming, juggling work while preparing for a future that now includes diapers and pediatricians and sleepless nights.

Strangely, it doesn’t.

If anything, the normalcy helps.

Your fingers move across the keyboard automatically, answering messages one by one while the quiet office wraps around you. Every now and then you shift in your chair, adjusting your posture, taking a sip from the water bottle you keep within easy reach. Hydration has become a near-constant background task lately, something the doctor emphasized enough times that the reminder echoes in your head every time you forget.

You pause briefly when a dull stretch of tightness pulls across your lower back.

“Not now,” you whisper.

You lean back slowly, rolling your shoulders before letting your palm rest against the curve of your stomach again.

“Noah,” you say softly.

The name settles into the room with surprising weight.

It still does that every time.

You hadn’t expected a name to feel so grounding, so definitive. For weeks everything about the pregnancy existed in a kind of abstract future—something coming, something forming, something not yet tangible enough to hold in your mind without fear.

But once the name appeared, everything shifted.

Noah.

Not a possibility. A person.

Your son.

You exhale slowly.

“Today’s going to be boring,” you tell him, your voice light. “Emails. Paperwork. Probably Maddie texting me something ridiculous around lunchtime.”

Your phone vibrates against the desk.

You blink.

The timing is so exact that you almost laugh.

You reach for the phone, already expecting to see a meme or a picture of something absurd that she’s found online.

Instead the screen shows two simple words.

Mads: Call me.

Your smile fades slightly.

That’s… unusual.

Maddie doesn’t text like that.

Not without context. Not without a follow-up joke or an emoji or some exaggerated punctuation to soften the urgency. Her messages are usually chaotic bursts of personality—voice notes, half-typed thoughts, links to things she insists you need to see immediately.

Call me feels different.

Your thumb hovers over the screen for a moment before you press the call button.

The line rings twice before she answers.

“Hey,” Maddie says quickly.

Too quickly.

You lean back in your chair, narrowing your eyes slightly even though she can’t see you.

“You sent a ‘call me’ text,” you say. “Which usually means something is wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“You sound like something’s wrong.”

“I always sound like something’s wrong.”

You wait.

Silence stretches between you for a beat too long.

“Maddie,” you say.

“What?”

“You never text ‘call me’ unless you’re about to tell me something.”

Another pause, then she exhales quietly.

“I just wanted to check on you,” she says.

You frown.

“That’s suspicious.”

“It’s caring.”

“It’s suspicious caring.”

You can practically hear her rolling her eyes on the other end of the line.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

“Fine.”

“Did you eat?”

“Yes.”

“Water?”

“Yes, mom.”

“Don’t get sarcastic with me.”

Despite yourself, you smile faintly.

The conversation drifts into safer territory after that—plans for dinner later in the week, Amelia’s latest attempt to convince the two of you to watch some documentary she’s obsessed with, small pieces of everyday life filling the space where that strange tension had briefly appeared.

But even as you talk, something about Maddie’s tone stays slightly… controlled.

Like she’s choosing her words more carefully than usual.

You notice it, but you don’t press.

Eventually the call ends with a casual goodbye, and you set the phone back down on the desk.

The office feels quiet again.

You stare at the screen for a moment before shaking your head slightly.

“See?” you murmur to Noah. “False alarm.”

You return to your emails.

But somewhere deep in your chest, that strange unsettled feeling lingers anyway.

Like the air has shifted just slightly.

Like something has begun moving toward you from a distance you can’t see yet.

And for now, the only thing you can do is continue with your day as if everything is still exactly the same.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅

The plane lands with a dull, controlled impact, the kind that barely registers if you’re not paying attention, but Jack feels it anyway, not through the seat or the movement of the aircraft, but somewhere deeper, like a quiet confirmation that they’ve already crossed the point where this can still be a simple weekend.

Luke is already unbuckling beside him before the plane has fully slowed, his movements sharper than usual, impatient in a way that has nothing to do with the flight itself. Jack doesn’t comment on it. He feels it too. That restless edge that’s been sitting under their skin since the call with Elias, since the moment the story stopped making sense and no one could—or would—fix it.

Neither of them speaks as they stand, as they reach for their bags, as they fall into the slow-moving line of passengers filtering toward the exit. The silence isn’t empty. It’s crowded with thoughts neither of them is saying out loud.

There is no dinner.

The sentence has been looping in Jack’s head since Elias said it, stripped of context, stripped of explanation, just a fact dropped into their hands without anything to anchor it to. Quinn lied. Not exaggerated. Not omitted. Lied. And not casually either. Not in the way people do to avoid small inconveniences or questions they don’t feel like answering. This was deliberate. Structured. Planned.

Which means whatever he’s going back to Vancouver for matters enough that he didn’t want them involved.

Jack steps into the terminal, the noise of the airport swelling around them—announcements echoing overhead, rolling suitcases dragging across the floor, voices overlapping in a constant, low hum—and for a second it feels almost surreal that everything around them is so normal. People arriving. People leaving. Life continuing in straight, predictable lines.

Meanwhile, they’re walking into something that doesn’t have a shape yet.

Luke exhales sharply as they move through the crowd, adjusting the strap of his bag over his shoulder. “I don’t like it,” he mutters, just loud enough for Jack to hear.

Jack doesn’t look at him. “Yeah.”

That’s all he says, but it carries agreement, tension, and the quiet acknowledgment that neither of them has found a way to explain this that makes it feel better.

They reach the baggage claim even though they don’t need to, just moving with the flow of people, both of them operating on instinct more than intention. Luke stops near one of the carousels, leaning back slightly against a pillar, arms crossing over his chest.

“What do you think he’s doing?” he asks.

Jack runs a hand through his hair, eyes scanning the moving crowd without really seeing any of it. “I don’t know.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have.”

Luke clicks his tongue, frustrated. “He doesn’t lie like that unless it’s something big. You know that.”

Jack does know that. That’s the problem.

Quinn doesn’t panic. He doesn’t act impulsively without a reason. He calculates, he measures, he decides. Even when he’s wrong, he’s wrong on purpose. Which means this—whatever this is—is intentional.

“He said it like it was nothing,” Jack says slowly, more to himself than to Luke. “Like it didn’t matter. Like it was just… a weekend thing.”

“Yeah,” Luke replies, pushing off the pillar. “Which means it matters more than he’s letting on.”

They fall into step again, heading toward the rental car area, the automatic doors sliding open to let in the cool Vancouver air. The sky is overcast, the light flat and gray, and the city stretches out in front of them exactly as it always has—unchanged, indifferent, familiar.

Jack inhales deeply as they step outside.

Something about being here makes it worse.

Because this isn’t just any city.

This is where Quinn was before everything shifted. Before Minnesota. Before distance. Before whatever it is he’s now coming back to face.

“You think it’s about hockey?” Jack asks after a moment, even though he already knows the answer.

Luke shakes his head immediately. “No.”

“Family?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

Luke doesn’t answer right away. He looks out at the line of taxis, at the steady movement of people coming and going, and for a second his expression tightens, like he’s trying to piece something together that won’t quite settle.

“I think it’s about something he didn’t finish,” he says finally.

Jack frowns. “That’s vague.”

“Yeah,” Luke replies. “So is everything about this.”

They reach the rental car and slide inside, the doors closing with a solid, contained sound that cuts off the noise of the outside world. For a moment, neither of them starts the engine. They just sit there, the silence heavier now, more deliberate.

Jack grips the steering wheel, staring straight ahead.

“He didn’t want us here,” he says.

Luke leans his head back against the seat. “Obviously.”

“So why are we here?”

Luke turns his head slightly, eyes sharp now. “Because Elias told us to be.”

Jack exhales slowly, the memory of that conversation settling heavily in his chest.

Don’t let him do it alone.

It wasn’t a suggestion. It wasn’t casual.

It was a warning.

Jack starts the engine.

The car hums to life beneath them, and he pulls out of the parking lot with steady, controlled movements, merging into traffic without hesitation. The road stretches ahead, leading them into the city, into whatever Quinn has already set in motion without them.

They drive in silence for a while.

Not uncomfortable.

Just focused.

Each of them running through possibilities in their own head, discarding them just as quickly because none of them feel right. There’s something missing from the equation, something Elias knows but refused to say, something Quinn is acting on that they can’t see yet.

Luke breaks the silence first.

“You think he knows we’re coming?”

Jack shakes his head. “No.”

“Good.”

Jack glances at him briefly. “Why good?”

Luke shrugs. “Because if he didn’t want us involved, there’s probably a reason. And if we tell him, he’ll either shut us out or try to control it.”

Jack considers that.

He’s not wrong.

Quinn, when cornered, doesn’t open up.

“So we just… show up?” Jack asks.

“Yeah,” Luke says simply. “We show up. We see what he’s doing. And then we decide.”

Jack nods slowly.

It’s not a plan.

But it’s enough.

They pass through familiar streets now, the city shifting around them from highways to neighborhoods, from open roads to tighter, more lived-in spaces. People walking dogs. Cars parked along the side of the street. Small shops with lights glowing softly through the windows.

Everything looks normal.

That’s what makes it worse.

Jack’s grip on the wheel tightens slightly.

“He better know what he’s doing,” he mutters.

Luke doesn’t respond.

Because they both know the truth.

Quinn thinks he knows exactly what he’s doing.

And that’s the most dangerous part.

The car moves deeper into the city, closer to wherever Quinn is, closer to the point where assumptions will stop being enough and reality will finally make itself known.

Neither of them says it out loud.

But they both feel it.

They’re not driving toward a conversation.

They’re driving toward a moment that’s already in motion.

And by the time they reach it, it might already be too late to change anything.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅

The plane lands and Quinn barely registers it.

Not because he’s distracted, not because he’s tired, but because his mind has already been ahead of this moment for hours—running scenarios, rehearsing versions of conversations that haven’t happened yet, adjusting details that don’t exist outside his head. By the time the wheels hit the runway, he’s already somewhere else entirely, already moving through the next steps, already convincing himself that this is controlled.

That this is necessary.

That this is under control.

He doesn’t rush off the plane. If anything, he moves slower than usual, letting people pass him in the aisle, waiting until there’s space instead of forcing it. From the outside, it looks like patience. Composure. The same quiet steadiness he’s always had.

Inside, it’s calculation.

Every second he delays is a second he gets to stay in the version of this where nothing has happened yet.

Where everything is still theoretical.

Where he hasn’t seen you.

Where you haven’t seen him.

He steps into the terminal, the familiar structure of the airport settling around him like something half-remembered. Vancouver hasn’t changed. Not in any visible way. The same lighting, the same echo of footsteps against polished floors, the same mix of voices blending into a low, indistinct hum.

It feels the same.

That’s the problem.

Because if the place hasn’t changed, then whatever he’s coming back to… hasn’t either.

Quinn exhales slowly, adjusting the grip on his bag as he moves through the crowd. His body is operating on instinct, following paths he’s walked a hundred times before, but his mind keeps drifting, pulling him out of the present and into something sharper, more specific.

You.

Not memories. Not the past.

You now.

That’s what unsettles him.

Because he doesn’t know what “now” looks like.

He doesn’t know where you are, what you’re doing, who you are without him in your life. He doesn’t know if you’ve changed, if you’ve moved on in ways he hasn’t accounted for, if you’ve rebuilt something he has no place in anymore.

And he hates that.

Not the idea of you changing.

The fact that it happened without him knowing.

Quinn pushes through the exit doors, the cold air hitting him immediately, sharper than he expects. He pauses for half a second, just enough to take it in, to ground himself in something physical, something real.

This is happening.

No more thinking. No more distance. No more control from afar.

He walks toward the pickup area, already pulling his phone out, already checking the screen even though there’s nothing new there. No messages. No missed calls. No interruptions.

