to whatever end

Instead the Stranger had taken her in her prime, through dragon fire that had burned her flesh and rotted her core until she had eventually succumbed to it. Or perhaps it was the grief of losing another son, that in the end had been too much to bear. Many in the Red Keep suspected that the loss of Queen Helaena and their youngest son had been what had driven Aegon to madness, until his own men had taken pity. 

Only the Gods knew the truth of it, now all there was for Jacaerys to understand was that the two rulers, legitimate and usurping, who had sat the throne after Viserys were now dead, and the crown had landed on his head. 

Under the looming presence of the Iron Throne, Jacaerys paced the marble floors, attempting to make sense of the utter devastation around him. The high ceilings now felt suffocating, as though the very sky was crumbling over his head. 

“I should not be there,” he said outloud, almost to himself, or perhaps to the Gods, but his faithful friend Cregan Stark still answered his call of anguish. 

Wrists resting atop the pommel of Ice, which he carried at his waist these days, the young lord was watching over him as Kingsguard would, with the sort of silent presence that reminded Jacaerys that he was not alone in carrying his grief. 

“This is your rightful place, my prince,” he reminded him with the steadfastness he had come to expect from the northerner. 

“No it is not. It shouldn’t be, not by decades at least,” he resisted, and Cregan knew him to be right. 

Upon answering the call of the Dragon Queen, never would he have imagined that he would see a great dynasty fall to its knees in such a short time. Dragon riders had risen and fallen as quickly as the tide and as unpredictably, and he feared that it was only through sheer fate that one legitimate heir remained.

While it was not in his character to contemplate potential ruin, he knew the face of the crown could have been a child not even a decade old, would Jacaerys have drowned along with his dragon at the Gullet.

“Why have the Gods allowed it? Why allow my mother to die but me to survive?” Jacaerys lamented, the healed wound in his shoulder throbbing then, a pulsing burn from an arrow that had scarcely missed his heart—in that instant he almost wished it had not, and had allowed him to rest at the bottom of the sea with Vermax, instead of standing to inherit ruins.

“It is not for us to know,” Cregan replied, knowing it was no comfort. Then he cleared his throat, meaning to lead the young king to where he was expected. “They are waiting for you.”

Jacaerys turned to him then, his eyes rimmed with red and his face gaunter than a man of his age should be, the face of a man who had seen the Stranger many a time. “I cannot rule.”

Cregan stepped forward and put a heavy hand on his shoulder—still, the touch felt like the comfort of a brother, the sort Jacaerys sorely missed, and he leaned into it for support. “Then allow me to counsel you. We have been friends, haven’t we?”

Jacaerys nodded, swallowing heavily—the battlefield forged strong friendships, bonds of brotherhood the like he would have never imagined beforehand. “We have,” he confirmed. “There is no one else I trust.”

“Then believe me when I say, you will be a fine king,” Cregan replied, and it planted the seed of an idea in him, that perhaps not all of it was a curse—perhaps this was the call of destiny, no matter how painful, and he only had to answer it. “One I will gladly bend the knee to.”

The Red Keep had been your birth place, and now you were certain it would be your resting place. It had now been a fortnight since Rhaenyra had taken the Iron Throne once more, returning to King’s Landing with an army several thousands strong, made of Rivermen and Northerners, only to find that the revenge she sought had already been taken from her. Aegon laid cold in his bed, and she followed mere days later. 

You had been confined to Maegor's Holdfast, kept under close watch in your rooms most days, as though you were more than you were, more than a woman and instead a danger to the unlikely king now wearing the crown. You had never had to think of yourself as a political pawn until your brother Aegon, having taken the throne once more, had summoned you to the capital. You had obeyed your king, but in the span of a few weeks, he had perished and left you and your mother to face the consequences of his actions.

You loathed him as much as you loathed Rhaenyra and her brood. It was a cruel turn of fate, almost a cruel sort of poetry, that both pretenders to the throne had perished in the pursuit of it, leaving their heirs to scrub their blood from the stone floors and rebuild the dynasty they had destroyed, or pay the price of their pride in their own blood. 

All those that had betrayed Rhaenyra’s faction were now facing justice, and you feared you were only waiting for the executioner’s blade. You wondered whether your nephew’s own sword would do it, or if he would entrust the task to his most loyal man, Cregan Stark. Perhaps they would show mercy and send you into exile, to become a Silent Sister. 

Death or eternal silence,you knew what you would rather endure. 

Thus you waited for the Stranger in the room that had seen your childhood and little else, as you had been sent to Oldtown for your education once the first spring of your womanhood had bloomed. The Faith of the Seven now rooted you and guided you, and you clung to prayers as not to fall into madness.

On the third night of his reign, it was not the hand nor the blade of justice that came to you, but Jacaerys himself, and you wondered whether the following morrow would be the last dawn you would see. 

You stood abruptly as he entered, glancing towards the guard at the door with dread. “Rest easy, you have nothing to fear from me,” Jacaerys assured you. He was dressed in regal clothing made of black, the velvet layer on the inside of his cape a deep red. His hair fell to his shoulders in dark curls, nearly black in the low light of the candles. 

“Don’t I?” you asked, openly weary and hostile. “Where are my niece, and my mother?”

“Confined to their own rooms,” the young man replied with what seemed to you as regret. 

You noticed that he was not wearing the crown, but his head was bowed as though it was weighing on his neck, a constant presence. “Might I see them?” you inquired, but it sounded more like an order you were giving him.

“Your niece, yes,” Jacaerys conceded. 

“She’s a motherless child. Surely you would not have her be confined alone,” you insisted, and it seemed to convince him.

“You will be escorted to see her,” he offered, but it did little to appease you.

You approached him in careful steps until he could see the unshed tears glimmer in your eyes, your brow furrowed in concealed anger. You were trembling, ever so slightly, and when he searched your face for any familiar flicker, he found none—you were his blood, and yet nothing tied the two of you together but hatred.

“What will happen to us, now?” you inquired, gauging him. Standing face to face, you were reminded then of the years of your childhood, and you wondered whether the boy you had known then was still within reach, or if he had perished alongside his kin, replaced by a man you did not know.

“Nothing, for the time being. You are to be confined until trials have been run,” he explained.

Hope burst in your chest then, a starving dragon freed from its chains taking to the skies, ready to burn the lands around it. “And after that?”

Jacaerys looked pained then, a frown between his brows. “I do not know,” was all he answered, and he looked like a child, frightened by his own crown and unable to yield the power he possessed, and you hated him for it. 

“Why have you come, then, if you do not know of my fate?” you accused, your burning tears pearling at the corners of your eyes, your simmering rage like a silent sob caught in your chest, and he did not have any more answers for you.

Once Jacaerys had left, leaving more doubts and fears behind, you realized you had only addressed him in questions. There was a rage inside of you, and a primal fear that was no doubt similar to that of a beast caught in a trap, forced to eat through its own leg to free itself. 

You only had blunt teeth, but you still hoped you could sharpen them in due time.

Over the last pair of years, Jacaerys had sat at many a council of war, at the Painted Table in Dragonstone, but always as a councilor himself, advising his mother—it was only now that he realized how comfortable such a position was, making the decisions without having to enforce them, or without having to consider their consequences.

Now he was the one standing at the head of the table, leading men that sat in front of their marble ball as though they had paid a price for it and ought to claim them with pride, when in truth they had been named because they were alive and breathing. 

Corlys Velaryon was still abed from his wounds, but the men who had advised his mother during her last days were now serving him, waiting for him to name his council as he wished. All of them were taking their orders from a king young enough to be their son or grandson, one or two failing to conceal their contempt for that fact, and Jace wondered if such was the fate of all the kings that had preceded him. 

However what Jace lacked in years lived, he made up for in the devastation he had seen. In many ways grief was his experience, more so than strategy and governance, and he supposed it forged a man just as well.

Before the war he had never realized what came with being king—the grief, knowing the crown had only been passed on because the previous monarch had perished. It was all the more burdensome knowing his mother had barely reigned, and never over peace.

Since Cregan’s declaration of devotion, he had had the time to contemplate the sort of king he would want to be, the sort of legacy he would want to leave behind, whether his reign would be long or short. What mattered to him most was not to assert his authority or to be admired—he needed to rebuild and to leave the crown strong for his heirs. His reign would not be for himself, but for those who come after. 

With such a conclusion he sat before his council that morning, Cregan at his right where the Hand would usually be.

Roland Westerling, an older man with a calm disposition, handed a roll of parchment to Jacaerys, the seal of which had already been broken, a golden stag. “Lady Elenda Baratheon has accepted your terms of peace,” he informed the council as soon as they were all seated. 

“Nearly half of the great houses in the land are now ruled by babes and their mothers as regents,” Unwin Peake commented, as though this simple fact held an inherent flaw.

“I will gladly deal with these women. They might make wiser rulers than their husbands, who took to arm against my mother,” he said, unrolling the parchment and reading it over quickly before passing it along to Cregan. “Lord Roland, your daughter Joanna now rules House Lannister, does she not?”

“Indeed,” Roland answered with a slight smile of pride. “Loreon is a boy of barely five.”

Once great, powerful houses with proud men at their helm, the Lannisters and the Baratheons were now led by women, mothers of their heirs who would now lead the very men that had marched to war refusing to bow to a queen, and Jacaerys would laugh at their fate if he could summon the mirth. 

“There is still unrest in the Reach, I’m afraid,” Thaddeus Rowan said. “Those who remain loyal to the Greens are loath to settle, however the Hightowers are now ruled by a boy of seven and ten. He might easily be reasoned with.”

“Summon him to King’s Landing. I will receive him,” Jacaerys decided, to which Roland took note.

“He has made a rather unusual request to the High Septon,” Thaddeus continued with an appalled expression on his face. “He has asked for permission to wed his own father’s second wife, Lady Samantha Tarly.”

Jacaerys frowned—while there was no blood between a boy and his step-mother, it was still highly unusual and perhaps distasteful, especially since Oldtown was the cradle of the Faith. “How do you know of this, my lord?”

“Lady Sam is my niece, by my sister,” Thaddeus supplied. 

Without a word, Cregan gave Jacaerys a slow tilt of his head. “The Tarlys supported my mother, as did your house, did they not?” Jacaerys asked Lord Roland. “Did Lady Sam’s loyalties lie with my mother?”

Thaddeus observed Jacaerys for a moment. “Indeed.”

“Write to the High Septon in my name,” Jacaerys then decided. “Have him grant the marriage.”

As soon had he given the order, barely breathing after his words, that Unwin Peake cleared his throat. “While we are speaking of marriage, your grace, there is a matter we must discuss,” the man said, sharing a look with the other lords that spoke of a preceding agreement. “I loathe to be the one to say it, but a young king shall need a queen and heirs.”

“My brothers are my heirs,” Jacaerys protested. 

“The future of the realm partly rests on you securing a long-lasting peace,” Roland said. “While we have come to understand that an informal betrothal was made in childhood between yourself and Lady Baela Velaryon, she might not be the wisest match.”

Baela and himself had been children together, and while the expectation had been for them to marry, he cherished her friendship and had rarely considered the prospect. “A marriage is an alliance, a political calculation,” he continued.

Cregan crossed his hands atop the table and leaned forward. “What do you suggest?” he asked, but Jace could tell he already knew what point they were about to make, and he braced himself.

“The breach between the two branches of House Targaryen may be mended,” Thaddeus offered carefully. “Were his grace to wed the remaining child of King Viserys and Alicent Hightower.”

Horror rose from the pit of his stomach, settled only when he caught eyes with Cregan, whose gaze was calm and direct—without a word needed between them, the northerner gave him a slow nod, and with that, his fate was sealed.

Evening was falling, a heavy veil over the Red Keep, made of darkness and cold wind. Winter was settling and the days were darker and shorter, plunging the castle in a grim atmosphere that lasted from the end of the afternoon to the late morrow.

Supper was still an hour away when you were summoned to the king’s quarters. The room was brightly lit with candles and a fire, perhaps even more than was comfortable, as though Jacaerys was attempting to keep the darkness at bay. You stood near the threshold while he remained further into the room, arms clasped behind his back like a soldier at attention.

“I have asked you here to present to you a proposal I hope you will agree to,” he announced, the words sounding rehearsed, empty of all sincerity. “The realm is shattered and House Targaryen is in ruins, but together we might unite it.”

As soon as the words had left his mouth, you knew you had come to hear. “Will you wed me, and put an end to this bloodshed once and for all?”

Your answer came like the crack of a whip. “I may not.”

“I understand that this is not what you would have wanted, however—” Jacaerys prepared his arguments, but you did not let him speak.

With a raised hand, you silenced him. “You misunderstand me. This has nothing to do with what I want, but what I can do,” you explained, your face contorting in anguish.

“I don’t understand,” he said, cutting you off as though he suspected what was coming and desperately wanted to keep it at bay, but he could not have known, you thought.

Rage rose in your throat, acrid and burning, but you swallowed it down. You wanted to curse your brother out for putting you in such a vulnerable position, but damning the dead would do you no good, and you did not wish to betray your king’s memory in front of the man who had replaced him.

“A few days before Aegon died, he took me to wife in a secret ceremony,” you admitted, tears clouding your eyes, and Jace’s heart ached in sudden pity. “Ask the Septon and he shall confirm.”

“Aegon is dead, a widow is permitted to remarry,” he countered, and he could tell from your face how impatient you were becoming with him.

“I have not bled since,” you clarified. It had been two moons now, but the Maester could not say with certainty until the quickening, and your morrows remained without any sickness, yet you doubted, dreading the child that might be inside of you.

Jacaerys blamed his naiveness. “Are you implying—”

You looked upon him severely. “I may be carrying Aegon’s child, yes,” you said, and this simple but devastating truth rang loud in the room—it could be your salvation, as much as your downfall. 

“This changes everything,” Jacaerys whispered, and upon noticing the subtle way you were trembling, once more inhabited by fear in his presence, quickly made his promise. “No harm will come to you, you have my word. I shall keep your secret until you are certain either way.”

You knew you should have been grateful, but you hated the mere thought of owing him any sort of gratitude. It was just as well that he ignored your tears, much as he had done the day prior, as though he sought you out not to converse with you, but to shout into a void that echoed back to him. 

Jacaerys waved you away, crumbling once the doors shut and he was alone once more. He might have been young and uncertain of himself, but he knew what would happen if you were to birth a son.

Aegon’s supporters were still many, and his reign was still too fragile. Power often turned loyal men into self-serving traitors ; he could still easily be toppled, be murdered in this very room as Aegon had, and a babe placed upon the throne in his stead. 

Unable to bear the storm inside of him he took hold of the crown resting atop the mantle of the hearth and threw it at the wall, wailing until his voice broke. 

Grief held him by the throat, an invisible hand that felt like that of the Stranger choking his breath from his very neck. The wounds on his shoulders ached and throbbed anew, as fresh in his mind as the day they had been inflicted.

“What should I do, mother?” he pleaded to the night. “What would you have me do?”

Alone and broken, the young king wept. 

His son would have grown and perhaps would not recognize him. Months were years to children that age, and their memories were fickle. He felt older than his years, a weariness in his bones, sitting heavily on his shoulders, dragging his spine down until he felt he might collapse to the floor.

Such were the duties of men, to shoulder the burden of bloodshed so that women and children could be safe, and older men could take a rest. Still, it burned deep in his chest, this aching loneliness. It was in those moments that he thought of Arra the most. While the pain of her passing would likely never fade, he had to admit he felt the call to marry again, and find comfort in the companionship of a woman.  

Cregan was pulled from his low musings by the sounds of footsteps coming from behind him—his closest friend, Cley Cerwyn, came to sit at his side with a groan. He leaned into his shoulder for a second, which Cregan responded to and the two men waited in silence until Cley found it appropriate to speak.

He cleared his throat, looking up at the high ceiling. “How long do you think we shall stay?”

“Are you in such a hurry to ride home?” Cregan answered, knowing of the harsh winter that awaited them, and that several of the wounded would need to remain in the capital for a while longer.

“Are you not?” Cley asked.

It was Cregan’s turn to clear his throat, slightly irritated at his friend’s attitude, fully knowing he had an argument to make. “Say your piece,” he ordered, meaning it to be biting, but instead it came as a sigh.

Cley rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, looking at him with a tired expression on his youthful face—he had started to grow a beard, much like Cregan, and it was rather an odd sight. 

“You have done your duty. You have done right by your friend, and that is more than most men can say in their life,” Cley said gently, perhaps gentler than he had ever addressed him. 

“I made a vow,” Cregan replied, looking away at the large doors of the throne room, almost expecting Queen Rhaenyra or Prince Jacaerys to cross them. 

“Now you may leave the throne to those it belongs to,” Cley continued.

“The king is a child,” Cregan said regretfully—it seemed a tragedy to leave such a fractured realm in the hands of a fractured person such as Prince Aegon, but the laws of Gods and of men agreed that he was the rightful ruler, for better or worse, and there would be dire consequences to go against it.

“And he shall have regents,” Cley replied.

Cregan sighed out loud, leaning back on his elbows and looking up at the same ceiling Cley had been gazing at. “A hundred and thirty years of reign and now…” he murmured, unsure of what he really meant to say.

The size of the hall and of the throne at their back was almost dizzying, and yet its emptiness and coldness had robbed it of all its glory. It seemed a ruin now, even if it had not been destroyed during the battle. 

“If you wished to take it, I would bend the knee,” Cley said with humor, but there was a dark edge to it. 

The fate of the whole world could topple so easily, it seemed to Cregan. It should all have felt like victory, and instead it all felt like ruin. He shook his head. “I have no wish for it.”

“What do you wish for, then?” his friend asked, almost too quiet.

“Respite.”

The moon was high in the sky that night, and you could almost swear the howling of wolves could be heard from the kingswoods. From the window of your chambers, turned holding cell, you watched the dark mass of the forest far on the horizon. The black of the bay did not bring you any more comfort, nor did the numerous lights from the city below.

Restlessness and grief were your only companions these days, since the passing of your sister and your mother, you were utterly alone at court, and in the world. The war had decimated your family, and you were now the last of your siblings.

Once, you would have thought you would have been furious, vengeful, but instead you found yourself utterly devastated, longing for quiet and reprieve from your grief. You found herself entertaining the thought of taking Jaehaera away, far from the capital and the court, far from the throne which had caused your family’s downfall, far from the young king who sat where your brother once had.

Lord Cregan Stark was holding court from the bottom step of the Iron Throne. You were surprised he had not seized the throne for himself, as he very well could have. His army held the city with an iron fist and all seemed to fear him, even the Rivermen—it could have been the start of a Stark dynasty, and some seemed to think it was, in all but name. 

You had been confined to your chambers on his orders, and you felt as though you were standing in ruins, waiting for your own end. You could hardly stand the sight of the red bricks anymore; this place was forever soiled. So you clung to your niece, the poor girl in dire need of motherly love, and in loving her you endeavored to keep your sister alive in memory. Keeping the girl safe was your utmost priority, and you feared she would not be until she was freed of this red-walled prison.

Morning came and brought no relief from your nightly torments. Instead a maid came to bring you tea and collect your linens, but you stopped her before she could leave you alone again. “I was wondering if I would be allowed to pay my farewells to my brother,” you inquired.

The maid hesitated, looking at you with obvious pity. “You are to remain confined to your rooms.”

“A sister cannot say goodbye to her own brother? My niece, who now finds herself an orphan, could not say goodbye to her father? Surely the lord that now rules this place isn’t so cruel,” you pleaded.

“I shall ask,” was all the maid replied before she left, still giving you a quick curtsy. 

In the end, and to your great surprise, your wish was granted. In the later hours of the afternoon, a pair of guards came to fetch you and Jaehaera, and the two of you were escorted to see your brother in the crypts, where the Silent Sisters were keeping watch over him. 

In the privacy of your own mind, and for only the Gods to hear, you vowed to his still and cold form that you would take his daughter away from this dreadful place which had eventually been his downfall. 

Cregan had been surprised to hear your request to see your brother, but had seen no reason to refuse you. No matter the fact that he had been his enemy, he resented that the man had been murdered with such cowardice. He could give him back some honor in death, and in allowing you and the young princess a farewell, restore some dignity to the whole tragedy.

As was your right, you had refused to see him upon his arrival in King’s Landing, remaining confined to your rooms in prayer. Cregan had honored your wish until now, and it was by chance that he came upon you in the Red Keep—if he had not known you resided here, he would have thought he’d come across a wraith, or any creature of the shadows.

You were dressed in a black gown void of any embroidery, with a veil upon your face, which made it impossible to see your eyes or the lines of your face in the darkness of the corridor. The only thing he could notice was that your grip on Princess Jaehaera’s shoulder tightened as he approached. As he came upon you, you bent to pick her up, carrying her on your hip, clutching the girl like a lifeline. 

“Princess,” he greeted with a small dip of his head. “Princess,” he said with a tilt of his head and the ghost of a smile for Jaehaera. The girl buried her face in your neck without a word.

“Lord Stark,” you said, sounding wary behind your veil.

“Might we have a word?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” you refused in a quiet tone, and when he frowned, explained. “I need to tend to my niece.”

“She will be safe with her nurse the time of a conversation,” Cregan assured you, but you refused him yet again.

“There is nothing for me to say, and nothing for you to say that would appease my torments,” you said, your arms tightening around the little girl. 

“It does not please me to have you a prisoner in your own home,” Cregan tried. 

Tears welled in your eyes at his statement, and you watched him for a moment before you answered. “At night, when she sleeps, then. I would not part from her.”

As agreed he came at the hour of the bat, finding the girl was curled up in your bed, under the covers, her white hair splayed on the pillow. It made Cregan long for his own son, wondered if he still refused to have his hair cut, intent on growing it long. He would write to his sister later, and promise a quick return.

You were the perfect picture of a Targaryen princess, and for a moment Cregan wondered how such a feat could have been accomplished when your mother was a Hightower. The blood of the dragon ran thick, he supposed, in most of its heirs.

Without your veil to hide your face, the way you were looking at him unsettled him—it wasn’t quite fear, and certainly not reverence. You seemed exhausted and he felt sorry for the state this whole war had put you in. You were a royal princess and it desolated him to see you so diminished. He regretted the downfall of this dynasty—now a child would rule and the women and children would suffer.

“She wakes in the night, crying,” you said, glancing at your niece.

“I am sorry.”

“You bring war to my doorstep, do not offer me apologies.”

“I only ever upheld the vows my father made. He bent the knee to his king and swore allegiance to the heir he had named. Words might be wind to you, but to me they mean life,” he explained.

At that you turned away, crossing your arms over your chest, and he thought he heard a shaky intake of breath that betrayed the presence of tears. “I shall see that you are settled, before I return to Winterfell,” he told you carefully, gently as he could, but it seemed you did not care for his consideration.

“Why do you care, my lord?” you asked over your shoulder, your eyes wide and glossy with unshed sadness.

There was a softness to you, even in anger, and his heart throbbed to witness such a sight. “Because you are my responsibility until I leave,” he replied as honestly as he could. “When I am gone, rest assured that the king will take care of you.”

Turning to face him again, you looked at him with a broken expression, anger hiding the deepest, most primal heartbreak he had ever seen. “The king is no king at all. There will be no caring for us here,” you hissed, and deep inside he feared you might be correct.

With one last bow he took his leave, afraid this conversation had not served any purpose but to upset you and unsettle him. 

When Cregan visited Aegon in his chambers the following day, it was only to contemplate the same ruin he had found when conversing with you. You had been right in a way—the king was no king at all, but a child with a crown and the weight of an entire dynasty on the verge of collapse. 

“I wish them no harm but I do not wish to see them, either of them. I should have them sent away,” the child-king told Cregan when asked about the fate of those who were now his wards. 

“It would be unwise to send them to the Hightowers. It would cultivate ill will and it might awaken the spirit of revenge,” Cregan offered. 

“Dragonstone, then, away from my sight!” came the broken cry, and Cregan realized that you had been correct in your fear that you would not find any care in the capital. War had ended but you were still prisoners.

“The council shall soon discuss the matter of your succession,” Cregan said, disgusted at the prospect of such talks when children barely older than his own son were concerned. “It might be well to consider the option closest to home.”

Aegon’s face fell, contorted in what wanted to be fury but could only ever be devastation, and Cregan left without another word, once again faced with the fact that this conversation had only served to upset all parties involved. Words would not resolve any of this, he feared.

In the hallway, a knight carrying a message was waiting for him. You had behaved in a barely disguised hostile manner when he had come to your chambers the night prior, so it was with the greatest surprise that he received your request for an audience, and after thinking on it for the better part of the afternoon, he relented to seeing you again in the evening. 

This time it was you who came to him, upon your suggestion, and he wondered why. As you stepped into his temporary quarters, which he had set in the Hand’s tower, he was struck with the image you made. 

While he had only ever seen you dressed in black, you had changed into a dark blue gown and forgone your mourning veil. Instead, your hair was falling in heavy weight about your shoulders, some of it tied at the back of your head. Your eyes stood out, darker than they ought to be for such a fair face, and rimmed with red. 

“Lord Stark,” you said, curtsying to the northern lord respectfully, and his nerves only grew at your sudden change of demeanor.

“You wanted to speak to me, princess,” he replied while pouring two cups of wine. The dark liquid looked almost black, but it was much sweeter than what he was used to in the North.

“I realize I am in no position to negotiate. However, I have seen you carry yourself with honor, I have come to the conclusion that you are just and fair and therefore I would respectfully make a request,” you said, taking a tentative step towards him, keeping her eyes low.

Cregan frowned, slightly displeased at your bold approach and obviously rehearsed words, when you had been so hostile towards him, all the way to the day prior. “I have heard that there are plans to betroth Jaehaera to Aegon. I have come to beg for her to be spared from that fate,” you said, her voice breaking. “She is but a child, a girl who has seen so much horror already. This will crush her.”

Cregan turned fully to face you, putting down the cup he was holding for you, sudden understanding dawning on him. “She has had to endure the massacre of her brother, then the loss of her younger sibling, then saw her mother succumb to grief,” you continued.

“The match is a logical and advantageous one. It would bridge the gap between Greens and Blacks once and for all,” Cregan replied.

“I am sure there are others that would do,” you retorted with a quiet strength that picked Cregan’s curiosity. “Please do not subject this girl to such an ordeal. I beseech you. You have a good heart.”

“You do not know me, princess,” he replied, solemn, and yet you did not falter.

Your eyes rose to him and held his gaze, and he was struck with the strength of your resolve, and how much you were sacrificing by coming to him, begging for your niece’s sake. “No I don’t, but I have seen how you treat your enemies,” you replied. “You gave my brother a proper burial. You told me my niece and I were your responsibility.”

Cregan sighed, appreciating the way you were ready to set some of your pride and resentment aside for the love of a child. “What do you have to offer me, in return?” he still asked. “In negotiations, one cannot make a request without a reward. What do you have to offer that I do not already possess?”

It seemed you had come here with determination, and had already prepared an offer, as your reply came without any hesitation. “While I am not exactly innocent, as some men aren’t as considerate, I remain a maid.”

Cregan was disturbed that your mind would take such a path, and his heart seized with sudden cold. “You would offer me your maidenhead, in exchange for your niece’s safety,” he clarified. 

“Yes, my lord.”

Cregan could admit feeling unsettled, faced with the desperation of a woman who had nothing to negotiate with but herself, and her own dignity. “What if I turned out to be cruel and decided to give you to my men? To be passed among them,” he challenged your proposal, his wariness making him crueler than he needed to be.

“Then I would happily submit myself as a spoil of war, my lord. I would please you now, if you wished," you offered, taking a few careful steps forward. “You could claim your spoils right this instant.”

Before he could add or ask anything else, you had gone to her knees in front of him, your trembling hands reaching for him. To his absolute horror, his loins stirred at the prospect of a woman tending to him—the nearly two years of war had been long and lonely, and he had hardly tended to his needs since the passing of his wife, upon the birth of his son. Little Rickon would soon be six of age.

However, to see royal blood so diminished made his own blood boil. “No,” he replied, harsher than he needed to be, which made you flinch. “This is beneath you, princess.”

“I thought—” you hesitated.

“It was but a moment of weakness.”

He reached for you, bringing you to your feet by the arm. The woman he was faced with in this instant, as you rose again with nothing gained for your niece and nothing else to offer, softened his resolve. He was tired of the schemings of war, of the plots and alliances that led only to ruin. He could not see a path where such choices ended peacefully and there you were, with an honest request and a brave offer, and he had to admit, he respected you all the more for it. 

“I will think on the matter,” he promised.

“Thank you, my lord,” you replied.

Cregan’s foul mood was still with him when he rose the next morning and presided over the day’s council meeting. He watched the proceedings with much on his mind, as each question was brought up and resolved, and he could not make himself take part in it. 

It was only when the Maester brought up your name that he finally decided to end his neutrality. “There is the matter of the princess. She might share blood with the traitorous king, but she is of royal descent, the last living child of King Viserys, and she is of marrying age,” the Maester said.

“She could perhaps be a good way to appease Dalton Greyjoy?” Tyland suggested. “Or to bring House Velaryon back into the fold. Lord Alyn is still unmarried as well.”

Without thinking on it further, his instinct taking the reins, Cregan stood up. “I shall take her.”

Lord Peake laughed as though the statement was ludicrous. “Surely if you’re in need of a woman to warm your bed, Lord Stark, any other would do,” he replied with humor. “A choice closer to home might be appropriate. Alysanne Blackwood is still unwed.” 

Cregan closed his fists on the tabletop, looming over the Council, and did not back down. There was an instinct in him that he could not quiet, much like the one that led him through battle, that he could not in good conscience leave you.

You might have been too bold for what you could afford, but once the shock had passed he had admired your determination, and your lack of fear. If he called himself honorable, then he could not watch idly as you were being sold to the highest bidder, and your niece used as an instrument for peace.

Perhaps it was arrogance, to think himself the lesser evil, but he knew himself enough to know.

“I have sacrificed enough for this realm. Prince Jacaerys was a trusted friend of mine. We made a blood pact that his first-born daughter would be joined in marriage to my house. His death doesn’t annul such a vow. House Targaryen owes me a daughter, and I shall take the princess.”

Unwin Peake looked unconvinced, but Thaddeus Rowan nodded his acknowledgement, and Cregan continued his argument. “If you are so worried about the Velaryons and their loyalty, there is an easy way to remedy this,” he explained. “I have looked at the prospects. Daeron Velaryon has already proposed the hand of his own daughter as wife to young King Aegon. Surely allying the two bloodlines on the throne would strengthen the realm.”

Peake scoffed, crossing his hands on the tabletop. “Lord Stark, I wonder about the justifications of this sudden campaign of yours—”

Cregan did not let him speak, uncaring that his change of mind was so sudden, and that such a demand he was making was perhaps not the most logical one. “It would do this Council well to remember that without my men, victory was impossible. The Crown owes a debt to the North, and I shall take that debt in flesh.”

His statement quieted them for a minute, and even the insufferable Peake looked uncomfortable. After a while, Tyland, ever the diplomat, cleared his throat. 

“How about we ask the king? Surely he will be glad to have the last child of Alicent Hightower out of his sight,” he remarked, and while it served his cause, Cregan loathed how easily he was swayed, and how he never stood his ground, only taking the side of the argument he perceived as favorable. 

“He is a child,” Lord Peake protested.

“Nearly the same age I was when mine own father passed. My uncle was appointed regent, but I was still well capable of having a mind of my own,” Cregan countered. 

“Let us not bother the young king with such matters,” the Maester reasoned. 

Thaddeus Rowan cleared his throat to silence the protest Peake was about to voice. “Your proposal is a sound one, Lord Stark. Perhaps it would be beneficial to take the remaining Hightower princesses away from the capital.”

“Princesses, plural?” Peake scoffed, and Cregan closed his hands into fists in annoyance at the man’s obvious self-interest. It was known to all that he had hopes for himself and his house that extended beyond the reach of a man of his position, and Cregan found a wicked sort of pride in taking the prize he coveted.

“Yes. I assume your marriage to the princess would include taking her niece as your ward?” Thaddeus asked, and Cregan was relieved that he would not need to elaborate on the matter.

“Indeed,” Cregan confirmed.

“Very well,” he said, rising in turn and putting an end to the negotiations. “It is decided then.”

All that remained to be done was to inform you, and Cregan knew that despite his insistence at council, he would not impose his will upon you. It was his intention to free you from the prison you were currently captive in, and he would not be able to live with himself if he was to imprison you in another, one of his own making.

It was true, his motive was partially selfish as Unwin Peake had suggested—he longed for the presence of a woman at his side again, the softness of married life, and he thought he could find it in you, just as you could find solace in him.

The way you had surrendered all for the sake of your niece had shown a quiet strength he admired, one that would surely benefit you as his lady wife in Winterfell, if you were to accept. Perhaps such was the path to the respite he longed for.

He came in the early afternoon, when he knew the young princess Jaehaera was asleep, and as predicted, found you in the nursery, watching over her as a mother would. “Princess,” he greeted from the threshold, suddenly hesitant.

Setting your embroidery aside, you rose, glancing nervously between him and the sleeping child. “You swore you would think on it,” you said, mistaking his hesitance for an omen of bad news.

“Fear not, your niece is safe,” he said, approaching carefully. “Daeron Velaryon’s daughter is currently on her way to the capital to wed the king. I would ensure your niece is kept away from the scheming of the court, until she is of age at least.”

Your shoulders dropped in relief, a heavy breath pushing past your lips, but your weariness had not abated. “Would?” you asked with a slight frown.

Cregan swallowed his sudden nerve and planted his feet firmly into the floor—while he was skilled and fearless on bloody battlefields, the quiet of a nursery and the expectations of a woman were somewhat more complex to face. “My offer is a proposal of marriage,” he said rather bluntly. “I would take you to wife, and Princess Jaehaera would come with us, as a ward in Winterfell.”

Cregan could not decipher the next exhale that came from you—it could have been relief, or horror, he did not know, as there was only surprise on your face. 

“I will not take you to wife against your wishes. If another prospect is more agreeable to you, then you may let it be known and I shall ensure it,” he promised.