Good. Clean. Uncomplicated.

Exactly how he needs it.

He rents a car instead of ordering one. It’s faster. Less room for delay.

He pulls into traffic.

And that’s when it starts.

Not panic. Not doubt.

Something quieter. Something more precise.

The closer he gets to the city, the more the edges of his certainty begin to shift—not disappear, not collapse, just… move.

Subtly.

Enough that he notices. Enough that he can’t ignore it.

He watches Vancouver, familiar streets unfolding one after the other, each one carrying a sense of recognition that feels almost out of place now. He used to move through this city without thinking, without hesitation, without needing to justify why he was here.

Now every block feels like a step deeper into something he hasn’t fully defined.

Quinn leans back slightly in his seat, jaw tightening.

He replays the plan.

Keep it simple.

Show up. Talk. Get clarity. Leave.

No emotion.

No escalation.

No losing control of the conversation.

He’s not here to fix anything.

He’s here to understand.

That’s what he tells himself. That’s what he holds onto.

Because the alternative—the possibility that this isn’t a controlled conversation, that this isn’t something he can direct, that this might not go the way he expects—is not something he’s willing to fully consider yet.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅

The apartment seems unchanged at first glance, the TV murmuring low and steady, Maddie moving around the kitchen with restless, purposeless energy as if the act of opening and closing cabinets could somehow summon the order that life had refused to provide, Amelia curled into her corner of the couch, phone in hand but glancing up now and then, watching you in a way that feels protective without intruding, but despite the outward calm, there is a subtle shift that you feel deep in your body.

A quiet tension threading through the room in a way that is impossible to ignore, a signal that something outside this space is approaching, something you cannot see yet, something you cannot measure, and your hand moves instinctively to rest over the curve of your stomach, fingers tracing lightly over the bump that has grown from abstract possibility into undeniable reality, grounding you even as your mind drifts, reminding you that whatever comes, you are not fragile, you are present, you are already carrying more than one life forward in ways that require strength you sometimes forget you have until moments like this.

Amelia’s voice cuts softly through the hum of the TV and the muted sound of cabinets closing, just enough to tether your attention without shattering the delicate concentration you’ve built around yourself.

“You good?” she asks.

The casual question carrying a weight she doesn’t voice, acknowledging the shift she can feel, the awareness that something unspoken has threaded itself between you and the quiet that has always felt safe. You nod, a small, measured movement, your eyes fixed somewhere on the mid-distance of the room where light falls off the edge of the couch, not because you are ignoring her, but because you are tethering yourself in the way that keeps panic at bay, because acknowledgment is enough, and you are already breathing, already present, already prepared in ways that are invisible, imperceptible, but potent, keeping yourself steady in the small rhythms of domestic life even as the world outside this apartment begins to pull you toward the moment that is coming.

Maddie’s irritation with the cabinets breaks the delicate thread of focus, the sharp sound of one slamming closed echoing briefly across the room, and though her words are about food and emptiness and the futility of searching through spaces that have always been half-empty.

Her presence anchors you in another way, reminding you that life carries on even when anticipation presses against the edges of awareness, and you almost allow yourself to smile, almost allow the weight in your chest to lighten, because the domesticity of this moment—unremarkable, ordinary, quiet—is what holds you here, fully grounded, fully conscious, fully yours.

Yet still, beneath that anchoring normality, the awareness persists, a subtle tightening that gathers beneath your ribs, threading down into your limbs, threading up into your mind, threading quietly but insistently that something is about to intersect with your world in a way that will demand more than calm, more than control, more than composure, and though you cannot name it, you can feel it, a premonition that rises softly at first and then presses against your spine with enough weight that you cannot ignore it.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅

Across the city, Quinn pulls the car to the curb and cuts the engine, the sudden quiet settling around him as his hands remain on the wheel for a second longer than necessary. His eyes scanning the familiar street with a precision that is unnerving, not because of the way he looks but because of the way his mind has already mapped the next steps before his body even moves, because he does not hesitate even for a moment, even as the city breathes around him and life continues in steady, indifferent rhythms, and in that controlled motion, there is a tightening in his chest that he refuses to acknowledge fully:

Because acknowledging it would mean recognizing the stakes in ways he has avoided while building the narrative he has rehearsed for days, weeks, months even.

He steps toward the entrance with deliberate, unbroken focus, adjusting the strap of his bag over his shoulder, jaw tight, spine straight, muscles taut but relaxed, walking into the threshold of something he has imagined countless times but never confronted in reality, and with each step, the abstraction of anticipation begins to solidify into something denser, something immediate, something tangible that pulls the air around him taut.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅

Meanwhile, Jack and Luke step out of the car blocks away, the cool air pressing against them with a quiet insistence that contrasts with the heated tension in their minds, their breaths shallow but measured as they replay the conversation with Elias, parsing every syllable, every pause, every deliberate omission, understanding fully that whatever Quinn is planning is neither simple nor casual, that the lie he told was intentional, that the path he has chosen has consequences none of them fully foresee, and yet despite the uncertainty, despite the layers of unknown variables, they move forward, grounded in the certainty that Quinn does not walk alone, that family does not allow a brother to step into a storm without backup, that what awaits at the end of this street may be chaotic, explosive, and unavoidable, but it must be met as one.

They step across the street, silent between them, each lost in a complex spiral of thought that blends loyalty, fear, irritation, anticipation, and the simmering understanding that the moment they are about to encounter will define everything from here onward, and the world around them continues in its unknowing rhythm, indifferent to the tension that pulses through three separate lives converging on the same point in space and time.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅

Back in the apartment, your attention flicks to the door again.

Not because you hear anything.

Not because you see movement.

But because your body—the part that has become acutely attuned to every shift of space and energy around you—registers the moment before it arrives, the prelude that whispers of arrival without yet delivering it, and your fingers move slightly more firmly over your stomach as if the small, protective touch could somehow brace you against what is coming.

Maddie’s casual remark from the kitchen, Amelia’s gentle brush against your leg, the mundane sounds of a quiet, lived-in apartment, all seem to form a barrier between you and the imminence of intrusion, a fragile membrane that separates safety from the approaching storm. You sit there, breathing, observing, grounded, and still the edge of awareness presses against your mind like a tide rising quietly but inexorably, drawing the three threads—yours, Quinn’s—closer and closer toward the inevitable point of collision.

The thought settles just beneath the surface of your awareness, not fully formed, not fully understood, but present enough that staying still suddenly feels like the wrong choice, like waiting would only sharpen whatever is approaching instead of softening it, and before you can overthink it, before the feeling has time to root itself deeper, Maddie exhales sharply from the kitchen and pushes off the counter with a frustrated kind of energy that shifts the room out of stillness.

“I can’t stay in here anymore,” she mutters, running a hand through her hair as she looks between you and Amelia. “We need to get out. Fresh air. Food. Something.”

Amelia immediately nods, already grabbing onto the idea like she was waiting for a reason to move. “Yes. Please. If I hear that TV one more time I’m going to lose it.”

You hesitate for a fraction of a second, not because you don’t want to go, but because that awareness in your chest flickers again, sharper now, like a quiet warning you can’t quite translate, but it doesn’t hold you in place the way it might have before, doesn’t trap you in indecision, because you are not that person anymore, not the one who freezes waiting for clarity that never comes.

“Okay,” you say, pushing yourself up from the couch, slower, more deliberate, your body guiding the pace now instead of your impulse. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

The decision shifts something immediately.

Maddie is already grabbing her keys, Amelia pulling on her jacket, the small, ordinary chaos of leaving the apartment unfolding in a way that feels grounding, familiar, almost reassuring, like stepping back into a version of life that doesn’t revolve around anticipation.

You slip your shoes on, grabbing your coat, your hand brushing again over your stomach in that now constant, unconscious motion, not protective out of fear but out of awareness, out of presence, out of something that has quietly become part of every movement you make.

“Where are we going?” Amelia asks, already halfway to the door.

“Anywhere with food,” Maddie replies. “I don’t care. I just need something that isn’t in that kitchen.”

You almost smile.

Almost.

Because the feeling hasn’t left.

It’s quieter now.

But not gone.

You step out into the hallway, the door closing behind you with a soft click that feels more final than it should, like you’re stepping out of one moment and into another without fully realizing it yet, and the three of you move together easily, naturally, falling into step in a way that doesn’t need coordination.

The elevator ride is short.

Quiet.

Maddie scrolling through her phone, Amelia leaning lightly against the wall, your gaze fixed somewhere ahead, unfocused but not distant, just… aware.

When the doors open, the cool air outside hits you immediately, sharper than the apartment, cleaner, carrying the low hum of the city in a way that feels grounding, like something steady under your feet.

You step out onto the sidewalk.

And for a moment, everything is normal.

People walking past.

Cars moving steadily down the street.

The quiet rhythm of a city that doesn’t know anything about you, about what’s been building, about what is about to happen.

Maddie is saying something beside you, pointing down the street toward a café, Amelia responding, the conversation light, easy, pulling you into it just enough that your shoulders relax, just enough that your breathing evens out again, just enough that the tension in your chest loosens and then it stops.

It just stops.

Because your body does, mid-step, mid-breath.

Something locks.

Recognition.

Your eyes lift before you even know why.

And there, across the street, is Quinn.

He’s not moving.

Not yet.

Like he’s just stepped into the moment the same way you have, like whatever direction he was walking in no longer matters because everything has narrowed down to this exact point, this exact second, this exact distance between you.

For a fraction of time, neither of you reacts.

Because it doesn’t make sense.

Not in the version of the world where distance exists and time has passed and people don’t just reappear like this, without warning, without preparation, without permission.

But he’s there.

Real. Solid.

Looking at you.

And then his gaze drops.

Instinctively.

And it lands, on you.

Not your face.

Lower.

And everything changes.

You see it happen.

You feel it before you fully understand it, the way his entire expression shifts in a way that isn’t loud or dramatic but immediate, undeniable, like something inside him has just been pulled out from under him without warning.

Your hand is still resting against your stomach.

You just stand there.

And let him see.

The space between you stretches, distorts, thickens with everything unsaid, everything unresolved, everything that never had the chance to be finished properly.

Maddie follows your line of sight first.

Then Amelia.

And the moment they recognize him, the air changes again.

Sharper now.

Protective.

Maddie’s posture shifts immediately, stepping just slightly closer to you without making it obvious, Amelia’s gaze hardening in a way that is no longer curious, no longer neutral.

No one speaks.

Because there is no version of this that starts easily. No version that fits into something casual or controlled.

Across the street, Quinn still hasn’t moved.

But the control he walked in with—

it’s gone.

Not completely, but enough.

Enough that it shows.

Enough that you can see it in the way his shoulders are no longer perfectly set, in the way his focus has narrowed too sharply, in the way his entire attention is locked onto you like he’s trying to process something that refuses to settle into place.

Because this is not what he expected.

Not what he planned for.

Not what he came here ready to handle.

And for the first time since he decided to come back, he’s not ahead of the moment anymore.

He’s inside it.

With no control over how it unfolds.

And you—

You just stand there.

Grounded. Present.

Hand resting exactly where it is.

And let the truth exist between you, fully visible, with no space left to deny it.

For a second that stretches longer than it should, the world doesn’t react, doesn’t shift to match the impact of him being here, standing across from you like distance never existed, like time didn’t pass, like nothing irreversible has already been said between you, and the normal rhythm of the street continues in the background with a quiet indifference that feels almost offensive, because this moment is anything but ordinary, anything but small, and yet nothing around you acknowledges it.

Quinn doesn’t hesitate.

He crosses the street with the same controlled certainty he carries into everything, but it’s thinner now, stretched tightly over something that is already reacting underneath, something that has started to fracture the second he saw you, the second reality replaced assumption, and by the time he reaches you there is no distance left to soften anything, no space to reframe, no delay to hide behind.

Maddie moves before he fully stops, instinctive, immediate, placing herself just slightly in front of you, not blocking but redefining the space, making it clear that he is not stepping into something open, not after everything, not like this, and Amelia shifts with her, quieter but just as firm, her presence anchoring yours, her attention sharp and unyielding.

“Stop right there,” Maddie says, her voice steady but edged, not raised, not dramatic, just firm enough to land exactly where it needs to.

Quinn barely registers it.

His focus doesn’t shift.

His eyes are on you, locked in a way that strips everything else from the moment, like the rest of them are peripheral, like the only thing that matters is the fact that you are standing in front of him and not answering the question he’s been holding onto since the call.

“Maddie,” you say quietly, not pulling her back but not feeding the escalation either, your tone controlled, grounded, your body still, your hand resting where it has been since the moment everything shifted, not protective in panic but present in a way that doesn’t move just because he’s here now.

“He doesn’t just get to show up like this,” she mutters, her stance not changing, her body angled just enough to make the boundary clear.

Quinn exhales slowly, dragging a hand over his face as if resetting himself, as if forcing the situation back into something he can structure, something he can control, but when he looks at you again the edge is still there, sharper now, more focused.

“So that’s it,” he says, and the words don’t rise, don’t break, they settle low and controlled but heavy with everything underneath them. “You say something like that and then just… keep going like it doesn’t matter.”

You don’t react to the tone.

You don’t match it.

You hold your ground in a way that feels immovable, not defensive, not reactive, just steady.

“You disappeared,” you answer, your voice even, precise, cutting through the framing he’s trying to build without raising your volume at all. “What exactly did you expect?”

His jaw tightens immediately, the reaction instant, controlled but visible. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what,” you reply, your gaze steady, unwavering. “Say what actually happened?”

Maddie lets out a quiet, disbelieving exhale beside you, folding her arms as she shifts her weight, her patience already thinning. “This is unbelievable.”

Quinn’s attention flickers toward her for half a second, irritation sharp but brief, because it doesn’t hold, it snaps right back to you, like everything else is interference, like none of this exists outside of what’s still unresolved between the two of you.

“You don’t get to twist it into that,” he says, and there’s more tension in it now, less control in the edges. “You think I would’ve ignored that if I knew?”

“I think you already ignored enough,” you answer immediately, and this time there is an edge to it, not louder, but sharper, something that lands cleaner because it isn’t disguised.

Amelia shifts slightly closer to you. “Maybe don’t act surprised when your actions actually have consequences,” she adds, her tone quieter than Maddie’s but just as cutting, just as grounded.

Quinn exhales sharply, the sound controlled but strained, his head shaking once like he’s trying to push through all of it, through them, through everything that isn’t you, because none of it matters to him in this moment.

“I’m not talking to you,” he says again, but it carries less weight now, less authority, because he’s already lost control of the space.

“Yeah,” Maddie mutters, “we’ve noticed. That seems to be your thing.”

The tension tightens, but it doesn’t explode, it compresses instead, folding inward, becoming heavier, more concentrated, and Quinn looks at you again, more directly now, like he’s forcing everything else out of focus, like he needs to get back to the one thing that hasn’t settled.

“You meant it,” he says.

Not a question.

And there it is again, sitting between you with no distance left to blur it.

I wish it wasn’t.

You don’t soften it.

“I said it,” you answer.

Simple. Final.

Not defensive, not apologetic, just… true.

Quinn lets out a short breath, something tight and humorless, his hands flexing slightly at his sides as if he doesn’t quite know what to do with the energy building under his skin, because this isn’t going the way he thought it would, not aligning, not resolving, not giving him anything to work with.

“Yeah,” he mutters under his breath. “You did.”

The silence that follows is heavier than anything said so far, not empty but loaded, because this is no longer about the words themselves, it’s about what they meant, what they still mean now that there is no distance left to protect either of you from them.

“You don’t get it,” he says finally, quieter now but more focused, more deliberate.

You look at him fully then, your expression sharpening, not softer, not yielding, but clearer, more defined.

“No,” you reply, “you don’t.”

He frowns slightly, the reaction immediate but contained—

—and that’s when the interruption comes.

“Quinn?”

The voice cuts through the moment cleanly, shifting everything in a single second, and this time he does react, his attention breaking as he turns, and Jack and Luke step into the scene without context but with immediate awareness that something is wrong, something is already unfolding in a way they weren’t prepared for, their presence altering the balance instantly, adding pressure, adding weight, adding witnesses.

Jack’s gaze moves quickly, trying to piece it together—Quinn, and three other girls, the distance between all of you, the tension that is already too thick to ignore—but this time it doesn’t stop at faces, doesn’t stay at eye level, because something in the way you’re standing, something in the way the space holds around you, pulls his attention lower without him even realizing it, and the second it lands, it doesn’t move again.

Not immediately.

Because it clicks.

Not all at once, not loudly, but in a way that is far more disorienting—slow recognition colliding with something that doesn’t fit into any version of what he expected to walk into.

Your hand.

The curve beneath it.

The way you don’t hide it.

The way no one else reacts to it like it’s new.

Jack’s expression shifts mid-thought, the question he was about to ask faltering before it fully forms, his mouth parting slightly as his brain tries to catch up, tries to rearrange what he’s seeing into something that makes sense and failing almost immediately.

Luke sees it a second later.

His gaze drops once, precise, controlled—and then he stills completely, every line in his posture locking into place, his silence no longer passive but loaded, sharp with understanding that lands all at once and doesn’t leave room for misinterpretation.

The tension changes.

Deepens.

“What’s going on?” Jack asks anyway, but now there’s something else in it, something tighter, something unsettled, because the question isn’t just about the situation anymore, it’s about something much bigger that no one has said out loud yet.

And no one answers.

Because they don’t need to.

Not anymore.

Quinn looks back at you like they’re not even there, like nothing has changed except the fact that you are still standing in front of him and still not giving him what he expected when he came here.

And then you move.

Just one small step back.

But it’s enough.

Enough for him to feel it.

His expression shifts.

Not anger. Not frustration.

Understanding.

“You’re serious,” he says, quieter now, the realization settling into his voice rather than breaking out of it.

You hold his gaze.

Steady.

“I meant what I said,” you answer.

A beat.

And then you inhale slowly, your hand still resting where it is, your posture unchanged, your voice calm but sharper now, more deliberate, more final.

“I just didn’t say all of it.”

The shift is immediate.

Subtle—but absolute.

Jack stills.

Luke’s focus sharpens.

Even Maddie doesn’t interrupt.

Because something in your tone changes the weight of the moment entirely.

Quinn’s brow tightens slightly, not in confusion, but in recognition that something else is coming, something he hasn’t accounted for.

And you don’t rush it.

You let it land exactly where it needs to.

“I wish it wasn’t,” you repeat, your voice steady, controlled, carrying none of the chaos of the moment and all of the clarity, “because if it wasn’t yours…”

A pause.

Sharp.

“…I wouldn’t still be standing here waiting to see if you leave again.”

The silence that follows doesn’t just settle.

It locks.

Becausethat is not anger.

Not rejection. Not distance.

It’s something worse.

Expectation.

And proof that it already broke once.

Quinn doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, doesn’t even try to fix it.

Because there is nothing in that sentence he can argue.

And for the first time since he got here, he understands that showing up was never going to be enough.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅

Taglist🩵

You wake before the alarm because sleep no longer belongs to you in neat, uninterrupted blocks. It comes in waves. It leaves gently, without apology. You lie still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, cataloguing sensations the way you’ve learned to do. No nausea this morning. A little tightness in your hips. Your bladder reminding you, firmly, that waiting is not an option.

You roll onto your side and push yourself upright with care, not because you’re fragile but because rushing no longer serves you. The room is washed in early light, pale and quiet. Nothing feels urgent. Nothing feels wrong.

Your hand settles over your stomach automatically as you stand. The gesture isn’t conscious. It isn’t sentimental. It’s muscle memory already forming, the way your body has started to include someone else in every movement it makes.

In the bathroom, the mirror catches you mid-step. You pause, toothbrush in hand, and really look this time. Not critically. Not nostalgically. Just factually. Your face looks the same, maybe a little softer around the eyes. Your shoulders are relaxed. The curve beneath your t-shirt is visible now if you know what you’re looking for, not dramatic, not something strangers would comment on, but undeniably there.

You don’t suck in your stomach.

You don’t turn sideways to evaluate it.

You just acknowledge it and move on.

Brushing your teeth has become a careful routine. You lean one hip against the counter for balance. You rinse more slowly. When you’re done, you rest your palm against the cool porcelain of the sink and breathe for a moment before moving again. You’ve learned that listening to your body doesn’t make you weak. It makes you functional.

In the kitchen, the apartment is still. The hum of the refrigerator. The faint noise of traffic far below. You pour coffee, add more milk than you used to, take a sip and grimace slightly at the taste. It’s been off for weeks, but caffeine still feels non-negotiable. You sit at the small table, one foot tucked under the chair, the other stretched out, and drink it anyway.

Your phone lies face down beside your mug.

You don’t flip it over.

The call already happened. It exists in the past tense now, filed away where it belongs. You don’t replay his voice. You don’t dissect his words. You don’t imagine alternative responses you could’ve given. The energy required for that kind of emotional archaeology is something you no longer have to spare.

Instead, you open your planner and scan the day ahead. Meetings. A deadline you’ve already built buffer time around. A note in the margin reminding you to call the clinic about scheduling your next appointment. A grocery list half-written from the night before.

Life, continuing.

You sip your coffee and let your free hand rest over your stomach again, thumb tracing a slow, absent-minded circle. You don’t speak at first. You just breathe. Then, quietly, without ceremony, you murmur, “Morning.”

It’s not a declaration. It’s not a vow.

It’s acknowledgment.

By the time Amelia knocks, you’re dressed and pulling on your shoes. She doesn’t knock loudly. She never does anymore. When you open the door, she gives you a once-over, not intrusive, just attentive.

“How’s today feeling?” she asks.

You consider it honestly. “Manageable.”

She smiles at that, relief softening her expression. “Good.”

Maddie arrives minutes later, already talking about something unrelated, something that annoys her enough to fill the hallway with sound. She stops mid-sentence when she sees you, eyes flicking briefly to your stomach before meeting your gaze.

“Okay,” she says, satisfied. “You’re upright. That’s a win.”

You snort softly and grab your bag. The three of you move through the morning without fuss. No one mentions the call. No one asks how you’re holding up. They know better now. Support, you’ve learned, doesn’t always look like questions. Sometimes it looks like continuity.

As you step outside, the air is cool and clean. You take it in deeply, shoulders rising, chest expanding, lungs filling fully. You feel solid. Present. Rooted in your body in a way you weren’t months ago.

Whatever comes next—whatever attempts to interrupt this steadiness—you’re not bracing for it.

You’re already standing.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.

By midmorning, you understand something you didn’t fully grasp in the beginning: pregnancy is not a single condition, it is a constant negotiation. It isn’t only nausea or cravings or the obvious markers people talk about. It’s the way your body belongs to time differently now. The way energy disappears without warning. The way your bones feel heavier, as if gravity has been turned up slightly and you are the only one who notices. You leave the apartment with your coat half-zipped and Amelia’s voice behind you reminding you to eat something before the day runs away, Maddie’s text already waiting on your screen—Water. Snacks. Sit when you need to.—and you roll your eyes even as you obey, slipping a granola bar into your pocket because you’ve learned that stubbornness is useless against biology.