For a moment too long you could not find your words, nor your breath. Your heart was beating wildly in your chest at the most unexpected offer, but you felt the Gods had answered your prayers. It was true, you knew little of the North, but you knew that this man, your enemy, had done more for you and your niece in mere days than your allies in months of war.

“Surely your offer comes with conditions,” you said hesitantly, searching his stormy eyes.

Cregan shook his head, his frown softening. “I already have a son and heir so it will not be required of you, but Rickon needs a mother,” he explained, his voice softer than it had ever been while addressing you, and it seemed for the first time that you were faced with the man rather than the warrior.

At that you nodded, looking at the crib once more, your heart aching. “Just as Jaehaera needs a brother, or a companion, at the least,” you admitted, wondering if you would ever see her smile again, hear her laugh, or if she was doomed to an existence of sadness and grieving without end. “I would still be expected to be a true wife, to perform my duties, wouldn’t I?”

Cregan took a step closer to you, but somehow you did not feel threatened—his shoulders were hunched forward, and he looked younger in the soft light of the nursery than he had ever. It was only now that you realized he was not wearing his usual attire. While his furs and leathers were still strapped across his chest, his sword was nowhere to be seen, and his hands were bare, the gloves tied to his belt.

“You would be the Lady of Winterfell, but as I said, I would not take you against your wishes,” he replied.

Grateful tears came to your eyes, and you wanted to fall to your knees again. The Gods were cruel in a way, making it so that you would owe such a debt to your enemy, but he had shown in these last few days that perhaps, the warrior had been your foe, and the man would be your salvation.

In three words, you sealed your fate, and that of Jaehaera.

“Then I accept.”

Author's Note ✢ Dividers by @/arcielee. Please ask in the comments if you want to be tagged in this series! Next chapter will be posted in two weeks, on July 8th.

Cregan taglist ✢ @kateris-world @elleclairez @watercolorskyy @praline357 @whodis-26

@elle-28 @hb8301 @flawroses @random-shit-i-like-2 @heavenly1927

@thegeminithrone @vixemi @rockerchick05 @maniccrystalhippie @melsunshine

@siimiasoi @mxtokko @thenameswinter99 @multyfangirl

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@blessedbymoon @deltamoon666 @writingjourney @still-jon-snow @vampzv

“Shiera Seastar is the most beautiful woman in the seven kingdoms,” you said automatically. “Men kill themselves and each other to win a night in her bed.”

Aerion scoffed derisively. “The whore knows how to present herself, I'll give her that.” He tugged at the neckline of your gown. “Men would kill over you as well if you dressed exclusively in your best colour with half of your tits out and learned how to seduce properly.”

He bounced you slightly in his lap. “But in truth, she is considered the most beautiful only because most Westerosi people haven't set foot outside of the seven kingdoms. Shiera Seastar would not fare so well in the Free cities where Valyrian features are more common. She'd be nothing more than a common brothel whore instead of having admirers chasing her, I can tell you for certain. I've fucked hundreds of Shiera Seastars and better during my years in Lys.”

You couldn't help but snort. “Then mayhaps Bloodraven could use a trip to Lys.”

Aerion laughed. “Mayhaps. Though I thought what he likes about her most is that she's his half-sister.”

“I do not know. I never thought to ask.”

“Hm.” Aerion kissed you again. This time, you reciprocated. The kiss was languid, a lazy brush of his lips and tongue. “He has not expressed any desire for other side of his kin then? He seems to like spending time with you. Most cannot get so much as a word out of his grim mouth.”

You turned your nose up. “Blackwoods do not engage in such customs.”

“I should hope you do not engage with anyone other than your husband to-be regardless of any customs, little Blackbird.” Aerion's eyes narrowed. “That living abomination of nature, however, leans plenty towards his Targaryen heritage when it suits him. I do not want you flittering around him.”

You pursed your lips and sat there, unmoving.

It was the same one your mother had despaired over. The same one that had earned you whispers of coldness, of arrogance, of something quietly wrong.

Aerion studied your face.

“There,” he said, almost approvingly. “That look.”

His thumb brushed lightly along your cheek, as though tracing the shape of it.

“You look like a princess,” he murmured. “Even if you were not born one.”

His gaze sharpened, something intent settling behind it. “I will make you one.”

He shifted slightly beneath you, then stilled completely, as if satisfied now with whatever he had taken from the moment.

“Thank me,” he said.

You stayed silent. His hand tightened again at your waist.

“Go on,” he prompted, softer this time, but no less commanding. “For my graciousness.”

The silence stretched. Then, slowly, you spoke.

“Thank you,” you said.

The words tasted like nothing at all.

The journey back to King’s Landing took three days.

Three days of riding in the wheelhouse with the other highborn ladies, their curious glances sliding over you like water. Three days of Aerion’s gaze finding you across the camp each evening, that knowing smile still playing at the corners of his mouth. Three days of your brothers watching you with barely concealed concern, their laughter quieter than it had been, their eyes following you when they thought you would not notice.

Your father asked you, on the second evening, if you were certain.

“It is not too late,” he said quietly, standing beside you at the edge of the camp. The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of gold and rose, and his face was shadowed with something that looked almost like regret. “If you have misgivings…”

“I do not,” you said.

He looked at you for a long moment.

“You are a poor liar,” he said. “You always have been.”

“I learned from you.”

That drew a startled laugh from him, rough and warm.

“So you did.” He was quiet for a moment, then placed his hand on your shoulder, heavy and steady. “Your mother will be pleased.”

“Yes,” you said. “She will.”

“Is that what you want?”

You thought about it. Truly thought about it, for what felt like the first time.

“I want to be somewhere I can breathe,” you said at last. “I want to walk in the woods without someone telling me it is unseemly. I want to read my books and speak my mind and not be told to smile softer, smaller, prettier.” You paused. “I do not think I will find that at Raventree. Not anymore. And I know I will not find it at Riverrun.”

“And with him?”

You were silent.

“He is a prince,” your father said. “And princes are not gentle men. I would not have chosen this for you.”

“I know.”

“But I could not refuse him.” His jaw tightened. “I am sorry for that.”

You looked at him, this man who had taken you away when your mother’s ambitions grew too sharp, who had let you run wild in the godswood and never once told you to be smaller than you were.

“I know that too,” you said.

He pulled you into his arms then, rough and brief, the way he had when you were small and had scraped your knees on the roots of the weirwood trees.

“Whatever comes,” he said against your hair, “you are a Blackwood. Remember that.”

You closed your eyes and leaned into him, just for a moment.

“I will,” you said.

King’s Landing had not changed.

It still stank. It still pressed in on all sides, too many bodies, too much noise, too many eyes watching from every shadow. But this time, you did not slip through the corridors unnoticed.

This time, everyone was looking at you.

Word had spread ahead of the hunting party. The betrothal was known. The Blackwood girl, the one with the strange red-eyed cousin, the one whose aunt had been a king’s mistress, she had caught a prince.

You walked through the Red Keep with your head high and your expression carefully blank, and you felt the weight of their stares like stones piled on your shoulders.

“Smile,” your mother would have hissed. “Look pleased. Look grateful.”

You did not smile.

Your aunt found you in the gardens on the second day after your return.

Melissa Blackwood was still beautiful, though age had begun to trace fine lines at the corners of her eyes. Her hair was silver-streaked now, her bearing regal in a way that had nothing to do with titles and everything to do with certainty.

She looked at you for a long moment, saying nothing.

Then she laughed.

“Oh, child,” she said. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

“I am not entirely certain,” you admitted.

“No.” Her gaze softened. “No, I don’t suppose you are.” She sat beside you on the stone bench, arranging her skirts with practiced ease. “Aerion Targaryen. Of all the princes, you had to catch that one.”

“I did not catch him.”

“Didn’t you?” She arched an eyebrow. “That is not what the court is saying. They are saying you enchanted him. That your Blackwood blood worked some old magic, the way mine did with Aegon.”

“There is no magic,” you said, voice flat. “I shot a stag. He found me in the woods. He decided I would do.”

Melissa was quiet for a moment.

“That sounds more like him,” she said. “He was always a willful boy. Even before Lys. After…” She shook her head. “Exile changes people. And not always for the better.”

“You knew him?”

“I knew all of them. Aegon’s children. Grandchildren.” Her mouth curved, but there was little humor in it. “I made it my business to know. Knowledge is the only armor a woman like me can wear, and even that is not always enough.”

You absorbed that in silence.

“He is not cruel for the sake of cruelty,” Melissa continued. “I will give him that. Aerion is many things: proud, reckless, quick to anger, but not one to draw pleasure from hurting you.”

“That is comforting.”

“It is meant to be.” She studied your face. “You are not what I expected.”

“I have been told that frequently of late.”

“I imagine you have.” She reached out, and her fingers brushed your chin, tilting your face toward hers the way Aerion had done in the tent. “Do you know what I see?”

“Tell me.”

“A woman who has spent her whole life being told she is too much of something. And now she is about to marry a man who will tell her she is not enough.” Her grip tightened, just slightly. “Do not let him.”

“How?” you asked, and your voice came out rawer than you intended.

“That is for you to discover.” Melissa released you, rising from the bench with fluid grace. “But I will tell you this: Aerion Targaryen has spent his life surrounded by people who fear him. He has learned to expect it. To weaponize it. But fear is a blade that cuts both ways.”

She looked down at you, and her eyes were old and knowing.

“The one thing he does not expect,” she said, “is someone who refuses to be afraid.”

She left you there, in the garden, with the scent of roses and the distant murmur of fountains and the weight of her words settling into your bones.

The betrothal feast was held three nights later.

It was a grand affair, as all things in the Red Keep were grand: tables laden with food, wine flowing freely, musicians playing in the gallery above the great hall. Lords and ladies in their finest silks and velvets, jewels glittering at throats and wrists.

You were at the center of it, seated beside Aerion at the high table, on display for all the court to see.

Your dress had been chosen for you. Deep red velvet, the color of the Blackwood pines, with silver embroidery at the sleeves. Your hair had been arranged in elaborate coils, threaded with small pearls. You felt like a doll dressed for a child’s game.

Aerion leaned close, his breath warm against your ear.

“You look lovely,” he murmured. “Like a proper little bride.”

“I am not your bride yet.”

“Soon.” His hand found yours beneath the table, his fingers interlacing with yours in a mockery of tenderness. “Smile. They are watching.”

You smiled.

It was the smile your mother had tried to teach you: soft, demure, empty. You felt it settle over your features like a mask, and you hated it with every fiber of your being.

Aerion’s eyes flickered.

“That is not your smile,” he said.

“No,” you agreed. “It is the one I was taught.”

“I prefer the other one.”

“What other one?”

“The one you wear when you are about to put an arrow through something.” His thumb traced a circle on the back of your hand. “It is far more interesting.”

You turned your head to look at him, and for a moment the mask slipped.

“You are a strange man,” you said.

“Yes,” he agreed, and there was something in his voice that might have been satisfaction. “I am.”

The feast continued. Toasts were made. Your father spoke, his voice steady and proud, though his eyes found yours with that same shadow of concern. Prince Maekar spoke, his words formal and measured, though you caught him watching you with that assessing gaze, as though still trying to determine what manner of creature his son had chosen.

And Aerion spoke.

“To my betrothed,” he said, rising from his seat and lifting his goblet. The hall fell silent, every face turned toward him. “A woman of the Riverlands. A daughter of House Blackwood. A lady of the ancient blood.”

His gaze swept the room, and you saw lords shift uneasily, saw septons murmuring behind their hands. The Blackwood name carried weight in the Riverlands, but here, in the heart of the Faith, it carried something else.

“They say the Blackwoods are touched by the old gods,” he continued. “That their blood runs with magic. That they speak to trees and see through the eyes of ravens and walk in dreams.”

The murmuring grew louder. You felt your brothers tense beside your father, felt the weight of a hundred curious stares pressing down on you.

“I say,” Aerion declared, “that such blood is worthy of a dragon.”

He turned to you then, and his eyes were bright with something that might have been challenge or might have been delight.

“To my lady,” he said. “Who will bear me children of fire and weirwood both.”

The hall erupted. Cheers from those who were too drunk to care, nervous applause from those who were not. You sat very still, your hands folded in your lap, and felt the heat rise to your cheeks.

Children of fire and weirwood.

He had said it publicly. Announced it to the entire court. Whatever whispers had followed you before, they would be a storm now.

Aerion sat back down beside you, still smiling.

“Was that necessary?” you asked, your voice low.

“Entirely.” He took a long drink from his goblet. “They will talk anyway. Better to control what they say.”

“You have made me a spectacle.”

“You were already a spectacle.” He set the goblet down. “I have merely given them something to talk about other than your aunt’s thighs.”

Your teeth clenched.

“You are angry,” he observed.

“I am.”

“Good.” He leaned back in his chair. “Anger is better than fear. Fear is dull. Fear is common. But anger…” His smile sharpened. “Anger is interesting.”

“You have a peculiar definition of interesting.”

“I have told you.” His voice dropped, low and intimate. “You do not bore me. Not yet.”

The Red Keep continued its usual affairs in the weeks following an extravagant but rather tense wedding. What was meant to be a brief stay before departing for Summerhall stretched into something indefinite, the landslide on the mountain road proving more severe than first reported. The forest had been cleared too aggressively, you had heard the servants whispering about it, about the lord who had ordered the timber harvested before the rains, about the inevitable consequence of greed meeting storm. Now the road lay buried beneath stone and mud and splintered trees, and the longer route added nearly a fortnight to the journey.

No one was eager for it. Not Maekar, who had grown accustomed to the comforts of the Red Keep. Not the children, who had found playmates among the court. Not Aerion, who had never been a man for inconvenience.

So you stayed.

King Aerys had asked his brother to oversee several matters of state: trade disputes in the Crownlands, a minor border skirmish in the Stormlands that required a prince's authority to settle. Maekar had accepted with visible satisfaction, his resentment toward Bloodraven's appointment as the Hand still simmering beneath the surface.

You saw Brynden often.

It was not a conscious choice, not at first. He was your cousin, the only blood you had left in the Red Keep now that your family had returned to Raventree Hall.

Brynden understood. He had been a stranger here once, too, a boy with a bastard's name and a face that made people uncomfortable. He had carved his place with patience and intelligence and a willingness to do what others would not. Now he was the most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms save the king himself, and still the whispers followed him.

You found him in the rookery more often than not, surrounded by ravens and parchment and the soft rustle of wings. It reminded you of the godswood at Raventree Hall, the quiet hum of something ancient and watchful. Here, at least, the trees did not speak, but the birds did, in their own way, and Brynden listened to them all.

"The lords of the Stormlands are being difficult," you observed one afternoon, settling onto your accustomed seat by the window. "I heard Prince Maekar complaining at supper."

"Prince Maekar is always complaining," Brynden replied, not looking up from his writing. "It is his primary occupation."

"His secondary occupation is resenting you."

"Also a favored pastime." Brynden's mouth curved slightly. "He believes I stole his place."

"Did you?"

"I accepted the position when it was offered. I did not ask for it." He set his quill aside and looked at you at last, his one red eye gleaming with something that might have been amusement. "But no, I did not steal it. Aerys chose me because I am useful, and Maekar is proud. Kings prefer useful men to proud ones."

"He is still your nephew."

"He is. And I respect him for his martial prowess, his dedication to duty, his unwavering sense of honour." Brynden paused. "But he does not see the realm the way I do. He sees it as a battlefield. I see it as a web. Different tools are required."

You considered this. "And Aerion? Which does he see?"

"Aerion sees it as a prize." Brynden's tone was neutral, carefully so. "He has always been ambitious. He believes he deserves more than he has been given. Whether he will earn it or simply take it remains to be seen."

"He has been..." You hesitated, searching for the right word. "Better than I expected."

"High praise."

"You know what I mean."

"I do." Brynden rose, stretching his shoulders and fastening his cloak. "He has not been cruel to you. That is something. I would not have predicted it."

"Nor would I."

He crossed to you and leaned down, pressing a kiss to your brow, a gesture of affection that had become habit between you, a remnant of childhood visits to Raventree Hall when he had called you little bird and ruffled your hair and taught you to recognize the calls of every raven in the rookery.

"I am glad," he said quietly. "Truly."

You nodded, warmth blooming in your chest.

It was as he straightened that you admitted that Aerion did not like it when he did that.

"Give him time," Brynden said, his voice mild. "He will learn that not every affection is a threat."

"And if he does not?"

"Then he is a fool." Brynden returned to his desk. "And you married a fool. But I do not think that is the case. He is many things. Foolish is rarely one of them."

Still, Aerion complained.

"Bloodraven has your ear," he said one evening. "He whispers counsel and you listen. I am your husband. It should be me you turn to."

"I turn to him because he is the only family I have here. Because he understands what it is to be watched and whispered about. Because he does not treat me as a possession to be guarded." You met his eyes steadily. "I will not stop seeing him. He is my blood."

Aerion's jaw tightened. For a moment, you thought he might argue further.

Then he exhaled, long and slow, and something in his posture eased.

"Fine," he said. "But know this: I will be watching. If he oversteps, if he tries to turn you against me, I will not be merciful."

"He is not trying to turn me against you."

"No? Then what does he tell you?"

"To give you time." You paused. "He said you were many things, but foolish was rarely one of them."

Aerion blinked. For a moment, he looked genuinely surprised.

"Did he," he said.

"He did."

"Hm." He straightened. "Perhaps he is not entirely without wisdom, then."

The tension bled out of the room slowly, like air escaping a bladder. You turned back to the dressing table and resumed removing the pins from your hair, your fingers steadier now.

Aerion watched you for a moment longer, then moved toward the bed. "I intend to bed you tonight," he said, his voice carrying that familiar edge of mockery. "Thoroughly. You should know that before you grow too comfortable."

"I had assumed as much." You set the last pin aside and rose, turning to face him. "You are nothing if not consistent."

"I consider that a virtue."

He was standing beside the bed now, his doublet discarded, his shirt loosened. In the candlelight, his silver hair gleamed like moonlight on water, and his eyes were dark and intent on you.

"Come here," he said.

You crossed to him, your nightgown whispering against the stone floor. When you reached him, he caught your waist and pulled you against him, his mouth descending on yours.

This was the part of your marriage you had not yet grown accustomed to. The part that left you sore and breathless and strangely hollowed out, as though he had taken something from you that you could not quite name.

He kissed you deeply, one hand tangling in your hair while the other worked at the ties of your gown. It fell from your shoulders, pooling at your feet, and he made a low sound of satisfaction against your mouth.

"On the bed," he said. "Hands and knees."

Your stomach tightened. You moved to obey, positioning yourself as he had taught you, your fingers gripping the sheets. Behind you, you heard the rustle of fabric as he shed the rest of his clothing.

Then he was there, his hands settling on your hips, his body pressing against yours.

"Ready?" The word was mocking, almost tender, because he knew the answer already.

You were never ready. Not for this. Not for the stretch and burn of him, the way your body struggled to accommodate his size no matter how many times he took you.

He pushed inside, slow and inexorable, and you gasped despite yourself.

"Shh," he crooned sweetly. "There now. Easy, little bird. You can take me. You always do."

You buried your face in the pillow, your fingers twisting in the sheets as he seated himself fully. The feeling was overwhelming: too much, too full, the pressure building in your belly like a storm.

"Good," he murmured, beginning to move. "So good for me. So tight and warm and perfect."

He set a punishing rhythm, his hips snapping against yours, his grip on your waist hard enough to bruise. Each thrust forced a small sound from your throat, half pleasure and half pain, and he drank them in like wine.

"There," he breathed. "That's it. Take all of me. You were made for this, weren't you? Made to bear my children. Made to give me heirs."

His hand slid around to your belly, pressing flat against the place where he was deepest.

"Strong sons," he continued, his voice ragged now. "You will give me strong sons. Dragons, not ravens. Do you hear me?"

"Yes," you managed, the word torn from you.

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, my prince."

He groaned, his pace quickening. "My wife. My fierce, stubborn, disobedient, insolent wife."

His fingers circled, coaxing, and despite everything you felt the pleasure beginning to build.

"You will come for me," he commanded. "And then I will fill you. Every night. Every single night until it takes. Until you are round with my child."

The coil in your belly tightened, tightened, and then shattered. You cried out, your body clenching around him, and he followed a moment later, groaning.

He pulled you against him beneath the sheets, his chest pressed to your back, his arm draped over your waist. His breathing was still uneven, his skin warm against yours.

"You will not let him turn you against me," he murmured against your hair.

"Brynden is not trying to turn me against you."

"Hm." His hand splayed across your stomach again, possessive even in repose. "See that he does not succeed, regardless."

You closed your eyes. "Go to sleep, Aerion."

"Mmm. You first, little bird."

You did, eventually. You dreamt of weirwoods again, their pale bark and red leaves, their faces watching you with ancient, patient eyes. But this time, when you pressed your hand to the wood, you felt something answer back: warm, waiting, and not unfriendly.

The next morning, you woke to an empty bed and a note on the pillow beside you.

Gone to the training yard. I will return by midday. Do not spend all your hours with ravens.

—A

You smiled despite yourself. Then you rose, dressed, and went to the godswood instead, because you were contrary by nature and because you missed the trees.

You sat beneath the oak and closed your eyes and listened to the wind in the leaves.

They did not speak to you here. They never had. But they listened, you thought.

When you opened your eyes again, Daella and Rhae were standing at the edge of the clearing, watching you with wide, curious eyes.

"Good morning," you said.

"You were very still," Rhae observed. "We thought you might be dead."

"Only resting."

"That's good." Daella, the bolder of the two, stepped closer. "Aerion says you speak to trees. Is that true?"

"Aerion says many things."

"He says you are a witch." This from Rhae, with the air of one imparting a great secret. "He says the Blackwoods are all witches, and that is why Bloodraven can see through birds."

"Do I look like a witch to you?"

Daella tilted her head, considering. "No. You look sad."

The observation caught you off guard. "Do I?"

"Sometimes. When you think no one is watching."

Children, you reflected, saw far too much.

"I miss my home," you said, because it was true and because they deserved honesty. "I have not been away from Raventree Hall for so long before. It is...an adjustment."

"We miss Summerhall," Rhae offered. "The gardens there are nicer. And there are more places to hide."

"There are places to hide here as well," you said. "I could show you, if you like."

Their faces lit up. And that was how you spent the morning, creeping through forgotten corridors and dusty storerooms with two Targaryen princesses in tow, pointing out the best alcoves and the secret passages that even the servants had forgotten.

When Aerion found you at midday, you were in the library, teaching them to press flowers between the pages of heavy books.

"What is this?" he asked, standing in the doorway with his arms crossed.

"A lesson in botany," you said.

"They are my sisters."

"I am aware."

He looked at Daella and Rhae, who had gone very still at the sight of him, their flower-pressing abandoned. There was a wariness in their eyes.

"Aerion," Daella said politely, "Lady Blackwood says there are ghosts in the east tower."

"There are not ghosts in the east tower."

"She says the cold spots are where the dead linger."

You suppressed a smile. "I said no such thing. I said people claimed there were ghosts. There is a difference."

Aerion looked at you for a long moment. Then he shook his head, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Lunacy," he said. "You are filling their heads with lunacy. Grandfather will be thrilled."

He did not sound displeased.

That evening, when he took you to bed, he was gentler than he had been the night before. He looked into your eyes as he moved inside you, his thumb tracing the line of your cheekbone.

"You were kind to them," he said quietly. "My sisters."

"They are children."

"Many would not bother. They are not important. They will be married off eventually, sent to other houses, forgotten." He paused, his hips stilling. "But you treated them as though they mattered."

"They do matter."

"Yes." His brow furrowed, as though the thought troubled him. "They do."

The news came three days later. The mountain road was cleared. The way to Summerhall was open once more.

Maekar announced it at supper, his voice carrying the satisfaction of a man who had grown tired of his brother's city and was ready to return to his own domain.

"We leave in a sennight," he said. "Make your preparations."

That night, Aerion held you close in the darkness, his hand resting on your belly as it always did now, as though he could will a child into being through sheer persistence.

"We will be happy at Summerhall," he murmured. "It is beautiful there. The gardens, the terraces, the halls of white stone. You will like it."

"Will I be able to walk in the woods?"

"There are woods enough. And I will take you hunting whenever you wish." He pressed a kiss to your shoulder. "You will want for nothing. I will see to it."

"And if I want something you cannot give me?"

He was quiet for a moment.

"Then I will try to give it to you anyway," he said.

The summons came the day before you were to depart for Summerhall.

A servant found you in the library, where you had been returning the books Aerion had borrowed on your behalf. Your husband was occupied with his father, reviewing the final arrangements for the journey south, and you had stolen a few hours for yourself, a luxury that grew harder to claim with each passing day.

"Lord Bloodraven requests your presence in the rookery, my lady," the girl said, curtsying low. "He says it is a matter of some urgency."

You thanked her and made your way through the corridors, your stomach tight with an unease you could not name. Brynden did not summon you. A formal request meant something was wrong.

The rookery was quiet when you entered. The ravens were settled in their niches, dark shapes against darker stone, their black eyes following you as you crossed the chamber. Brynden stood at the far window, his back to you, his pale hair catching the gray light of the overcast afternoon.

"You wished to see me."

He turned. His face was unreadable, but there was something in the set of his shoulders that made your unease sharpen into something closer to dread.

"There is a matter we must discuss," he said. "Before you leave."

"Then discuss it."

He did not speak immediately. Instead, he crossed to his desk and lifted a small clay pot, turning it over in his hands. "You have been avoiding your evening tea."

The change of subject was so abrupt that you blinked. "What?"

"Your maid Ellyn, I believe her name is, tells me you have refused it six nights running. You say it tastes bitter."

"I do not see how my tea is any concern of yours."

"It is my concern," Brynden said, "because I arranged for it."

"Explain," you said, though you were no longer certain you wanted him to.

He set the pot down with a soft click against the wood. "The tea you have been drinking most nights since your wedding is not a herbal sleeping draught you've been requesting to calm your mind before bed. It is moon tea. Carefully measured. Carefully administered. Enough to ensure that prince Aerion's efforts to secure an heir will come to nothing."

The words did not make sense at first. They clattered against your ears like stones thrown at a window, each impact jarring but not breaking through. Then, slowly, the meaning slid into place.

You could not breathe.

"You..." The word caught in your throat. "You have been..."

"Preventing conception, yes."

"You had no right."

"I had every right." His voice was infuriatingly calm. "I am the Hand of the King. I am sworn to protect the realm from threats both foreign and domestic. And you, dear cousin, were about to become the mother of one."

The rage came then, swift and blinding. Your hands clenched at your sides, your nails biting into your palms. "You made this choice for me. Without my knowledge. Without my consent. You..." Your voice cracked. "You let him...night after night, you let him...and all the while you were ensuring it meant nothing."

"Did you want his child?"

The question stopped you cold.

"Did you?" Brynden pressed, stepping closer. "Did you lie beneath him and pray for conception? Did you dream of a babe with silver hair and violet eyes, a child born of Aerion Targaryen's seed and Blackwood blood? Did you imagine what such a creature might become?"

Your silence was answer enough.

"I thought not." His voice softened, but only slightly. "You are my blood. My kin. The last true Greenseer of our line besides myself. I have watched over you since you were a girl, and I have seen the way you look when Aerion's name is spoken. I have seen the way your hands tremble after he leaves your bed. He is no gentle husband, and you are no eager wife. What kind of cousin would I be if I allowed that union to bear its bitterest fruit?"

"A child is not fruit." Your voice was shaking. "A child is not...you cannot simply pluck it from the branch because you dislike the tree."

"I can. I did." He spread his hands, a gesture almost apologetic. "I have been acting in the interests of the realm. And in yours."

"The realm." A laugh tore from your throat, humorless and raw. "You speak of the realm as though it were a living thing. As though it mattered more than..."

"It does," Brynden said. "It must. You have not seen what I have seen. You have not dreamed the dreams I have dreamed. Aerion Targaryen is a man of ambition and cruelty in equal measure, and you have felt only the smallest edge of both. Imagine him with a child. Imagine him raising a son. Imagine that son inheriting not only his father's madness but his mother's gift. The greensight, bound to dragon dreams, bound to madness."

He stepped closer still, and his one red eye was bright, burning with a conviction that chilled you to the bone.

"I have seen it," he said quietly. "In dreams. In visions. Fire sweeping across the Riverlands. Weirwoods burning. The old gods screaming in voices only we can hear. You think I acted lightly? You think I made this choice for sport?"

"Then you should have told me." Tears burned at the corners of your eyes, and you hated them, hated the weakness they betrayed. "You should have trusted me with the truth. Instead, you...you poisoned me in secret, like some..."

"Poison is a strong word." His tone was almost gentle now. "Moon tea is not poison. It is prevention. A temporary measure. I would never harm you, little bird. But I could not stand by and watch you be turned into a vessel for Aerion's legacy."

You turned away from him, your arms wrapped around yourself as if you could hold the pieces of yourself together. "You had no right," you said again, but the words felt hollow now, swallowed by the enormity of what he had done.

Behind you, you heard him move. Then his hands settled on your shoulders, careful and light.

"I know you are angry," he said. "You have every reason to be. You trusted me, and I deceived you. That is a wound, and I do not expect it to heal quickly. But I need you to understand: I did this out of love."

"Love." The word tasted like ash.

"Love for you. Love for our house. Love for the realm that would suffer under the rule of Aerion's get." His thumbs traced small circles against your shoulders, a soothing gesture that made you want to scream. "You are lonely. I know that as well. You are surrounded by dragons and you have no one who truly understands you. A child seems like a remedy, someone to love, someone who would love you in return. Someone who shares your blood and your gifts."

You closed your eyes.

"But it would not be what you imagine," he continued, his voice dropping to a murmur near your ear. "Aerion would claim the child. Shape it. Twist it. Everything you tried to give, he would take and corrupt. And the child would not be yours. Not truly. It would belong to him, to his ambitions, to the fire in his blood."

"You cannot know that."

"I can. I do." He turned you gently, so that you faced him again. His hand came up to cradle your cheek, his palm cool against your heated skin. "If it is a child you want...a child to raise, to love, to ease the loneliness...There are paths forward. You need not be trapped in the cage Aerion has built for you. You need not bear the children of a man who sees you as a vessel for his legacy. I can help you. I have always helped you. You need only trust me."

Trust. The word echoed in the silence.

His thumb traced the line of your cheekbone. "You are the last Greenseer of our line. The last woman who carries the old blood, the true blood. When you are gone, that gift dies with you. Unless..."

He paused. "Unless you bear a child who shares that gift. A child whose father is not a dragon, but a raven. A child of our blood, untainted by Targaryen madness, unburdened by dreams of fire and ruin."

It took a moment for his meaning to settle.

When it did, the breath left your lungs in a sharp, soundless rush.

"You," you whispered.

"I am a seer," Brynden said, his voice steady as stone. "I have the greensight, as you do. My mother was a Blackwood. My blood is your blood. But I did not inherit the dragon dreams that plague Aerion's line...the dreams that drive men to ash and sorrow. Any child of ours would be a true Greenseer, bound to the old gods, heir to the weirwoods. Not a creature torn between fire and earth, destined for madness."

"You are my cousin."

"I am. 'Tis a common practice in the Crownlands and Westerlands, do not be quick in judgement. And I would not ask this of you if there were any other way. But there is no other seer. No other man who carries what we carry. If our gift is to survive beyond us, it must be passed on carefully. Not left to chance in Aerion's bed."

You pulled away from him, your heart pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat. "You cannot be serious."

"I am entirely serious." He did not pursue you. He stood where he was, his hands clasped behind his back, his expression calm and implacable. "When you next visit the Red Keep, it could be done. A single night. Aerion would never know. The child would be legally his, a trueborn heir, raised with all the privileges of a prince. But in blood, in spirit, in the gift that truly matters...the child would be ours."

"Ours." The word felt strange in your mouth, foreign and dangerous.

"A child of the weirwoods," he said again. "A child of the old gods. Consider what that means. Consider what you would be preserving. Not Aerion's legacy. Yours. Ours. The legacy of the Blackwoods, of the greenseers, of the ancient blood that runs back to the Age of Heroes."

You shook your head, backing toward the door. "This is madness."

"Is it? Or is it the only way to ensure that something good comes from the cage you have been forced into?" His voice sharpened, cutting through your shock. "You told me once that you felt the old gods in the trees at Raventree Hall. That they answered you. That they knew you. Do you want that to die with you? Do you want to be the last?"

"Better the last than...than this," you managed.

"Than what?" He stepped forward, and now his voice was gentler again, almost pitying. "Than a child born of shared blood and shared purpose? Than a child who would never know the madness that burns in Aerion's veins? You think this is a betrayal, but I am offering you the only mercy available to a woman in your position."

"I am married."

"You are imprisoned. There is a difference." He tilted his head, studying you with that unblinking red eye. "I am not asking you to love me. I am not asking you to share my bed as a wife. I am offering you a child. A child who would look like you, carry your gifts, hear the trees as you do. A child who would belong to you in ways Aerion's get never could."

You stared at him, your thoughts a tangle of horror and fury and something small and treacherous that whispered his words back to you in the silence of your own mind.

"If the idea repulses you," Brynden continued, his tone shifting, more neutral now, "there are other options. A man who resembles Aerion, for instance. Certain features can be found, if one looks carefully enough. The child would need to pass as his, and with the right sire, it could. That path carries more risk, discovery would mean your death, and the child's, but it is possible, with careful planning."

"You have thought of everything, haven't you?" Your voice was bitter. "Every contingency. Every escape."

"I have thought of your survival. That is all I have ever thought of." He paused. "I will give you time to consider. The maid, Ellyn, will accompany you to Summerhall. She is one of mine, and she will continue to serve you. If you ever have need of me, if you are in danger, if you need to send word that cannot be trusted to a raven, she will carry it."

"I do not know if I can trust you anymore," you whispered.

Pain flickered across his face, there and gone so quickly you might have imagined it. "I know. But I hope, in time, you will understand why I did what I did. And I hope you will forgive me."

"And the tea?"

"I will instruct her to cease administering it. For now." He met your eyes, and there was no apology in his gaze, only a steady, unyielding resolve. "But I ask you...I beg you...to consider what I have said. Do not let Aerion's seed take root. Not yet. Not until you are certain of what you want, and what you would be bringing into this world."