Outside, Vancouver is sharp with cold air, clean enough to sting your lungs for a second. You walk slower than you used to, not enough for strangers to clock it, not enough for anyone to look twice, but you feel it in the way your hips ache faintly if you move too quickly, in the way your balance is subtly altered, your center shifted forward by something still small but steadily claiming space. The bump is not dramatic, not something that announces itself loudly, but it exists in the way fabric falls differently, in the way you instinctively keep a hand near your stomach when you step off a curb, as if your body has already rewritten its own protective reflexes.

The office is warm when you step inside, fluorescent light flattening the world into routine. People greet you, nodding, smiling, asking the same polite questions they always do. You answer easily. You are good at normal.

Normal is a skill. Normal is armor.

You badge in, ride the elevator up, and for a little while you can almost pretend your life is simply busy, simply full, simply moving forward in the same way it always has. There is comfort in tasks that have clear edges, in emails that require responses, in calendars that tell you what comes next. You sit at your desk, open your laptop, and fall into the rhythm of competence because competence is something you can control.

But your body is not interested in your illusion of control.

A while later, you stand too quickly to grab a file from the printer across the hall and the world tilts, just slightly, just enough to make your stomach clench and your vision blur at the edges. It isn’t dramatic, it isn’t a fainting spell, it is simply your blood pressure reminding you that you are not a machine. You freeze with one hand gripping the edge of your desk, breathing slowly through your nose until the dizziness recedes. The moment passes quickly, but it leaves behind a thin film of awareness, like the air after a near-miss.

A coworker walking by pauses. “You okay?” she asks, casual, but her eyes flick downward with the kind of instinct people don’t even realize they have.

You straighten carefully, forcing steadiness into your posture. “Yeah,” you say. “Just stood up too fast.”

She nods and moves on, but the glance lingers in your mind longer than it should.

It’s nothing. It’s also not nothing.

You sit back down, heart beating harder than it needs to, and for the first time all day you feel the edge of visibility. You have gotten used to this body in private, to the small curve that greets you in the mirror, to the way you adjust without thinking, but out here, under office lights and other people’s peripheral attention, you remember that soon you won’t be able to choose whether the world notices. Soon, this will stop being something you carry quietly.

Hunger arrives around noon like a switch flipping. Not a gentle appetite, not a casual thought of food, but an urgent, insistent need that feels almost rude in its immediacy. You eat the granola bar in three quick bites, annoyed at how your body demands things now, how it refuses to be ignored. Your palm presses briefly against your stomach under the desk, more reflex than tenderness, and you murmur, almost amused despite yourself, “Alright. I hear you.”

There is no answer, of course, only the steady, relentless work of becoming.

The afternoon stretches. Sitting too long makes your back ache; standing too long makes your feet throb. You shift constantly, adjusting, negotiating comfort like it’s part of your job description now. You catch your reflection in the darkened screen of your computer when it goes idle: softer, rounder, undeniably changed. Not ruined. Not diminished. Just different. Real. There is something strangely grounding about it, the physical proof that your life is not theoretical anymore.

When your phone buzzes for the first time, you barely glance at it. An unfamiliar number. You decline without thought.

Probably spam. Probably nothing.

A few minutes later it buzzes again, the same number, persistent. You decline again, irritation prickling. Then, a third time. The sound feels louder now, intrusive in a way it wasn’t before, like a knock at a door you didn’t invite anyone to.

A voicemail appears. You don’t open it. Not yet. You tell yourself you’ll deal with it later, that it’s nothing, that you don’t have space for interruptions. You return to your work with deliberate focus, finishing what needs finishing, holding onto routine like a railing.

By the time you pack up to leave, the office has begun to empty. The air feels quieter, stretched thin. You glance at your phone again, and there it is: three missed calls, the voicemail, and beneath them a single text message.

Can we talk? Please.

No name. No context. Just that.

Your thumb hovers over the screen, suspended between impulse and instinct. The request is small, almost polite, but it carries weight because it refuses to explain itself. It assumes access. It assumes you will open the door simply because someone knocked.

You don’t.

You slide the phone into your bag and zip it closed with slow, final precision. Whatever is trying to reach you will not do it on its own terms. You have learned that silence can be a boundary, not a punishment.

Outside, evening air hits your face cool and clean. You walk to your car unhurried, one hand resting lightly over the curve of your stomach through your coat, protective without thinking. Your life is moving forward, steady and deliberate, but somewhere beneath the surface, you can feel the first subtle pull of consequence, the sense that something is beginning to shift toward you whether you invite it or not.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.

The memory doesn’t arrive like a flashback in a movie. It doesn’t announce itself. It slips in the way certain truths do now, quietly threaded through ordinary moments, through the feel of your palm against your stomach, through the way the apartment holds you in its stillness. The space around you is calm in a way that feels earned, not empty. Amelia is nearby, curled into the corner of the couch with her legs tucked under her, scrolling without really absorbing anything. Maddie moves through the kitchen with restless purpose, opening cabinets and closing them again, as if the future is something she can organize into neat stacks if she tries hard enough. The television murmurs in the background, irrelevant noise. None of you are talking about the call, not because it doesn’t matter, but because it already happened, because it passed through your life like weather. It didn’t destroy anything. It didn’t take anything from you. It simply confirmed what you already know: you are no longer living inside his silence.

Your hand rests over the curve of your belly, automatic, protective, a gesture so instinctive it feels older than the last few months. The bump is not dramatic, but it is undeniable, a small physical truth that changes the way you sit, the way you breathe, the way your body occupies space. You tilt your head down slightly and murmur something soft, not for the girls, not for anyone else, just for the small life inside you. A greeting. A promise. A reminder that he is not alone in there. That you are here. That you are not going anywhere.

And then, without warning, the warmth of memory brushes against you.

The envelope.

Not the entire day, not every detail, just that moment suspended in amber: Maddie holding the paper like it was sacred, Amelia’s fingers wrapped tightly around yours, the baby store too bright, too full of softness, too full of proof. You remember how your heart had been beating so hard you could barely hear anything else, how you couldn’t bring yourself to look, how you handed the decision to Maddie because you needed someone else to hold the weight of knowing first. The pause had stretched impossibly long. Maddie’s face had shifted, her eyes filling before she even spoke, and then her voice had come out quiet and reverent, as if she was afraid of startling the universe.

“It’s a boy.”

Boy. Not baby. Not maybe. Not someday. Boy. The word had landed inside you like a door clicking shut, like something becoming specific in a way that made everything else sharper. You remember the onesie Maddie grabbed without thinking, blue and impossibly small, the sleeves barely longer than your fingers, and the absurd softness of the fabric against your skin when you held it. You remember laughing because crying felt too large, because your body couldn’t decide how to contain the feeling of it. A boy. Your boy. Him.

The memory fades quickly, but it leaves behind its echo, and in the present, the apartment feels even quieter because of what it holds. The reality is no longer theoretical. It isn’t an abstract pregnancy. It isn’t a future you might have. It is a son, growing steadily inside you, changing you cell by cell, insisting on being real.

And then there is the next truth, the one that has been hovering at the edge of your mind for days, unspoken because saying it out loud makes it permanent in a different way.

The name.

Naming is not like buying onesies or scheduling appointments. Naming is a claim.

Naming is a commitment. Naming is the moment you stop referring to him as an idea and start referring to him as a person.

You’ve circled around possibilities in your head late at night, testing syllables in the dark, discarding some immediately, lingering over others without understanding why. You haven’t told anyone because once you do, it stops belonging only to you.

Maddie’s voice breaks the quiet, softer than usual. “You’ve been thinking about it again.”

You don’t pretend you don’t know what she means. There’s no point. Amelia looks up, attentive in that careful way she has, like she’s always watching for the moment you might tip into overwhelm.

You swallow, your throat suddenly tight. Your hand remains on your belly, grounding you.

“The name,” Maddie says, not pushing, just stating it.

You breathe out slowly. The apartment feels too still, as if even the air is listening.

“I keep coming back to one,” you admit, voice low.

Maddie doesn’t speak. Amelia doesn’t either. They let the silence hold you.

Finally, you whisper it, almost like you’re saying it to him more than to them.

“Austin.”

The name settles into the room immediately, soft but solid, gentle but certain. Amelia’s expression changes, something tender blooming there. Maddie’s eyes shine, her mouth parting like she wants to laugh and cry at the same time.

“Austin,” Maddie repeats quietly, tasting it. “That feels… right.”

It does. It feels like something that was waiting for you, not something you invented. It feels like a handhold in the dark.

And then Maddie, without thinking, without meaning harm, says it the way her brain automatically completes patterns.

“Austin Hughes—”

The air snaps.

The room stills so completely it feels physical.

Maddie stops mid-word, her face draining as realization hits her. Amelia’s gaze flickers to you, cautious, unsure.

Your chest tightens, sharp and immediate, not because the name is wrong, but because the last name is not simple. Because it drags Quinn into the room without permission. Because it reminds you that biology and ownership are not the same thing. Because you don’t know what comes next, and you refuse to let anyone else claim space in this story before you do.

Your voice comes out calm, controlled, but immovable.

“He’s my son.”

The words are not angry. They are fact.

Maddie’s eyes fill. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

You nod once, because you know she didn’t mean it, because you know it was instinct, because you know this is what people do—they attach names to men automatically, they assume fathers are the default center of gravity.

But you are rewriting gravity.

You look down again, your palm moving slowly over the curve of your belly, and you whisper it once more, softer now, only for him.

“Austin.”

And the name holds, warm and real, like a blanket around something fragile and growing.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.

The apartment in Minneapolis is quiet in a way that makes Quinn almost ache. The hum of the city beyond the windows is constant, but inside, the air is still, and he feels the weight of it pressing in on him, not heavy, not oppressive, but insistent, like a reminder that he’s here and he’s alone and the story is still moving without him. Takeout boxes sit on the counter, wrappers folded back carefully, evidence of meals he hasn’t even enjoyed. He stares at the screen of his phone and does nothing, as if by pretending the world isn’t urgent, the world might pause for him.

The thought has been circulating in his head for days now, tight and sharp, a spiral he can’t step out of: he needs to go back. Not because he’s nostalgic. Not because he wants explanations. Not because he wants to untangle regrets. He doesn’t. He doesn’t care for closure the way he pretends to. He wants control. He wants to be first, to feel the story in his hands instead of hearing it secondhand, to assert presence before consequences solidify. He’s used to moving fast, taking advantage, making the world bend to him. And yet now, for the first time in a long time, that reflex isn’t simple. The calculus is messy.

He scrolls through messages again, sees the names of his brothers. Jack. Luke. Their easy tone. Their availability. Their trust in him. And suddenly it’s a lever he can pull. He picks up the phone, dials Jack first. Jack answers immediately, familiar, casual, voice warm, like it always is.

They talk about nothing at first. Weather. Schedules. The usual lazy brother banter. Quinn lets it fill him for a moment, letting the normalcy act like armor. He times his next words carefully, casual, neutral, the way a predator tests a gap in a fence before leaping through it.

“I’m going back to Vancouver for a couple of days,” he says, voice even, uninflected.

Jack chuckles, and Quinn hears curiosity in it. “Oh yeah? For what?”

Quinn hesitates just long enough to feel the small thrill of control. “Dinner with Elias and a few ex-teammates,” he says, voice steady. “Catching up. Nothing serious.”

Jack doesn’t question it.

Quinn’s calm is a shield. Jack knows it. He’s learned to read between the lines. He’s learned to recognize the small tremors beneath his brother’s practiced neutral. Luke sits across from him, arms crossed, a frown tight on his forehead, ears straining even though the call is over. The two of them exchange a glance that says everything without words: Quinn is lying. Or at least, he’s bending the truth.