You stared at him, your heart pounding, your thoughts a tangled snarl of fury and grief and something that felt horribly like understanding.

"I am leaving tomorrow," you said. Your voice sounded distant, as though it belonged to someone else.

"Yes."

"I will consider what you have said."

"That is all I ask."

You turned to leave, but his voice stopped you at the door. "Little bird."

You did not turn around.

"I am sorry," he said. "For the deception. Truly. But I am not sorry for what I prevented. And if I had to choose again, I would do the same."

You closed your eyes.

Then you walked out, the ravens watched you go, and the door swung shut behind you with a finality that felt like a sentence passed.

In the morning, when Ellyn appeared with your traveling cloak and a deferential curtsy, you looked at her properly for the first time.

She was small, plain and unremarkable. A girl of perhaps eight and ten, with mousy hair and brown eyes and a face that would be forgotten moments after she left a room. The perfect spy. The perfect poisoner.

"Good morning, my lady," she said. "The prince's household is assembling in the courtyard. Shall I bring your trunk?"

"Yes," you heard yourself say. "Thank you, Ellyn."

She smiled, as if she had no idea what you knew, or had every idea and did not care.

You followed her out into the corridor, into the gray morning, into the long road south.

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He pulls you in closer, spooning you in the bed with the furs atop the both of you. His hand is hot to the touch and large and firm against your stomach to keep you there. You have a tendency to squirm. 

"'S just an evening chill. It will pass," he murmurs low in your ear. 

"Every night?" You huff, emphasizing your point with a shift of your hips. 

He groans lowly when your ass presses against his length. His arm wraps around you tighter until you're utterly stuck in his hold. "If you'd hold still, I could share my warmth with you. As I do every night you whine."

Truth be told, he sweats under the heavy furs every night. You had insisted on them, and he wanted to sleep with you. Small price to pay, he tells himself. 

Especially when you'd finally fall asleep and unconsciously curl into his side. 

"I do not whine," you proceed to whine.

You go to say more, but you hear and feel his low chuckling. 

You huff, pulling his hand off of you. You make a dramatic show of scooting to the other side of the bed. It's cold. You ignore it at first. You can't show weakness. 

But his laughing doesn't stop. "My stubborn girl. C'mere."

But you don't move. You throw one glare his way then turn your back and pull the cold covers tight around you.

It's silence as his laughter settles. "C'mon," he finally settles on. "Don't want my southern flower wilting in the cold tonight. Come back now."

"I'm sleeping here."

He sighs, though it's full of love. "You're angry with me?"

"Yes."

"Mm. Cold?"

"Yes."

"Ah. Quite the predicament." He runs a hand over his growing stubble. "If I apologize, is that enough to make you come back over here?"

You pause. Turn to look over your shoulder at him. "Maybe."

"Forgive me then," he coos. 

Even in the dark, you can see the glimmer of amusement in his hazy colored eyes. But you have no fight left in you and you're cold.

So you let him scoop you back up and drag you across the bed until you're right back where you started. 

And now that you think about it, it is a lot warmer against him like this. 

What were you complaining about again?

You sigh in content and close your eyes. 

"'S what I thought," he says to himself.

Your eyes open. "What?"

He doesn't pretend. "Good night, my love." He kisses the side of your head. "Sleep well."

…

"Father wrote me," you chirp, inviting yourself into your husband's solar. A neat letter laid in your hand with a familiar Lannister seal broken atop it. "He told me that his lioness is expecting cubs. Isn't that wonderful?"

Cregan looked up at him you from his paperwork. He blinked once. Then twice. "'S alright," he settled on. In truth, he didn't care of the news at all. 

Your face fell a bit. "Did you not hear me? Cubs."

"My love," he says carefully. "I care not for matters of those against the crown. I have permitted your brother's writings but I do not have to pretend I am overjoyed to hear of more lions that will be slaughtered should a battle commence."

You take a long time to think. You look back over the letter with a more tainted viewpoint than before. "They must be killed?"

"If he brings them into battle as Lannisters have done in the past, yes."

"Well." Your eyes water. "What if he does not? What if he keeps them hidden? Safe? As pets?"

"My darling love." He reached out his hand and drawls you to sit on his desk before him. He sighs and rubs at your hips. "A lion is no pet. They are unpredictable and dangerous. It is a strong house sigil. But to own them—"

"What of your direwolf?" You cry. "It is large and intimidating."

"Dark Night is uncaged. He proves no threat to me and my house. He can read me well. A lion cannot do that."

Big tears pool in your eyes and his heart immediately thumps harder. "My girl." He wipes them as they fall. "Ease your broken heart."

"They are only cubs." You hiccup and lean into his touch. "They have done no wrong."

"It is a curse, I know," he comforts. "Lots of things happen that way. Just the wrong place and the wrong time."

"Can I write? To Father. Can I tell him not to use them?"

Cregan knows exactly how this will go: You will beg Jason. He will lie and agree to ease your poor aching heart and to make Cregan no longer suspicious of the Lannister's war efforts.  Then, in battle, lions will be slain. 

It would happen regardless of what you wrote to your father.

He watched another tear fall down the tracks on your face from the previous ones. And he nods. 

You run off quickly to try to correct this and save the lives of innocent animals. 

He knows it's truly in vain. And when he or his men must kill them, he'll make sure you never hear of it.

But he knows it's the only way your little bleeding heart can sleep tonight.

….

Dark Night lays at your feet, nuzzling against your leg every now and then to get your attention. 

Cregan sits across from you. He's still looking over letters and pages, just in comfort outside of his solar. 

You still don't look up by the third time the dire wolf has nuzzled you. So he nips. 

You whimper. It didn't break skin or cause you tremendous pain. But it was a surprising prick.

Cregan barely looks at the thing and lets out a low growl from his throat to reprimand him.

Dark Night whines and lays down once more.

"Needy thing," he sighs with the shake of his head. "Scare you?"

You nod. "I do not like it when he does that."

"He's only playing. Is that right, boy?"

"Your Northern ideas of play are much harsher," you scoff. "I hate it."

He looks back to his letters. "You do not hate it."

"I do," you insist.

A small flicker of his eyes— swarming with mischief. "You do not hate Northern play."

You catch his meaning and flush. And he was right. This morning, you didn't seem to mind 'northern play' at all.

"You are all savages." You set your embroidery aside and stand. "Heartless and cold and… and…"

"Yes?" He grins.

"And… and I don't like it!"

You watch him do everything he can to hold back just how funny he thinks you are. He only gives a quirk of his brow. "You don't like it?"

"No," you snap. "And I don't like you! Or… your dog… or…" You look around. "Or this rug!"

"Oh?" He looks down at it— the bear skin rug from the animal he caught himself a few weeks after your wedding. "You told me you loved it."

"Well… I lied!" 

He watches you storm out, knowing you didn't mean a word you were saying. That was the Southerner in you talking. 

It made him want to coddle you more. Just to see what lengths you go to.

…

He let you sit and pout in your room for a while before coming to collect you.

He stood outside your closed door, sighing to himself. The things he did for love.

Opening the door, he saw you sitting on the floor in front of the hearth. You didn't look up at him. "And like that, the room is colder."

He scoffed. "Stubborn girl. C'mere and look at me."

"Why? So you can gloat?"

He stopped behind you. "You think I want to gloat?"

"No," you answer honestly. He'd never been one to think better of himself. That was one northern trait you did appreciate of him.

There's a tap of something hitting the table behind you and you turn.

There's a tray he'd just sat down. Lemon cakes and a nice glass of wine. Over the back of the settee he'd walked by was richly colored fabrics. 

"What is this?"

He shrugs. "If you don't want it, I can take it back—"

"Stop!" You sit up more now. "It can… it can stay."

His brow tilts. "Can I?"

You nod. 

He sits on the settee and waves his hand at you. You obey without a second thought, coming into his lap. 

"Thought about you," he admits, brushing your hair from your face. "I miss you during the day. Wish you'd visit me more often."

"They told me it was unbecoming of the Lady Stark to bother you while you work."

"Who told you that?"

You sigh. "Northerners. You know, my father let me speak to him at any time of the day in Casterly Rock."

"I know it," he agrees. "'S how you became so fucking spoiled." You grow defensive, but he quickly soothes it with a brush of his hand. "So are you going to visit me more or not, little garden rose?"

You hum in thought. "I will, but I have some requirements."

"Aye, I figured. Go on then. Name your terms." He pulls you closer, having a hand on your back to keep you from pulling away. "Tell me what you want."

"Well, I want a new dress to start. A brighter one of those fabrics. The colors here are too drab." 

He hums, nuzzling his nose against your neck now. 

"And I want… I want a horse of my own. I want to ride like I did at Casterly Rock."

"Too cold for you to ride," he murmurs. It makes a shiver go down your spine. 

"I want a northern horse and I want a heavy cloak so that I can, then." 

He lays a sloppy kiss against your throat. You squirm. "You're not listening to me," you whine.

"I am." He kisses. "Dresses and a horse." Another kiss. "A heavy cloak. What else?"

Your head grows dizzy when his scruff brushes against your skin. "I want…"

"Tell me what you want, wife," he whispers then kisses again. He nips lightly then soothes it with his tongue.

"I want… I want… new perfumes."

He groans at the thought and moves a meaty paw of his up into your hair to force your face up. "You'll have it."

He works across your neck and down to the place where it meets your shoulder. When you feel teeth there, you squirm and whimper. He groans out a 'good girl' when you let him finish the hickey you know will be there for at least a week.

He pulls his face away to look up at you now. His lips are swollen but there's a victory in his eyes. "Anything else?"

When you try to reach up touch the cooling spot at your shoulder, he intercepts and keeps your wrists in his hold. He looks the spot over. And at seeing the color beginning to pull, he grins. "Looks pretty," he tells you.

"And I want you to take me seriously."

The grin pulls into a knowing smile— bright and rare. "I take you very seriously, love."

"You don't! You… You're a brute."

"Mhm." He says as he looks you over.

"You're horrid. Just horrid."

"I know." He draws you in and slips his hands under you. 

You shriek when he picks you up suddenly. "And a barbarian!"

"The worst," he agrees as he carries you to the bed. "The worst I've ever seen."

"I hate the North!"

He plops you down on the furs, making you let out a small 'hmph.' Then, he knocks your knees apart with his own and leans over the bed until you feel his breath upon your face. "You don't hate the North," he purrs.

"No," you whisper back.

"You like the North very much, as barbaric as it is."

"I do."

He lays a kiss to your lips. "I know."

The horse, the dresses, all of it— yours.

He made sure you, his little sensitive southern flower, were the most spoiled thing in the Realm.

........................................................................................

My dearest Prince,

It has been two days since you departed, and in those two days our Princess Hyacith has let the whole keep know her displeasure at the fact you are not there to sing her lullabies and tuck her in for her nap. Her sweet little face goes red from how much she cries, and her gaze is fixed on the door, waiting for your arrival.

Do not worry; she does not cry all the time. She enjoys the company of her big brother, who takes her out to the gardens to play, and her Grandsire, who purposely skips meetings with the small council and goes straight to the nursery. Your father tried to sing the same high valyrian lullabies you sang her, but she does not find the King’s singing abilities enjoyable and fusses when he starts a song. I’ve managed to make her fall asleep by wrapping your shirts around her.

Our little girl is not the only one who misses you.

I just don’t have the luxury of screaming about it like Hyacith.

I miss you so much, my love.

I wake up, and the first thing i do is reach for you, and I get confused when i only feel the cold and unmade sheets. Your pillow is slowly losing your scent.

Come back to me as soon as you can. Give my love to Valarr, Kiera, Maekar and his boys.

Your loving wife.

...

My Darling Wife

Every day away from you and our children is torture if I dare be dramatic.

It breaks my heart to know how distressed our little princess is. 

My Poor Little Hyacith, too small to understand the world but wise enough to know when something is missing.

The same way she looks at the door, waiting for my arrival, I find myself humming her favourite lullaby when deep in thought, thinking that her cradle is next to me and i’m lulling her to sleep. You have to forgive me, my lady, but before I left I stole your handkerchief, the one with hyacinths embroidered on it. It carries your scent, my love, and unfortunately, just like my pillow, yours is slowly fading away.

I too reach for your warmth when I wake up first thing in the morning, but I only have a cold side of the bed and the sounds of horses and garrisons as the reminder of the miles between us. Don’t count the days until you see me again, my love. I’ll be there before you realise it.

Your faithful husband, Baelor.

...

When the letters and trinkets stopped arriving, you did not get worried.

Your Baelor is a busy man. He could be far away from his study in the Red Keep, but he’ll still find a way to bury himself in matters of the realm. In the meantime, you spent your days taking care of your daughter, overseeing your stepson studying and looking after household matters.

The horrible news arrives when you are strolling through the gardens with the King. Ever since you married Baelor, you’ve become quite close to the King, a daughter he never had. A guard runs to the gardens, shouting for the King.

The Guard stopped in front of them, sweating and breathing rapidly.

“We have received a letter from Prince Maekar bearing urgent news…”

You did not know what to expect. A Blackfyre conspiracy. How you wished that were the cause. The Guard hands over Maekar’s letter, and the King quickly reads it over. He would’ve collapsed to the ground if he had not grabbed hold of you. You caught him and let him support your body against yours.

“Your grace!” You shouted.

The king was pallid, and his gaze was blank. He called your name and told you to get Mtarys. It was about his father. It was about Baelor. You guided the King to the guard and ran as fast as you could to the training yard where Matarys was.

When you find your stepson, you bring him to the gardens where the King remained. The King is sitting on the bench, crumpling the letter that had caused so much distress.

The King looks at Matarys with solemn eyes. He stands up. “My boy, before you panic, I need you to know your father is alright. He has been injured.” Yours and Matarys’ breaths hitched. “But he is alright. Your Uncle Maekar has assured me, and they are coming back.”

The King tells you, and Matarys tells you, that Baelor got injured after joining the side of a Hedge Knight during a trial of seven. Baelor fought bravely. Baelor was struck by his own brother's mace. Baelor lay asleep for two weeks with Maesters who did not know if he would live or die.

The Gods smiled at Baelor.

He woke up.

The King looked at you as he continued speaking. “The Maesters say a lot of things can happen to a man when he's struck hard in the head. Baelor woke up asking for Jena.”

...

Baelor arrives inside a wheelhouse, a contrast to the way he departed a month and a half ago.

A month and a half ago, he stood in the Keep’s entrance bidding his goodbye to you, Hyacinth and Matarys. He ruffled Matarys’ hair and told him to behave. He gave Hyacinth a cuddle and kissed her cheeks. He puts your daughter back into your arms and kisses you gently. You still remember how much his gaze was full of love and adoration towards you, towards his family.

As he rode his horse out of the gates, he looked over his shoulder where you still remained with Hyacith in your arms and Matarys by your side. You grabbed Hyacith’s arm and waved at him. He smiled and waved back.

Baelor Breakspear returned to the capital a different man. Well, not different. He returns as a man he hasn't been in years. He returns as Prince Baelor, husband of Lady Jena Dondarrion and father of Prince Valarr and Prince Matarys. You and your daughter may as well not exist.

You met Baelor one year after Lady Jena’s death. Baelor didn't intend to have a second wife, and you didn't intend to fall in love with him. You’re an orphan who comes from a House whose sigil and motto nobody could tell even if their lives depended on it. Only Baelor could answer it. 

When he asked your House name you felt embarrassed because you stood in front of the greatest man in the Realm and you come from nothing extraordinary. You mumbled your full name, and without wasting a beat, he asked if you were related to a knight. You recognised the knight he named, your great-grand sire. You were shocked that he would remember such a thing. He wasn't a remarkable knight; he just had few tournament wins under his name, and that was it. 

On that day you felt seen, and that was the start of everything.

It wasn’t a hot, passionate love affair.

It was built slowly over the years like a well-tended fire.

You were Lady Kiera’s lady-in-waiting.

You didn’t see Baelor every day. 

You were busy attending the Young Prince’s wife. 

He was busy being the Hand.

When you crossed paths, you would bow to him, and he would nod at you.

It was a practice dance between the two of you, but as time went on, the dance started to shift patterns, like the invisible minstrels had changed the tune of their instruments. 

When you and Baelor crossed paths, you both slowed your paces as if to make the moment last longer. You would hold eye contact longer than it is appropriate for either of your statuses. You would walk forward, and when looking over your shoulder, he would be staring right back at you. It was you who made the audacious step of turning this dance into something more.

“It’s just a beautiful day today.” You said.

He almost looked stunned by your comment, but he then smiled and agreed with you. Then Baelor did his own audacious step; he asked if you wanted to take a stroll with him in the gardens. You accepted.

The wheelhouse stops in front of the awaiting group. Prince Maekar, who was riding his horse alongside, quickly jumped off the animal before a stable boy even arrived. He rushed to the Wheelhouse and opened its door. Lady Kiera is the first to come off and then Prince Valarr. The Young Prince lifts his hand to the inside, and a big but thin hand grabs it. Maekar approaches and lets the last person inside lean on his body.

The sight in front of you almost makes you want to faint, and Matarys grabbed your hand.

Baelor looked too thin and frail. His clothes looked baggy, and his face was sunken. His head was bandaged, and you could see a faint spot of red.

The King is the one to go to him first.

Baelor tries to stand straight in front of his father and king.

“My King,” He mumbled as if speaking was the hardest task he could perform. “Please give me time to recover and I shall attend to my duties…”

The King didn't let him finish. He walked to Baelor and pulled him into his arms.

Daeron Targaryen stripped his title and crown and held his firstborn, whom he almost lost. Baelor wrapped his arm around his father and rested his head against his shoulder. Maekar, who was holding Baelor upright, looked down in shame and was about to step away when Daeron grabbed him and brought him to his hold as well.

It was a heartbreaking sight.

“Matarys.” You called for your stepson lightly. “Go to your father.”

Matarys reluctantly lets go of your hand.

He approached shyly and stopped behind the King.

“Father.” He called out.

Baelor lifted his head and fixed his gaze at his youngest son.

Baelor’s mismatched eyes studied the boy in front of him; they go wide when it dawns on him who the boy is. Matarys was only eight years old when Jena died. He was now twelve. He carefully frees himself from his father's and brother’s grip, and with uncoordinated steps, he moves forward.

Baelor takes another step forward and loses his balance, dropping to his knees right in front of Matarys. Maekar rushes to his brother’s side. He was about to lift him, but Baelor raised his hand. He grabbed his youngest son and pulled him to his arms just like his father did a few moments ago. Matarys broke down and cried in his father’s arms.

"Shh...shh," He hummened. “When did you get so big, my boy?” Baelor asked as he patted his son’s arms and back.

A tear slips down your face, and you quickly wipe it away. It gave you hope. If he remembered his son with one glance. He may remember you as well.

The Maesters start to surround Baelor, ready to see the extent of his wound and see how truly bad it is. Baelor reluctantly lets go of Matarys and allows Maekar to get him up from the ground and escort him inside.

They walk to the entrance where you stood. Your body goes rigid. Should you call for him? Should you hold his arm? Should you introduce yourself?

You looked directly at Baelor, and he looked back at you.

You waited for that glimpse of recognition, but it did not arrive.

Baelor politely nodded at you. “My lady.”

You stayed there astonished.

You could almost laugh. That’s Baelor, alright. The man could have a limb hanging by a thread, but he would still slow down and greet the person in front of him just because he couldn't forget his good manners.

Maekar didn't look at you. His gaze was forward.

Coward! You think bitterly. Your brother would've looked me in the eyes!

Kiera walks to you and hugs you. You break down in her arms.

...

Maesters surrounded him and prodded his head.

They gave him Milk of the poppy, which made his senses go dull. He was in and out of consciousness. There was so much he wanted to ask and do. How was the realm? How were his sons? How was his father’s health? Where was Jena buried?

The maesters disperse, and he’s no longer being touched. His eyes were closed, but he could hear everything around him. He could hear them whispering among themselves about the side effects of his wound and how they could bring back some of his memories without causing emotional and mental distress.

He hears light footsteps coming inside the chamber.

“He just fell asleep.” He hears Maekar say. “You shouldn't be here.” His brother doesn't say it with a malicious tone, but Baelor nonetheless wishes to scold his brother. This person was a guest, a friend of his who wanted to check on his well-being.

He tried to open his eyes, but his lids were heavy. 

The person doesn't respond to Maekar, nor do they obey him. In fact, they step closer to Baelor. Now Baelor wished he could see who this person was that was so bold to defy his brother.

The steps are light. A Lady, perhaps?

The bed dips as someone sits beside him. and his hand is held. It was a lady indeed. The hand was soft and warm. A contrast to his rough and cold skin. The lady rubs his hand delicately, warming him up. 

The lady remains silent, but he could hear her sniff and a hitch in her breath as she held back a sob. He wanted to tell the lady to not waste tears on a fool like him. He tried to squeeze her hand, but his fingers still felt like wood.

No one speaks.

He could feel her gaze on him. Her hand grazed his knuckles slowly.

Another sound of footsteps appears along with the sound of clanking. A guard.

“My lady?” He calls.

The lady speaks for the first time. “Yes?”

Her voice is soft and gentle, just like her touch.

“Prince Valarr requests your presence.”

The lady pauses in her gestures, and Baelor mourns her touch. She sighs and carefully lays Baelor’s hand on the wool blanket.

He waits for her to get up and leave. She moves not away from him but towards him. She leans in, and Baelor could smell citrus fruits and oranges – a far cry from the medicine and incense that surround him. She presses her lips against his temple, and Baelor feels his heart skip a beat.

She gets up and starts to walk away, but Baelor wanted her to stay. He moved his head, and finally he managed to open his eyes, but his vision was blurry. He could only see the tail end of the Lady’s blue gown.

The Maester suggests you and Hyacith keep a respectful distance from Baelor so as not to create more mental distress for him.

...

You are to be a stranger to your own husband.

Who are you now?

You have no idea.

Are you still a wife even if your husband doesn't remember you?

Is your daughter a princess even if her father doesn't remember her conception?

You lie on your bed. The same bed you shared with your husband a few months ago with your daughter sleeping peacefully right beside you. You envy her. She doesn't know one of her favourite people in the world doesn't recall her existence. He doesn’t remember her laugh, her smile, how much he prayed for her and the love that he had for her. He doesn't remember how happy he was when she was born. A man who thought he would never hold another small child of his blood, especially a daughter.

“Forgive me, my lady, but I never thought I would feel so much love for a woman until you presented this blessing to my life.” He told you when he held her for the first time.

She doesn't know her father doesn't remember her mother.

He doesn’t remember the days where polite conversations turn into something deeper and meaningful. The days when you sought each other's eyes from across the room. The day he asked you to be his wife. The day you made oaths to one another in front of the Gods and men. The days of getting to know each other's bodies.

Baelor lies on a bed, not knowing on the other side of the Keep there are two people who have become important to him. He doesn't know there’s a possibility you carry his fourth child.

You haven't told anyone. You haven't sought a maester or midwife to confirm it, but you knew. You knew your body. The lack of blood wasn't your only clue. Your breasts were tender, and when Hyacith would squeal, screech or whimper, you would feel a tug on them. You felt nauseous. You craved oranges, the same cravings you had in your first pregnancy. You wanted to tell Baelor in your letters but decided you wanted to surprise him. You regret that choice now.

If you had told him your suspicions, would he have still joined the fight? Maybe he still would. He joined a fight knowing he had two small children waiting for him, and he still went ahead.

Seven! How you wished to whack him on the head as well!

...

“And this is Aemon the Dragonknight! My great-great-uncle! My brother was named after him. When Queen Naerys, my great-grandmother, was accused of adultery, he demanded her accuser fight him in a trial by combat and won!”

“Oh…”

You smiled as you watched Aegon escort the Hedge Knight around the Keep, and you smiled at the Hedge Knight, who was amazed at everything around him.

Hyacinth’s shrieks announce your presence in the corridor.

Aegon turned around and smiled when he spotted you and his cousin.

“Auntie!” He ran towards you.

The Hedge Knight lowered his gaze as he followed his young squire.

“Hello, Hyacinth!” He greeted her, grabbing her little hand.

“Hello, Egg.” You greeted him in return and looked at the Tall knight in front of you. “Will you introduce me to your friend?”

Egg smiled. “Aunt, this is Ser Duncan the Tall.”

The Knight stood straighter when you gazed at him, and his cheeks turned red.

“My lady.” He respectfully bowed his head.

“Ser Duncan the Tall this is my cousin, Princess Hyacith of House Targaryen and my aunt…”

Ser Duncan the Tall’s eyes go wider when Egg tells your name and your relationship to the royal. He began to speak, but his words were incoherent, and they did not make any sense. Then he dropped to his knees in front of you.

“My lady… Please forgive me for all that has happened!” He started rambling. “It was never my intention to drag the Hand into this mess! It was never my intention to cause this much harm to your family!”

“And what was your intention, Ser Duncan?” You asked.

Ser duncan lifts his head and looks with his sincere blue eyes. “To protect the innocent, my lady. As every knight should.”

You sighed.

“Egg.” You said. “Would you and Ser Duncan like to take a stroll with Hyacith and me?"

Aegon and Hyacith walk ahead of you and Ser Duncan.

Aegon holds Hyacinth's hands and teaches her how to walk.

“Another foot forward... another foot forward.”

Ser Duncan breaks the silence. “She looks like him.”

You nodded. “She does.” You nodded. “I was in labour two nights and one day, and she came out the spitting image of her father and brother.”

Ser Duncan smiled.

“And she has the audacity to prefer her father over me. The one who gave her life and fed from my very own breast.”

Ser Duncan let himself chuckle.

"Have you talked to him?” You ask, not needing to clarify who.

“I have, m’lady.” He answers. “His grace recovers well and has been able to walk well with the assistance of a cane.”

“Does he remember you?”

“No.” He shook his head. “But he does tell me that he would gladly let me join his kingsguard and serve him.”

“Do you plan on accepting it?”

“I’ll be honest with you, my lady. I don't know..." He continues. “I am grateful for the offer. It is something a Hedge Knight strives for his whole life but…”

“But?” You encouraged him.

“I don't feel ready to give up that life yet. Especially with Egg as my squire.” He explains. “He’s a good lad. A pain in my side… but a good lad. He could do so much better outside of places like these.”

You nodded. “I think you’re correct, Ser Duncan.”

“Your husband said the same thing. Even told Prince Maekar that he should reconsider it.”

That makes you pause. 

Your husband. 

Nobody has said that since Baelor’s return. As if the reminder were a dirty memory that shouldn't be evoked. As if that would cause him to break into pieces.

“I know it’s not the same, but I have lived that ‘Hedge Knight’ life before.” You told him. “I came from a House that wasn't worthy enough to be remembered in the lineage books. I couldn’t tell people which side they fought during the Dance of Dragons or the Blackfyre rebellion. My parents died when I was young, and I have been shipped off to every corner of the realm to various relatives. I learnt rather quickly to never get used to any keep I arrived at because I would be sent away before I could learn the names of the servants. I arrived in King’s Landing with one last favour and two ugly gowns in my name.”

Ser Duncan listened to you attentively.

“I don't know what you heard of me, Ser, but there are those who think I slithered my way into Baelor’s bed and seduced him into marrying me.”

Ser Duncan shook his head and stammered an apology and told you he would never believe such tales regarding your honour.

You laughed.

“Oh… How I wish I could tell these noblemen it was the other way around. He seduced me! I didn’t realise he actually wanted me for a wife until he took me to Dragonstone and knelt before me. A Prince knelt before me and asked me to be his wife! Do you know what I said?”

Ser Duncan blinked. “Yes?”

“Your Grace, get up! You are embarrassing yourself!” You said using the same shrieking voice you did years ago. “And he did not get up. He told me he would stay like that until I said yes. And I just… kept denying him! I tried to get him up from the ground, but he would not budge.”

You smile as you remember that day.

“No matter what objections I threw at him, he would fight back. ‘The King would never approve,' I said. 'The King already knows and has given us his blessing,' he said. ‘Your sons would not want a replacement for their mother,' I argued. ‘My son helped me choose the ring,' he argued back. ‘The court would never accept me,' I tried once again to bring him to reason. ‘The court would have to fight me if they disapprove of our union,' he said, still kneeling on the ground and holding the ring.”

“What made you say ‘yes’?”

You twisted your engagement ring. “I made him promise to never leave my side and ship me off to whatever corner of this realm. If he promises me that I will say ‘yes’.”

You wish to cry, but you will not cry. Not when it’s such a beautiful day.

“He will remember you, my lady. I am sure of it!” Ser Duncan reassured you.

“I hope so, Ser," You say. “Because who am I without my Baelor? I came from nothing and belonged to nothing, but Baelor never let me feel like I didn’t belong next to him. " You look at your daughter. “At least for my daughter’s sake, the Gods will guide him back to us.”

Hyacinth guided her cousin to you and Ser Duncan. She stopped in front of the tall knight and looked at him like she was studying him. She is definitely her father’s daughter. She pulled her hand from Aegon and grabbed Ser Duncan’s leg pant. Ser Duncan stood still like a statue, and he had a look of sheer panic on his face, as if it were a dangerous animal clinging to him and not a small child.

Hyacinth made a squealing noise and tried to climb Ser Duncan’s leg.

“It seems like the Princess wishes to know how you view the world, Ser Duncan.” You said humourously.

“You should do as your Princess asks, Ser," Aegon said, sharing your amusement. 

Ser Duncan took a deep breath, rubbed his palms against his pants, crouched down and lifted the princess. He held her at arm's length away from his body. His breath hitched when Hyacith let out a screech.

“She prefers being held closer, Ser Duncan.” You gently pushed your daughter into Ser Duncan’s chest, and you could've sworn he stopped breathing.

Ser Duncan looked at Hyacith, who was looking back at him, and cleared his throat. “hum.. Evening, Princess.”

The little girl babbled in response.

You smiled, but you couldn't help the feeling like someone was staring at you. You turned around and saw a person retreating, but you could recognise that silver head from anywhere.

“Ser Duncan, Egg. I will be right back.” You said, not giving time to hear their answers as you went inside.

You catch Maekar just as he is going up the stairs.

“How is it that a Hedge Knight and your nine-year-old son have more guts to look me in the eyes than you, brother?” You asked, saying the last part rather sarcastically.

Maekar goes stiff and turns around, staring at you with a scowl. Years ago that look frightened you, but now it held no power over you.

“I would like to remind you, girl.” He hissed. “That you are speaking to a Prince of the Realm.”

“And I would like to remind you, your grace.” You said with your chin high. “That I’m still Princess of Dragonstone and your future Queen even if your brother doesn't remember me. I’m still a member of this family until the King says otherwise."

Maekar has never been warm with you. He’s only polite because you are his brother’s wife. Because the King likes you. He shares the same opinion the court has towards you: too unfit and unworthy to be the heir’s wife.

Maekar huffs and goes down the stairs. “You left your daughter with that oaf?”

“Ser Duncan is a good man. My husband saw that, so I trust him, and besides, he’s with your son, and you let him be your squire.”

“You trust him after he caused all of this.”

“Yes.” You said, feeling ready to defend Ser Duncan’s honour. “After all, it was not him who called for a trial of Seven. It was not him who swung the mace.”

Something flickered in Maekar’s eyes. Hurt? You did not know and you did not care. Baelor remembers him, and Maekar gets to see him every day. You haven't been able to talk to your husband and could only rely on the accounts from your stepsons, Kiera and the maesters about his well-being.

“If I could undo what happen…” He started.

“Spare me your sorrows, Maekar," You cut in. “I will only forgive when he remembers me. When my daughter stops crying herself to sleep because she heard her father’s voice and he did not come to her. When the baby inside of me…” You stopped when Maekar’s eyes went wide and he looked at your belly.

You turned around and walked away from him.

You owed him no explanation.

You owed him nothing.

You come back to Ser Duncan, still holding Hyacinth and asking Egg if she’s still breathing because she has gone quiet. Hyacinth was happily sucking on her fist.

...

Baelor doesn't like to be idle. He doesn't like to remain still. He also doesn't like to be coddled. He understands an injury like this needs to be taken care of properly, but he feels like he’s going to forget all his manners if another person asks if he’s alright.

It’s nighttime, and half of the Keep is asleep. Usually at this hour Baelor would be hunched over his desk and looking over his ledgers, but he’s not doing anything, and he hates that. He has probably counted every stitch and every flower in the canopy above him.

The wound has healed well, and he no longer needs bandages. He still gets headaches and has a persistent itch on his wound.

He lets out grunts when he sits on the bed. With deep breaths he grabs his cane and gets up from the bed. He walks out, ignoring the guard stationed at his door.

“A small walk, Ser.” He said, waving his hand when the knight started walking behind him. “I will be back before you know it.”

Baelor wished to know how much had changed in four years, and the cloak of the knight was perfect for it. There were no Lords and Ladies asking for his well-being and saying he’s in their prayers. It’s more quiet. 

He heard a babe the other day when he was strolling through the garden with Valarr. That was odd; there weren’t a lot of babies in the Keep. The noble ladies usually leave them with nursemaids in their husbands' castles. He didn’t get to see the babe, but he did hear the poor thing cry.

Not much has changed; the walls and the banners were the same, but the gardens looked different. There was a section that was full of hyacinths of various colours and an orange tree. It was beautiful and well taken care of. He wonders whose idea was it to plant them. There was also a bench in there; maybe he should sit there and rest for a bit.

When he arrives at the garden and hears a woman humming. He wonders if his brother’s hit was strong enough to make him see the ghosts of the keep.

 He rounds the corner, and he sees a Lady sitting on the bench. He doesn't recognise her. She’s quite pretty. Her expression was calm and serene. In her hands was a handkerchief with peeled orange slices. The moon shone on her beautifully. He tried to look for clues of her house with her clothes, but she wore a plain white nightgown and a dark robe.

Why is there Lady alone in the gardens in the middle of the night? He wondered.

Should he join her? Or should he let her be in her own peace?

Before he could decide, a wave of nausea hit him, making his body brush against the leaves of the bushes.

The lady stopped humming.

...

"Who's there?!” You shouted when you heard something rustling in the bushes and the sound of a man groaning. “Show yourself before I scream for the guards!”