The apartment is quiet. Outside, the city keeps moving, Sunday night traffic humming faintly through the windows, the world indifferent to whatever just shifted in the air between brothers. Jack doesn’t move right away. He lets the silence settle, lets the aftertaste of Quinn’s voice linger. Vancouver. A dinner. Ex-teammates. Nothing serious. Fun.

Fun.

The word feels wrong in Quinn’s mouth lately. Quinn doesn’t do things for fun when he’s unsettled. He does things to regain footing. He does things to outrun discomfort. He does things because something is chasing him, even if he refuses to name it.

Across the room, Luke hasn’t sat back down. He’s standing with his arms crossed, weight shifting from one foot to the other, restless in a way Jack recognizes immediately. Luke’s instincts have always been sharper, less patient with pretenses. Where Jack tends to wait, to listen, to give Quinn space to be complicated, Luke cuts straight through the surface.

Luke’s voice comes out low. “He’s lying.”

Jack exhales slowly, not quite a sigh, more like a release. “About what?”

Luke’s jaw tightens. “About it being nothing.”

Jack leans back against the couch, rubbing his thumb along the edge of the phone. He replays the call in his head, the pacing of Quinn’s words, the way he said Vancouver too quickly, the way he offered an answer before Jack even finished the question. Quinn has always been good at sounding normal. It’s one of his talents. He can make anything seem casual if he wants to. He can smooth urgency into neutrality. He can make an earthquake sound like a breeze.

“I don’t know,” Jack says finally, careful. “Maybe it really is just—”

Luke cuts him off immediately, sharp. “No.”

Jack looks up.

Luke steps forward a little, voice tightening with certainty. “Quinn doesn’t just wake up and decide to fly back to Vancouver for a reunion dinner. Not right now. Not after everything. Not after months of… whatever the hell this has been.”

Jack’s stomach twists slightly at the unspoken. Luke doesn’t name it. Jack doesn’t either. They don’t need to. There’s been a shadow hanging around Quinn for months, a quiet wrongness in the way he’s been moving through life. Not openly broken. Not obviously spiraling. Just… off. Like a man walking with a bruise he refuses to acknowledge.

Jack tries to keep his voice even. “He sounded fine.”

Luke lets out a humorless laugh. “That’s the problem. He always sounds fine when he’s about to do something stupid.”

The word stupid lands heavier than it should. Jack’s fingers tighten around the phone again, knuckles whitening slightly. He thinks of Quinn as a kid, reckless and brilliant, always convinced he could handle the consequences later. He thinks of Quinn now, older but not necessarily wiser, still carrying that same stubborn belief that he can steer a story just by showing up at the right moment.

Jack’s voice lowers. “So what do you think this is?”

Luke doesn’t answer immediately. He paces once, slow, controlled, like a caged animal trying to decide whether to bolt or stay. He runs a hand through his hair, frustration flickering.

“I think,” Luke says finally, “that he’s going back because something is wrong, and he is hiding it, even from us.”

Jack’s pulse picks up. “Wrong how?”

Luke stops pacing, turns back to him. “That’s what scares me.”

The silence stretches.

Jack can feel the weight of brotherhood in the room, the old instinct that has nothing to do with hockey or schedules or adulthood. The instinct that says: he’s ours. We don’t leave him alone in something he can’t handle. We don’t let him blow up his life without someone there to grab him by the collar first.

Jack swallows.

Luke’s eyes sharpen. “We surprise him in Vancouver instead.”

Jack blinks. “Luke—”

“No,” Luke insists, stepping closer, voice firm now. “Think about it. He thinks he’s going alone. He thinks he’s controlling the narrative. If something’s happening there, we show up. We keep him grounded. We make sure he doesn’t do whatever impulsive thing he’s about to do.”

Jack’s chest tightens with reluctant agreement. Luke is right. Quinn’s casualness is never casual. Quinn’s distance is never accidental.

Jack nods slowly. “Okay.”

Luke exhales like he’s been holding his breath. “Okay.”

The decision settles between them, immediate and heavy.

They move quickly after that, not because they’re panicking, but because instinct doesn’t wait. Jack pulls up flights on his laptop. Luke hovers over his shoulder, pointing out times, connections, the most efficient route. They book tickets. They text their parents something vague. They pack small bags, the kind of packing you do when you don’t know what you’re walking into but you know you need to be there anyway.

And then Jack pauses, hand on his suitcase zipper.

“We need to know where this dinner is,” he says quietly.

Luke’s expression hardens. “We need to know if it even exists.”

Jack nods once.

And that’s when he calls Elias.

Jack doesn’t overthink it. If he does, he’ll hesitate, and hesitation is how you let things slip past you.

Elias is the cleanest point of contact, the one name Quinn offered without effort, the one detail that’s supposed to make the lie feel normal. Jack taps the call button and brings the phone to his ear, listening to the ring with a strange sense of dread, like the sound itself is a countdown.

It rings twice.

Then Elias answers, voice easy at first, familiar in that distant way old teammates always are. “Jack Hughes. What’s up, man?”

Jack forces lightness into his tone, because that’s how you approach things when you don’t know what you’re walking into. “Hey. Quick question. Quinn said you invited him to a dinner in Vancouver? With some of the old guys?”

There’s a pause.

Not long. Not dramatic.

Just… wrong.

The kind of pause that doesn’t belong in a casual conversation.

Luke’s head lifts immediately from across the room, eyes narrowing. Jack stays still, phone pressed to his ear, listening harder than he should have to.

Elias finally says, carefully, “He said that?”

Jack’s stomach tightens. He glances at Luke, who has gone completely still.

“Yeah,” Jack replies, voice slower now. “He said you were getting some ex-teammates together. Luke and I thought we might surprise him, show up, make a thing of it.”

Another pause.

Jack hears Elias inhale. He hears something shift on the other end of the line, like a man sitting up straighter, like someone who just realized they’re holding a match near gasoline.

Luke leans forward slightly. “Ask him,” he mouths silently.

Jack swallows. “Elias?”

Elias exhales, sharp and restrained, and then, low, almost like he’s speaking through his teeth, he mutters a curse.

“There is no dinner,” he says.

The words land cleanly. No embellishment. No softness.

Jack blinks. “What?”

Luke’s voice cuts across the room, rough with immediate suspicion. “What do you mean there’s no dinner?”

Elias doesn’t answer Luke directly, but Jack can hear the tension in his breathing now, the careful way he’s choosing what to say and what not to.

“I mean,” Elias repeats, slower, “there is nothing planned. I didn’t invite him. There is no reunion dinner.”

Silence swells in Jack’s apartment, thick enough to feel physical. The laptop screen is still open to flight confirmations, the suitcases half-zipped, the decision already made, and now the foundation under it cracks.

Jack’s voice lowers, instinctively. “Then why would he tell us that?”

Elias hesitates.

Jack can almost hear him thinking, weighing, deciding what responsibility belongs to him and what doesn’t. Elias is not one of them, not blood, not family, but he’s close enough to Quinn to understand the kind of damage Quinn can do when he moves too fast. Close enough to recognize the shape of a mistake before it happens.

Luke stands up slowly, unable to sit with the uncertainty.

“Elias,” Jack presses, “what’s going on?”

Elias’s voice tightens. “I can’t—”

“No,” Luke interrupts, sharper now, frustration breaking through. “You can. You just don’t want to. Why is he going back?”

Elias goes quiet for a moment, and when he speaks again his tone is different. Not casual. Not friendly. Controlled in the way people are when they’re trying not to cross a line they can’t uncross.

“He’s not going back for a dinner,” Elias says.

Jack’s pulse spikes. “Then for what?”

Another pause.

Elias exhales slowly, and Jack hears the weight behind it, like he’s carrying something he didn’t ask to carry.

“I can’t tell you,” Elias says finally, voice firm. “It’s not mine. It’s not my story. It’s not something I get to drop into your lap over the phone.”

Luke’s eyes flash. “But you know.”

“Yes,” Elias admits, and the honesty of it makes Jack’s stomach drop further. “I know enough.”

Jack grips the phone harder. “Enough for what?”

Elias’s voice softens, just slightly, but the tension doesn’t leave it. “Enough to know that Quinn thinks he’s doing something… necessary. And I’m not sure he understands what he’s walking into.”

Luke paces once, sharp steps across the carpet. “Is he in trouble?”

Elias hesitates. “I don’t know if it’s trouble. I just know it’s going to explode.”

The word explode sits in the air like smoke.

Jack’s throat feels dry. “Elias—”

“I’m serious,” Elias cuts in, frustration flaring now. “I shouldn’t even be saying this much. I saw him gearing up for something, and it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t end cleanly. It doesn’t end with a polite conversation and everyone going home.”

Luke stops pacing. His voice is lower now, more controlled, but there’s something protective underneath it. “So what are we supposed to do?”

Elias is quiet for a long moment.

Then, reluctantly, he says, “Be there.”

Jack’s chest tightens. “Be there?”

Elias’s tone is grim. “If you’re going, then go. Don’t let him do it alone. That’s all I can say.”

Jack closes his eyes briefly, the instinct in him roaring louder now. The refusal is worse than an explanation. Elias isn’t being dramatic. He isn’t gossiping. He sounds like someone watching a storm form offshore, knowing it will hit land whether anyone wants it to or not.

Jack swallows hard. “Okay.”

Elias sighs, exhausted. “Just… don’t make it worse.”

The call ends.

Jack lowers the phone slowly, staring at it as if it might start ringing again with answers.

Luke stands across from him, jaw clenched, eyes sharp with worry and anger and confusion all at once.

“We’re going,” Luke says.

Jack nods once, the decision solidifying into something unavoidable.

“We’re going.”

Not because they understand.

Not because they know what they’re walking into.

But because Quinn lied, and Elias is scared, and whatever is waiting in Vancouver is bigger than a dinner.

And brothers don’t let brothers walk into explosions alone.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅

Taglist

Your body wakes you before your alarm now. It’s always the same—somewhere between dawn and the moment your phone would buzz, your eyes open and you lie still for a few seconds, orienting yourself. Your hand drifts to your stomach before you consciously think to move it there, fingers spreading gently, protectively. The curve beneath your palm is still modest, but it’s there in a way that can’t be ignored anymore. It isn’t a question. It isn’t a maybe. It’s a fact.

Almost four months.

The nausea has faded into the background, finally. It still visits occasionally, but it no longer dictates your day the way it once did. In its place is something steadier and more demanding: fatigue that lives in your bones, that makes standing up feel deliberate and sitting down feel like relief you didn’t realize you were craving. Your hips ache in the mornings. Your lower back complains by midafternoon. None of it is unbearable. All of it is constant.

You stand in front of the bathroom mirror longer than you used to, adjusting the waistband of your pants, smoothing the fabric of your shirt. Your face looks a little fuller. Softer.

Not worse. Just different.

There’s a strange neutrality to how you look at yourself now—not judgment, not pride, just observation.

“Okay,” you murmur quietly, eyes still on your reflection. “We’re doing fine.”

You’ve started talking like that without realizing it. Little half-formed sentences directed downward, toward the life growing inside you. You tell yourself it’s silly. You don’t stop.

Life, somehow, continues.

You go to work. You answer emails. You attend meetings and make notes you’ll barely remember later. You stop for groceries on the way home and lean a little harder on the cart handle than you used to, pausing in the aisle when your back protests. You buy crackers you don’t love but can tolerate. Fruit that feels safe. You’ve learned to think in terms of what your body will accept instead of what you want.

Your clothes have changed. Not drastically, but intentionally. Softer fabrics. Looser cuts. Dresses that don’t press too tightly against your middle but don’t hide it either. You aren’t trying to conceal anything anymore. You’re just choosing comfort. There’s a difference, and you feel it.

You are not fragile.

Just tired.

And, more importantly, you are no longer waiting.

Quinn still exists somewhere in your mind, but he no longer occupies the center of it. His absence has settled into something quieter, something that doesn’t demand your attention every waking moment. Some days you don’t think of him at all. Other days he drifts through your thoughts briefly, like a song you used to love but don’t play anymore. It doesn’t hurt the same way. It doesn’t consume you.

That feels like progress.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.

The day of the appointment arrives without drama, which almost surprises you. You wake up, shower, get dressed, and move through the morning with a calm that feels earned. Maddie insists on picking you up even though you tell her twice that you can drive yourself. She ignores you completely and shows up early, coffee in hand, already buzzing with nervous energy she’s trying very hard not to project onto you.

Amelia meets you at the clinic, her presence steady and familiar. The three of you sit together in the waiting room, Maddie flipping through a magazine without actually reading it, Amelia watching people come and go, you staring at the floor tiles and counting breaths without realizing you’re doing it.

Dr. Harper greets you warmly, as she always does, ushering you into the exam room with an ease that immediately lowers your shoulders.

“How are we feeling today?” she asks, scanning your chart as she speaks.

“Tired,” you answer honestly. “But good. Mostly.”

She smiles, nodding. “That sounds about right.”

The exam is thorough but gentle. She explains everything she’s doing, every measurement she takes, every number she notes. When the ultrasound screen flickers to life, you hold your breath without meaning to. The image is clearer now than it was before. Less abstract. More defined. You can make out movement—an arm, a leg, a sudden stretch that makes your chest tighten unexpectedly.

“Oh,” you whisper, the sound barely audible.

Dr. Harper glances up, smiling. “Your baby’s active today.”

The words land softly but firmly inside you.

Your baby.

“And today,” she continues, her tone casual, almost conversational, “we can discover the gender, if you’d like.”

Your heart stutters in your chest.

“I want to know,” you say, then hesitate. “I just… I don’t want to know right now. Not like this.”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “That’s completely fine.”

She writes it down carefully, folds the paper, and slips it into an envelope before handing it to you. You don’t even let it settle in your hands.

“Maddie,” you say immediately, extending it toward her, once you exit the exam room. “You hold onto that.”

Maddie’s eyes widen as she takes it, suddenly solemn. “I feel like I’ve been entrusted with state secrets.”

“Do not open it,” you warn, half-laughing.

“On my life,” she says, pressing the envelope flat against her chest.

The moment feels lighter after that. There’s laughter. Happy tears you don’t quite let fall. A sense of something fragile but good, something worth protecting.

Outside the clinic, someone suggests lunch. Someone else suggests shopping. You don’t argue. You let yourself be carried along, buoyed by their presence, by the warmth of being held in something communal instead of solitary.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.

The baby store is overwhelming in a way you didn’t expect. Rows of impossibly small clothes, soft blankets folded just so, shelves lined with things that suddenly feel very real. You move slowly through the aisles, touching fabrics, imagining nothing and everything all at once. Your chest feels tight, not with fear, but with the sheer weight of possibility.

Maddie’s energy shifts the moment she spots the wall of baby clothes.

“Oh,” she says, stopping so abruptly you almost walk into her back. “Oh no.”

You already know what she’s thinking.

“Maddie,” you warn gently.

She turns, eyes bright, holding up a tiny bodysuit between two fingers like it’s sacred. “Hear me out. Just one. Just one. We don’t have to go crazy. We don’t have to buy furniture or seventeen blankets or anything unhinged.”

You laugh despite yourself. “I said no buying.”

“I know,” she says quickly. “But this isn’t buying. This is… commemorating.”

Amelia crosses her arms, watching you carefully. “What kind of commemorating?”

Maddie gestures vaguely. “Like a marker. A moment. We find a soft shade of the color, nothing too loud, and we keep it. Just as a reminder. For later.”

Your chest tightens unexpectedly.

You look around the store again, the soft lighting, the impossibly small sleeves, the quiet optimism folded into every rack. It suddenly feels like too much. Like stepping into a future you haven’t fully wrapped your arms around yet.

“I just need air,” you say softly. “I’ll wait outside.”

They don’t argue. Maddie nods immediately, already placing the bodysuit back on the rack. Amelia squeezes your hand before letting go.

“Take your time,” she says.

Outside, the air feels cooler, grounding. You lean against the glass for a second, one hand instinctively resting over your stomach, breathing through the sudden swell of emotion you hadn’t expected to hit so hard.

That’s when you feel it.

That awareness. That quiet, unmistakable sense of being seen.

You straighten slowly, heart already racing before you’ve even turned around.

“Oh,” Elias Pettersson says, stopping short when he recognizes you. “Hey.”

Your stomach drops.

“Hi,” you say, keeping your voice steady.

He looks… gentler than you remember. Less sharp around the edges. Older, maybe. Or just more human.

“How are you?” he asks, and this time it sounds like a real question.

You hesitate for half a second. “I’m okay.”

He nods. His eyes flick down briefly—too brief to be rude, too long to be accidental—and something shifts in his expression. Understanding, quiet and immediate.

“I—” He stops himself, then clears his throat. “I’m sorry. About how things ended. With Quinn.”

The words catch you off guard.

“Oh,” you say softly. “Thank you.”

He shakes his head slightly. “You didn’t deserve that.”

There’s a pause. Not awkward. Just careful.

“I still talk to him sometimes,” Elias adds, almost apologetically. “Minnesota’s been good for his career. Hard on everything else.”

You nod, unsure what to say.

He glances back toward the store, then at you again. “You look… well.”

You swallow. “I’m doing my best.”

He smiles faintly. “That counts for a lot.”

Maddie appears behind the glass, pretending very badly not to watch the entire interaction. You take that as your cue.

“I should go,” you say.

“Yeah,” Elias replies. “It was really good seeing you.”

“You too.”

You step back inside, your heart still pounding, your mind already racing ahead to consequences you didn’t invite but can’t undo.

You don’t know yet that this moment will travel.

You don’t know yet how far.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.

It’s Sunday night when Quinn’s phone vibrates, and he barely looks at it before answering, because Elias always calls on Sundays. The routine is so ingrained that it doesn’t register as a choice anymore. He’s sitting on the couch in his Minneapolis apartment, a takeout container balanced on his thigh, food gone cold because he stopped eating ten minutes ago. Outside, the city is settling into its evening rhythm, headlights streaking past the window, the sky darkening into something flat and colorless. Inside, the apartment feels hollow in a way he hasn’t quite gotten used to yet.

“Hey,” Quinn says, his voice already tired.

“Hey,” Elias replies. “You sound wiped.”

“Long week,” Quinn answers. “Travel, training, meetings. Feels like it never slows down.”

Elias hums in agreement. “Same here. New rotations are still a mess. Everyone’s trying to prove something, and it shows.”

They fall into familiar conversation easily, the way they always do. Quinn asks about practice, about how the team’s adjusting, about a player who’s been struggling with consistency. Elias fills in the details calmly, objectively, talking about drills, coaching decisions, small frustrations that come with a long season. Quinn responds automatically, offering insight, half-listening, half-distracted. This is how their calls usually go: safe, predictable, grounded in the language of the sport and nothing else.

After a while, Quinn mentions Minnesota again, how the city still feels temporary, how he hasn’t bothered unpacking everything yet. Elias comments that it takes time, that moving teams always does this to people, that eventually the place stops feeling borrowed. Quinn doesn’t respond right away. He isn’t sure he believes that.

They talk a little longer, circling the same topics, until Elias’s tone shifts—not abruptly, not dramatically, just enough to register.

“I ran into her,” Elias says.

Quinn doesn’t answer immediately. He adjusts the takeout container on his leg, even though it doesn’t need adjusting. “Where?” he says finally.

“At a mall,” Elias replies. “Completely by chance. I almost didn’t recognize her at first.”

Quinn’s chest tightens. “Why not?”

“She looks different,” Elias says, careful but direct. “Not in a bad way. Just… more settled.”

Quinn leans back against the couch. “Did you talk?”

“Yes,” Elias says. “Briefly. It was normal. We exchanged pleasantries. She asked how things were going. I asked how she was doing.”

“And?”

“She said she was good. And she seemed to mean it.”

Quinn exhales slowly through his nose. “Good doesn’t mean anything.”

“It meant something in this case,” Elias replies. “She wasn’t defensive. She wasn’t withdrawn. She wasn’t emotional. She was calm.”

Quinn doesn’t like that. He doesn’t say so, but it settles uncomfortably in his chest. “Okay...”

“She was shopping,” Elias continues.

Quinn’s jaw tightens. “And so?”

“At a baby store.”

The words don’t come with emphasis. Elias doesn’t slow down. He just says them, like a fact that doesn’t need decoration.

Quinn sits up straighter. “A baby store.”

“Yes.” Silence stretches, but Elias doesn’t rush to fill it.

“I didn’t ask her questions,” Elias says. “I didn’t comment. It didn’t feel appropriate.”

Quinn’s pulse spikes, sharp and immediate. “Wow,” he says, a short, humorless laugh slipping out before he can stop it. “She moved on fast...I knew she was no good.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. Not dead air—just Elias breathing, considering his words.

“That’s not what this is,” Elias says finally, his voice steady, lower than before.

Quinn scoffs, pacing again, agitation bleeding into every movement. “Come on. A baby store? Four months? That doesn’t just happen.”

“It does if the timeline isn’t what you’re framing it as,” Elias replies. He doesn’t sound accusatory, just firm, like someone correcting a false assumption before it hardens. “And for what it’s worth, she didn’t look like someone who’d ‘moved on fast.’ She looked like someone who’d been carrying something for a while.”

Quinn stops mid-step. “You’re defending her now?”

“I’m being honest,” Elias says. “You can take it or not.”

Silence stretches again, heavier this time. Quinn presses his hand to his mouth, jaw tight, eyes unfocused as if the apartment around him has gone slightly out of frame.

“You didn’t ask who the father is?” Quinn says. It’s not a question.

“No,” Elias answers.

“But you assumed.”

“I observed,” Elias corrects. “And I remembered dates.”

That lands. Harder than anything else. Quinn exhales sharply, the sound bordering on a laugh, bordering on something else entirely. “So what, you’re telling me this is—” He stops himself, swallows. “You’re telling me this lines up.”

“I’m telling you it’s very possible,” Elias says. “And that whatever happened between you two didn’t look as clean-cut as you’ve been pretending it was.”

Quinn drags a hand down his face. The defensiveness is still there, but it’s cracking now, letting something uglier seep through—panic, maybe, or the beginning of it. “If it's mine she should’ve told me.”

“She might have tried,” Elias says quietly.

Quinn’s head snaps up. “Did she say that?”

“No,” Elias replies. “But you didn’t exactly make yourself reachable.”

That one hits differently.

Quinn opens his mouth, then closes it again. His phone feels heavier in his hand now, like it’s already accusing him.

“She looked healthy,” Elias continues, not unkindly. “Supported. Not struggling the way someone hiding a mistake would be.”

Quinn sinks back onto the couch, the edge of it this time, elbows on his knees. “This is insane.”

“I wouldn’t mess with you about something like this” Elias says. “And I figured you deserved to know before it blindsided you.”

The call ends shortly after that. There’s nothing left to say that won’t turn into something worse.

Quinn stays there long after the line goes dead, staring at his phone like it might change its mind, like it might explain itself. His thoughts spiral, racing dates, replaying conversations he cut short, messages he never answered. Four months. The math keeps working no matter how many ways he tries to break it.

And somewhere else, far from Minneapolis, you’re living your life, unaware that the silence you learned to survive in has finally reached him—and that he’s already decided what it means, even before hearing your voice.

⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.⋆⁺₊❅.

You don’t answer the first call. Or the second. Or the third.