You get up from the bench and try to see between the gaps who this person is.

You hear a cane tapping against the stone floor path, and a person clad in a dark robe appears. Your heart skips a beat when you see Baelor coming out.

“Forgive me, my lady.” He starts. “It was never my intention to frighten you.”

“Bae… your grace.” You collect yourself and bow before him. “I’m happy to see you recovering well. Are you here by yourself?”

“Yes. I appreciate everyone has made sure I'm comfortable, but I needed time for myself.”

You look down at the orange peels in your handkerchief because you fear if you look at him, you’ll say something you shouldn’t. “Then I’ll let you be, my prince.”

You turn around, but he speaks. “Wait.” You look over your shoulder.

“Please don't let my presence disturb you, and I hope it’s not too much to ask; could you join me? "

How long have you waited for his invitation? It made you feel like the first months you knew one another when you didn't know how to act around him.

You nodded and sat on the bench again. He joins you soon after, groaning as he plops down the hard bench. Maybe you should ask a servant to bring a cushion for him.

You remained silent and so did he.

The silence did not feel tense. It felt familiar. Like the days you got to know each other, where you used each other's presence and didn't need words to pass time. You simply relished being together.

“The song you were humming.” Baelor said, gently breaking the silence. “I recognised it. A High Valyrian song about a daughter asking her father to collect a star for her; he tells her he’ll ride his dragon as high as he can and collect all of them for her. And when he does, the daughter gets sad because the sky is no longer shining, so the father puts her in his dragon, and they put the stars back in the sky.”

“Yes.” You confirm. "Unfortunately I don't know how to sing the words; I just know the rhythm.”

“Where did you hear it from?”

The truthful answer would be. ‘You sang to our daughter ever since she was in my womb. You were so sure it was girl just by the way she kicked against your hand.’

“I heard it from a volantis singer that was passing by.” You said. “It’s my daughter’s favourite song. I hummed it to her when putting her in her cradle."

The more truthful answer would be. ‘She doesn't like it when anyone else but you sings it. She once placed her hand in the King’s mouth to shut him up.’

“How old is your daughter?”

“A year old.”

“What’s her name?”

“Hyacinth.”

Baelor looked around the garden at the various hyacinths surrounding you and him and chuckled.

“A beautiful name.”

You named her, you thought bitterly. “Thank you.”

Baelor shocked his head. “Forgive me, my lady. I just realised I haven't asked your name.”

You answer him.

“Does your husband know you’re here alone?”

“I don't have a husband.” You say it almost bitterly.

It might as well be the truth. Your husband is sitting right next to you like a stranger.

Baelor noticed the tension in your body. “The hour is getting quite late, my lady.” He gets up from the bench and extends his hand towards you. “Allow me to escort you to your chambers.”

You accept his hand and you feel your whole body shivering when you feel Baelor’s skin. “Thank you, your grace.” You reluctantly pull your hand away. “But I have to refuse; my chambers are from yours, and I don't wish for you to exhaust yourself.”

“It would be no trouble.” He tried to argue.

“Please, my prince," You pleaded, exhausted yourself. “I wish to be alone.”

He nodded and stepped aside. 

“I would like to thank you, my lady.” You looked at him confused. “It felt nice to have a conversation with someone that didn't involve my injury or matters of the realm.”

“You’re welcome, my prine.”

You bowed and left the garden, and you could feel Baelor’s eyes on you as he watched you disappear from his view. You put your hand in your belly as you feel a small flutter. As if a feather were caressing your skin.

When you were far away from him, the guards, or any living soul, you stopped and collapsed to your knees and started crying. 

You tried to be strong. For your daughter. For your baby. But when Baelor gazed at you and the warmth and love weren't there, it was painful and heartbreaking. You felt like you were a little girl again being told to pack her things because she was leaving. Because she’s not wanted. You thought you would never feel like that. That Baelor would not let you feel like that ever again. He promised! you know it’s not his fault. That your Baelor would rather forfeit his crown than let you or Hyacith feel like that. A burden.

...

Baelor can’t help but feel like something is missing. Not just his memories but also someone.

At first he thought it was Jena he was missing. It wasn't a love match, but they had respect for one another, and he felt genuinely sad to hear of her death. She was not only his sons’ mother. She was his friend and someone he felt he could rely on when his time came to be King.

When he woke up, his hand, without thinking, went to his side of the bed, expecting to feel another body. He and Jena slept in separate chambers. When he looks to his side, he expects someone to be there, but there’s only an empty space.

He also hears the sound of a babe crying. When he’s in his study, he swears he hears a child crying. He would step into the corridor, but he would see nothing. He asked the guards if they heard a child, and they told him ‘no’. Baelor thinks he’s losing his mind. When he finds a small doll in his drawer and he smells the faint scent of baby powder, he knows that this child is real.

...

Baelor is on another nightly stroll when he hears once again the sound of a child crying, and this time he knows he’s not imagining it when he hears another voice speaking to the babe.

He follows the sound, and he’s surprised to find himself in the royal nursery where he and his brothers spent the first years of their lives. This section is reserved only for the children of the royal family. 

He looks through the gap of the door and sees a small child, a girl, sitting on top of a rug surrounded by pillows. The child was crying almost hysterically. A young nursemaid stood next to her holding a bowl of porridge. She tried to give the baby a spoonful, but the baby turned her head stubbornly and continued to wail. The young nursemaid looked worried sick for the child in her care.

“Should we call the maester?”

An older nursemaid sighed. Baelor recognised she's the same one who took care of his sons. “Don't bother. She'll cry herself to exhaustion very soon.”

The Young nurse maid put the bowl down. “I feel so horrible for her.” The nursemaid wipes a tear from her. “Poor little Hyacinth."

Hyacinth?

The daughter of the lady in the garden. 

“Poor little Hyacinth, indeed.” The older nursemaid repeated. “I recognise that cry. I have taken care of children for almost twenty years and recognised the meaning of every cry they let out. This one is ‘I miss my father’ cry.”

Hyacinth sniffed, agreeing with the nurse maid's conclusion. The girl turned her head and made direct eye contact with Baelor.

Hyacinth stops crying and her body goes stiff. Then she let out a happy shriek. The girl got up and walked towards him. Baelor took a step inside the nursery just as she collided against his leg.

“Your grace!” The nurse maids quickly bowed.

Baelor was more focused on the child in front, who clung to his trousers like it was a lifeline.

He crouched down and picked her up. He hoped his body would not betray him, not while he was holding something so frail.

“Hyacinth.” He called her softly. 

Hyacinth smiled, revealing two teeth on her upper gums, and buried her face in his neck.

Baelor was shocked that the child who was crying hysterically a while ago had calmed down as soon as she saw him.

“Whose child does she belong to?”

One of the nurse maids stammered the name of the lady in the garden, just like he suspected, but there's no mention of a father.

He was about to ask about him when the child pulled her face away from him and pointed at the bowl of porridge while babbling. 

The nursemaid that tried to feed her let out a relieved sigh and quickly picked the bowl. She put the spoon in front of her mouth, but to the dismay of everyone in the room, she turned her face away.

“May I?” Baelor asks, lifting his hand.

The nursemaid passed him the spoon, and he put it in front of the child's mouth. The baby girl chased the spoon and ate the porridge. She opened her mouth wanting more. Baelor scooped another bit of the porridge and repeated the process.

Baelor hummed at her.

“Can I… can I have a moment alone with her?”

“Of course, we'll be in the room right next to you.”

The nursemaids left, and it was just him and her.

Baelor sat himself and Hyacinth on the rug and continued to feed her. She happily took every spoon without hesitation. Once in a while she would stop and smile at him. And Baelor couldn’t help but smile back at her.

When there's nothing left, he gets out his handkerchief and wipes the remaining porridge stuck to her mouth. The handkerchief has hyacinths embroidered on it. He found it inside his pockets when departing Ashford. 

He takes a closer look at the child.

He couldn't help but think she looked familiar. 

She has mismatched eyes like him and Valarr. Her hair was jet black, curled in a way that reminded him of his mother's hair.

Hyacinth got up and walked to him. She placed her hands on his shoulder and looked at him expectantly. 

“What is it that you want, little lady?” 

She huffed.

Then Baelor remembered what the lady in the garden said about her daughter. 

He started singing quietly. 

Hyacinth relaxed and laid her head on his shoulder. Baelor put his hand on her back and laid her on his lap. She was so small. He continued to sing. He liked this song. When he was a tiny lad, the maesters would give him and his brothers songs to translate. This one became his favourite. He liked the story behind it, the love a father had for his child that he flew higher and picked all the stars in the sky for his daughter.

Hyacinth was sleeping peacefully.

Baelor carefully laid her in the cot and looked at her, not knowing how to feel. His mind was reaching an horrendous conclusion. 

...

“And he stayed?”

“For a bit, my lady.” The nurse maid explained. “After he tucked her in and called us back inside, he left but not before telling us to call for him if little Hyacinth needed a Prince to feed her porridge again.”

The nursemaids laughed, and you laughed as well. You could cry from happiness. 

You looked at your daughter, who was in your arms munching on her doll. She looked well rested and happy. 

“And you took your first steps, my little princess?” You laughed. “Of course the first person you would walk to was your papa.” 

You brought her closer to you. You could smell Baelor on her. The familiar scents of ink and parchment. 

“My cheeky little girl. Maybe it's you who is going to bring him back to us.”

...

Baelor paced back in and forward in his study.

A headache was going through his head worse than the others.

He did not know how to feel. Anger? Disappointment? Disgust? All of it?

Why did he do it?

How could've he done it?

Where did he fail?

Baelor thought Valarr better than this!

He was a small child when the Blackfyre 

Valarr was a young child when the Blackfyre Rebellion happened but old enough to remember the reason for why his father was fighting. 

So, why did he sire a bastard? 

And why are you here walking around the castle like you belong to House Targaryen?

Baelor understands Valarr’s need for wanting his daughter nearby, but his mistress? 

Has he gone mad? 

Why would he do this to his wife? 

Does he go to her chambers in the middle of the night and sneak into her bed?

Baelor takes a deep breath and asks the guard to get his son.

"Cheers. Goodnight," James replies.

There's the swooshing sound of the bus door opening and closing. You start to sit up, but at the slightest bit of movement from you, James' hand covers your head, stroking lullingly.

"Shh," he whispers.

There's a pause, wherein no one but you seems to breathe. Your indolent mind makes the executive decision to drift in not-quite-sleep for a while longer.

"James," Remus sighs, "we're going to have to wake her."

James makes a soft, mournful sound you think you likely only hear because you're so close to him. How you came to be using his bicep as a pillow, you don't recall.

It's not him that argues, though, but Sirius. "She was so knackered earlier," he says in a low voice. "And that was hours ago."

"She'll sleep better in a bed," Remus says, his tone gentling.

James makes a sound of offense. "You said I was the best pillow you ever had."

Rousing more now, you can practically hear Remus' eyes roll. "A pillow, not a mattress."

"She just looks so…" There's something in Sirius' voice you can't place. It's too close to compassion for your liking, though, which wakes you up enough to make the decision for them.

You bring a hand to your eyes, rubbing.

"Ah." You feel James wince. "Sorry."

When you open your eyes, even Remus is looking at you guiltily.

"That's…okay." You don't quite know what to make of them, peering instead around the near vacant bus. "Are we back?"

"Yeah," Remus confirms. "Lily's checked in and got our room keys already. Do you think you can stand?"

You nod without thinking, but actually standing is a different matter. Still half-asleep, you put weight on your hurt ankle unthinkingly, saved from collapsing back onto the seat by Sirius' quick reflexes as a whimper tears from your throat.

"Careful," he hisses. His grip on your arm turns less bruising only when you steady yourself on your other foot.

"Sorry." You try to blink yourself into better awareness. "It hurts worse than it did before."

"That happens after you rest it," says Remus, watching you cautiously as you take another step. Once you manage it, he turns around, leading the way out of the bus. "I don't mean to sound bleak, but it'll likely be worse tomorrow, too."

"Yay," you monotone. You wince as you step off the bus.

"Do you want me to carry you?" James offers, entirely sincere.

"No, I've got it."

"Okay, well at least let me—" He lifts your arm and steps underneath it like he had earlier. "That's better, right?"

Despite the cool night air, warmth kisses your cheeks as Sirius wordlessly takes your bag from you, freeing you up to use James as your crutch.

"Yeah," you say quietly. "It does, thanks."

You don't want to think about how ill advised this is. You don't want to think about how this could be James' way of getting on your good side, making sure you write nice things about them in your feature. You let him support you until you get in the hotel elevator, and then you step away to lean against the wall.

James is perhaps too tired to take offense. Remus, though, gives you a scrutinizing look, and steps closer to you when the elevator doors open again.

"I can help get you sorted in your room," he offers. "You'll need ice."

You hesitate for a moment, but in that moment Remus has wound an arm around your waist, supporting you while also shepherding you towards your room. Sirius hands off your bag to him before following James in the other direction.

"You're in good hands, doll," he says, then covers his mouth to yawn after James yawns loudly. He sends the drummer a dark look. "Don't you start with that."

"Goodnight." James continues down the hall, yawning and triggering Sirius' yawns in turn, which are interspersed with threats and complaints.

You yawn as well. Remus, somehow immune to this, chuckles as he opens the door to your room.

"Do you want to change while I get a bag of ice?" he asks, setting both you and your bag on the bed.

"Sure, but—you really don't need to," you say. "I can manage."

"I'm sure you can," he replies, and leaves.

You stare at the door. That doesn't sound like he's not coming back. You change quickly in case, not truly surprised when a polite knock sounds a few minutes later.

"Thank you." You try not to shrink as Remus constructs a stack of pillows to elevate your ankle, settling a towel-wrapped bag of ice on top. You're aware of the tackiness of dried tears on your face, and of how pathetic and inept you must seem. Remus finds a spare blanket and fans it out atop you. "You really don't have to do all of this."

"Don't worry about it," he says.

You do worry, though. You worry about how kind they've all been to you, and what it might mean. What might be expected in return.

"Are you being so nice to me so that I'll write nice things about you all in the feature?" you force yourself to ask.

Remus pauses. His brows twitch, a flicker of something, gone in an instant. "Are you only being nice to us so that we'll give you quotes for your feature?"

You recoil. Such as you can in bed, anyway. Your chin tucks closer to your chest, something inside aching sharply. "No," you say, relieved to find that it rings true.

He hums. "Me neither."

Remus moves your bag to the nightstand for you, nudging the telephone closer so you can reach both without much trouble. "Feel free to give us a ring in the morning," he says. "Sirius is in five-thirty-one, and Lily and Mary are in five-forty. You should meet us for breakfast."

"Thanks," you say, "I will."

standing upon the balcony that oversees the gardens, it feels as though it was yesterday, even though you know, after all, that it was not. 

you have never much been fond of tourneys, either. the noise and crowd was one thing, but the bloodshed was another entirely.

perhaps you did not have the stomach for it. the one at your family’s keep had not nearly been so elaborate as the one his grace has planned. there had been a melee in the morning among the squires, and then the jousts in the evening. 

your cousin had won and crowned his betrothed, and before you could think of it, you had been seated inside the hall for the feast, surrounded by faces unknown to you.

that is why it all feels so familiar. 

the air is heavy with anticipation—the knights and lords on the tilts, the ladies waiting to hand over their prettily-made favors. tourneys are a thing of hope—prayers and wishes for a victory, for a betrothal, for a memory to hold onto.

you do not enjoy them, and yet, your mind sends you back into time, something in the wind reminding you of a memory you have held onto with both hands, fingers grasping tightly around it, refusing to let go even now.

the moments before you had first met your husband.

you open your eyes, breathing out the clean air and blinking slowly as you take in the view. green shrubs and vines along with flowers of all colors. large, grand trees that have been here since the time of the conqueror. 

you will miss it dearly, you know, until such a time that you return to the red keep. 

you have spent so many days in this garden, so many mornings wading through it, growing fond of the new feeling of having to do nothing at all but sit and break your fast. a number of evenings spent on this very balcony, waiting for baelor to return to you from his duties.

if you think of it for too long, that horrible feeling crawls its way back into you. wondering if you are making a mistake by leaving, wondering what sort of a princess, what sort of a wife, would run and hide in this manner.

and then naerys stirs gently inside of you and your mind calms itself. 

this is for her, you try to remind yourself, as much as it is for you and baelor. 

in summerhall, there will be no more tears. no more nights of crying or skipped meals because the castle is too large to notice when one plate remains full. and it will be quieter entirely—no ladies to entertain, no maids gossiping, no royal guests to tend to. 

you have only spoken to your future host briefly in the past days. when you had requested his servant to ask if he had a moment to speak with you, maekar had come and opened the door to his study himself. 

it all seems far away now. the last few days have quickly faded into each other. 

at the very least, maekar had agreed with his brother’s request that it would be best to depart after the tourney had ended, to avoid any conversations or gossip spreading amongst the guests. 

you have never cared so much as to what other people might think of you until you came to king’s landing. another burden that seems to lift itself entirely at summerhall. there is no court there, and therefore no one to watch your every move.

you do not even recall the entirety of the conversation now, with how your thoughts are all mixed together. you think maekar had mentioned something about a seamstress that might be brought on to the castle for your new gowns.

and you suppose he is right. it seems of no use to bring your old dresses with you when they will not fit anymore. 

you suppose you shall have no need of them until—

until quite some time. 

your mind wanders, staring down at the guests king daeron has invited. they walk through the gardens, laughing and talking with one another. 

your daughter might be crawling by the time you return to the red keep, to your old gowns and your husband. 

if he remembers you by then—

you shake your head slightly, as though you might be able to silence the thought with the motion. you have spent enough time thinking. now it is time to do something, something that you know will help you and baelor, even if he does not yet see it.

you should not feel this way, you tell yourself. this was your decision, your choice. 

and still, sullenly, your eyes gaze down towards the garden through a layer of unshed tears at the thought of leaving your home behind.

a young girl skips through the courtyard, not far from where you and baelor had broken your fast not so long ago. 

you keep your hand steady on your stomach, rubbing the skin softly. finally you sigh one last time, inhaling the sweet, fresh air of the gardens.

you turn around to return to your chambers. the tourney is set to begin tomorrow, and you suppose it is time to begin packing.

-

the morning light shines beautifully through the curtains of these chambers. 

your mind cannot help but compare it to the rays in baelor’s chambers, since that is the only comparison you have in your mind, but it is warm all the same.

(his chambers are warmer entirely, though not from the sun. the memories come forth even when you try your hardest to suppress them. how it would feel to wake up beside him, his hands and his touch heated as fire on your bare skin. your husband runs hot all the time, and he has never had any issue in warming you up as well. 

the air in those chambers is transfixing, and sometimes you could not tell if you are awake or dreaming. especially when baelor would press himself further against you, bringing his lips to your forehead or your cheek, urging you to continue sleeping, even if he had to rise. 

you can be entrancing too, you know, because he has never arrived late to quite so many appointments since the time of your marriage. baelor told you so himself, murmured the words against the sensitive skin of your neck, warned you that he cannot keep delaying whatever lord he was set to speak with. 

and still, he is tardy that day and the following, and the one after that as well. those mornings in bed, when it felt as though there was no one else in the entire world save for the two of you, trapped halfway between the drowsiness of sleep and the joy of waking. you like to imagine that naerys came into this world on one of those mornings.)

and then you put it aside entirely, sitting up suddenly. you push the quilts away, your skin feeling fervid even though you know very well that this bed is cold and unwarmed.

this is how it will be, and there is nothing to do besides becoming accustomed to it over time.

after all, there is no one to sleep besides you at summerhall.

the squire’s tourney is the first event of the morning. an opportunity for the young men to prove their prowess, each hoping to earn their knighthood along with the sweetness and pride of victory. 

you do not care to watch men fight like this, not after what you saw at ashford. even the thought of sitting through this all day feels jarring, but the day is warm and your company is sweet, at the very least. you sit besides lady kiera and maekar’s girls.

kiera looks tired, you can tell. in part, at least, tired in the way that you are—of these people, of the appearances that are required of her. but still, she smiles brightly at you when she takes her seat, valarr escorting her until he is certain she is comfortable. he greets you fondly and kisses his wife’s hand before departing, likely to ready himself for the midday tilts.

the girls chatter with each other after showing you and kiera the favors they had decorated themselves. rhae’s is a rainbow of colors and flowers, and she clutches to it as though it is more an accessory for herself than some strange squire. daella’s is decorated fittingly in the house colors—a comely, soft black velvet wrapped around a circlet with red roses. 

but ultimately, she loses interest in the conversation with you and kiera and sets her sights towards the fighters, as though to ascertain which of the young men is most deserving of her favor.

“how are you feeling?” you ask quietly, meeting kiera’s gentle eyes. she turns from the girls to look at you, and there is a wistfulness in her that you recognize.

“i should be asking you that,” she says, smiling softly. her eyes trace to the faint curve of your belly, almost fully concealed under your dress—a pale green, today.

“i am fine,” you say quickly, wanting to avoid the topic of your emotions entirely. “the maids are packing my gowns today. whatever will still fit me, at least.”

“how long do you imagine you will stay there?” 

you go silent, your hand tightening up against your own favor, a small circlet of light yellow flowers, the ones from the bouquet baelor had brought you. it begins to tremble under your touch while you attempt to think of an plausible answer.

you find that there is no answer to her question.

“i do not know, i suppose. perhaps as long as it takes.”

kiera surveys you for a moment, almost as if she is deciding what to say next. finally, she smiles, bringing her hand to your shaking one, steadying it under her touch.

“well, valarr and i will miss you dearly. and we shall come visit, as soon as we are able. perhaps we might bring matarys along. he will be eager to meet his new sibling.” 

you beam at the thought—valarr and matarys playing with naerys, lifting her up and making her laugh in the gardens of summerhall. you have never seen them, but surely they are just as splendid as the ones of the red keep.

after all, they will be the gardens in your daughter’s memories, at least. that alone makes them special to you.

“and i will be waiting eagerly,” you finally say. 

you want to smile. you know you should, that it should feel more natural, grace your expression more easily, even. this is what you wanted, after all. 

what you had asked for. but still, you have to force the corners of your lips to turn up. it is only for a moment before you relax your features, focusing instead on someone, anyone else.

for a moment, everyone grows distracted, and you do not have to keep up the appearance. 

just near where you are seated, you see the king and queen arrive, taking their places in the high chairs and waving to the audience that has gathered. they each take a moment to turn and smile kindly at you and kiera and their grandchildren.

still, your mind remains plagued.

even as the squires are announced, as the seats around you are slowly filled one by one. the royal family—and you among them, though it is still something you cannot believe—are all seated together. further from you, just besides his grace, are the many lords of his small council and his half-brother. 

you can even discern the golden blonde of lenore lannister’s hair for a moment, next to her brother, before you turn away quickly, focusing your attention on kiera again. you do not desire a repeat of the afternoon tea from the other day.

she is nothing if not observant.

“that is one good thing, i suppose,” kiera begins, while you furrow your brows at her. “summerhall will be quiet, at the very least. no ladies of the court to torment you. that is a victory all on its own.”

“you are right,” you agree quietly, though your heart is not behind the sentiment. 

you are not allowed another opportunity to dwell on the matter. instead you focus your attentions on a squire from house manwoody, who is advancing his mount towards the the royal box.

but it has never bothered me before, you think suddenly and sharply, the court and the ladies and all these people. but now, all of a sudden—

the boy, whose introduction you thoroughly missed while lost in your own thoughts, attempts to guide his horse towards your direction. he seems nervous, you think, the lifted visor of his helmet revealing his face. 

he cannot be more than five and ten. 

he looks at the two of you nervously, almost as if he was preparing to ask for your or kiera’s favor. you look at him with widened eyes for a moment, before attempting to direct his gaze to the young princesses sitting before him instead.

the boy blinks, refocusing his attention while holding onto his lance tightly.

daella is beaming. the boy looks more skittish than his horse.

“my fair princess,” he begins, clearing his throat. “would you do me the honor of granting me your favor?” 

the sight is sweet, though.

daella rushes to the edge of the box eagerly, her favor clasped in her fingers and her dark hair billowing behind her. she grins excitedly, dropping her circlet onto the lance. the manwoody boy returns a small, shaky smile. 

between the two of them, you are not sure which will swoon first.

he drops the visor, riding away with his newly adorned lance and shield, a well-painted crowned skull against a black sky. 

“i do hope he wins,” daella announces breathlessly, and you for a moment, you are distracted of all other thoughts, turning to kiera to conceal a hushed laugh.

“with a princess’s favor, how could he not?” kiera says, and daella turns again, still smiling brightly, watching her young knight position himself for the first tilt.

you cannot imagine maekar is too happy about the turn of events. you crane your neck to see if you can find him besides his father, but the seats near his grace, both of them, are empty.

that is odd, you think, as the trumpets roar behind you. they should be here. 

“where are they?” you ask, suddenly much too aware that both your husband and his brother are nowhere in sight. 

your heart races for a moment, feeling as though you are missing some vital piece of information. the idea of yet another tourney going as ashford had makes you feel ill. 

“perhaps with valarr? it is only the squire’s tourney, after all. i am certain they will join us soon,” kiera encourages, clasping her hand over yours. 

you calm down for a moment, the thoughts restraining themselves. kiera’s hand is warm on yours, and you nod slowly. 

you try to smile, but it does not feel as though you can summon it. why does your expression feels forced once again? you cannot name the feeling, and yet—

and then it begins, the stampede of hooves against the dirt, lances ready to clash. you are left with no choice but to watch the young boys charge into one another.

-

you have never seen daella look more radiant. 

she glows from the inside out, her expression glowing as the crown rests easily on her head. it is a pretty wreath too, made of red and pink flowers, matching her crimson gown finely. 

the manwoody boy, for all his nerves, had performed exceedingly well. he won the first match-up in only two tilts, three, you believe, in the second round, and finally was decreed the victor in the third after breaking five lances against a squire from the stormlands.

you could not quite distinguish which house his final opponent served, not when you mind was already occupied, consumed by your thoughts.

well, one thought in particular. most of the tourney was spent wondering where your husband was.

you try to reason with yourself, as though you need to justify thinking of him so relentlessly, as though it was not second nature to you. 

it is only that it was not like him to miss the entire event. to leave his seat empty, even to leave his parents searching for him every time their eyes wandered to the unoccupied space beside them.

and thus, you are left with no choice but to worry. 

you play with your hands and your skirts, fidgeting until you feel naerys stir slightly inside of you, almost as if she is telling you to stop. 

you switch then, to rub your stomach slightly, trying and failing to pay attention to the joust in front of you. when it was over, all of you stood to clap. you tried to search for baelor and maekar with your eyes, to no avail.

“well,” kiera begins, as if she can sense you are in need of a distraction. daella rushes to her grandparents to show them her new crown, with rhae running behind her excitedly, “at least she will give you no trouble on the journey, now. she will speak of it for at least half of the trip.”

her words make you smile before you even realize you have.

“it is a special thing. she will never forget it, either,” you say, unsure of where the words come from.

a tourney is meant to be a joyous affair, after all. just because you did not see them that way any longer did not mean it was not still a festivity for others.

at the very least, for daella. she will have no shortage of tournaments in her lifetime, and you know this is not the last time she will ever be crowned. 

but it must be unforgettable, you think, to be recognized in front of everyone for the first time.

even if she does speak of it for the entirety of the trip to summerhall, you do not think you could fault her. 

for a moment, you are not sure who else she might be able to tell about it, save for her younger sister. you decide then and there to listen intently and make sure she knows you are paying attention and that you care. 

that this is something worth being excited about. 

“indeed… i still remember when valarr crowned me at the tourney for our wedding.” kiera smiles fondly, recalling the memory. you can only imagine how sweet it must have been. “and, once she grows bored of it, rhae will speak of it for the latter half. either way, you will have no shortness of stories in the carriage.”

the two of you laugh, linking arms as you walk down the path to where everyone has gathered. 

the grounds are decorated finely for the day, tents for each of the house with their sigils displayed proudly. the servants work through the crowd with chalices of sweet wine and plates of food, everyone stopping for a moment’s break before the festivities continue in the afternoon.

lords and ladies converse, parting to bow and curtsy as the king and the queen lead the way to the royal tent. daella holds onto the queen’s hand while rhae has been scooped up by the king as they both eagerly talk, likely regarding daella’s recent coronation.

“you are so good with them,” you say suddenly, following as ser donnel leads the two of you away from the crowd. 

“as are you,” kiera replies. “and i know perhaps, this is not proper for me to say. but i will say it still. are you… certain this is what you would like to do?”

you turn, meeting her eyes. you had not expected it, but they are watery like yours. 

in kiera, you had found a true friend, even despite the origin of your relationship. you, her good-father’s new wife and her, your new good-son’s wife. 

even under these uncommon circumstances, you know the caliber of love you are leaving behind. it is bittersweet to imagine days without her and valarr, to think of how close you have gotten to them, only to part so suddenly.

and matarys—you feel your heart clench at the idea of telling him that you have decided to leave after all, that this time it is of your own choosing. you had not thought he or valarr would even like you, much less think of you during a time when their own grief was rampant.

your eyes flicker towards the sigil painted on the tent. a red dragon against black. your sigil, now. 

you had not thought you would truly be one of them, one of baelor’s family. and now with this departure looming over you, you wonder why leaving felt as though it was the correct decision.

a decision made in hurt and anger. would you come to regret it, after all? you suppose you will find out soon.

you push the thought aside with all your strength, focusing instead on kiera again.

“i do not know if i am certain about anything,” you admit, finally. your words are quiet. “but it is so painful to be here. for the both of us. this might make it easier until-”

“your grace,” a voice booms, and you turn suddenly to meet the source of it. “my lady. it is a pleasure,” he says.

you recognize him instantly, even though you have never met the man before. 

his helmet is elaborate and identifying all on its own, a stag’s antlers plated in iron, and his doublet matching the colors of his house—bright gold and onyx. 

you think for a moment that even if you were blind, you might be able to recognize him from voice alone, given what baelor has told you of him.

the laughing storm, they call him. 

“lord baratheon,” you say, and kiera follows, watching him with an almost confused expression. “i do not believe we have been introduced before.”

“that, your grace, i can confirm. what, with all that business at ashford. it did not leave us much time to be acquainted, did it?”

you blink, trying to compose yourself so that you do not begin frowning at the memory before him.

“no, my lord, it did not.” 

it feels almost silly—to spend the better part of an entire moon’s turn thinking about that day at ashford meadow, only to forget about it in a moment. the force it returns with is like a blow to your chest.

or my head, you think.

“and besides that,” he continues, waving his hand in the air. “i am certain that if we had met first, we would all be addressing you as my lady, instead of your grace.”

kiera’s eyes go wide from her position beside you, and you hold back from shifting your expression to gape at him. at the very least, his lordship has a flair for humor and flattery.

he is just as baelor described him. in an instant, you wish lord baratheon would return to his tent so that you might find your husband.

“that is kind of you, my lord. are you enjoying the tourney so far?”

“deeply. our good king does know how to entertain, after all.”

“indeed. lady kiera and i look forward to seeing you face your opponent in the lists today.”

“not only face, my lady,” lord lyonel says, his words serious and calm. the calm before a storm, perhaps. “destroy. i must live up to my house words, after all. fury, and whatnot.”

“that should be fun to witness,” kiera says under her breath. you bite your cheek to refrain from laughing.

“regardless, we wish you luck, my lord.”

“and i thank you, your grace, but i do not need luck,” lord lyonel says, smiling in a smug, confident manner. you are not surprised. “though perhaps, if i had a princess’s favor on my lance, i would be left with no choice but to win.”

you fluster for a moment. 

you had made your own favor yesterday. the supplies had been left out in kiera’s solar where the girls had been working on theirs with the septa. 

in truth, you had not planned to make one. why should you, after all, when you had no one to gift it to? perhaps if matarys was entering the tourney, you could have made one for him. maybe even purple and black, a mixture of colors to represent his father and his mother. 

but he was not partaking, you knew that already. 

it had not taken as much time as you thought it would. your cousin had spent days working on hers, only for aerion to ask some other lady that had been present that day. you had not even bothered to ask your aunt if you might make one as well, knowing what she would say and not giving her the chance.

perhaps that is why you had sat in kiera’s solar, staring at the circlets and fabric for far too long. finally, you selected a shimmery white fabric and brought it to your own chambers with you.

and now you move your hands, deftly hiding the small favor behind your skirts, smiling charmingly at lord lyonel to distract him for a moment while you conceal it.

“that is a generous claim, my lord, but you will have to forgive me. i have brought no favor with me today since his grace is not partaking.”

“ah,” he says, his blue eyes surveying you carefully. they are full of mirth, you think. if he can see through your lie, he does not show it for even a moment. “most commendable, your grace, but rather a shame. your favor deserves to be displayed. where is your husband, if i may ask?”

“right here,” you hear baelor’s voice cut through the noise of the guests that surround you. 

before, you could hear it so clearly—her grace speaking with daella, something about no, you may not marry the manwoody boy. his grace’s conversation with lord lannister, who has travelled from his tent and does not seem to leave, no matter how many times the king suggests they discuss business of the court at the next meeting of the small council.

even kiera—she has turned from you to speak with valarr, the two of them exchanging words quietly. she had not made a favor the way you and the girls had, instead selecting a fine pink ribbon that matches her hair. she ties it now around his arm, the color shining brightly against the metal of the armor.

it all melts away now. every time you see him, it feels as though it is the first encounter all over again.

the rest of the world finally becomes quiet and manageable. 

you stare, perhaps longer than you should. baelor comes and stands beside you. today he is wearing a green doublet, the color of dark emeralds. you know it is a favorite of his, and it matches your own gown well, and for a moment, it makes you smile. 

baelor is smiling too—quickly, only for a moment towards you, before his expression changes as he faces lord lyonel.

the two men speak for some time—you hear bits and pieces. it is as though someone has stuffed cotton into your ears, everything gone soft and making little sense. all you can think of baelor’s hand, which hovers over the small of your back and the warmth of his skin. 

you stare at baelor until he finally returns your gaze, meeting your eyes. 

“well, your grace,” lyonel says to baelor before turning to you. “your grace. it was a pleasure to finally meet you. keep a close eye on your husband this time, yes?” 

you blink at the man, attempting to form a sentence, but he is gone as swiftly as he arrived.

“ignore him,” baelor says, bringing your hand into his quickly. “that is what i have learned.”

your heart thrashes in your chest at the familiarity of his touch. he does it so easily, as though it is natural.

for a moment, you forget that there are dozens of people surrounding you. guests, his family, your family. as though no one else exists.

you look down to where baelor holds your hand, and then to his eyes. he is watching you carefully, concern shining clearly, you think. perhaps he is just attempting to maintain appearances.

after all, he cannot let it seem as though there is some disconnect between the two of you, not when this plan was close to working. you will be gone soon, and then—

baelor brings his hand to your shoulder, tracing the fabric of your dress against his fingers for a moment.

“this color is familiar to me.”

-

the silken fabric of your nightgown rests somewhere on the floor of the chambers. it was green today, resembling the color of sage, one that he has seen before. 

baelor still relishes the feeling of taking it off of you—of sliding the straps away from your shoulders, placing hot, open-mouthed kisses where you are now bared to him. you squirm as though it is the first time he has ever kissed you all over again.

something in the expression on your face—euphoric and unrestrained and nothing similar to what you are like outside of the privacy of these four walls—is maddening to him. 

baelor cannot help it. he is drunk off it, off of that feeling, that makes him so frenzied he thinks he is some sort of a lovestruck green boy again. when your shyness melts away in his presence, when you are truly yourself when it is just the two of you alone.

even two months into marriage, it is mind-addling. years more of this and he is sure they will denote him too with the so-called targaryen madness that runs in his blood. 

it would be well worth it, he decides finally, resting with his back against the bedframe, sitting up just slightly. you rest against his chest, your warm hand pressed to the skin just above where his heart beats.

your eyes are closed, but every few moments, he feels the lashes of your eyes against his skin. you blink, as though you are reminding yourself you are still awake, still here, that he is still here, before resting once again.

but there is nothing that could make him leave. 

your body is flush against his, the heat trapped between the two of you. you are covered now with the silks, and he traces his fingers against the expanse of your back, travelling down to your waist and working his way to your neck.

you sigh sweetly, and he feels that pleasant sensation work its way through his body, relaxing every muscle and bone.

you open your eyes again, no doubt to continue your examination of him.

where your skin is soft and unmarred, his is marked and rough. for the last moon, you have seemingly worked up the courage to ask about the origin of his scars. each night he explains a different one, and you listen to the lull of his voice until you have fallen into slumber.

tonight is no different.

you trace it with your fingerpad, a narrow, white scar that has left a small divot in his skin. it sits just below where your palm was resting, a notch below his heart.

“what about this one?” you whisper, as though the words should only be kept for the two of you. it is late enough that the entire keep has gone quiet, no interruptions, no noises.

just the two of you and the sound of the fireplace crackling.

“that one was painful,” he says quietly. “redgrass field. i was not as careful as i should have been. one of the rebels, well… any higher and you would not have a husband.”

you lift your head suddenly, away from his chest, his skin missing yours in an instant. but when he looks to your face, he feels regret bubbling quickly, hot and thick under his skin. 

your eyes are filled with tears. 

“oh, no, sweet girl, i did not-” he trails off, bringing you closer to him again, his hands wrapping around your skin tightly. he presses into you firmly, trying to remind you that he is, in fact, still here. “a poor choice of words. do not cry, please.”

“the thought is very frightening,” you admit quietly, the words buried with a sob. after a few moments, he listens to you breathe softly, wondering what he has done to earn so much of your affection is such little time.

he feels undeserving of it, of the intensity of your love, but only a fool would deny himself of it. of you. 

“let us discuss another one, then. you need to sleep. the hour grows late,” he finally says, allowing his hand to move to stroke your hair gently. he feels it again, that brush of your eyelashes against him. 

you move your hand again, selecting the target of your curiosity this time, further up, along where his shoulder meets his neck. a jagged scar there, almost completely faded. 

baelor turns his head to look at it, keeping his fingers between the soft strands of your hair. 

“that one is from a lance. the tourney for my aunt’s wedding. a knight of house ladybright struck too high.”

“is that when you won? against daemon?” you ask.

“indeed, in the final tilt. i was ten and seven, and-”

and you were not yet in this world. 

the thought is enough to bring him to reality for a moment. he tells you these stories, but he had almost allowed himself to forget that you would not know the parts that feel so familiar to him.

and what is worse is that you have suddenly gone very quiet and still in his arms. he knows why.

“-these are old tales, sweet girl. it is not my intention to upset you in the telling of them.”

“i am not upset,” you say, as though you are trying to convince yourself more than him. “i should like to hear of it. were you proud of your victory?”

“i was. it was my first one.”

“that is very nice,” you say, moving slightly until you are comfortable against him once more. your fingers wrap around his, intertwined as you play with them absentmindedly. “and that is when you crowned her?”

“yes,” baelor says quietly.

he is not a fool. he knows what he brought you into—the sort of life that has been given to you now that you are married to a prince. a widowed prince.

memories of jena live in different places in the keep. these chambers, where they used to sleep sometimes. jena would complain about the noises—his snoring and the rustle when he would wake early to start his day—and sometimes preferred her private bedchamber. he would laugh whenever she used to bring it up.

and it is almost impossible not to think of her every time he looks at his younger son. 

valarr is him, in every way that a boy can be his father, but matarys… he is jena, through and through. even in their smiles, the way the boys laugh sometimes, baelor can hear it, and the memory takes over him before he can stop it.

there is a portrait of her along with the others, next to the one of dyanna. it is in the corridor by the great hall, and though he does not make it there as often as he should, he knows you have seen it. he saw you standing before it once, staring deeply, not even noticing when he had stepped in and stood behind you.

he had not asked you what you were thinking, though perhaps he should have. it is only that—

“she must have been so pleased,” you say faintly. “it is such a romantic gesture.”

the expression on your face, the sweetness in your voice—he can only describe it as maddening. how you name his past with jena as romantic, how you think of how pleased she might have been. 

jena did not care for tourneys, but baelor can still remember the crown of purple flowers he had placed in her lap. oddly, he cannot remember what she had—

another thought takes over him hotly. 

“sweet girl, can i ask you… have you ever been crowned at a tourney?”

he already knows the answer. you say something quietly, your voice filled with sleep. something about how the tourney for your cousin, the one where you met him, was only the second one you’d ever attended.

he kisses your forehead, telling you to close your eyes and rest now, and you comply, your body going still against him. he can hear your quiet, even breaths as sleep escapes him.

if only he were ten years younger—he would host a tourney before the turn of the moon, invite every lord and landed knight he could name just to give you a proper audience when he fells them all.

all to crown you as his queen of love and beauty, just as you deserve.

if only.

-

“baelor,” maekar calls, and both you and he turn to face him. “father requires a word.”

baelor turns back to you, watching your wide-eyed expression carefully for a moment, if only to engrain it into his memory.

do you recall the moment he thought of? do the memories remain easily thought of, or do you try and bury them now, suppress them when you can?

he wants to ask, but he knows he cannot.

“baelor,” you say quietly, blinking fast, as though you are trying to make sense of what you have just felt. perhaps even what you have just recalled.

“stay with kiera,” he says. “matarys will come join you as well. he is eager to watch his brother compete.”

“will you be joining us?” you ask, taking a breath and holding it for far too long in anticipation. your hands tremble slightly, a trait he mislikes deeply. he brings his hands over yours again, squeezing for a moment.

“i will try. do not worry,” he begins, attempting to carefully choose his next words. “i may remain in the tent with valarr. but i desire for you to sit and enjoy it. will you do that for me, sweet girl?”

your lips part as though you are surprised by his words. you nod slowly, and he brings your hands up, pressing his mouth against the back of your hands before settling them down.

the tremor seems to have abandoned you, if only for a moment.

“i will be back shortly.”

he leaves you with kiera, turning and walking towards the tent, as painful as it is to deny you something you desire. 

this time, he prays, it will be well worth it.

“father was looking for you,” maekar repeats, settling into the tent. the armor is sprawled throughout, different sets and various pieces spread throughout the space. 

baelor eyes a rather plain suit, sitting in the corner of the tent. the metal seems tough and hardened, without any of the flairs he has seen in the others. this armor is not pretty, but rather durable.

“i spoke with him already,” baelor responds, not moving from the corner. he continues to stare at the suit carefully.

“about what?” maekar asks. “and what are you staring at so fucking hard? you’ll hurt yourself.”

“no, i won’t.” 

not in this armor, at least. it will be well-fitted, i know. 

maekar makes his way to him quickly, almost as though he can read his mind.

“what the fuck are you playing at?” maekar says, and baelor turns carefully to face him.

“what are you playing at, brother?”

“speak plainly. i do not know-”

“you know what i speak of. you are leaving… with my wife.”

maekar is silent for a moment.

“so that is what you are so angry about. baelor-”

“no. this is not a matter of anger. you are leaving with my wife. you should have-”

“baelor, she asked me-”

“and you should have said no!” baelor yells, the words hot and ragged as they leave.

and angry too—though mostly at himself. 

how could he have let this happen? how could he have been so foolish as to not learn his lesson? he already lost a wife to death, and now he loses one to his own foolishness. 

but he will not, cannot, allow himself to lose you without putting up a fight. it all blends together—the way his blood boils at the sight of baratheon asking for your favor, the way maekar intends to take you away, the very fact that his own wife is leaving, just as he is finally remembering those moments that show him why he had fallen in love with you to begin with.

“what am i to do?” maekar says, frustration seeping out of him. “i am trying to… i gave her little choice when you were unwell. i am attempting to correct my mistakes. i-i am trying to help the both of you-”

“if you want to help me… then aid me in convincing her to stay. her place is here, by my side.”

“she decided-”

“maekar. she is my wife. and i have made a great deal of missteps, i know. but i can attempt to fix what i have broken, now, before she leaves. are you going to help me or not?”

his brother sighs.

“how can i help?”

-

the scene is a grand one. 

you do not think you have ever seen anything quite like it—scores of guests cheering excitedly as the competitors come out, one by one, much louder and more packed than the morning.

they wave banners and flags, chattering amongst themselves on the outcomes. bets have been placed, you are sure, amongst families. each girl clutches onto her favor tightly, waiting for the moment when some dashing knight comes to claim it.

you watch it with kiera at one side and matarys at the other. aegon sits somewhere behind you, cheering as daeron covers his ears, no doubt.

and every time matarys catches the sun, his auburn hair gleams, and when he turns to greet you, his eyes sparkle just as his father’s do.

no matter the thoughts that run through your mind, you have made a decision, at last. you will enjoy this occasion as you are meant to, shutting away all thoughts of what will happen tomorrow until it has arrived.

if these are to be your final memories with your family, you will make the most of it.

“look!” matarys says, his gaze on his older brother. “there he is.”

valarr is stationed at the tilt furthest from where you all are seated. 

and yet, of course, lord baratheon is the closest. he raises his lance towards the crowd, gathering cheers and shouts. you could have recognized him from a league away, you think, giggling with the girls at the look of his antlered helmet. 

but still, you do not doubt that he is a formidable foe. it only seems silly for the talents of the warriors to be displayed in such a performance before a crowd. 

for glory, you suppose, though it seems an odd way to claim it.

you see valarr more clearly now, the pink ribbon making him shine brightly against the other men near him. it looks as though ser crakehall of the kingsguard is across from him, his white armor shining splendidly in the sun. 

ser donnel claps valiantly for his brother from his position near you and kiera. 

“the lists have made ser roland his first opponent,” matarys says, and you feel your shoulders sink with relief—at least you know the outcome of his first match.

it is not that you are worried about valarr. it seems as though it is a natural response, your body strung tightly despite how you try to convince it to relax and enjoy the games. 

you look around, searching for him by the tents. you recognize the squire serving valarr and two other men, but he is nowhere to be found.

“have you seen him?” you then ask kiera, who is attempting to point out something to the girls. 

“valarr? we only just-”

“no, no, baelor. i thought he said he would try to join us, but…” you trail off, unsure of what to say. 

the recollection of him calling you that name he always uses makes you feel flushed and warm despite the breeze blowing through the stands.

“no, i do not see him,” kiera says. matarys turns towards you. “ser donnel? do you see his grace?”

“no, my lady.” he leans down to say something else to kiera, but you do not hear the words, not until kiera repeats them close to your ear.

the noise has gotten louder, if possible. the crowd continues to cheer at the new knights as they are introduced and take their positions. you can hardly hear yourself think.

“ser donnel says his grace had an urgent matter to attend to in the castle. but he said father told us to enjoy the tourney and that he will return later.”

“an urgent matter? what urgent matter?”

“something with the council, no doubt,” matarys says, his voice reassuring. “now that all the lords are here, i am sure one evaded the tourney to request a private audience. father would not want us to remain inside bored and miss the first tilt.”

“oh,” you say quietly. he had said that he would try, but you suppose even he could not deny someone who approached him.

in fact, he would not deny someone. you know that very well. 

moreover, he wanted you to enjoy the tourney. you suppose it would have been more enjoyable by his side, but it is no matter now. 

(a memory rushes back to you as though you are the one who has been deprived of them—the tourney at ashford. aerion had been so cruel, targeting low to harm his opponent’s steed, and baelor had rushed to cover your eyes, but it had been to no avail. you had seen it before your husband brought his arm around you, but still, even the though of it is enough to—)

“my lady,” daella says to kiera, as you feel rhae tugging on your skirts. “who is that one?” 

your eyes scan the knights. you recognize colors and sigils. a darklyn and a rosby are set against each other, and you have a feeling the darklyn will win. lord baratheon is set against a knight of house caswell, you believe, when you look at the yellow centaur on his shield. there is a buckler further down, facing some house from the riverlands with a shield that you cannot quite make out.

and then you reach one that you cannot discern at all.

he dons an unpolished steel armor and a plain oaken shield banded with iron. there is nothing identifiable, and you are certain they did not announce a name, and yet—

“kiera? matarys? who is that?”

“ser donnel says a mystery knight has entered the lists,” matarys says, watching intently and sitting up straighter as though he might be able to see through the knight’s helmet.

“a mystery? how exciting,” daella adds.

“i think he calls himself evenstar, or evenfall. or perhaps evenhall. something like that, i did not quite catch it.”

“what?” you breathe, staring at the mystery knight yourself now. 

it is impossible to tell anything with his visor covering his face, with the crowd roaring in surprise, but, perhaps… it almost—

you almost think he is looking at you. 

“evenfall? he must be a stormlander, then,” you finally say quietly.

“one of lord baratheon’s men, no doubt,” kiera supplies.

who else would have the gall to enter as a mystery knight minutes before the tourney is set to begin? you are not well versed in your histories, but the word sounds familiar—the seat of house tarth or estermont. one of the two, though you are not sure which one.

it does not make much sense. 

the journey from tarth would not allow for a knight of the house to arrive in time for the tourney. and, if he was truly a knight of the house, he would wear its sigil proudly.

“why would a man enter as a mystery knight?” you question to matarys, since you and kiera do not have the answer.

“perhaps to defend one’s honor. one of the other knights may have insulted him. or perhaps to defend someone else. it may be a squire from the morrow’s lists, even.”

“i did not know that.”

“father has always said there is more honor in it. it is not for renown, like the others. take the dragonknight, for example. he competed as the knight of tears to crown queen naerys.”

you turn to look at matarys quickly, before your thoughts are interrupted by the trumpets as they burst into sound, as the competitors prepare themselves.

“let us see how our mystery knight fares, then,” kiera supplies with a smile.

you watch silently as it happens. valarr steadies himself, nodding to his grandparents and to kiera, showing off his ribbon as he takes his place. ser roland does the same, tipping his head as he passes his brothers in arms. 

lord lyonel meanders over to where of the crowd nearest to him. conveniently, where lady lannister is seated besides her niece. she rises, reaching over to tie her green ribbon around lord lyonel’s lance, before resuming her seat.

his opponent does not move from his position. 

your eyes search of their own accord, attempting to see if any of the other knights have shifted from their positions, watching with all the others to see which lady’s favor they will request.

“is that it? but some of these knights have no favor at all-” daella begins, turning to look at you with a combined expression of annoyance and disappointment, one she has mastered by copying her father. 

“do not speak so soon, daella,” kiera warns. 

your eyes are fixated on the tent—wondering if baelor might step out if his meeting ends. the only lord you can imagine would bother him while his son was set to compete is lord lannister, and you know the man can speak for ages—

your eyes move again, this time to lady lannister. 

she is beaming, no doubt planning a golden wedding with lord lyonel in her head. 

but she is speaking to her brother, seated beside her, meaning that he cannot be the one inside the keep with baelor now.

then who could it be, if not—

“princess,” matarys says. “princess.” 

“yes? i am sorry,” you say, feeling as kiera’s hand comes to yours.

“your grace, look.”

you hear daella gasp, and then whisper to rhae—it is the mystery knight! 

and for a moment, it seems as though the world stops spinning. 

the knight, in his plain armor, has positioned himself carefully near your seat. it seems as though the rest of the audience has gone quiet too, as he silently lifts his lance until it is resting against the barrier. 

“it would be an honor to wear the princess’s favor.” his voice is deep, and unfamiliar, no doubt deepened through the metal of his helmet. he still does not lift his visor, as all the others had done.

you suppose you cannot blame him—after all, he is a mystery knight.

and before your mind can dwell on it, before your fear and your nerves stop you, you feel your body rising. you move to the wooden balcony that separates the two of you. from here, you can look down at the knight clearly, at his chestnut brown steed and the shield that bares no sigil.

you release a shaky breath, bringing your small favor into your hands. they are not trembling, to your surprise. the petals of the flowers seem to glow in the sun, as you drop the circlet around the knight’s lance. it falls, resting midway. 

“i wish you luck, ser.”

the mystery knight does not say anything, bowing his head at you curtly before he rides away to claim his position. you catch carefully as he goes, not yet returned to your seat.

you can see it clearly now—his opponent’s sigil. he will be facing a dalt of house lemonwood. and without thinking about it, you hope the lemonwood knight is not impressive today. it is wrong to wish for any knight’s downfall, and yet—

“look, your grace,” daella says as you finally resume your seat. the noises of the crowd are still muffled, and you do not know what to think of it. you have never been asked for your favor before, but—

“it is a good thing father is not here to witness this,” kiera whispers to you.

you watch as the knight tilts his lance, capturing your favor in his hand. he tucks it safely into his armor, saving it from ending up in the dirt when he clashes with his rival.

His voice is soft. Bobby's voice is never careful, not even this version, but soft, like someone asking a question they're not sure they want the answer to.

You don't answer that. Instead, you say, “Are you going to hurt me?”

He blinks.

“The way you hurt that thing.” Your voice is steadier than you expected. Flat, almost. The flatness of a person who’s run out of room for new fear and is now operating from somewhere clinical. Survival-practical. “Whatever it was. The sounds it made. The sounds you made.”

There’s movement behind his eyes. He doesn’t flinch, but you spot a shift, a recalibration, like a camera adjusting focus. He remembers what you heard. That low rumbling from his chest that didn't belong in any throat shaped like a human's.

“No,” he says. Immediate. No hesitation, no pause to consider. The word comes out of him with absolute certainty, like a reflex. “No. Never.”

You watch him closely. He looks back at you. The fluorescent light buzzes overhead, casting that flat, shadowless yellow across everything. Better Bobby's face is open and sincere, but you don't believe him. Not completely. Not after what you heard through your closed eyelids. The shrieking and the wet dragging sound and the silence after, the horrible, total silence. The way he'd come back to you without a drop of anything on him. Like unmaking something in the dark was a minor errand.

And not after Bobby. Not after learning what it looks like when someone says I would never and means it and does it anyway. With the slow, grinding, erosive negligence of a man who might have loved you once but still started disappearing while standing right next to you. 

Bobby never hit you. Never raised his voice in a way that carried a threat. Not once. Bobby simply stopped. Stopped seeing you, stopped hearing you, stopped reaching for you in the morning, and the absence was its own kind of violence, bloodless and total.

Now you're in a yellow hallway with a thing wearing his face telling you never with the same mouth and you cannot—you cannot—take that word at face value. Not from that face. Not anymore.

And he sees it. The disbelief. He reads it on your face the way real Bobby used to read light through a viewfinder. With instinctive precision, without needing to be told what he's seeing.

Better Bobby reaches out. Tips your chin up with one knuckle. Gentle. So gentle. Guiding your face back to his when you'd started to drift, to look away, to find a spot on the yellow wall that was easier to stare at than his eyes.

“Why do you think I chose this face?”

He says this face with an edge to his voice. Not quite contempt, not quite amusement. But snide. A little sharp. The closest thing to edge you've ever heard from Better Bobby. This brief flash of awareness that the face he's wearing belongs to someone else. Someone who wasted it, and he knows it, and he wears it anyway because—

You're silent.

Better Bobby smiles. Gentle. The sharpness folds back into warmth the way a blade folds back into a handle.

“I heard you,” he says quietly.

Your breath catches.

“From the other side. Through the wall.” He says it simply, his thumb working carefully over the dip of your chin. “He used to come to the store. Bobby. In the beginning. Before you worked the night shifts alone. He'd come hang out, and you'd be downstairs together, and I could hear you. Both of you. I could hear what it sounded like when he was still—” He pauses, expression twisting. You see him choose and settle on his next words. “When he was still trying.”

The lights flicker. Once. Settle again.

“And then he stopped coming. And you were alone down there. And I could hear that too.”

Your chest goes tight.

“You used to talk,” Better Bobby goes gently, watching your face. “Not to anyone. Not on the phone. Just—out loud. To the room. To yourself. To him, even though he wasn't there. Do you remember?” His thumb traces your jawline, feather-light. “You'd say things like he doesn't listen anymore. And he didn't kiss me goodbye again today, that's the third day in a row, am I keeping count now? Is that what I'm doing? Keeping count?”

Your eyes burn, blurring his familiar features. 

“And I don't think he sees me. I'm standing right in front of him, and he's looking through me like I'm furniture. Like I'm one of Clark's display pieces. Something you walk around.”

“Stop,” you whisper.

He doesn't stop, but his voice goes softer. Almost tender.

“You were so lonely.” He says it like it's the saddest thing he's ever learned, and maybe it is. Maybe loneliness sounds different from the other side of a wall. Rawer, louder, the way a voice sounds in an empty room because there's nothing else to absorb it. “And so sad. And so angry, baby—”

You flinch because you don't—you weren't angry. You were hurt. That's a smaller, quieter, more acceptable thing than anger.

Because anger would mean admitting that what Bobby did wasn't just a failure of attention but a choice. Night after night after night, a man choosing the path of least resistance over the person lying next to him, and if you let yourself be angry about that, then the whole careful belief of maybe it's me, maybe I'm asking for too much, maybe love is supposed to feel like this after a while collapses, and what's underneath it is—

“—you were so angry, and you didn't even let yourself feel it. You said it like it was your fault. Like if you could just be more interesting or prettier or less needy, he'd—”

Hot, liquid feeling surges up from your chest to your throat. “Stop.”

He stops. But his eyes don't leave yours, and in them you can see that he knows. He heard it all, you realise. Every whispered self-indictment, every quiet renegotiation of your own worth to accommodate Bobby's shrinking attention.

He heard the thing underneath it too, the thing you buried so deep you forgot it was there. 

The rage. The white-hot, screaming, incandescent fury of a woman who gave everything to a man who couldn't be bothered to look up from a television screen, who turned your love into background noise and let you stand in doorways wondering if you were still visible. 

You buried it because anger felt like giving up. Because if you were angry, it meant something was wrong, and if something was wrong, it could be over. If it was over, then you'd given your whole heart to someone who let it sit on a shelf and gather dust, and that was unbearable. So you turned the anger inward instead, folded it into self-doubt, and let it eat you rather than the situation, because at least that way the situation could still be saved.

Better Bobby heard you bury it. He heard the burial, and he heard the body underneath it, and he's looking at you now with something that isn't pity or judgment. Isn't the performative concern that Bobby used to deploy in those final months when he bothered to notice you were hurting at all. That tight-jawed what's wrong that really meant please don't make me deal with this. 

This is something else. Recognition. The look of a thing that knows what it sounds like when someone swallows their own rage until it poisons them. Until it makes them abandon everything they once knew for a world of yellow, buzzing lights and monsters in the dark. 

“It wasn't you,” he says, his hand cupping your cheek. His palm is cool, his fingers curving, and he holds you there. There’s no force, no hard grip, he’s just holding. Cradling. The way you'd hold something you found in the dark that was shaking. “It was never you. You could've been perfect. You were perfect. And he still would've pulled away because that's what he does. That's how he's built. He gets close, and it scares him. So he retreats, and that's his malfunction, not yours.”

It’s then you start crying.

Not like earlier. After the attack. That was shock, adrenaline, your nervous system shorting out. 

This is different. This is slow and terrible, coming from somewhere so deep you didn't know the room existed. 

It's the crying you should've done months ago, in the apartment in Santa Clara, on the nights when Bobby was asleep three feet away, and you were staring at the ceiling, wondering when you became the kind of woman who measures love in absences. He didn't kiss me today. He didn't ask about my day. He didn't look up. Keeping count. Tallying the deficit. The anger you didn't let yourself feel and the grief you couldn't afford mixed with the loneliness you absorbed like radiation, quietly, invisibly, until it changed the composition of your bones.

Better Bobby pulls you in when the first sob breaks. Slow and careful, his arms folding around you, and your face presses into his chest.

He holds you while you shake apart. His hand moves on your back, but there's more uncertainty in it now. He pauses at your shoulder blade. Adjusts. Resettles his palm. Like he's figuring out the right pressure in real time. Learning the weight of comfort.

His chin rests on top of your head, and you can feel the slight furrow of his brow against your hair, the way his body is holding very still around the motion of his hand. He’s noting each shudder, each ragged breath, trying to understand the mechanics of this. What crying is. What it means. Why your body does it and what it needs from his.

“I love him,” you choke out. Waterlogged. Muffled against his chest. “I love him so much. And he just—he stopped. He just stopped, and I keep thinking if I'd done something different, if I'd been—”

“No.” Firm the way a hand on your shoulder is firm when you're about to step into traffic. “Don't do that.”

“—if I'd been less”—”

“No.”

His arms tighten around you. You feel his jaw clench against the top of your head, a brief flash of what might be anger.

At the sentence, at the shape of the thought, the idea that you would carve yourself smaller to fit inside Bobby's shrinking attention span. His hand on your back goes still and then resumes, slower, like he's reminding himself to be gentle.

“You did nothing wrong,” he says into your hair. “You loved someone. You loved them well. And they couldn't hold it. That's not a flaw in the love. That's a flaw in the hands.”

You cry until there's nothing left. Until you're just breathing, wet and ragged, against his chest. The sobs eventually thin to hiccups, then to shudders, finally settling into a deep, wrung-out stillness, the exhaustion that comes after. 

Better Bobby holds you through all of it. Doesn't shift. Doesn't pull back. Doesn't ask if you're okay, which is a kindness in itself because the answer is obviously no and being asked to say it out loud would be one more weight.

When you finally pull back, your face is swollen, and your eyes are raw. Better Bobby looks at you with an expression you've never seen on Bobby's face. Open and bewildered, creased with tenderness in a way that seems to be happening to him without his permission. Like he reached for the right emotion, grabbed something bigger than he expected.

He touches your face. Thumbs the tears off your cheekbone, one side and then the other, careful, methodical. His brow furrows. Curious. The furrow of a thing encountering a phenomenon for the first time and finding it far more complex than anticipated.

“Sad,” he murmurs. Almost to himself. Almost wonderingly.

You sit together in the yellow light for a long time. The hum fills the silence.

Then you reach out and touch his face.

Your fingertips on his cheekbone. Tracing the line of his jaw. The scar from the cabinet door. The corner of his mouth where real Bobby's grin always starts, one side before the other, that lopsided asymmetry that used to make your heart stutter.

Better Bobby goes still.

Then he hums. Low in his throat. Warm. A sound that starts in his chest and travels up through all of him like a vibration through a struck bell. His eyes close. His head tips into your palm like a cat pressing into a hand, like he's been waiting for this, this specific thing, your skin on his skin, voluntary and gentle, initiated by you.

The difference matters; it matters enormously, you can tell by the way his breath changes, goes uneven, almost delicate. 

His lips part, just slightly, lashes fluttering against your thumb.

“That feels good,” he whispers huskily. And then, quieter, with a note of genuine wonder, “How odd.”

You watch him lean into your hand, and the expression on his face is unguarded in a way that makes your chest ache. Bobby's face, but not Bobby's expression. It could never be Bobby's expression, you realise suddenly, because Bobby would've turned it into a joke by now, would've kissed your palm or made a quip or done something to break the sincerity before it got too heavy. 

Your hand stills on his cheek. He opens his eyes. Looks at you.

“I need you to make me a promise,” you say.

There’s another ripple in his expression. The tilt of his head. That almost animal curiosity, the slight cock to one side that doesn't quite track as human body language. “A promise?”

“Yes.”

He studies you. Processing. “What is a promise?”

The question is genuine. Not rhetorical, not evasive. He's looking at you the way he looked at your tears. With concentration, focus, and a desire to understand. You can almost see the gap between knowing the word and understanding the weight, and he's standing at the edge of it, waiting for you to build the bridge.

“It's—it's a commitment. Something you say that you can't take back. Something you keep even when it's hard. Even when you don't want to. Even when circumstances change.” You swallow thickly. “When you make a promise, you don't break it. That's the whole point. It's the one thing that's supposed to be unbreakable.”

Better Bobby is quiet. Considering. His eyes move across your face in that precise, reading way.

“I understand,” he says carefully, solemnly. Like he's holding the concept in his hands and turning it to see all sides. “An oath. A contract between two beings that supersedes circumstance.”

You blink. “Something like that.”

He angles his face closer, attention fixed and unblinking on you. “Then ask.”

You drag your eyes over his face. Bobby's face, Bobby's eyes, Bobby's scar. The face of a man who loved you and couldn't say it and showed it by looking away until you forgot what it felt like to be seen. The face of a thing that isn't that man and chose to wear him anyway because it heard you through a wall and wanted to be the version that stayed.

“Promise me… you won't hurt me,” you say quietly. “Not the way he did.”

The words hang in the yellow air. The hum shifts. Not louder, but denser somehow, as if the walls themselves are listening, as if the promise is being registered by something larger than the two of you.

Better Bobby's expression changes. Curiosity dissolves. What replaces it is— 

You don't have a word for it. Not solemnity, a gravity older than language. It rises from the part of him that isn't Bobby: the vast and ancient thing beneath the boy’s face. The part of him that understands what you are asking is not a small thing. That the promise you want is, for a being like him, a kind of architecture. A structure that, once built, holds.

“I promise,” he says. No hesitation, no charm, no Bobby-grin to soften the weight of it. Just the words, low and clear, carrying the same absolute certainty as his no earlier. A reflex, a law carved into whatever he is at a level deeper than the face, deeper than the voice. “I will not hurt you. Not the way he did. Not any way.”

His hand covers yours on his cheek. Presses it there. Holds it.

“I don't know how to break a promise,” he tells you, quieter now. “But I think that's the point.”

You nod, unable to speak. Your hand is on his face, cool to the touch, and his hand is on your hand. You watch each other for a long time, unwilling to move first.

He breaks the stalemate first, taking your hand into his.

“Come with me,” he urges with that restrained excitement in his eyes, barely contained behind Bobby's careful coolness. Something almost boyish in its sincerity. “Somewhere that's not yellow.”

You look at his hand, using your other to wipe the tear tracks off your face. “Is it safe?”

And then it returns. 

Not the gentle Better Bobby who strokes your hair and says I've got you. The other one. It surfaces behind his eyes like a shape moving under dark water. Vast, amused, ancient. His chin dips slightly. His mouth curves.

And for a half-second, the thing looking out at you from Bobby's face is not performing warmth or mimicking tenderness. It's something that has walked these hallways since the beginning. Something that heard you through a wall and chose to want you rather than simply take you, and the distinction between those two things is the only reason you're still breathing.

“Baby,” he drawls, and his voice is Bobby's, but the tone is deeper, older. “I am what's safe here.”

It lasts a second. Less. Then he blinks and the ancient thing submerges and Better Bobby is back, warm-eyed and easy-mouthed, holding his hand out to you in the yellow light like nothing happened.

“Come on,” he says, lighter now. Normal. That crooked half-grin back. “Trust me.”

You take his hand, and he pulls you up.

He leads you through the hallways. Different route this time. Sharper turns, narrower corridors, and Better Bobby moves through them with liquid confidence, his hand secure around yours, his pace unhurried. You pass through a section where the carpet gives way to tile, and the tile gives way to something that feels like packed earth beneath your feet. 

The walls shift from yellow to grey, and you tense, your grip tightening, and he squeezes back. Once. Reassuring.

Then the hallway opens.

You stop.

It takes your brain a moment. Several moments. Because what you're looking at doesn't belong here, can't belong here, is fundamentally incompatible with everything you've experienced in this place so far, and yet here it is: sky. Actual sky. 

Not blue exactly, but deeper and richer. The colour of late afternoon, easing toward evening, a gradient of gold and amber, close to violet at the edges. And beneath it, trees. Dense, old-growth, the kind of towering canopy you'd find in the Santa Cruz Mountains, all ferns and filtered light and the rich, complex smell of living earth. A path winds through them, beaten dirt, dappled with sun. 

You can feel it on your face. Not quite the real sun of your world, but it’s not fluorescent. 

You stand in the threshold between the hallway and the forest, and you don't breathe because if you breathe or blink, it might disappear.

“Level 14,” Better Bobby announces behind you casually, tracking your reaction. “Some people call it Paradise.”

“How—”

“Doors.” He shrugs. “Everything here has doors. Entrances and exits. You just have to know where they are.”

You step forward. Grass. Real grass, or something so close you can't tell the difference, and the sensation is so overwhelmingly normal after the carpet and concrete and yellow that your eyes fill again, and you press your hand over your mouth.