You see his name light up your phone while you’re in the middle of normal things—brushing your teeth, rinsing a mug, answering an email—and every time it happens, it feels less like a jolt and more like an irritation, like a sound you can’t be bothered to silence yet. You flip the phone face down and keep going. Whatever panic he’s spiraling in doesn’t get to interrupt your life anymore. The messages pile up. You don’t read them. You already know the shape of his urgency; you lived with it once, always arriving too late, always half-formed. You are done responding on instinct.

When you finally answer days later, it’s not because you miss him or because you feel cornered. It’s because you’re tired of the buzzing, tired of the assumption that he still has access to you. You lean against the kitchen counter, one hand resting at your side, the other steady as you bring the phone to your ear. “Hello.” Your voice is even.

No softness. No welcome.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks immediately. No greeting. No pause. Just accusation, sharp and entitled, like you owe him clarity he never gave you.

You blink slowly. “Tell you what?”

“Don’t do that,” he snaps. “Elias saw you. He told me you’re pregnant.”

“That's true” you say.

Solid. Unapologetic.

The silence that follows is thick, buzzing with everything he hasn’t figured out how to say yet. Then, “And you didn’t think I should know?”

Something in your chest shifts, not breaking yet, just tightening. “You don’t get to ask that like this,” you say quietly. “Not after the way you left.”

“I didn’t leave,” he says immediately.

Defensive. Automatic.

You let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “You stopped calling. You stopped answering. You disappeared without a conversation. That’s leaving.”

“I went to Minnesota for my career.”

“And I stayed,” you shoot back, heat flaring now. “I stayed in something you couldn’t even be bothered to officially end. Do you know what that does to someone? Being in limbo? Not knowing if they’re still loved or just… forgotten?”

Your voice starts to shake. You hadn’t planned on crying. You hate that it’s happening now, that he still has the power to pull this out of you. “You didn’t break up with me, Quinn. You just went quiet. You let days turn into weeks and let me figure it out alone.”

“That’s not fair,” he says, again, like repetition might make it true.

“Don’t,” you snap, louder now. “Don’t say that. Don’t tell me what’s fair when you couldn’t even do the bare minimum.” The words spill out faster, heavier, months of restraint finally giving way. “I tried to reach you. I tried. I called. I texted. I waited. I stared at my phone like an idiot thinking maybe you were just busy, maybe you’d call back, maybe you still cared enough to answer.”

Your chest tightens, breath coming in sharp, uneven bursts. Tears blur your vision and you don’t bother wiping them away. “And you didn’t. You didn’t care enough to respond. So don’t come at me now saying I was careless or secretive or that I should’ve tried harder when you didn’t even show up.”

You’re crying openly now, voice breaking, anger and hurt tangled together. “I went through everything alone. The confusion. The fear. The silence. I held myself together while you were off building a new life like I didn’t exist.”

There’s a long pause on the other end of the line. When he finally speaks, his voice is lower, colder, edged with something defensive you recognize all too well. “You still should’ve told me. I had a right to know.”

You laugh through tears, sharp and hollow. “A right?” You swallow hard. “You gave up your rights when you walked away.”

Another beat. Then, quieter but more devastating than anything he’s said so far: “So what now? You’re just… keeping it? Making decisions without me?”

You straighten, hand instinctively moving to your stomach, protective, resolute. “I’m not doing this to you,” you say. “I’m doing this without you.”

He exhales sharply, frustration bleeding through. “You can’t just cut me out like this.”

You close your eyes, steadying yourself, and when you speak again your voice is calm in a way that feels final. “I didn’t cut you out, Quinn. You left.”

There’s a brief, charged silence.

Then he says it. The thing that makes your stomach drop, that confirms everything you already know about him.

“Are you even sure it’s mine?”

For a moment, everything goes still.

Your breath doesn’t catch. Your heart doesn’t race. Instead, something inside you goes quiet—like a door closing, like a lock clicking into place. You don’t owe him a reaction. You don’t owe him reassurance. You don’t owe him proof.

You look down at your phone, your thumb hovering over the screen. You think of every unanswered message, every night you waited, every moment you held yourself together when he couldn’t be bothered to show up. You think of the life growing inside you, steady and real and entirely yours.

"I wish it wasn't"

You press the button.

The call ends by your hand.

The silence that follows isn’t empty—it’s deliberate. Clean. Final. You stand there for a moment longer, phone resting in your palm, and then you set it down like it no longer has power over you.

You inhale.

Slowly. Deeply.

The marui smells faintly of salt and woven kelp fibers, of unfamiliar hands and borrowed space. It is not uncomfortable—but it is not yours. You have learned not to linger where you do not belong.

Outside, the sea waits.

You rise without sound, gathering your weapons out of habit more than necessity. The bow remains behind; you do not need it yet.

You leave the marui without waking anyone.

The woven doorway shifts softly as you slip through, kelp fibers brushing your shoulders, whispering back into place behind you. The village still sleeps, most of it anyway. A few early risers move along the platforms, their silhouettes quiet and distant, but no one stops you.

They are already used to you being… elsewhere.

The sand is cool beneath your feet as you step down into the shallows. For a moment, you hesitate—not from fear, but from awareness. You’ve learned to listen before acting, to feel the space you’re about to enter.

The reef answers first.

Water curls around your ankles, not pulling, not pushing—adjusting. The current shifts subtly to accommodate your weight, the pressure changing just enough to steady you. It feels… familiar. Not welcoming in the way people welcome, but in the way a path opens because it recognizes the shape of your step.

You exhale.

“Eywa ngahu,” you murmur softly, letting the words flow into the water. Eywa, be with me.

As you wade deeper, fish glide past you instead of scattering. A cluster of anemones pulse open as you pass, their colors deepening in the early light. You move slowly, deliberately, letting the reef learn you as much as you learn it.

You are not here to conquer it.

You are here to listen.

The welders’ words surface again, unbidden.

A wrongness in the currents.

A place the water avoids.

A silence where there should be song.

You angle your path toward deeper water, following the subtle pull you’ve felt since arriving—faint, almost imagined, but persistent. The further you go, the quieter the village becomes, until the only sounds left are your breathing and the low, living murmur of the reef.

You dive.

The water closes over you like a held breath released. You move with practiced ease, strokes smooth and economical, tail guiding your turns. The reef opens before you in layered terraces of coral and stone, light filtering down in fractured beams.

And then you see him.

Ao’nung cuts through the water ahead, movement sharp and confident, every stroke precise. He isn’t alone. Two others swim with him, their paths weaving in and out of his, playful and synchronized. You recognize them immediately—faces you saw in the marui the day you arrived, standing near Ronal and Tonowari, watching you with open curiosity.

They laugh softly underwater, nudging each other, spinning around a coral outcrop before darting off again. Ao’nung corrects one of them with a quick gesture, and they adjust instantly, grinning even as they do.

Familiarity.

Something twists in your chest—brief, sharp, gone as quickly as it comes. You tuck yourself behind a tall coral arch, instinctively stilling your movements. Observation is safer. Observation gives you control.

You watch the way Ao’nung moves when he isn’t posturing. How his body follows the reef’s contours without effort. How the others respond to him without hesitation. There is no tension there, no need to prove anything.

You take note.

The reef hums softly around you, unbothered by your stillness. A school of small fish passes between you and the coral, momentarily obscuring your view.

When they clear, Ao’nung has stopped.

He doesn’t turn right away.

Instead, the water around him tightens—currents adjusting, pressure shifting. His shoulders tense. Awareness radiates from him like a ripple spreading outward.

Then he turns.

His gaze locks onto yours.

The space between you narrows without either of you moving. Tension snaps tight, as palpable as a drawn bowstring. Your tail flicks once as you exhale, the motion sharp, controlled.

Recognition settles without language.

You lift your chin slightly, eyes never leaving his. One hand rises instinctively, fingers spreading before curling inward again—an unconscious challenge, not a sign you were taught, not meant to be understood.

Ao’nung stills.

Then his hands move.

Fast. Precise. Deliberate.

His fingers slice through the water in sharp motions you don’t recognize—clearly practiced, clearly intentional. The message is directed at you, there’s no doubt of that. But the meaning escapes you entirely.

You don’t try to interpret it.

Instead, you watch the tension in his wrists, the controlled force behind each movement. His tail snaps once, irritation bleeding through his otherwise disciplined posture.

Whatever he’s saying, it isn’t friendly.

Your eyes lift back to his face. Slowly, deliberately, you tilt your head—not confused, not submissive. Merely unimpressed.

He notices.

His hands still abruptly. Jaw tightening, frustration flickering across his expression. Whatever reaction he expected, he doesn’t get it.

You don’t wait.

With a powerful kick, you surge upward, breaking away from the standoff. The reef parts as you rise, water peeling from your body as you breach the surface in a spray of droplets and sharp breath.

Air burns into your lungs.

A heartbeat later, Ao’nung surfaces beside you, sending a ripple across the water.

Only now—only with breath and sound returned—does confrontation find its voice.

Only now do you speak.

The water settles slowly after you surface, ripples spreading outward until they dissolve into the reef’s quiet breathing.

Ao’nung remains where he is, chest rising and falling, eyes fixed on you with a sharpness that feels almost physical. The sea laps at both of you, indifferent to the tension tightening the space between your bodies.

“You surface just to avoid the conversation,” he says finally, voice edged. “Cowardly.”

You turn your head slightly, studying the horizon instead of him. “I surfaced because I don’t speak water.”

That earns a sharp exhale from him. “You understood enough.”

“Did I?” you ask coolly. “Or did you just assume I would?”

His jaw tightens. He steps closer, enough that the water brushes your hips, his presence undeniable. “You shouldn’t be alone this far from the village.”

“I didn’t ask for a keeper.”

“I’m not your—”

“Srung si,” you cut in quietly. Guardian

The Na’vi word lands harder than its volume suggests.

Ao’nung stiffens. “You twist words.”

“I observe them.”

For a moment, neither of you moves. The reef hums faintly beneath your feet, currents tightening just slightly, as if listening.

Ao’nung’s gaze drops briefly — not to your face, but lower, to the tattoo inked high on your chest near your shoulder. His eyes linger for a fraction of a second too long.

You notice.

“If you’re done staring,” you say evenly, “train me. Or move.”

Something sharp flashes across his expression — pride, irritation, something closer to intrigue.

“Fine,” he snaps. “Zola’u nìtxan.” You asked for it

He dives without another word.

You follow immediately.

The water closes around you, pressure steady, familiar. Ao’nung doesn’t slow down. He cuts through the reef in tight arcs, forcing you to adjust quickly or be left behind. Coral flashes past, sunlight fracturing overhead.

He tests you first — sudden turns, sharp dives, feints meant to throw you off balance.

You don’t take the bait.

Instead, you let the current guide you, conserving movement, waiting. When he lunges, you twist aside at the last possible moment, letting his momentum carry him past you.

His surprise is brief — but real.

He pivots fast, coming back harder this time. The exchange sharpens. No words, no signs — only movement and intent.

You clash forearms once, twice. The impact reverberates through the water, sending a pulse through your muscles. Ao’nung grins underwater, feral and pleased.

Good.

He presses closer, trying to crowd you, forcing proximity. You don’t retreat — you redirect. A subtle shift of your hips, a sweep of your tail, and the current tightens around you, lending you speed you didn’t ask for.

You hook his arm and twist.

The reef responds instantly.

Not dramatically. Not violently.

Just enough.

Ao’nung loses balance, drifting back a pace. His eyes widen — not in fear, but in startled confusion.

You close the distance and plant your palm against his chest, shoving him back deliberately.

The contact lingers.

Too long to be accidental.

He freezes.

The reef seems to hold still with him.

Then he breaks away sharply, pushing upward toward the surface.