Better Bobby steps up beside you. He's watching the trees with that curious expression, head slightly tilted, but underneath it, there’s satisfaction. Quiet pride. He found this, and he brought you here because you were crying on the floor, and he didn't know what else to do except find you somewhere beautiful.

You grab his hand.

Hard, sudden, fingers lacing through his, knuckles blanching. Because there are trees and you don't trust anything that looks like the real world, because the real world abandoned you.

Better Bobby looks down at your joined hands, and his lips part. That smile appears again. The new one, the one still taking shape on features designed for smirking, learning in real time how to hold something softer. Slow. Almost shy.

He doesn't comment. Doesn't tease. Just holds your hand back and starts walking.

“It's safe here,” he tells you, feeling the tension in your grip, the coiled readiness. “This level is safe. Nothing hunts here.”

“You said the yellow—Level 0 was safe.”

“Level 0 is my territory. Things occasionally wander in.” He says my territory without emphasis, but the words land heavily anyway, carrying the weight of what you saw behind his eyes a few minutes ago, the brief flash of the creature that owns these hallways. “Here—” He gestures with his free hand. The amber light moves across his skin, and he looks different in it, softer. More like Bobby at golden hour on the fire escape back home, and the resemblance hits you like a fist. “Nothing wanders. Nothing wants to wander. It's peaceful. Even the things that live here are gentle.”

You walk. He leads you deeper, and the canopy closes overhead like a ceiling, green and gold, light falling in shafts through the leaves and landing in warm patches on the path. You hear birdsong. Birdsong. You haven't heard birdsong in… you don't know how long. The sound cracks something open in your chest that you thought had scarred over.

Your grip on his hand loosens. Slightly.

The path winds along a stream. Clear water over smooth stones, the sound of it gentle. Nothing like the dripping in the pipes on Level 2. Simply water moving over rocks because gravity says so. 

The path opens into a clearing. Tall grass. A meadow ringed by trees, the canopy breaking to reveal that impossible sky, and in the centre a fallen log covered in moss, the kind of thing you'd find on a trail in Big Basin or Castle Rock. The kind of thing you and Bobby used to perch on when you went hiking in the early days and kiss until your mouths went numb.

Better Bobby guides you to the log. You sit. He sits beside you. Hands still joined.

A bird—small, brown, ordinary—lands on a branch above you and turns its head and looks at you with one bright black eye, and you stare back at it, your chin trembling. Because it's a bird, just a bird, and you'd forgotten how much of the world you were missing.

“I didn't think this place could be beautiful,” you say quietly, looking at the amber light filtering through the canopy, the way it falls on the tall grass in warm pools. “I thought it was just… yellow. And carpet. And things with teeth.”

“Most of it is,” Better Bobby replies honestly. Not sugar-coating it.”But most of anywhere is. The trap of this place, if you can consider it one, is that you’d never want to leave. How could you? When everywhere else there’s death.”

“This is different.”

“Why?”

“Because it shouldn't exist. Because this whole place is wrong. It's not supposed to be here. None of it. And somewhere inside all that wrongness, there's this—” You gesture at the meadow, the sky, the bird, the stream. “It doesn't make sense.”

Better Bobby is quiet for a moment. Watching you the way he does—full attention, total focus, the listening that feels less like politeness and more like study.

“Maybe that’s exactly why it exists,” he says. “Maybe it was built by mistake. Or maybe it exists because nothing is ever just one thing.”

You turn to look at him. He's sitting beside you in amber light with his earring catching gold instead of fluorescent. And his face is Bobby's face, but the expression on it is something Bobby hasn’t worn in a long time, if ever. Patient, present, content with simply being here without reaching for a camera, without filtering the moment through a lens, or needing a barrier between himself and the thing he's looking at.

“I don't want to call you Bobby anymore.”

He goes still.

The uncertain one. A brief, visible tension through his shoulders, his jaw, the hand holding yours tightening by a fraction. His eyes flick to your face, and the light in them is guarded in a way you haven't seen from him before. Wary. Like you've touched something unexpectedly tender and he's bracing for what comes next.

You see the calculation, the quick processing, and you understand. He thinks this is the beginning of something else. A rejection. A pulling away. You're not Bobby, you'll never be Bobby, and I don't want the reminder. He's already building the wall behind his face, that smooth, easy mask he can slip back into, the charming nonchalance to protect himself. 

“You're not him,” you go on quickly. Before the wall finishes closing. “That's—that's the point. You're not him. You're something else. And it feels wrong to call you by another person's name when you're your own—” You fumble. Gesture at him, at the clearing, at everything. “Your own being. Your own person. Or—whatever you are. Whatever the word is. Entity?”

His jaw loosens, shoulders dropping a fraction. The wall stops building.

“What would you call me?” he asks quietly. Like the answer matters more than he wants to show.

“Maybe… BB?” You say it, and it feels right. Simple. Still him, still connected, but his. Not borrowed. Not a copy of a copy. “If that's okay?”

He's quiet for a long moment, simply gazing at you. The light shimmers on his face, and his expression shifts through layers. The careful architecture of Better Bobby rearranging itself around this new information, this small, enormous thing you've just given him. A name. His own name. Not the one he stole. The one you chose.

You lean your head against his shoulder lightly.

You can feel it through the contact between you, through the place where your temple rests against his shoulder. Something in him settles. Deepens. A satisfaction so total it's almost palpable, like a beam slotting into place.

He likes it. Being seen as separate, being known as his own being. Not the understudy, not a replacement, not the better version of someone else, but simply a version of himself. You can feel how much he likes it in the way his thumb resumes its slow circuit over your knuckles, in the way his head tips to rest on yours, in the breath he lets out that sounds like it's been held for centuries.

“BB,” he repeats, testing it. His voice comes in a low, warm rumble. Bobby's timbre with something deeper underneath, and the two letters sit in the balmy air, small and perfect.

“Yeah,” you breathe. “BB.” A beat, then, “Thank you. For hearing me.”

A hum starts low in his chest, a thrum you feel before you hear it. It travels the length of his arm to where his fingers are laced through yours. He squeezes once, and when he speaks again, the easy charm has drained out of his voice, leaving it quieter, almost reticent.

“I was lonely too,” he admits.

Your heart squeezes, quick and helpless.

You sit together for a long, long time, the light pooling thick and lazy around you. And for the first time since you fell through the wall, what settles in your chest isn't fear, isn't confusion, and not grief.

It's peace.

The walk back is different.

BB leads you through the same threshold, and the yellow returns, followed by the buzz that resettles on your skin like a coat you forgot you were wearing. But something in you has shifted. Loosened. The meadow is still sitting inside your chest, warm and quiet. You carry it back into Level 0 the way you'd carry a cupped handful of water.

And you're talking.

Actually talking. Not the halting, guarded exchanges of the past weeks. Or the questions that go in circles, the silences that stretch like hallways.

You're talking, and BB is listening. Somewhere between the threshold and the familiar territory of your room, you say something about Clark—about the time Clark tried to assemble a display bookshelf himself and got the shelves in upside down, and you'd had to redo the entire thing at midnight while Clark stood behind you insisting it looked fine—and BB laughs.

It's a good laugh. It's Bobby's laugh. Low, surprised, that huff through the nose that real Bobby does when something catches him off guard, and it makes you smile. Actually smile. Your cheeks ache with it. 

You can't remember the last time your face did that.

“He sounds like an idiot,” BB remarks, grinning. That cocky half-grin, the one that crinkles one eye.

“He's not—okay, he's a little bit of an idiot. But he means well. He’s just going through a rough patch right now. He doesn't know how to—”

“Accept help?”

“I was going to say read an instruction manual.”

BB snorts. “Same thing.” 

He bumps your shoulder with his. Easy. Playful. And you bump him back, and the normalcy of it—the sheer, stupid, ordinary normalcy of walking and talking and bumping shoulders with someone—is so sweet it makes your throat tight with a different kind of ache. An emotion closer to joy, which is worse because joy in a place like this is borrowed. 

“You know,” you begin, squinting at him, “for a—” You stop, gesturing vaguely at him. “You're not bad company.”

“Not bad company.” He puts his hand over his chest. Bobby's mock-wounded face, the one real Bobby used to pull when you beat him at cards. “I'm overcome with emotion.”

“Shut up.”

“No, no, I'm serious. I'm going to treasure this moment. Not bad company. I'm getting that tattooed.”

“Can you even get a tattoo?”

His mouth hooks into that infuriating half-smirk that unfailingly warmed your blood for years, “Baby, I can do whatever I—”

He stops.

Mid-word. Mid-stride. His body goes rigid so fast it's like watching someone get hit with a current. Every muscle locking at once, his hand tightening on yours hard enough to hurt. His head turns. Not the way a person turns their head. The way a thing turns. Too sharp, too angular, his chin cocking to one side at a degree that doesn't belong on a human neck with a faint click. His eyes go flat and dark, and the creature behind them surges to the surface, breaching deep water.

You suck in a breath, eyes snapping around you, searching. “BB?”

He doesn't answer. He's listening. Every line of his body orients toward something you can't hear, his nostrils flaring slightly, and the hum in the walls shifts tone. Barely. A semitone. Like the whole level just inhaled.

“BB, what—”

He moves.

He doesn't explain. His hand releases yours and both of his are on your shoulders, turning you, walking you. Fast, with an urgency you haven't seen from him before, not even with the strange thing in the hallway. His jaw is set, eyes scanning the corridor with a focus that's mechanical, inhuman, processing information from sources you can't perceive.

“Please talk to me—”

“Shh.”

It’s not BB's voice. But an older rumble. Something that's done calculating, moved on to acting, and doesn't have the bandwidth for warmth right now.

He takes you to your room. The warm nest. The blankets. He guides you down with one hand on the back of your head, the way you'd ease someone into a car, pulling the blankets around you, and you grab his wrist because his eyes are wrong. They're flat, black, and old.

The thing in the hallway, whatever it is, has made him become the thing he was in the dark with the Smiler, and that version of BB is a version you can't reach.

“Stay here,” he instructs sternly. His voice is low and tight, thrumming with that sub-frequency that vibrates in the walls. “Don't move. Don't make a sound.”

“What's happening? What's—”

“Stay.”

He looks at you. One second. A flash of the warmth—buried deep, almost submerged, but there, still—and then his expression closes like a door slamming. BB straightens and turns toward the hallway.

You blink, and he's gone.

Just gone. Between one blink and the next, the space where BB stood is empty. The air where his body was is settling, displaced, like water closing over the place where a stone sank. 

The hum holds its earlier shifted note. That slightly wrong semitone, tense and high, like a held breath.

You sit in the blankets with your knees pulled to your chest, heart in your throat, and stare at the empty doorway and beyond it, listening intently.

Nothing. No tearing. No shrieking. No sounds at all. Just the hum and the buzz and your own breathing and the silence so total it frightens you more. 

You wait.

The meadow is still inside you: the bird, the stream, the warm light, the way BB laughed when you told him about Clark's bookshelf. The stupid, gentle joke about the tattoo, the way his shoulder bumped yours, and you bumped him back, and for thirty seconds, you forgot where you were and what he was, and the whole impossible situation felt like a walk home from somewhere good with someone you liked.

You press your face into your knees. You wrap your arms around yourself.

You wait.

BB comes back eventually.

You don't know how long it's been. Time in the Backrooms is a broken clock. Sometimes the minutes stretch into hours; sometimes what feels like an afternoon is over before a thought can finish forming. 

You've been sitting in the blankets, knees to chest, listening to the hum slowly, slowly settle back to its normal pitch, the tension of Level 0 releasing one degree at a time. You didn't sleep. You didn't move. You just sat and breathed, holding the meadow inside you like a candle flame in cupped hands.

You hear him before you see him. Footsteps. Slow. The particular rhythm of his walk. Bobby's gait, but smoother, more intentional, the way a predator moves even when it's not hunting. Then his shape appears in the doorway.

Something's off.

He's standing the way he always stands—one shoulder against the doorframe, hip cocked, that easy lean—but the details are wrong. Slightly. His edges are too sharp. The line of his jaw looks as if it were drawn rather than grown. His skin has a quality to it, like wet paint, freshly applied. And his eyes.

BB’s eyes are settling. That's the only word for it. The flat, black depth that swallowed the warmth when he left is receding, draining away, and Bobby's eyes are rising to the surface again. You watch it happen. You watch him reassemble himself.

He was something else, you realise. Whatever he went to do, wherever he did while away, he dropped Bobby's face to do it. And what you're looking at now, standing in the doorway, is the process of putting it back on. Climbing back inside the shape of a person. Buttoning up the human suit.

“BB.”

He blinks. The last of the darkness drains from his eyes. He looks at you, and the warmth returns. In layers, like watching a photograph develop, his shoulders relaxing at the sight of you. The too-sharp lines of his face soften into the Bobby you know, and his mouth does that almost-smile, the one that says I'm here without words.

“Hey, baby.”

“What happened?”

Not a question. A demand. You say it flat and steady, holding his gaze, and you don't let him do the easy-grin deflection, the don't worry about it. You've had enough of that for one lifetime. You made him promise.

BB reads it on your face. The refusal to be contained.

He exhales through his nose—Bobby's habit, the one that means I don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to—and pushes off the doorframe and comes to sit beside you on the blankets. Close. His knee touches yours.

“There's something new,” he says after a pause. “In the Backrooms. Something I haven't encountered before.”

You stare. “An… entity?”

“Yes.” He turns the word over like he's not sure it's sufficient. “It’s been… circling. Mainly the perimeter of Level 0. Not entering. Not yet anyway. Just... moving along the edge. Testing it.” His jaw works. That muscle at the hinge, the one that flexes when Bobby's thinking, when Bobby's holding something back. “It's been doing it intermittently. Coming close, then retreating. Like it's taking measurements.”

A shiver skitters down your spine. “What does it want?”

“I don't know.” And you understand that BB doesn't say I don't know often or easily. BB is the thing that knows this place, that moves through it like blood through a vein, that owns Level 0. Admitting ignorance is not in his nature. It sits wrong on his face, like a shirt buttoned crooked. “It's different from the others. Not like the Smiler. Not like the Howlers, either. Not like anything in my experience. It's very new.” A tense pause, then, “And very, very powerful.”

The way he says powerful makes the hum in the walls dip. Just for a second. A brief, almost subliminal drop in frequency, as if Level 0 itself heard the word and flinched.

You stare at him, your heart thrumming in your chest. Bobby's face, creased with a concern that doesn't quite fit the cocky architecture of it. BB in a rare moment of honesty about his own limits. Something new, he said. Something powerful. Something that makes a thing that unmade another entity with its bare hands sit next to you on a pile of blankets and admit it doesn't have an answer.

You exhale, turning to stare at the yellow wall instead. 

“I want you to teach me,” you tell him after a moment.

His head turns. The dog-tilt. Quick, surprised.

You look back towards him. “About this place. The levels. The entities. The doors, the rules, whatever—I want to understand it. I don't want to just—” You gesture at the blankets, the room, the warm patch you've been sleeping in for however long you've been here. “I don't want to be something you put in a nest and guard. I want to know what's out there. How to move through it. I don't want to be helpless whenever you leave.”

BB studies you. That long, reading look, line by line, extracting meaning. You expect resistance. Protectiveness. The instinct to keep you in the soft, warm place where nothing can touch you, where he can fold himself around you like armour and pretend the world ends at the walls of this room.

Instead, slowly, he nods.

“There are rules,” he insists. The caution is audible. Measured, considered, a thing that’s used to absolute control, negotiating the edges of a concession. “I go with you. Always. You don't wander alone. Not until you understand enough.”

“Okay.”

“And there are levels I won't take you to. Places where my presence doesn't offer the protection it does on 0. Places where—” He pauses, choosing his words the way you'd choose a path through uneven ground. “Places where going would be… foolish.”

“Okay. Deal.”

You watch him watch you, just like earlier in the sunlight. “Okay,” he says eventually. “I'll teach you.”

Time passes.

You don't know how much. The Backrooms don't have seasons, don't have sunrise and sunset. No reliable Monday into Tuesday into Wednesday that structures a life on the other side of the wall. What you have is rhythm—the rhythm of sleep and waking, of walking and resting, of BB's hand on yours as he leads you through doorways you're learning to see.

You miss the real world.

It hits you at strange moments. 

Not when you'd expect, not during the long stretches of yellow or the nights when the hum shifts pitch and BB goes rigid and watchful beside you. It hits you in the quiet. In the nothing moments.

You'll be sitting in the nest sketching a corridor layout, and the pen will skip, and you'll shake it the way you used to shake the pens at Clark's register. And the muscle memory will drag the whole world through. 

The smell of the showroom, lemon polish and particleboard, the radio playing low from the boombox behind the counter, the particular quality of California dusk through the front windows when the strip mall parking lot emptied out.

The apartment. The couch. The sound of Bobby's camera clicking in the other room.

You miss rain. Not Level 14 rain, or drizzle of the Poolrooms. Actual rain, East Bay winter rain, the kind that hammered the apartment windows and turned the parking lot at Clark's into a shallow lake and made Bobby curse because he'd left the car windows cracked again.

You miss the smell of wet asphalt. You even miss traffic. The dull boredom of a slow Tuesday shift with no customers, leaning on the counter with a magazine, watching the clock crawl toward closing.

You miss cereal. The specific crunch of it, dry, eaten by the handful out of the box at midnight because you were too tired to make real food after a close. You miss the weight of your own blankets on your bed, not the gathered nest-pile BB assembled for you. You miss the answering machine clicking on. You miss the phone ringing at all.

You think about going back.

Not the way you thought about it in the first weeks. That was rantic, clawing, animal desperation to find the wall you fell through and push back to the other side. That's burned out. What's left is quieter. More deliberate. A slow, circular calculation that runs in the background of your brain like a programme you can't close: Is there a way? If BB knows the doors, if the doors go between levels, if levels connect to each other in ways that don't follow geometry, could one of them connect back? Could there be a threshold that opens onto Clark's storage basement, onto the real world?

You don't ask BB. Because the calculation always stalls at the same place, the same, indestructible wall. 

The wall in your chest. The one built from the last six months of your life in Santa Clara, from every unanswered question and unfinished sentence and cold sheet and blue TV light and grunt. 

The wall that asks one simple question: Go back to what?

Go back to the apartment where Bobby looked through you like glass? Go back to the doorway where you stood with your keys in your hand and your heart in your eyes, and he didn't look up? Go back to being the woman who measures love in deficits, who keeps count of kisses the way she keeps count of inventory, watching the numbers dwindle, knowing exactly what the shortage means, and not being able to stop counting.

Bobby is probably relieved.

The thought arrives fully formed, mid-step, on a walk through Level 4, and it stops you so completely that BB turns back, his hand sliding to the small of your back, his head doing that quick, concerned tilt. You wave him off. Fine. I'm fine. But the thought is there now, lodged behind your sternum like a splinter, and you can feel it every time you breathe.

Bobby is probably relieved. Bobby is probably sleeping diagonally again. Bobby is probably eating cereal over the sink, leaving his bowl on the counter. Watching TV with his feet up and the apartment is probably messier, quieter. Less cluttered without your books and your magazines and your shoes by the door.

Your presence in every corner asking to be noticed. 

Bobby is probably lighter, breathing easier. Maybe he looked up from the television one day and realised the doorway was empty and felt—what? Guilt? Or the guilty cousin of relief, the exhale of a man whose obligation to pretend has been finally lifted?

You haven't felt needed in months. Not once.

The realisation surfaces slowly, a gradual saturation of a truth you've been standing ankle-deep in since before you fell through the wall. 

Bobby didn't need you. Bobby needed the idea of you—the girlfriend, the warm body, the person in the apartment who made it feel less empty—but he didn't need you. The particular, inconvenient you who wanted to be talked to and looked at and held and kissed goodbye every morning. That version of you was too much work. 

That version required maintenance he couldn't be bothered to perform.

But the ache—god, the ache. It hasn't faded. You thought it would. You thought time and distance and the sheer alien absurdity of your circumstances would erode it the way the Backrooms erode seemingly everything. Until the original shape is unrecognisable. 

But the ache for Bobby sits in the centre of your chest like a second heartbeat, stubborn and alive, and it doesn't care that he let you down.

It doesn't care that the last thing he gave you was a grunt. Love has no quality control. Love doesn't audit the recipient and adjust its intensity based on merit. 

You still love Bobby with the same enormous, stupid devotion you loved him with on that Thursday morning when the sun was on the sheets and he ignored the phone and pulled you closer and rasped stay. That love has not diminished by a single degree despite every reason it should have, and the persistence of it is the cruellest thing about being here. 

Because it means you’re aching for a man who made you feel invisible while standing in front of a being who has never once looked away.

You cry about it. Once. In the nest, in the dark, turned away from BB, muffling it in the blankets.

He doesn't say anything. His hand finds your shoulder. His thumb moves, once, twice, a slow circuit over the curve of bone. He doesn't ask what's wrong because he already knows—he's always known, he heard it all through the wall—and the kindness of his silence, the restraint of it, the choice to hold space instead of fill it, makes you cry harder.

You stop crying. You wipe your face. You pick up the notebook.

And you start mapping instead.

BB finds the notebook for you. God knows where, god knows how, a composition book with a mottled black-and-white cover and pages that smell like basement storage. 

You hold it and the weight of it in your hands feels so familiar it aches. The pen he gives you is a ballpoint, blue ink, the cheap kind that skips if you press too hard. You uncap it and the click of the cap settles something in your chest. An old reflex. The same one that used to kick in when you opened the inventory binder at the store. 

The satisfaction of a system, a structure, a way to organise chaos into a shape you can hold.

If you can't go back, you'll go forward. If you can't be needed there, you'll be needed here. Anything but the slow decay of being unwanted. And then, one day, when you're ready, you'll ask BB to find you a door back.

One day.

Level 0 comes first. The hallways you know, the ones BB takes you through, the turns and junctions and the places where the carpet changes texture and means something. A border, a threshold, a shift in territory. 

You draw diagrams. Floor plans. Rough, imprecise, the proportions wrong because the proportions are wrong. Because the hallways don't obey geometry in any way you can verify. But the act of drawing them—of putting pen to paper, using the things Clark used to tell you about rendering shapes and rooms—makes it less vast. Less formless. Containable. 

The pen moves and the world shrinks and for the first time in months you have purpose.

BB watches you work with undisguised fascination.

He sits beside you while you sketch, his chin on your shoulder, his breath warm on your neck, and sometimes he corrects you (that corridor turns left, not right or there's a junction there you haven't found yet) and sometimes he just watches your hand move and hums in his throat. That low, warm rumble that you've started to associate with contentment. 

His chin digs into your shoulder when he leans in to see your shorthand and you flick his nose without looking up and he huffs—offended, amused, delighted, nosing closer—and the exchange is so easy, so thoughtless, so much like two people who’ve known each other long enough that the edges have been worn smooth by repetition.

Half the time you forget he's not human.

That's the truth you don't examine too closely. Because it would mean confronting what it says about you, about your standards, about how broken your idea of normal has become. 

But BB sits beside you with his chin on your shoulder and his warmth against your side. He asks about your shorthand, remembers the answer, asks follow-up questions. He brings you food without being asked.

The line between an inhuman entity wearing a man's face and a person who cares about me blurs until it's less a line and more a smudge, a gradation, a slow dissolve from one thing into the other.

He cares for you. Genuinely. Not the way you care for a pet. 

You see it in the small things first. The way he checks the temperature of the carpet before he lets you sit, and how he positions himself between you and the corridor when you sleep. His head turns toward you when you shift in the nest, tracking your movement the way a compass tracks north. 

Most of all in how he says your name. Not baby, not the endearment—your actual name, the one he uses rarely, carefully, like he's holding it in his mouth and tasting each syllable. When BB says your name, it sounds like a discovery. Like a fact he's still pleased to know.

“You're organising it,” he says one day. Amused. Impressed. “The way you organised the inventory at the store.”

“It helps me think.”

“You're applying human systems to a place that doesn't follow human rules.”

“Is that a problem?”

He considers this. His head tilts. “No,” he replies slowly, like he's arriving at a conclusion that surprises him. “No, I think it might be… useful. No one's ever tried to map it like this. Most wanderers are too busy surviving to catalogue."

“Well,” you say teasingly. “I've got you for the surviving part.”

He goes quiet. You glance up from the notebook. His face is going through layers again, rearranging, the cocky default giving way to the newer expression underneath. The one that showed up when you named him. A door opening inward.

He catches you looking, and the default snaps back, the half-grin, the raised eyebrow.

“Yeah,” he drawls lightly. Entirely failing to conceal the sudden warmth radiating off him like heat from a furnace. “Yeah, you do.”

You add to the notebook every day. Layouts, landmarks, and the sensory details that serve as navigation. 

BB takes you exploring.

Not every day. Some days the hum is wrong, or BB is tense in a way he won't explain, or you can feel the level holding its breath the way it did the night he disappeared and came back wearing a freshly assembled face. On those days, you stay in the nest. You write in the notebook. You read the pages you've already filled and trace the paths you've already walked and commit them to memory because memory is the only filing system you've got. 

On those days, the ache comes back—Bobby's hands, Bobby's mouth, the way he used to drop his forehead against yours in the dark and whisper your name, just your name, over and over—and you let it sit in your chest and you don't fight it. But you don't follow it, either. 

You just write around it. Inventory the grief the way you inventory everything else. Label it. File it. Move on to the next entry.

But most days, BB takes you out.

Level 1, first. BB walks beside you, and his posture changes here. Subtly mostly, the ease tightening into a coiled attention. His head on a swivel, hand at the small of your back with a pressure that says I'm tracking everything in this room and nothing will get within twenty feet of you.

You sketch the layout in the notebook while he stands guard. You mark the exits, the supply caches, the places where other wanderers have left graffiti on the shelving units. Messages, warnings, crude maps of their own.

You get braver. You ask questions. About the Smilers, the Howlers, about the hierarchy of things that live here. How they relate to each other and what makes some dangerous and some merely present. 

BB answers. Not always fully, not always clearly. There are concepts here that he doesn't have a human language for. Mechanics that exist in the gap between what he perceives and what your brain can hold, but he answers, and you write it all down, and the notebook fills.

You develop a routine. You wake up, eat whatever BB has found or produced, and you walk. You explore together, map, and come back. You sit together in the nest afterwards and talk. 

And the talking is easier now, less charged, less careful. You tell him about your life. The books you loved. The way you used to organise your bookshelves by colour rather than by author, because it made you happy to look at them. The hiking trails in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Big Basin and Castle Rock, the way the redwoods smelled after rain.

He listens the way he always listens. Total attention. Full presence. The thing Bobby couldn't do. The thing BB does like breathing.

And you catch yourself, one evening, doing something unthinkable. 

You’re sitting in the nest with your notebook open, pen behind your ear, telling BB about the time you got lost on the Skyline-to-the-Sea trail. You had to navigate back using a park map you'd annotated so heavily it was more your handwriting than cartography. BB’s laughing. That low huff through his nose, his shoulder pressed against yours. 

You're laughing too, and the yellow light is warm, and you realise, suddenly, that you haven’t thought about Bobby in three days.

The guilt is instantaneous.

A hot, lurching, physical thing that grabs you by the sternum and pulls. Three days. You went three days without the ache, and the absence of it feels like a betrayal so total it makes you nauseous. As if the love you carry for Bobby is a fire that requires constant tending, and you let it gutter, and that makes you—what? 

The kind of woman who forgets? The kind who moves on? The kind who finds comfort in a pair of borrowed eyes while the original owner of those eyes is somewhere in Santa Clara, probably sleeping diagonal, probably relieved?

You go quiet. BB notices. 

His shoulder presses against yours (a question, not a demand), and you shake your head, picking up the pen. Start sketching a corridor you mapped that morning, but the lines are slightly too hard, the ink pressing dents into the page. 

BB watches your hand and says nothing, and the nothing is the right thing, the exact right thing, and you hate him a little for being so consistently, unbearably right.

You grow comfortable.

Not comfortable like safe, or comfortable like home. Because this place is neither of those things, and you know it. The notebook full of entity classifications and danger ratings is proof that you know it.

But comfortable the way you get with a person—a being, entity, a whatever-he-is—when enough time has passed that their presence stops being a question and starts being an answer. 

You stop flinching when he appears in doorways. You stop tensing when his hand finds yours. You lean into his shoulder when you're tired, and he holds steady. The meadow on Level 14 becomes your Sunday, your weekend, the place he takes you when the yellow gets to be too much, and you need to remember what sky looks like.

You stop keeping count.

You don't notice it happening. It's quiet cessation of a habit so ingrained you didn't know it was still running until it stopped. 

No more tallying. No more, he didn't today, that's the fourth day in a row. Because BB doesn't generate deficits. BB doesn't create gaps to count. He’s present the way the hum is present. Woven into the structure of your days so thoroughly that his attention isn't an event anymore, it's an environment. 

You live inside his attention the way you live inside Level 0. It's just where you are.

But the ache for Bobby doesn't go away. Only migrates from the centre of your chest to somewhere deeper, somewhere quieter, a room in the back of you where it can sit with the memory of your first kiss and his arm around your shoulder by the ocean and the way he used to say stay and mean it. 

You don't visit that room every day anymore. But you know it's there. You can feel its weight when you lie down at night, BB's arm around your waist, his breath on your neck. 

The ache says remember, and you say I know, and you close your eyes, and you stay.

Your handwriting fills the notebook. Page after page. The careful, slightly messy script. A system. A structure. 

A way to survive.

“It's circling again.”

You look up sharply. 

BB is standing at the edge of the nest, head tilted, that almost-human listening posture—chin cocked, eyes unfocused, his whole body oriented toward a frequency you can't hear. His jaw is tight.

You set the pen down. “How close?”

“Closer than last time,” ee says evenly, too evenly. “It's running along the edge and then pulling back. Then running a little further.”

Ignoring the sudden chill at your nape, you say, “Like it's looking for a gap.”

His eyes flick to you. A beat of surprise follows. Quick and subtle, the kind he still has when you demonstrate that you've been paying attention to the lessons, that the notebook isn't just busywork but comprehension.

“Yes,” he agrees. “Like that.”

You pull your knees up. Wrap your arms around them. The notebook sits open on the blanket beside you, the page half-covered in your shorthand. A corridor map, danger annotations, the new symbol you invented last week for an unknown entity, and behaviour unclassified. You used it for the first time yesterday. The ink is still dark.

“What are you going to do?”

“I need to check the perimeter. See if anything's shifted. If it's been probing a specific section or moving along the full boundary.” He's already calculating. The ancient one surfaces behind Bobby's eyes, not all the way, just enough to sharpen the edges. To give his posture that predatory geometry that doesn't belong on a twenty-something in a crop top. “I want to understand its pattern before I kill it.”

“BB.” You say his name, and he stills. Focuses. The ancient thing recedes a fraction, and the warmth returns to the surface. You hold his gaze and say, carefully, gently, “Be careful.”

His mouth parts. 

He crosses the nest in two steps. Drops into a crouch in front of you, his knees on the blanket, and his hand finds the side of your head. His fingers glide over one side of your face slowly. He strokes, long, gentle, from your temple to the nape of your neck. 

“Stay here,” he says gently, his thumb tracing the curve behind your ear. “Stay in the nest. Don't go into the corridor. Not even the first junction.”

“I know the rules.”

“I know you know.” His hand stills in your hair, cupping the back of your skull. He dips his head until his forehead is close to yours, not quite touching, his breath warm on your face. His eyes are darker, layered, and the thing behind them is looking at you, too. For a moment, both of them are present. BB and the creature he's built on top of, and both of them are saying the same thing. “I'll be back.”

“You better be.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. Just barely. The private curve that's his and not Bobby's, the one you named into existence in a meadow on Level 14. He presses his lips to your forehead. Holds them there for a beat. You feel the hum vibrate through the contact, that low sub-frequency that lives in his chest and transfers through skin, settling behind your sternum like a second pulse.

Then he straightens. His hand slides from your hair. The softness drops from his posture in a single clean motion. 

What's left is the thing that walks these hallways, silent and certain and very, very old.

He rounds the corner, and the yellow swallows him.

You pick up the pen. Open the notebook to a fresh page. You write: Entity X — perimeter — closer. Testing the boundary for gaps. BB checking pattern. Unknown motivation. Unknown capability.

You underline unknown twice.

Eleven minutes.

You know this because you've been counting. 

Your brain just does it now, keeps a running tally of the seconds since his silhouette disappeared. Because your body has learned that when he's not here, the math of your survival changes. 

With him, you’re the safest thing in this strange place. Without him, you’re a girl sitting on a damp carpet in a place that eats people. But BB always comes back, you remind yourself. Always. 

You're sketching the rough map of the corridors you explored yesterday, trying to get the proportions right on a hallway junction that you're fairly sure had five walls, when you hear the footsteps.

Not his. His steps are almost silent, a predator's tread, weight distributed in a way that isn't quite human. These are boots. Multiple sets. Heavy, deliberate.

You close the notebook slowly.

Six figures come around the corner.

Not researchers BB warned you about. Wrong uniforms, wrong insignia, a logo you don't recognise stitched onto black tactical gear. They're armed. Not with the improvised weapons most wanderers carry. Real weapons. Professional grade. The kind that suggests funding, organisation, a chain of command that exists somewhere outside this place.

The one in front spots you and signals the others to stop. He says something into the radio on his shoulder, clipped and fast, and you catch the words “confirmed,” and “companion” and “entity absent.”

They waited for BB to leave.

“Ma'am.” The lead one steps forward. Voice flat. Professional. “You need to come with us. We're here to extract you.”

Your body tenses at those words, coiling, and you stand at once. “No.”

It comes out sharper than you expect. Hard-edged. The backrooms have made you harder than you realise.

“Ma'am, that's not—”

“I said no,” you repeat firmly. “I'm not going anywhere with a bunch of strangers.”

His jaw tightens. He glances at the others. Some signal passes between them. A shift in posture, a nod, the silent language you’re not privy to.

He reaches for your arm.

You hit him.

A closed fist, fast, driven by weeks of survival instinct and adrenaline and the specific, white-hot fury of being grabbed by a stranger in a place where the only person who touches you has earned it inch by inch.

Your knuckles connect with his cheekbone. The man’s head snaps sideways, and for one bright second, you feel savage satisfaction.

Then three of them are on you.

You kick. You bite. Drive your elbow into someone's throat and hear someone choke behind you. You're feral with it. No technique, no training, just the scrappy, vicious fighting of a girl who's survived the backrooms and is not going to be dragged by men who couldn’t even bother to introduce themselves. 

Your nails rake across someone's forearm and draw blood. You wrench free of one grip and slam your heel into a kneecap. Someone swears, loud, furious.

“Fucking—hold her, HOLD HER—”

A hand fists in your hair. Yanks. Your neck snaps back, and your eyes water. Someone wrenches your arm behind you hard enough that the joint screams. You thrash, snarling. Your free hand catches someone across the mouth. You feel a tooth cut your knuckle.

The lead one is in front of you again. There's a red mark blooming on his cheekbone where you hit him, and his professionalism has curdled into something uglier.

“You want to do this the hard way?”

You spit at him. It catches his vest.

He hits you.

Open palm across your face. Your head rocks to one side. The world around you whites out for half a second, and then there's carpet under your hands and knees. Your lip throbs, burning numb, and you can taste copper in your mouth, dribbling. A boot slots between your shoulder blades, pressing you flat, and your cheek presses against the damp fibres. 

Your wrists get pinned behind you roughly at an angle that sends bright, screaming pain up to your shoulder.

“Stay DOWN—”

You’re on the floor, bleeding. There’s a boot on your back and hands pinning your wrists. You’re away from the only safe thing in this place, and the carpet is wet against your split lip. You’re afraid. For the first time since your encounter with the Smiler, you’re terrified. Immediate, animal fear of being held down by someone stronger than you.

You open your mouth. You fill your lungs.

And you scream.

“BB—”

One word. It tears out of your throat raw and desperate, hitting the yellow walls, and the walls absorb it, and the walls move.

The fluorescent lights don't flicker. They detonate.

Every tube in the hallway blows simultaneously, glass raining down like ice, and in the darkness that follows, the hum of level 0 drops—drops—drops into a frequency that you feel in your teeth, in your ribs, in the boot on your back that suddenly isn't pressing as hard because the man wearing it has stopped breathing. Not dead. Frozen. 

The way an animal freezes in terror when it smells something at the top of the food chain.

The walls crack. Clean fissures running floor to ceiling, splitting the drywall in deliberate, surgical lines, as if something were tearing its way through the building's architecture. The carpet ripples under your cheek. You feel it. The backrooms responding, contracting, the whole of level 0 seizing like a body in pain.

The boot lifts off your back.

Not because the man chose to move it. Because the floor tilted. Subtle. Just enough to shift his weight. Just enough to free you. The backrooms—him, it, the thing that is both—clearing the path.

You hear them before you see them react. The soldiers. Breathing fast. The click of weapons being raised. Someone screaming “what the fuck what the fuck what the—”

He comes out of the dark.

Not through a door but from the dark itself. Like the darkness peeled open and someone stepped through the seam. 

He’s not fully human-shaped.

The Bobby suit is slipping. Shoulders too wide. Arms too long, hanging at angles that make your hindbrain scream. His fingers have too many joints—you can see them in the fractured emergency glow of the one tube that didn't shatter—long and wrong, curling like they're remembering a shape that predates hands. 

His face is still Bobby's face but the geometry behind it is pressing outward, cheekbones like blades, jaw too sharp, too angular, the skull beneath rearranging itself into something that was never meant to be looked at directly. And his eyes are black. Fully, completely, endlessly black. Two holes in the front of his skull that open onto something without a floor.

He sees you on the ground.

The blood on your lip. The bruises on your skin. The tear tracks cutting down your face.

BB sees the boot print on your back.

There’s a sound.

It booms from the walls, the floor, and the ceiling simultaneously. From every surface of level 0, because he is level 0, and every square inch of it is snarling.

The remaining fluorescent tube doesn't shatter. 

It melts. The glass softens and drips. The carpet under the soldiers' feet goes wet, soaked, saturated, as though the floor is turning into a swamp.

You press your face into the carpet and close your eyes.

It takes less than a minute.

You don't watch, but you hear it. Screaming that starts human and ends keening. Wet sounds. Heavy sounds. The particular acoustic signature of a body being opened by something that doesn't need tools. That horrible, snarling, clicking growl of pure rage.

One of them manages to fire a weapon, and the sound of the shot is enormous in the enclosed hallway. It cuts out, followed by a crunch of bone, and another, and another, and another—

Then there's nothing.

Silence.

The level settles. The hum reasserts itself, climbing back up from that sub-basement frequency to its usual buzz. You can feel it in the carpet against your cheek, scratchy and too warm.

One fluorescent tube fizzes back to life overhead. Yellow. Sickly. 

You feel the air change. The temperature drops, and you know he's close before anything touches you. 

When it does—a hand on your shoulder, delicate, so delicate—it's not quite a hand yet. Too many joints. The fingers too long, still retracting to Bobby's proportions, still remembering how to be the thing that strokes your hair instead of the thing that just—

You turn over.

He's crouching over you. Still wrong. The proportions haven't settled. BB’s arms are too long, and his spine is curved at an angle that doesn't work with human vertebrae. His face is a rough draft. Bobby's features sketched over the older, sharper one. Black fluid coats his hands. His jaw. His chest. Not all of it is black.

His eyes are still dark, but the blue is bleeding back in around the edges. Like ink dropped into water, spreading, reclaiming.

You reach for him.

Your hands are shaking so badly that you miss the first time. 

Your fingers slip against the wrong texture of his jaw, the skin too smooth, too cool, still settling back to its bony configuration. You reach again, and this time you get his neck (too long, the vertebrae too prominent, sharp ridges under your palms where Bobby's neck was smooth), and you pull.

You pull yourself into him, and you cling. 

Arms around his neck, face buried in his throat, legs curling up, making yourself as small as possible against his chest because if you can get close enough, maybe nothing will ever reach you again. 

You wrap yourself around him with a muffled sob. One sob, then another, then a third that breaks open into something ragged and ugly and not at all brave.

You’re shaking and bleeding, crying into the neck of a monster, and you don't care. You don't care about the wrong temperature, the wrong shape or the black fluid soaking into your shirt. 

You don't care.

BB freezes. One second. Two. The violence still running, the gentleness needing a moment to boot up. You feel it. The exact instant the system switches. His whole body shudders once, and then his arms come around you.

Tight. So tight. He scoops you up like you're nothing—one arm under your legs, one around your back—and pulls you into his chest and holds you against him like he's trying to absorb you. Like he could fold you into his body and keep you there where nothing touches you ever again. 

His chin comes down on the top of your head. His whole body curves around you. You feel the strength in every inch of him. The same strength that just did what it just did, repurposed. Every ounce of force that tore six armed men apart, now calibrated with impossible precision to the exact pressure of holding without breaking.

“I'm here.” His voice. Rough. Not fully Bobby's voice yet. There's an edge underneath it still, something vast and deep, like hearing someone speak from several floors down. “I'm here, baby. I'm here.”

You press closer. Your fingers curl into the fabric of his jacket. Bobby's jacket. Your face is against his throat, and you can feel the absence of a pulse under your cheek. No heartbeat. Just the hum. His hum. Vibrating through his chest and into yours.

“They—” Your voice is thick, muffled against his skin. “They grabbed me, they were trying to—I fought, I tried to—”

“I know.” His hand finds the back of your head. Cradles it. His fingers—the right number of joints now, almost fully Bobby-shaped again—thread into your hair the way they do in the nest, slow, gentle, the careful repetitive motion that means safe, you're safe, I'm here. “I know. It's over.”

“There were six of them and I couldn't—”

“You don't have to.”

His other hand finds your face. Tilts it up. His thumb traces your split lip with a touch so light it barely registers. Just the ghost of contact, the pad of his thumb skating over the cut, and you watch his jaw tighten. The blue in his eyes flickers. Darkness swims underneath it, surfacing and submerging, and you know he is looking at the blood on your mouth, and memorising who put it there, and the fact that they’re already dead is not enough. Will never be enough.

“Does it hurt?” Quiet. Bobby's voice now, almost entirely. That specific soft register he uses in the nest, the one that makes your chest ache.

“A little.”

His thumb moves to the bruise on your cheekbone. Traces the edge of it. Down to your jaw. Along the finger-shaped marks on your wrist, and the sound he makes is barely audible. Low, tight snarl. A vibration caught behind his teeth.

“I should have been here.”

“You came.”

“Not fast enough.”

You almost laugh. What comes out instead is a wet, clogged sound. “You came very quickly, BB.”

“Not fast enough,” he repeats, and means it. 

You put your head back against his chest. He holds you tighter. He hums. Shaky at first, the frequency wobbles. Then it steadies. Finding its rhythm. His song. The one that doesn't exist anywhere outside of him.

You feel the backrooms settle around you both. The lights dim softer. Temperature rises, degree by gentle degree, until the air feels like a room in a house instead of a hallway in purgatory. He’s doing that. Rewriting the space around your body because you’re shaking, and he can't make you stop shaking, but he can make everything else softer.

“BB.” Your voice is small. Muffled against his chest.

“Yeah?” Immediate. Soft.

“Don't leave.” You swallow. Press your face harder into the fabric of his jacket. “Just—for a bit. Don't leave.”

His arms tighten, cheek pressing against the top of your head. You feel him breathe—not because he needs to, but because you need to feel it, and he knows what you need, even before you know it yourself.

“Never,” he whispers.

One word. A law. Written into the fabric of this place. Never. As in: the sun will come up. As in: water runs downhill. As in: I will be here.

You close your eyes.

The shaking ebbs, not all at once but in increments, your body releasing its grip on the panic the way a fist unclenches. One finger, then another, then another. His hand keeps moving over your hair. Rhythmic. Patient. He will do this for as long as you need.

He will do this forever if you let him.

You stay like that. On the floor. In the hallway. Curled in the lap of a thing that’s just killed six men.

The backrooms are changing. You can feel it beneath you, a shuddering grind. Hallways folding. Routes sealing shut. The architecture of level 0 quietly, methodically, permanently rearranging itself around you both. Doors that used to lead here now lead nowhere. 

He’s taking you somewhere no one will find you.

And you let him. Eyes closed. Face against his chest. Listening to the hum.

You let him.

M.E.G. INTERNAL — MAJOR EXPLORER GROUP

DEPARTMENT OF ENTITY RESEARCH & CONTAINMENT

▓▓▓▓▓▓ CLASSIFIED // LEVEL 4 — RESTRICTED // URGENT REVIEW ▓▓▓▓▓▓

INCIDENT REPORT: IR-0-27 DOCUMENT ID: MEG-ENT-0000-IR-0-27 CLASSIFICATION: LEVEL 4 — URGENT FILED BY: Operations Director ██████ DATE: ██/██/199█ RE: Unauthorised Engagement With Entity 0 / Companion — Hostile Extraction Attempt by External Agency STATUS: CRITICAL — ONGOING CONSEQUENCES

SUMMARY OF INCIDENT

On ██/██/199█, at approximately ██:██ hours, a six-person tactical unit operating under the authority of ██████████████████████████████████ (hereafter "the Agency") conducted an unauthorised extraction attempt on the individual designated "the Companion" in M.E.G. Entity 0 documentation.

M.E.G. had no advance knowledge of this operation. We were not consulted or informed. We were not given the opportunity to do what we have spent the last eighteen months doing, which is explicitly and repeatedly recommending against exactly this course of action.

Our recommendation, stated in Section 7.2 of the Entity 0 dossier and reiterated in no fewer than six inter-agency memoranda, was as follows:

"Do not intervene. Do not extract. Do not, under any circumstances, threaten the Companion's safety within Entity 0's perceptual range."

The Agency disregarded this recommendation.

All six members of the tactical unit are dead.

RECONSTRUCTION OF EVENTS

The following timeline has been assembled from recovered equipment (three body cameras, one partially functional radio unit) and corroborating seismic data from M.E.G. monitoring equipment on Levels 0 through 3.

██:██ — Six-person tactical unit enters Level 0 via access point ██████. Equipment and insignia consistent with ██████████████████████████████████. The unit is armed with ██████████████████████████████████. They are equipped for a hostile extraction. This was not a rescue. This was a retrieval.

██:██ — Unit locates the Companion in a hallway junction on Level 0, sublevel ██████. Entity 0 is not present. Body camera footage confirms the unit waited for Entity 0 to leave the Companion's immediate vicinity before approaching. This indicates prior surveillance. The Agency was watching. We did not know they were watching. This is itself a security failure that is being reviewed separately.

██:██ — Unit lead makes verbal contact with the Companion. Instructs her to comply with the extraction. Companion refuses. She states clearly, on camera, that she does not wish to be removed. Her exact words are "No" and "I'm not going anywhere."

██:██ — Unit lead attempts physical restraint. The Companion resists violently. Body camera footage shows her striking the unit lead in the face, drawing blood from a secondary operative, and disabling a third with a knee strike before being subdued by multiple operatives simultaneously. She fought like someone who has been surviving the Backrooms for ██████, and it shows. The Companion is subsequently struck across the face by the unit lead and forced to the ground. Bruising consistent with forcible restraint is visible on both wrists.

I will repeat that for the record: a civilian who had clearly, verbally, on camera refused extraction was beaten to the floor by a six-person tactical unit. 

██:██ — M.E.G. seismic monitoring stations on Levels 0, 1, 2, and 3 register a simultaneous anomalous event. The reading does not correspond to any known geological or structural phenomenon. Dr. ██████ has described the waveform as "an earthquake." I am including her analysis verbatim because I do not have a better description.

██:██ — The Companion screams.

██:██ — Entity 0 arrives.

The gap between ██:██ and ██:██ is approximately 1.3 seconds. Entity 0's last confirmed position was ██████████████████████████████████, an estimated █████████████ meters from the Companion's location. It covered this distance in 1.3 seconds. We do not have a theoretical framework for this. We are not going to develop one. It doesn't matter. What matters is what happened next.

██:██ (CONCURRENT) — What we did not understand at the time—and what has only become clear through post-incident analysis—is that Entity 0 did not move through the Backrooms to reach the Companion. It moved the Backrooms.

Temporal monitoring equipment across Levels 0 through 266 recorded simultaneous, catastrophic time distortion events at the moment of Entity 0's displacement. On Level 1, clocks ran backwards for approximately 3.7 seconds. On Level 2, a monitoring team reported experiencing the same eleven-second interval twenty times in succession. On Level 49, two operatives aged approximately 6 years in the space of 1.3 real-time seconds. Medical examination confirmed accelerated cellular turnover consistent with temporal compression. Both operatives have been placed on medical leave.

Entity 0 tore through the temporal fabric of the Backrooms to close the distance between itself and the Companion. It did not navigate. It did not transit. It ripped a hole through the structure of the intervening space.

The damage on the lower levels was temporary. The damage on Level ███ was not.

Level ███ is gone.

Level ███—a fully mapped, documented, and intermittently populated level of the Backrooms—no longer exists. It was not sealed. M.E.G. operatives who attempted to access Level ███ via three separate confirmed entry points found nothing. Not empty corridors. Not blank walls. Nothing. The space that Level ███ occupied is simply absent. As though it was never there at all. 

Entity 0's transit path between its last confirmed location and the Companion passed directly through Level ███. The conclusion is unavoidable: Entity 0, in the 1.3 seconds it took to reach the Companion, annihilated an entire level of the Backrooms as collateral damage. The way a bullet destroys the wall behind the target. Level ███ was simply in the way.

We do not know if there were casualties. Level ███ was classified as intermittently populated. Wanderers passed through; some may have been sheltering there at the time of the event. We will likely never know. There is nothing left to recover. There is nothing left to examine. An entire level of reality was erased in 1.3 seconds.

Dr. ██████ has requested that this section of the report be classified as Level 5. I have denied this request. Everyone needs to read this. Everyone needs to understand what we are dealing with.

██:██ through ██:██ — Body camera footage for this period is partially corrupted. What remains has been reviewed by myself, Dr. ██████, and Dr. ███████████. Dr. ████ has declined to review it. Her decision is respected.

Entity 0 was not in its standard manifestation. I am not going to describe the specific deviations in this report. The footage is available for personnel with Level 4 clearance and a strong stomach.

The engagement lasted approximately 42 seconds.

Entity 0 did not use weapons. Entity 0 is the weapon.

All six operatives were killed. Cause of death for four: ████████████████████████ Cause of death for the remaining two: ██████████████████████████████████. Recovery of remains has been deemed inadvisable at this time, as Entity 0 ██████████████████████████████████.

██:██ — Final body camera footage shows Entity 0 approaching the Companion. It is partially restructured to its usual template, but not fully. The Companion does not retreat. She reaches for it. She clings to it. Entity 0 gathers her. The word "cradles" appears in three separate reviewer notes, and I am allowing it despite its lack of clinical precision because nothing else is accurate, and assumes a protective posture. Audio, though degraded, captures the Companion's voice saying something indistinct, and Entity 0 responding with a single word. Audio analysis has been unable to confirm the word. Dr. ██████ believes it was "never." The camera fails shortly after.

ASSESSMENT OF CONSEQUENCES

I said in Section 7.2 of the Entity 0 dossier that I did not want to see what it does to us. I have now seen it. I was right not to want to.

But the killings are not the primary concern of this report. Soldiers die. Operations fail. This is the nature of work in the Backrooms. The primary concern is what this incident has done to years of carefully maintained observational neutrality between M.E.G. and Entity 0.

Entity 0 tolerated us. That is not an exaggeration or a simplification. We have operated monitoring equipment on Level 0 for eighteen months. Entity 0 knew it was there. It knew we were watching. And it allowed it, the way a homeowner allows a bird to nest in their gutter. Not because they approve, but because it doesn't bother them enough to act.

That tolerance is, as of this incident, in question.

Within 48 hours of IR-0-27, the following changes were observed:

Level ███ remains nonexistent. Repeated attempts to locate it via all known access points have failed. Dr. ██████ has formally recommended that it be struck from the Backrooms cartography index. The level is not missing. It was unmade. The temporal scarring along Entity 0's transit path shows no sign of healing or regeneration. This is, as far as we can determine, permanent. An entire level of the Backrooms has been permanently destroyed as a byproduct of Entity 0's emotional response to a threat against the Companion. 

M.E.G. monitoring equipment on Level 0, sublevel ██████ through ██████, ceased functioning. Not damaged. Removed. Every sensor, every camera, every seismic monitor. Gone. No debris. No evidence of destruction. The equipment is simply no longer there.

Three M.E.G. personnel conducting routine observation on Level 0 reported that the hallways they had used for months had "rearranged." Routes that previously led to confirmed Companion sighting locations now terminate in dead ends. Level 0 has been restructured. We believe Entity 0 has deliberately altered the architecture to prevent future observation.

The Companion has not been sighted since IR-0-27. She is not at any previously confirmed location. The blanket nest—documented across seven sighting reports as Entity 0's primary base of operation with the Companion—is empty. Every blanket, every scavenged item, every trace of habitation has been removed. As though no one was ever there.

Entity 0 has not been sighted on Level 0 since IR-0-27.

The implication is clear: Entity 0 has relocated the Companion. To where, we do not know. Dr. ██████ has proposed that they may have moved to a sublevel of Level 0 that is not represented in our current mapping. A level beneath the level, a space that Entity 0 has carved out or always possessed and simply never used until now. Until it had a reason to hide something it could not afford to lose.

We have, in the space of one unauthorised operation conducted by an agency that ignored every warning we provided, lost the single greatest research asset in the history of M.E.G. entity studies. The Companion is gone. Our access is gone. Years of carefully accumulated observational data has been rendered functionally useless because the subject has moved to a location we cannot find and sealed the door behind it.

FORMAL OBJECTIONS

I want the following on the record:

M.E.G. explicitly, repeatedly, and in writing recommended against any attempt to extract, contain, or engage the Companion. These recommendations were provided to the Agency through proper inter-organisational channels on ██/██/198█, ██/██/198█, ██/██/198█, ██/██/199█, ██/██/199█, and ██/██/199█. Each was acknowledged. None were followed.

The Companion was not a hostage. She verbally refused extraction, clearly, and on camera. The Agency proceeded with force. This is not a rescue. This is an assault on a civilian by a government-adjacent organisation operating without jurisdiction inside a space they do not understand.

The Companion was injured. She fought back and was beaten to the ground for it. She bled. And the thing that has been protecting her heard her scream its name. We told them what it does to things that threaten what belongs to it. We told them. They didn't listen. At least six people are dead because they didn't listen.

Entity 0 has, until now, operated within a framework that M.E.G. was beginning to understand. It was predictable. Perhaps not in its actions, but in its priorities. The Companion was the variable. The Companion was the key. And now the Companion is gone, and Entity 0 has demonstrated that its response to perceived threats is not merely violent but architectural. It didn't just kill the threat. It restructured its entire domain to prevent the threat from recurring. It sealed Level 0. It erased its footprint. It took its Companion, and it disappeared.

An entire level of the Backrooms was destroyed. Gone. Erased from existence as collateral damage during Entity 0's transit. If there were wanderers sheltering on Level ███ they are dead. Or worse. Or something we don't have a word for because the space they occupied no longer exists in any meaningful sense. We will never know. The Agency's unauthorised operation may have cost lives far beyond the six operatives they sent in, and we have no way to calculate the true body count because there is nothing left to count.

We do not know where Entity 0 is. We do not know if it will allow future contact. We do not know if, the next time an M.E.G. operative enters Level 0, Entity 0 will distinguish between us and the Agency. We may have inherited the consequences of someone else's stupidity, and we may pay for it in personnel.

RECOMMENDATIONS

All M.E.G. operations on Level 0 are suspended indefinitely pending reassessment.

The Agency is to be formally censured and barred from independent Backrooms operations until further notice. Their response to this censure is noted and disregarded.

No further attempts to locate, contact, or extract the Companion are to be conducted by any organisation, under any authority, for any reason.

If—and I stress if—Entity 0 re-establishes contact with M.E.G. personnel, the interaction is to be treated as a diplomacy scenario, not a research scenario. Entity 0 is not a subject. Entity 0 is, functionally, a sovereign power that we have just watched an allied agency declare war on. We will conduct ourselves accordingly.

Someone needs to tell the Agency what "apex predator" means. I have included a dictionary to help and clear the confusion.

Filed: ██/██/199█

Operations Director ██████

Addendum, handwritten:

She screamed his name, and the level cracked open.

I've been doing this for eleven years. I have never seen a response that fast. 1.3 seconds. It wasn't travel. He didn't cross the distance. The distance stopped existing. She called, and the Backrooms folded to put him where she was. And everything between them—every hallway, every corridor, every room, an entire level—ceased to exist because it was in his way.

The body camera audio from the aftermath is mostly static. But there is a moment, mostly degraded, where you can hear humming. And underneath the humming, faintly, a voice. Hers. Saying "don't leave." And then his. One word.

We are not dealing with an entity that lives in the Backrooms.

We are dealing with the Backrooms. And it is in love.

God help us all.

This proposal gave him pause, but he could not see any flaw in it. It was long time for him to take a second wife, he knew, at the least to secure his line, but for his own benefit as well. He longed for companionship and the warmth of a woman, and he thought a maternal presence would help in his son’s welfare.

“I shall think on it,” he replied, and Sabitha seemed satisfied. Those were not empty words, and he truly meant to think on the matter.

“One of the men you led to King’s Landing is upstairs,” she then said, catching him off-guard—while she had ladylike manners, she was blunt and direct, which he appreciated. “His wife, my oldest daughter, is sitting with him.”

“How is he faring?” he asked with a frown.

“Dying a slow death, the one any soldier fears,” Sabitha replied, a frown of sorrow on her face.

At that, Cregan pushed from the table and rose. “Might I visit him?” he inquired, and she rose with him, gesturing for him to step into the hallway. She guided him up a few flights of stairs, higher in the tower, and he followed. At the end of a wide corridor, she knocked on a painted wooden door, then stepped aside, allowing him to enter. 

The chamber was kept comfortably warm, a blazing fire in the hearth. At the foot of the bed, sitting in a large armchair, a young woman was falling asleep on her knitting—it looked like a shawl of some sort, in a deep forest green. You startled as you saw him in the threshold, and were quick to rise, putting your knitting aside.

Cregan gestured for you to sit, but you remained standing. “I do not wish to intrude,” he said. “I simply wanted to pay my respects to my man.”

“Forgive me, my lord, for not coming down to supper,” you replied with a sad smile. “I was told you had arrived, but I was needed here.”

Cregan glanced at the sleeping man, his chest heavy—no matter how many deaths he had seen in this war, the weight of his responsibility never eased. “No need for apologies, my lady,” he offered, and at that you finally sat again, gathering your knitting on your lap.

He recognized the shield and sword propped against the foot of the bed, although the man’s face was so gray and gaunt, he could not recognize him. “He’s one of my bannermen, sworn to White Harbor,” he said solemnly, as though the recollection would help him heal.

“He was wounded during the battle on the Kingsroad. For a while we thought he would recover, as he seemed better, but then his wound would not heal, and the fever spread,” you explained with a wavering voice. “It comes and goes, but the Maester is not certain that he’ll ever regain his strength.”

Approaching the bed, he watched the man’s face with attention. “May I be of any service?” he asked.

“There is nothing to be done but pray,” you replied. “The master says he has many wounds on the inside that only the Gods can heal.”

“Then I shall pray,” he promised.

To your greatest surprise, it was not the only night Lord Cregan came to visit. Night after night he sat with you, watching as life faded from your husband’s face. Whether it was out of guilt or a strong sense of duty, you could not tell, but you were grateful nonetheless. 

“Surely you have better things to do, Lord Stark,” you said after a week of his nightly visits. 

An armchair had been brought near the fire, at the other side of the bed from you, and the two of you spoke in whispers all through the darkness. You spoke of the ways this war had changed the realm, of your hopes for the winter and beyond, and you found a true, honest friend in him. He was younger than he appeared, and than you would have expected from the Warden of the North, but his calm presence grounded you and gave you courage.

The two of you spoke until slumber claimed you where you sat, and every morning, you woke up with a shawl draped over you, and the other chair empty. 

“Your husband gave his life for this realm under my orders, I can give him my time,” he replied. “Perhaps you would like to sleep in your own bed tonight. I shall sit with him.”

Grateful for the offer, you still shook your head. “I would not leave him when he needs me most,” you argued. “The Maester says he knows I am here, even when he is not conscious.”

It was a foolish hope, perhaps, to think that he knew of your presence. In truth you prayed that he did not feel a thing, nor understand the slow decay of his own body. It was the only way you could keep your sanity, and it seemed your nightly companion understood.

During the day Cregan saw to his men resting and gathering provisions for the journey to Winterfell and to their own keeps—it was taking longer than anticipated and Sabitha had requested that he remained longer, to oversee the matches between some of his soldiers and Riverland widows.

He could tell that the prospective marriage between him and her youngest daughter was still very much on her mind, and he knew it would do his people well if he were to return from war with a wife and a new, beneficial alliance.

Therefore one gray afternoon he lingered in the hall after luncheon, the Freys’ youngest girl having no doubt been instructed to entertain him. She was comely but barely of age, and he regretted that he had so little patience and judged her so harshly. War had not soothed his temper, if anything it had made him more severe than he used to be.

“I don't understand why she sits with him for days on end,” the young woman said in the course of conversation, taking him aback. “They were barely husband and wife before he was summoned to war.”

“She is his wife. She is living by her vows,” he replied, confused and dismayed. 

“She does not love him,” the young woman continued, and while he could not blame her for her directness, he disliked her lack of care for the fundamentals of duty. “She does not know him enough to love him, and yet she is wasting away, watching him die.”

“Love is not needed to sustain a marriage,” Cregan tried to explain. “Duty is enough.”

She did not seem convinced by his explanation, and he found himself rather disappointed by her words. Instead he rose when a servant walked past with a basket of fresh linens, and he offered to take what she was carrying to the wounded man upstairs. The young lady Frey seemed sorry that he would take his leave from her, but let him go without protest. 

Cregan entered the room as he had done every day for nearly a fortnight now, and kept his silence as he wiped the sweat from his man’s brow and pulled the covers tighter around him. “You seem upset,” he finally said, noticing how unusually crestfallen your face was.

“My sister means no harm, but she still causes it sometimes,” you replied, and he understood then what had prompted her words, and the reason why the matter had been on the young lady’s mind. “She has childish fancies. I don't hold them against her, after all she is young and she will still learn. I simply pray she does not learn through grief as I have.”

“Grief comes for all of us, at one time in our life or another,” he replied, rather clumsily, but you did not contradict him.

“No one here knows what it is like, to stand watch over a spouse at the Stranger’s door, waiting for death to take them,” you said, tears strangling your voice.

At that Cregan set the wet cloth aside and took his seat in the armchair, pondering his words before he said them. “As a matter of fact, I do know,” he replied solemnly. “I watched my own wife die of childbed fever.”

It was a terrible admission, his voice still full of pain, and yet you were soothed by it, knowing you were not alone in your sorrow. “I am sorry,” you whispered, to which he answered with only silence. “I suppose I can only be grateful I did not know him well.”

“Your sister spoke of it,” he said, prompting her to continue.

With the shadow of a smile upon your lips, you did. “We were betrothed quickly, once war was declared,” you told him. “We barely had time to say our vows that he had gone. Mere days. He served the realm, and now I serve him.”

“Duty means a lot to you,” Cregan remarked, letting his admiration show in the tone of his voice.

“Duty is everything. Sacrifice comes with it,” you replied. 

Then, as you had rarely done when he was present, you allowed your tears to flow down your cheeks, sorrow shaking your shoulders. “I have thought, at times, when he writhes in pain in his sleep, to take a pillow and deliver him of his misery,” you sobbed, and Cregan was speared by your admission, his admiration only burning brighter. “Do you think me a monster?” you asked. 

“No, on the contrary,” he answered honestly. “I have had to do it only too often on the battlefield.”

He wished to reach out and lay a hand on your shoulder, but he did not know whether his gesture would be welcome. “All any soldier wishes is to die in battle. It is unfair that he should lay in this bed and wait for death to claim him,” he mused out loud. “I pray that she comes for him quickly.”

“She?” you inquired.

“I believe in the old gods of the North. To me, death is an old woman,” he explained. “She comes and takes you by the hand into a gentle river.”

The way you looked at him then, your eyes wide and earnest, displaced something in his chest he did not know had stuck. “It sounds peaceful,” you said with a small smile.

For the next few days, Cregan braced himself for the inevitable—he could see the resolve in your eyes, the certainty of what you had to do, and were preparing yourself to. He knew it to be mercy, having watched as your husband writhed in agony, his skin gone pale and wet with fever, the wounds on his body infected beyond what the Maester could heal, or even soothe.

On the third night of this agony, near dawn, Cregan slipped into the room only to find it empty. You were not standing vigil as you usually were, and he saw it as confirmation of what he had to do. He had already seen many deaths and caused too many himself—perhaps this one would be the only meaningful one, if he could spare you the act of taking a life.

In solemn silence, he approached the bed and kissed the man’s brow. “Rest now, lad. The realm is safe, you may go in peace,” he murmured for only the Gods to hear, and did his duty.

It was only a few hours later, once dawn had risen over the two towers, that you found him outside, near the Weirwood tree, sitting in silent prayer. He raised his gaze to you, finding your eyes rimmed with red but a sense of relief in the line of your shoulders. “Thank you,” you said.

“Whatever for?” he asked, rising to meet you.

“For guiding him into the river,” you replied, your face falling in grateful sobs.

This time he did not restrain himself, taking a step forward until you were sobbing in his arms, his hand into your hair, holding the back of your head. “I took him to the battlefield. I could not let him cross the river alone,” he simply said, and somehow, it was enough.

Soon after that, the day of departure came, following the funeral ceremony of your husband, but Cregan knew he could not leave the Twins without making his intentions known. He found Lady Sabitha in her private sitting room, at her desk with a quill and ink. She looked up at him expectantly when he entered, as though she knew why he was requesting an audience.

“I have come to ask for your daughter’s hand,” he said, and Sabitha’s eyes crinkled in satisfaction. “But not the youngest,” he added after a beat of silence.

At that, she seemed taken aback, setting down her parchment. “Oh?” she asked, and for a moment he worried she was displeased with the proposal.

These few weeks sitting at your side had only convinced him that this was the right choice to make—as the battlefield bonded men that fought together, watching over your husband had shown him enough of your character for him to know he could not ask for your sister’s hand. He did not need a young woman with fancies about love, but someone who would stand on equal ground with him, and not shy away from grievous matters.

“I have seen too much of war and grief,” he explained as gracefully as he could. “Your oldest daughter knows much of the harshness of the world already, and I need someone by my side who can bear the burden of duty.”

“I pray you do not feel an obligation towards her, as her husband was your bannerman,” she said, and he appreciated her concern.

“I do not,” he refuted calmly. “She would do well in the North as Lady of Winterfell, whereas I feel your youngest too delicate for the duties that await.”

“Very well,” Sabitha said. “However she still mourns her husband, and will for quite some time.”

“I shall return when spring comes, and make my proposal then,” he offered, and Sabitha agreed.  

Time passed and he thought of you often, through the darkest and coldest months of winter. He told little Rickon of the woman whose companionship he hoped for, and that with spring a new Lady of Winterfell would surely arrive. After nearly sixteen moons, a shorter winter than he had expected, spring started to thaw the lakes, and green returned to the large fields around the castle.

Delegating his duties to the young lord Cerwyn who assisted him, he was readying to depart and ride south again in a few days to renew his proposal when he was interrupted by one of the men that guarded the ramparts. 

“There is a small party coming,” the guard told him. “A few horses carrying the Frey banners.”

Cregan was surprised by this, but suddenly hopeful that his proposal would take place sooner than he had expected. He came outside into the courtyard, and was proved right with who awaited him.

“I hope my presence is not an imposition,” you said as you dismounted your mare with ease, running a hand along the great gray horse’s side. 

Winter had changed you, he thought at first, but then realized it was the first time he was seeing you without the veil of grief. It suited your face, turning your eyes brighter. “Not at all, I believe it to be quite expected,” Cerwyn said with a pointed look before taking his leave.