You follow.

Air burns into your lungs as you break through, water streaming from your braids. Ao’nung surfaces beside you, eyes dark, breathing uneven.

“You fight like you don’t care who wins,” he says.

“I fight like someone who doesn’t plan to lose,” you reply.

“Ke tsranten,” he mutters. Reckless

A faint smile curves your mouth. “So are storms.”

Before he can respond, voices cut across the water.

“Well,” a boy says cheerfully, surfacing nearby, “that looked personal.”

Ao’nung groans. “Ma Eywa…”

More figures surface around him — familiar faces now. The girl with calm eyes and gentle posture meets your gaze without fear. There’s curiosity there, and something warmer.

“Oel ngati kameie, newcomer” she says.

She inclines her head politely. “I’m Tsireya.”

A broad-shouldered boy surfaces beside her, nodding once. “Roxto.”

The one who spoke looks coldly at you. “Lo’ak.”

A small girl pops up last, eyes wide. “I'm Tuk!”

Another girl rises more slowly, eyes distant, studying you like she’s listening to something you can’t hear.

“Kiri,” she says softly.

You absorb them in silence, measuring tones, posture, the way they orient themselves — around Ao’nung, around each other.

“Y/n Seyelanu,” you say finally. “te Tìkara.”

The water shifts.

Barely noticeable — but enough.

Kiri inhales sharply. “Eywa…”

Ao’nung’s head snaps toward you. “Did you do that?”

“I didn’t touch anything.”

But the reef says otherwise.

The current deepens beneath your feet, a low vibration humming through coral and stone. Light pulses faintly along the reef wall — uneven, searching.

Tsireya frowns. “Fì’u ke lu nì’aw frapo.” This isn’t normal.

Ao’nung steps closer to you without realizing it. “What did you bring here?” he demands, voice low.

You don’t answer.

Because deep below the reef, something stirs — not rejecting you, not welcoming you.

Recognizing you.

And for the first time, you wonder if the wound you came to find has been aware of you all along.

𓂃 𓂃 𓂃 𓂃 𓂃 𓂃

Silence follows you like a held breath.

For a long moment, nothing moves.

Then, slowly, reluctantly, the reef resumes its rhythm. Currents smooth where you passed, coral easing back into its patient sway, schools of fish drifting into motion again as if nothing has happened. But the stillness you leave behind is not peace—it is watchful. Alert. As though the water itself is listening for your return.

Ao’nung doesn’t move at first.

He remains suspended where you left him, gaze locked on the empty stretch of water that swallowed you whole. His jaw is clenched so tightly it aches, teeth grinding as unease crawls beneath his skin. Not because you walked away.

But because the reef did not resist you.

It didn’t recoil. It didn’t still.

It followed.

Ronal’s voice cuts cleanly through the quiet, sharp as a blade through kelp.

“Ao’nung.”

He turns at once.

She is already moving toward him, powerful strokes carrying her across the water. Her eyes are sharp, posture rigid, her attention not on her son—but on the place where the currents have yet to fully settle.

“Nga tsun tsivun fì’u,” she says. You felt this

It isn’t a question.

Ao’nung hesitates.

That single pause is answer enough.

“The current shifted,” Ronal continues, her voice low, controlled, edged with something old and dangerous. “Ke lu txampay aysäfpìl. Ke lu ayvìng.” Not the tide, not movement

Tonowari watches in silence from a distance, arms crossed over his chest, expression unreadable. His eyes track the reef, not his son.

Ao’nung exhales sharply, frustration flaring. “It was just her fighting style.”

Ronal’s head snaps toward him.

“Kea tìng mikyun fì’ut,” she snaps. Do not cheapen this Then, colder: “Ke lu fì’u nì’aw.” This is not anything

Her gaze flicks back toward the direction you vanished. For a heartbeat, something like recognition—old, uneasy, half-buried—passes across her face.

“She did not take from the water,” Ronal says slowly, each word deliberate. “Pay nì’ul fìtseng.” The water leaned toward her

The words land heavier than any reprimand.

Ao’nung’s throat tightens. His fingers curl reflexively at his side.

He doesn’t reply.

𓂃 𓂃 𓂃 𓂃 𓂃 𓂃

You don’t stop until the reef deepens.

Light thins as you descend, fractured into pale ribbons that barely reach this far. Coral grows darker here—older, heavier, shaped by centuries of pressure and patience. The hum beneath your skin grows louder the farther you drift from the shallows, a resonance that vibrates through your bones rather than your ears.

You press a hand briefly to your chest, steadying your breath.

Nothing, you remind yourself.

That’s what you were called.

Your jaw tightens.

A memory flickers—not as images, not as words, but as sensation: heat without warmth. A presence looming just behind you. The crushing weight of expectation that never fit your shape, never fit you.

You shove it down hard.

The reef doesn’t let it go.

The water around your arm ripples faintly, reacting to the spike in your tension. You still it instinctively, forcing control back into your limbs, breathing slow and measured.

Then you feel it.

Not sound. Not movement.

Awareness.

You turn just as Ao’nung breaks the surface nearby, hauling himself onto a low rock formation streaked with salt and algae. Water streams from his braids as he straightens, chest rising and falling, eyes locked on you.

He doesn’t speak at first.

He just watches—expression conflicted, raw, stripped of the earlier bravado.

“You shouldn’t be down here alone,” he says finally.

You lift an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Following me now?”

“I’m not—” He cuts himself off, scowling. “You left.”

“Because I was done.”

The water between you stirs, faint currents curling toward your legs as if drawn there. Ao’nung notices this time. His eyes flick down, then back up, sharper now. More cautious.

“What are you?” he asks quietly.

Your lips curve—not in amusement, not in warmth. “That’s a dangerous question.”

He steps closer, lowering his voice. “The reef hasn’t acted like this since—”

He stops.

Since what?

Before he can finish, the water below you shifts.

Not violently.

Not yet.

A deep, low tremor pulses through the reef, subtle enough that only those attuned would feel it. Nearby coral dims, bioluminescence flickering unevenly, as if the light itself is struggling to hold form. The hum in your chest spikes—sharp, sudden—like a string pulled too tight.

You gasp despite yourself.

Ao’nung swears under his breath. “That wasn’t you… was it?”

The water answers before you can.

A slow, spiraling current forms beneath your feet, deliberate, controlled, mirroring the shape of the tattoo etched near your shoulder. Light bends through it strangely, refracting into curves that feel familiar—old symbols, half-remembered, wrong in this place and yet unmistakable.

Ronal’s voice echoes faintly from above now, edged with urgency.

“Ao’nung—txìm! Nì’aw!” Step back! Now!

He doesn’t.

Instead, he reaches out—not touching you, but close enough that the water between your hands thrums, alive with tension.

The pull between you sharpens. Not just physical. Something else entirely—recognition without memory, a bond forming where none should exist.

“You didn’t come here by accident,” he says, awe threading his voice despite himself.

Your eyes burn—not ember now, but something deeper, brighter, like light filtered through storm water. You don’t know how you know it. The certainty simply settles into you, heavy and unyielding.

“There’s something wrong here,” you whisper. “And it knows me.”

The reef pulses again—stronger.

Somewhere far below, something stirs.

Wounded. Ancient. Aware.

Ao’nung’s hand tightens into a fist at his side. “Then whatever you are,” he says, voice low, fierce, “you’re not facing it alone.”

The water surges suddenly, snapping both of you back into the present.

Above, Ronal and Tonowari are already moving, expressions grave, voices urgent. The others watch with wide eyes, sensing the shift even if they don’t yet understand it.

And deep beneath the reef—where Eywa’s song falters and fractures, where the water no longer remembers how to sing—

Something has finally found what it’s been calling for.

You.

The surge passes—but the tension does not.

Water rushes back into its channels, snapping currents into motion again, yet the reef does not return to normal. It hesitates. Light flickers unevenly along the coral wall, bioluminescence stuttering as though the reef itself is struggling to remember the rhythm it has kept for centuries.

You feel it in your spine.

Not pain. Pressure.

A presence pressing upward from the depths, slow and deliberate, like something enormous shifting beneath a thin layer of sand.

Above you, shapes move.

Ronal and Tonowari descend swiftly now, no longer observers but guardians, their bodies cutting clean paths through the water. Around them, the others hover at a cautious distance—Lo’ak restless and wide-eyed, Tsireya tense but steady, Kiri utterly still, her head tilted as though she is listening to something none of them can hear.

Ao’nung stays where he is.

Between you and the deep.

The current curls tighter around your legs, not restraining, not pulling—anchoring. You feel the reef make a choice, subtle but unmistakable. It does not push you away. It does not shield itself from you.

It holds you in place.

Your breath comes shallow now, chest rising too fast. You close your eyes for half a heartbeat, grounding yourself, fingers flexing against the water as if reminding yourself where you end.

The hum beneath your skin deepens.

Not louder—closer.

Ronal stops a few lengths away, her expression carved from stone. Her eyes flick from you, to the spiraling current beneath your feet, to the faint distortion in the water below—where the reef dips unnaturally, as if something has pressed against it from beneath.

“Fì’u… ke tsun tsivun nì’aw,” she says quietly. This cannot be ignored

Tonowari’s gaze sharpens. “The reef is responding.”

Kiri inhales sharply, a soft sound that cuts through the tension. “It’s not afraid,” she murmurs. “It’s… confused.”

Ao’nung’s jaw tightens. “Confused by her?”

Ronal does not answer immediately.

She watches you the way one watches the horizon before a storm—not for movement, but for meaning.

“Eywa does not reach without reason,” Ronal says at last. “Ke lu fì’u tì’eyng.” This is not a coincidence

The water beneath you pulses again.

This time, you don’t gasp.

You feel it move—not upward, not toward you, but around you. A wide, slow spiral, as though something vast has turned its attention and is circling, measuring, remembering.

Images threaten at the edges of your mind. Not visions—echoes. Broken sensations layered atop one another: stone splitting, water darkened by something wrong, a song cut short mid-note.

You open your eyes.

Ao’nung is watching you like you might vanish if he looks away.

“What do you see?” he asks, voice rough.

You swallow. “I don’t know. But it feels like… a place that never healed.”

Ronal’s shoulders stiffen almost imperceptibly.

“There are stories,” she says, careful now. “Old ones. Of places where Eywa’s voice thinned. Where the reef grew quiet because something beneath it was hurting.”

The word settles heavy in the water.

Hurting.

The current tightens once more—gentle, insistent—urging your attention downward. Not commanding. Asking.

Ao’nung steps closer without thinking, close enough that his arm brushes yours. This time, the water does not flare. It accepts the contact, weaving smoothly around both of you.

Ronal notices.

Her eyes narrow.

“You are bound to this,” Ao’nung says, not accusing—realizing. “Whatever it is.”

Your voice is steady when you answer, though your pulse races. “I came looking for a wound.”

The reef answers with a low, resonant tremor that rolls outward, rippling through coral and stone. Far below, something shifts again—slow, immense, awake.

Ronal exhales slowly, as if bracing herself.

“Then Eywa has heard your steps,” she says. “And she has not turned you away.”

The light around you dims just a fraction more, shadows deepening where the reef slopes downward into darkness. The water there feels heavier, denser—charged with memory and grief and something still unfinished.

Ao’nung’s hand curls into a fist at his side.

“Whatever’s down there,” he says quietly, fiercely, “it’s not just watching you anymore.”

You feel it too now.

The attention.

Focused. Intent.

And for the first time since you entered these waters, the certainty settles fully into place—not fear, not doubt, but knowing.

The wound you came to find has always been aware of you.

It has simply been waiting.

And now that you are here, the reef will not let you leave unchanged.

𓂃 𓂃 𓂃 𓂃 𓂃 𓂃

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