“He is right. I was readying to ride to the Twins within the week,” Cregan confirmed. “I take it your mother has told you of my proposal.”

“Indeed she has,” you replied. “I have come here to accept it.”

Cregan breathed a sigh of relief at this, gesturing for you to follow him inside. “Then I welcome you to Winterfell, my lady,” he said. “If you are certain this is what you wish.”

“I have had enough time to sit with my grief,” you said as he welcomed you into the main hall where a large hearth was blazing, warmth seeping into the stones. “You carried me through my darkest time, and now I can only hope you will carry me through happier years.”

“I will,” he replied.

The rest of the day was used to show you the castle, as well as to settle you into your chambers, which were smaller than the ones you’d enjoyed at the Twins, but kept warmth far more easily. You had brought with you tapestries and your deceased husband’s shield, which you had kept as a precious token.

Once your possessions had been put away as you liked, you sought Cregan out and found him in his own room, divested of his heavy leathers and furs—it was the first time you were seeing him as a simple man, and not the Lord of Winterfell. 

The way he was looking at you, with infinite gentleness in his dark eyes, banished any lingering doubts you may have had. “I was told it was tradition for the Warden to share a chamber with his wife,” you said with a small smile.

“Indeed,” he confirmed. 

Without a word you came to him, and without any question needing to be asked aloud, walked into his arms. The tenderness he had felt for you at the Twins roared back to life, and he pulled you tighter against him, waving his fingers through your hair. Your own hands tightened into the fabric of his shirt, cradling his broad back. Never had he thought he would find the first embers of love in such a dark place as the one he had met you, but he was grateful the Gods had brought him to you.

“When I told my sister of my departure, she said you had told her you do not believe love to be necessary to sustain a marriage,” you said after a minute of blissful silence, your voice muffled into his chest.

“That is true,” he confirmed.

“I hope you might find it in your heart to love me one day, as I know I will surely come to love you,” you admitted, and at that he reached for your chin, bringing it up until you were facing him, and dipped his head to press a kiss to your lips.

“I know I will, and I would show you, if you allowed it?” he asked, to which you nodded. 

Solemnly, almost reverently if such was possible from a man of his stature, he undid the laces at your back, but you did not feel the cold as your skin was bared from its layers. Pulling his own shirt above his head, he took you into his arms once more, and you were grateful to bury your face into his skin, enjoying the soft, dark hair that grew over his chest and stomach.

The two of you shared a joyful breath as he pulled you up effortlessly, your legs wrapping around his waist, and guided you to the bed, where he set you down upon the warm furs. Looming over you, he kissed you harder, his tongue curling with yours as one of his hands explored the curve that ran from your side to your knee, hooking it over his hip.

In the cradle of your thighs, his hardness was pressing a line of heat at your core. He allowed you the time to rock back against him as you wished, content to kiss your neck and your breasts while you found your pleasure underneath him. He had missed the touch of a woman, the heady feeling of a woman’s desire against his own, and even though he knew what he felt was not quite yet love, he was certain that it would not take long. 

“Slow,” he murmured when he finally pressed his length inside of you—you arched your back and sighed as though he was soothing an ache in your body, and it made him groan aloud. Whether his instruction was for your sake or his, he could not tell. 

The extent of your mutual longing only made itself clear when pleasure took hold of the both of you. Tears came to the corner of your eyes and he kissed them, cradling you against him, your own hands digging half-moons into his broad back. “Cregan,” you sighed, and uttering his name felt like a deliverance, an oath.

Pleasure crested slow and steady, strong, anchoring you into your flesh. The weight of war and grief poured out of you and him alike, the two of you finally finding solace in each other’s touch, and in the promise that whatever fate would befall you, neither of you would face it alone.

A/N: Dividers by @/saradika. Based on a request by @multyfangirl.

Cregan taglist: @kateris-world @elleclairez @watercolorskyy @praline357 @whodis-26

@elle-28 @hb8301 @flawroses @random-shit-i-like-2 @heavenly1927

@thegeminithrone @vixemi @rockerchick05 @maniccrystalhippie @melsunshine

@siimiasoi @mxtokko @apollonshootafar @thenameswinter99 @multyfangirl

@alawnuhyawpp @arrozyfrijoles23 @r-3dlips @yujyujj @lessdepressy

@blessedbymoon @deltamoon666 @writingjourney @still-jon-snow @vampzv

Until another full moon comes, or a call from Regulus in fear that things have escalated again. Or your boss has decided you’re too valuable for your job to let you go. Hours rise, missed moments, you stay silent because it’ll pass. Everything’s still fresh, you need to find your footing between them, and you can’t expect them to fully settle into this relationship when life itself won’t let them. It’s fine. You’re patient, you’re learning, and so are they. Because you know they love you, and you love them. So you wait, you stay silent and take what they give you— 

“I don’t know, love,” Lily murmurs, eyebrows twitched together as she listens to you. She sets another folded blanket aside before looking up at you. “Doesn’t sound healthy to me.”

“It’ll get better,” you assure her again, almost distractingly as you trace idle patterns on baby Harry’s head. He’s finally managed to fall asleep, maybe James is right and your touch is godsend. 

When you look up, trying to share a triumphant smile with Lily, she’s got a look that makes it dim. Not that it was very wide, they barely get to your ears lately. Your smiles come and go, but they never stay long enough. 

Of course, you don’t let it linger too much. “Don’t worry about me, Lily,” you whisper, rising to your feet with Harry in your arms. The baby boy doesn’t rouse, nor does he wake as you lower him to his cradle. “I’ll be fine, yeah?”

Lily nods, watching as you kneel low enough to continue tracing figures on Harry’s hand, his little cheeks and forehead. Touch featherlight and lips twitched into a fond little smile, smaller and smaller as time goes on. 

“I know you will,” she says after a long silence. “It’s just, y/n… you seem so sad for a girl so in love.”

You don’t answer, and Lily stands to go and put the blankets away. But her words hang in the air. Heavy in your chest and clinging to you even after you leave. Even when you get home to the lights on, hope flickering inside of you as you unlock the door. Even when you walk into the flat to see Remus and Sirius cuddled up on the sofa after a trying day. Even when you smile and offer each of them a cup of tea. Even when Sirius scoots a little to the side to make space for you. Even when, in his deep slumber, Remus reaches for your hand under the thick blanket. Even when you wake the next morning, and they’re gone. 

The flat is warm, and they’ve left you a freshly made cup of coffee on the kitchen table. Probably Remus. With a note. big day at the ministry, had to rush. see you at dinner? love you. sirius xx. You set it down, next to the fresh bouquet and drink your coffee in silence.  

You go through the motions right after. Put on a relaxing record on Sirius’ turntable, light on a candle and hope the lavender helps Remus’ migraines when he comes home. You tidy a bit between sips and changes of outfits, and pluck a flower from the bouquet to use as a bookmark before leaving the flat to go to your own job. 

It’ll pass, you tell yourself. Maybe being sad is a downside that no one tells you about being in love. A secret code that you must discover yourself. Whatever it is, you won’t let it taunt this, because it is a virtue to not let good love slip away. Because it is, even if it’s unhealthy or sad at times—you know, deep in your bones, that this love is good. So maybe staying silent and enduring a bit of uncertainty is a little frustrating, but is nothing compared to the love you know they feel for you. And you feel for them.

At work, you busy yourself being useful. Even if it’s a bit boring at times. Marlene makes a joke that the girl working at the Level 6 coffee shop has a massive crush on her, you pile on with your coworkers that maybe she’s just nice and has nothing to do with Marlene being a retired Quidditch star. Dorcas comes down to visit at some point and steals her away, and you have a stretch of free time where busying yourself being useful isn’t doing the trick anymore. 

Then, Sirius comes down from his Wizengamot meeting with a tense posture but a smile to ease any stress away. He kisses you and flirts with you before dragging you out for a quick lunch, claiming he’s famished and that maybe you should stop by Level 4 to coax Remus out of his cubicle. You let him, swallowing down questions about his meeting knowing well he’ll say it went well because he doesn’t want to worry you. You share a smoke outside the café after lunch, fussing over Remus and the upcoming full moon and how you shouldn’t worry about it because it’s the least they want for you. He dips you low with a long and sweet kiss before saying goodbye. You don’t ask where he’s going, knowing he’s meeting up with Regulus.

You do walk back inside the café to order a quick lunch for Remus, they wrap it warm and ready for you to drop it off at his cubicle on your way to yours. He looks up from his work, stressed and easily irritable. But never to you. You know it’s the full moon, and his migraines, so you kiss his head and wish him a good day before taking the elevator back to your level. 

Remus goes to find you hours later, looking apologetic and wondering if he can spend his lunch hour with you. You pretend to be casual about it, smiling and preparing two cups of tea for you instead of making it a big deal. To not make it so obvious, how you take whatever they give you. A shared smoke, a shared lunch—small stretches of time of their days before you have to return home. Alone. 

You water the flowers, you change into comfortable clothes and put on a film while you wait for them to return. It’s still early, anyway. The book Remus has been trying to read is on the coffee table, and maybe he won’t mind if you start reading it yourself. He hasn’t touched it in weeks, maybe if he sees you read it he’ll get out of his slump. You don’t get much into the book, but it’s nice. It’s nice to feel connected to him, somehow. 

The night stretches, and you make dinner for three. Leaving their plates on the counter ready to heat up for them to eat, it’s okay. You can sit with them while they debrief about their day, they’ve already told you that it’s okay to eat before them if you’re hungry. You bring dinner to the living room, and a small glass of wine. One you mentioned in passing to love and the same one Sirius stocked you up the next day. The film you choose is barely entertaining, but the thematic cores still make you cry. 

They come home later, together and very tired. Sharing murmurs and whispers, apologies about being away from each other and you for the entire day. Ready to share a small stretch of time before heading to bed. But all they find is a lavender candle on, Sirius’ wine and two glasses at the table, and their plates ready to heat up. It’s nearly midnight, and they know because of your calendar on the fridge that you have an early meeting tomorrow, so they eat in silence knowing you’re sound asleep in the room. Aware that you fell asleep waiting for them. 

₊˚⊹ ᢉ𐭩

The next morning, you don’t go to work. There’s no meeting. Or at least that early in the morning. Not like you’ve written down in your calendar. You prepare coffee for three, and water the flowers and write them a little note for them to find when they wake up. big meeting today! wish me luck, can’t wait to tell you all about it later. i love you. yn xx. The flat is silent, but smelling like coffee and lavender when you close the door behind you. 

You head directly to St. Mungo’s, to find a healer that can tell you what’s wrong with you. You’ve searched up symptoms, possible outcomes to your uneasiness and why you keep feeling the way you do. Desperate to fix whatever’s wrong with you and do it quickly, erase it before they can notice it. Before they can realize they’re what’s wrong with you. 

So when the healer says you’re fine, you stay silent. You nod and let her go on about possible reasons, work, maybe hormones, maybe you’re coming down with something. You stay silent and accept her instructions for a few potions that could help, thank her on your way out and head directly to the Ministry. 

When it’s lunchtime, your heart does a somersault when you step out of your cubicle to see them step out of the elevator. Remus holds the flowers when it’s obvious Sirius can’t, carrying various takeout containers from your favourite restaurant near the flat. You try not to be so obvious, how pathetically happy you feel by their presence. You try to push down your need to cling, to cling to them and accept their kisses and the way they listen to your made up stories about the meeting. In return, you try, maybe, with the confidence of this olive branch, to ask them about their endeavors. If Remus needs you to run to the shop for any wolfsbane or other potions he might need. If Sirius maybe wants company the next time he has to talk to Regulus. 

So when they turn it down, brush down your help and claim you shouldn't worry about them, that it’s too much and heavy for you to bear, you stay silent. You smile and continue eating and answering their questions about your day. You nod and laugh at their jokes and try not to cling to hope when they leave with a kiss each and a promise to see you later at James and Lily’s for Harry’s six months celebration. 

When Marlene returns from her own lunch break, you only suppress the weight on your chest. You smile and fill her in on your surprise visit, you ask her questions in return and she answers with a smile that rings the alarms in your head.

“What?”

She hums, turning in her chair. “Nothing, s’just… are you okay?”

You frown. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You just…” she scratches her eyebrow. Her nervous tell. “you just told me your boyfriends surprised you with flowers and a whole banquet for lunch, and yet you sound like someone ripped your heart out.”

You ignore the way her words feel like a crack in your heart, knowing they come out of a place of love and worry. “Have you been talking to Lily lately?”

Marlene sits straight. “Should I?”

“No.” You say immediately, turning to your desk and resume working. “I meant about Harry. Did she say what time we should be there?”

“Uh…” she looks around. “y/n.”

“I think I’ll get there earlier. Harry’s been a tad fussier lately and,” you go on, stream rolling any of her attempts to reroute the conversation to your obvious, apparently to everyone but yourself, sadness. “I’m sure she’ll need help setting everything up.”

Before she can speak, you make up a quick excuse to run to the loo. Marlene watches you go, knowing you’re not going to the loo. Not when you’ve taken your wallet with you. She only returns to her work and covers for you when your boss walks by and notices you’re not at your desk. 

You don’t go to the loo. You slip out of the Ministry and head towards Diagon Alley, desperate enough to bypass any worries that someone might recognize when you step into the apothecary with the healer’s written instructions. You buy your potions and drink them in a rush, hoping they’ll ease whatever’s wrong with you before tonight. When you return to your desk, Marlene asks you about work, and you return to your normal routine before clocking out.

Before heading to the Potter’s, you stop by the flat to change quickly and collect Harry’s gift. You suck in a nervous breath before pushing the door open, knowing it’s useless to hope but doing it anyway when you step inside. It’s exactly how they must’ve left it in the morning. The mugs are cleaned and set up on the cupboard. You put them where they belong, knowing it’s an easy mistake to make. You take the old bouquet and replace it with the new one and walk into your room to change. 

You take time picking your clothes, and pretend it’s not for them. You freshen up and collect Harry’s gift before walking out of the flat, heading towards the Potters with a weight on your chest that dissipates slowly with every step closer to the cottage. Before knocking, you suck in a breath and put on your best smile. Or what you hope is genuine enough. 

It’s okay, though. Because James opens the door with Harry in his arms, and the pain disappears almost magically. James makes small talk, knowing what he’s trying to tiptoe around and not giving him reasons to worry. Work is fine. Remus is doing better, his knee isn’t troubling him that much lately. I think Sirius had a small breakthrough with Regulus, I heard he’s accepted to look for flats. Me? I’m okay. I can’t believe Harry is already six months old. Just the usual. When Lily joins the conversation, sending you a knowing look, you go silent. 

Good thing Harry loves to fill your silences. A quiet and absurdly funny agreement you somehow managed to create with him. He gargles and giggles at you, holding your hand and asking you to walk him around the cottage like a glorified chauffeur. 

When the rest of the guests arrive, one by one, you pretend to be busy helping Lily make sure nothing’s missing when you poke your head out the kitchen every time the door opens. Hoping. Hoping. Hoping. Even if you tell yourself it’s just a matter of practically, checking who’s missing before setting plates out. You’re definitely not waiting for them to cross the threshold. 

Except, when they do, you barely notice. 

Harry has forced you to sequester yourself to his nursery to help him sleep. Candles have been blown, pictures have been taken and gifts opened, the baby is tired and Lily is too happy and cheerful with the festivities to make her leave. So you offer to put him to sleep. You trace idle patterns on his forehead, touch tender and featherlight; your fingertip travels from his eyebrows to his little nose and cheek and up again. He falls asleep not long after and you return to the party feeling a tiny bit lighter. 

“There you are, m’love.” Sirius says as soon as you climb the last step. Your heart picks up rhythm, tugging towards him where he meets you in the middle. When he plants a kiss on the side of your face, you feel stupidly teary. “I thought you went home.”

“I was with Harry,” you explain, savoring the way he hugs you. Selfishly, almost. But quick, too quick. You school your expression before it can give you away as he steps away. “Took a bit, but he’s sound asleep.”

“Thank you!” James calls out from the living room. “It’s almost a miracle how quickly you can put him to sleep.”

“She truly has the magic touch,” Sirius says agreeably, tucking you to his side. “Don’t you, love?”

“I think so,” you shrug, smiling a bit. 

“You do.” Remus says, reaching for you in the same way your heart stutters with hope. With love and affection and everything that has been craving. “Hi, saved you a piece of cake while you were upstairs.”

You blink, dazed and overwhelmed by their presence. “Oh. Thank you,” you accept it, wiggling your fingers before setting a hand out and hiding the way they shake. Remus is too busy kissing your cheek in greeting to notice, and you’re eating the cake before he can start paying attention. “When did you get here?”

“A while ago,” Sirius answers, tugging you with him towards the living room for the empty loveseat they’ve left for you. He smiles as he sits, eyeing you appreciatively. You try to control the way your heart flutters. “You look lovely.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course,” he pats the empty spot beside him, a funny lilt to his tone. “You always do. Doesn’t she, Moons?”

“She does,” Remus agrees readily, sitting down on the armrest by your side. His arm comes around your shoulders, without thought. It’s too much. “Is this the new dress you were talking about?”

You clear your throat. “Yeah. Got it the other day on my way from work.”

Remus hums appreciatingly, too. You look down at your cake, knowing how intoxicating their combined appreciation and affection can be. 

“y/n?”

You look away, searching for whoever’s calling for you. “Hm?”

Lily gestures at you from the bannister. “I think Harry woke up, can you… help me?”

“Of course,” you nod, standing up. Sirius wordlessly accepts your half eaten cake, frowning when he feels a light tremor in your fingers when they brush. “I’ll be right back.”

“Sure thing, dovey.” Remus nods, sliding down the armrest to take your vacated seat. Sirius wordlessly makes room for him as the conversation picks up again.

You climb the stairs with a knot in your chest.

When you get to the top, you’re surprised by how silent it is. No wailing Harry, not even fussing with discomfort. Complete silence, and Lily studying you quietly. Almost worryingly.

“What is it?”

“Do you need a couple of minutes?” she asks instead. 

“What?” 

“y/n…”

“I don’t. I’m okay.” You say quickly, feeling indescribably irritated by the interruption. For being dragged away from your boyfriends. “I’m fine.”

“Just—”

“Lily. I know, I know, okay?” you take a step back, down the stairs. “But I’m fine, I promise. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I sort of do, love. You’re… well—”

“I’m fine,” you repeat. With finality. “Thank you, though.”

Before she can speak, you turn around to rejoin the festivities. Remus doesn’t move from the spot, but he does reach for you to sit on his lap. Not quite between them, just there. The conversation goes on smoothly, Lily climbs down a moment later and you feel guilt gnaw at your insides when your gazes meet. She sends you a reassuring smile before sitting down. 

At some point, Remus stands, claiming his knee is troubling him from sitting down all day. He drops a placating kiss to your shoulder before you can ask, or offer to go home. Sirius reaches for your hands when you’re back to his side, threading your fingers together and bringing your joined hands to his lap, then his chest. You feel drunk and happy and overwhelmed all at once. You don’t mind the way Remus shrugs down your help with his knee, not when he doesn’t pull away like other times. Maybe… maybe things are changing. 

As the night stretches and you say goodbye to your friends, the three of you go home with tension lingering between you. It grows and grows the more they touch you, the more they kiss you and the more you wish you could just go home and let them properly love you. And that they do. Careful and slow and steady and gentle and everything you had wanted for months. They kiss you and hold you and caress you until you’re spent and tired. You shower and share kisses and return to bed hours later into the night, even when the sun is beginning to peek between the clouds. You climb between them after returning from the kitchen, setting the mugs and the coffee grounds in hopes of sharing a quick breakfast before heading out for work. Sirius reaches for you in his sleep, and you fall asleep content and more in love than ever. 

When you wake, there’s a steaming cup of coffee on the nightstand, and two empty spots by your sides. The note by your alarm clock goes to your purse along with the rest. emergency situation at grimmauld place. will not be back until tomorrow cos of the full moon. we love you, s&r xx. You return to bed and cry yourself to sleep, or at least until your alarm goes off. Then, you’re off to work. 

₊˚⊹ ᢉ𐭩

After work, you go to the healer again, and you leave St. Mungo’s with an even heavier weight on your chest and a note with a number for a muggle healer. The mind kind. The kind that, according to her, would be of more help than anyone at that hospital. You shove the number deep inside your purse and go home. 

You go through the motions; tidy a bit, prepare everything for Remus, leave his potions and remedies at hand next to his side of the bed. You change the sheets again and stock up on tea and sweets. You go to a corner shop and look for the specific kind of biscuits Sirius likes, because you know he’ll be exhausted and fragile after handling whatever emergency at Grimmaul Place with Regulus and then the full moon. Then stop for the apothecary again for wolfsbane and more potions your healer instructed you to take whenever you resorted “to feeling wrong” again. You shove the potions deep inside your purse and return to the flat. 

When you get to the floor, you’re surprised to find the door lightly ajar, only one push does it to let you in. You look around, categorizing the little ways you can help. But your boyfriends have made quick work of the things you’ve left out for them. The tea has been prepared, the gauzes used and the jar of wolfsbane has been emptied and left to be on the kitchen sink. You venture deep inside the flat, not even shredding your coat or purse or boots before tiptoeing inside your room.

Sirius looks up from the edge of the bed where he’s setting a damp cloth over Remus’ head. Cold for his migraines. He makes you a silencing gesture before standing up, arm coming around your waist to guide you out the room and closing the door behind him.

You can’t help it, you still ask. “How is he?”

“He’s been better,” he answers. The same as always. Vague enough to not worry you further. “Where were you?”

“Went to… uh,” you blink. Mind going blank. Sirius frowns, bending sideways to search for your gaze when it takes you a bit to answer. You clear your throat. “Sorry, um, I went to get wolfsbane. I didn’t know if we had any left so…”

His shoulders slump. “Oh, my love,” he hugs you. And it’s pathetic how you nearly melt into his arms. “you shouldn’t have. It’s too expensive, you know I always cover that.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Still,” he squeezes you tight before letting go. You feel uncomfortably teary when he takes a step back. “You shouldn’t worry about this. I know you, it’ll make you sick with worry.”

You almost laugh. But the sound could wake Remus up, and honestly, you don’t feel like laughing. Not really. So you stay silent, and let Sirius hug you again. 

Once again, you hate yourself for asking. “Is…” you clear your throat. “Is Regulus okay? What happened?”

Like clockwork, Sirius steps back. He cups your face in his hands. “He’s okay,” he answers, but you know it’s mostly a lie. His throat bobbles like he’s pushing down something else. “Just… a bit of a false alarm. But he’s okay. Nothing to worry about.”

You take it for what it is. And you stay silent, nodding and pushing down the lump in your throat when he kisses your forehead. This time, you don’t feel your heart cracking when he steps back, eyes flickering to the room like he wants to check on Remus. You wordlessly take a step aside, letting him know it’s okay before turning to walk out the door. A full moon routine—stock up, come home, do a quick check up and pretend it’s your own decision to go outside to clear your head. Knowing Remus doesn’t want you to see him like this. You leave with a heavy heart and the same question you ask yourself every full moon, why does Sirius get to stay and not you? But now, with an equally heavy purse, you leave with an additional realization that maybe they’re what’s wrong with you.

₊˚⊹ ᢉ𐭩

It’s the end of the month, and the Ministry is a mess, everyone’s running around and getting work done, struggling to finish on time and ultimately staying extra hours to get the job done. Which means that they’ve seen less and less of you. Even if, funnily enough, things have gotten better. 

Regulus has successfully moved out of Grimmauld Place, signing a lease for a small home near Diagon Alley and turning his back to the Black Legacy. Remus has been promoted at his cubicle job, less hours and more perks. The past full moon was a cruel one but according to his calculations it won’t come back until a few more years in a strange astronomy breakthrough. Things look up for them now, but now you’re not there to be on the receiving end of said good news. 

They see you in passing between shared lunches and surprise visits, sharing kisses when you run through each other in the hallways and pretend they’re not going home to an empty flat. 

It isn’t until Marlene accidentally walks in on you crying in the Level 10 bathrooms that it’s collectively decided that something needs to be done. In the moment, though, all she manages to come up with is an elaborate excuse to get you out of the Ministry and back home before marching to Level 4 and not being at all surprised when Sirius is already there with Remus. Not even casual, just straight up flirting.

“You heartless little shits,” she gripes. 

Sirius twists, flashing her a grin. “To what do we owe that lovely moniker?”

“Don’t act so charming, Black,” she snaps. There’s genuine anger in her tone to make him falter, even Remus sits straight in his chair. 

“What’s the problem with you?” he frowns, never one to back down from a challenge. “Are you even allowed out of your desk? With all the work you’re supposed to be doing?”

“And how are you supposed to know that?”

Sirius scoffs good naturedly. “Have you forgotten?” he leans back on the edge of the desk, stealing a sip from Remus’ tea. “We’ve got the loveliest insider keeping tabs on you.”

Marlene bristles. Actually bristles. “I just found this ‘lovely insider’ crying at the deepest level of this fucking building.”

Remus stands. “What?”

“When? Now?” Sirius pushes himself to stand.

She scoffs. “Now you want to know?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I won’t explain to you what you’ve been too blind to notice,” she snaps, all sharp edges and barely controlled fury. “Go home. Now.”

Remus reaches for his coat, not even stopping to think how this might look to his boss. They’re out of the Ministry in record time, not even taking the walk home and straight up using the Floo Network to get to the flat. Hearts up their throats and a heaviness that, finally, matches the one you’ve been carrying for months. 

Except, when they get home, it’s empty. Exactly how you left it that morning. The brand new flowers at the center of the kitchen remain damp and recently watered, the mugs have been washed and put away in their respective shelves. But you’re nowhere to be seen. You must’ve taken the long way home. 

Sirius exhales deeply, slumping on the couch. He runs a hand through his face, calm at first before it turns cruel and painful. He rubs at his eyes and presses his heels until he sees stars, until Remus crosses the living room to guide them away. They share a silence, acutely aware of how deafening your absence is. 

“She’s been quiet lately.” Remus murmurs, pacing around the coffee table. He takes the book at the center, under the candle and one he recognizes. One he’s been meaning to read for months. “Quieter than usual.”

“I thought it was because of her weird boss but…” Sirius trails off. “Fuck, I don’t know.”

Remus drops a kiss to his head, thumbing at his loose hairs before standing straight. “We’ll talk about it, yeah?” he says, soft and gentle despite his own nerves. “Now we wait for her to get home. It won’t be long.”

“I wish she would stop insisting on taking the tube.”

“You know how she is.”

“Yeah, I know,” he sighs, dropping his face to his palms. “She’s probably having an off week at work.”

“I’ll prepare the bath for her, when she returns,” Remus says, voice echoey as he walks down the hallway and into the room. “Set out her comfies and make sure she feels better when she returns.”

Sirius stands, feeling torn with guilt and hopeful with purpose. He makes himself useful around the living room while Remus prepares the room for you, tidying a bit and setting everything for a quick dinner and a few cups of coffee or tea. He waters the bouquet and makes a mental note to get you a fresh one tomorrow. 

It isn’t until he’s walked a few laps around the flat that he notices Remus has gone awfully quiet in the room. 

He starts towards the hallway. “Hey, Moons. You think I’ve got time to run to—” he halts by the threshold at what he sees. Remus sits by the edge of the bed. Your side, usually. The drawer under the bed is open and he’s hunched over himself, running a hand through his forehead as he reads off various notes and pages. Sirius frowns. “What is it?”

Remus shakes his head once, clearing his throat before turning the crinkled page towards him. “Did you know anything about this?”

“What is it?”

“Healer’s instructions.”

Sirius feels the floor giving out under him. “What? Yours?” he asks, stupid really. He knows Remus would rather suck it up and suffer than go to St. Mungo’s, and, last time he checked, he hasn’t stopped by, either. And the only person they could belong to— “No.” 

“They’re from different dates.” Remus goes through them. Stacked together with a few potions’ instructions and the notes they’ve left for you. The first ones. “For fuck’s sake.”

“What is it?”

Remus doesn’t answer at first, but his posture has tensed up. He reads and reads and reads like the pages would change contents, turning them over and going through each before handing them over to Sirius to read. Trouble sleeping. Loss of appetite. Sleeping too much, or sleeping too little. Shortness of breath. Then, the notes. He runs a hand through his face, hand shaking and heart heavy. saw you in passing on my way out of the ministry, you looked really lovely today. love you. sirius xx. thank you for the chocolates dovey. they really help. love, remus xx. Notes and notes and more notes. It isn’t until he gets to the very last one, that he feels his heart being cracked open, to pieces and completely torn. Treatment options, Janus Thickey Ward or— 

He looks up, frowning at the ripped corner. “Or what?” 

Remus shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“How,” he goes through the notes again. Reading and rereading, trying to understand the words and somehow make them fit into you—surely they would’ve noticed? Right? “How didn’t we notice?”

“I thought…” Remus looks away, hunching over his knees. He runs a cruel hand over his face, elbows digging into his knees as he tries to think. “Fuck.”

Sirius paces around the room and ignores the fact that he’s left the tea to go cold in the kitchen. He sets the notes aside, on the dresser and away from his sight before doing a full turn out the room. Towards the foyer, with a shaking hand, he reaches for his jacket. Steps follow and a scarred hand is holding him back, stopping him from taking another step out the door.

“I’m going to look for her, Remus.”

“And do what?”

“She can’t be alone. It’s late, she—”

“She could be anywhere, how do you plan to find her?”

Sirius steps away. “And what do you suggest we do? Wait?”

Remus only nods, jaw tight. “Yes,” he says plainly. Eyebrows furrowed and face cracked open with guilt. “We wait for her to get home and try to talk to her.”

So they wait. 

They make themselves useful, tidying the living room and cleaning the cupboards. Sirius starts on the tea again and completely ignores the flower vase, staring back at him like the proof of what they’ve done. Remus only lays down the clothes on the bed, neat and clean. He folds the notes and the pages carefully and puts them back inside your drawer, chest heavy with guilt at his blindness and for finding them in the first place. They wait and wait, they make dinner and pretend it’s normal for you to take this long to get home. They wait and shower and get into their own pajamas to wait for you. 

₊˚⊹ ᢉ𐭩

When you return, it’s hours later. Long into the night. You look exhausted and awfully sad. Resigned, almost. It’s too late, and Remus and Sirius have fallen asleep waiting for you. The tea remains untouched, the bath goes cold and you change into your comfies in silence before settling on your side of the bed. You fall asleep crying, knowing you’ll wake up to empty sheets and an even emptier flat. A new note if you’re lucky. 

Except, when you wake. They’re there.  

You don’t open your eyes at first, they feel heavy and you give yourself a couple of minutes to start waking up. It’s still early, your alarm isn’t set to go off until a couple of hours. Maybe they’re having an early morning, a head start on the day before work. You lie on your back, staring at the ceiling and aware that the bed is empty but the flat isn’t. 

Maybe if you go into the living room, you might have a couple of minutes before they’re set to leave. Maybe you can have a quick breakfast, or a small lie in. Maybe Sirius would let you sleep a little on the sofa with him before Remus wakes him up and scolds him for being late again. Maybe you can bring your makeup to the living room and get ready while they drink their coffee?

You glance at the door, seeing their shadows under the sliver of light. Maybe today you’ll let them be. It’s okay, you tell yourself, you’ll talk to them later at dinner. You’ll try to do what the muggle therapist advised you to do and talk to them, maybe you’ll stop by the café on your way out of work for a few pastries—sweeten the conversation and pretend it’s not a coaxing technique to get them home early. Maybe it’s best to let them be, have a day for themselves before you… well, ruin it. 

A lump forms in your throat, and you turn to your side, curling into yourself and pretend it doesn’t hurt. Pretend you didn’t spend the previous day crying and sobbing inside a tiny office and hear a muggle tell you exactly what you feared was wrong with you. 

There’s a rasp on the door, quiet and tentative at first before it opens. Achingly slow before Remus pokes his head in. He’s not wearing his uniform, and his hair is tousled—like he’s just woken up or ran a hand through it over and over again. 

“Oh,” he blinks, surprised to see you awake. “Hi, dovey. Good morning.”

You turn, clearing your throat and pretending this isn’t turning your morning upside down. Your heart, too. “Hi.”

“Uh,” he steps fully inside, looking heartbreakingly lost and confused. It makes your throat constrict, and it’s a conscious effort to not make your eyes flicker down the bed. To your drawer where you’ve shoved the therapist’s notes and written instructions. “Sirius ran to that café you like down the street for breakfast, he should be back soon. Would you like a cup while we wait?”

You push yourself to sit. The question crawls and crawls up your throat, trying to escape. You’re staying? “That’s… okay, yeah,” you turn to the clock. “I’ve still got a couple of hours.”

“A couple of hours?”

“It’s Friday,” you explain, despite yourself. Knowing how against this is to your heart’s deepest wishes. They’re here, they’ve got breakfast for you and you’re saying you have to work? “I… well, I still have to go to work. I left early yesterday, I can’t miss it.”

You regret your words immediately after you speak, Remus’ shoulder slump, nodding in understanding and you turn to sit on the edge of the bed so you don’t have to see the heartbreak that comes with his amber eyes. So you don’t have to see him walk out of the room and let you be. 

Except… he doesn’t. You stand, forcing yourself to get started with your day and remind yourself that the heaviness of your chest is just something you’ll have to learn how to handle, how to endure and carry by yourself for a while. Or at least until you muster any ounce of courage to tell them about it. Maybe tomorrow night? Remus is looking at you in a way that makes you consider calling in sick—but what if it’s just for a couple of hours? What if they end up needing to go? They’re important at work now, they might be needed. But so do you. You can’t simply call in sick, even if… well, you do have a note. A reason—No, you can’t. You’ll tell them at dinner.

Right as you’re about to round the bed, start on your day and get changed, Remus stops you before you can get to your dresser. His touch is dizzying and overwhelming at once, thumb sweeping at your elbow as he tries to coax you to look at him. You want to, you so desperately want to let him hold you and look directly into his pretty eyes, but you know better. You know how weak you are, how easily you can give into the high of being on the receiving end of their attention, their affections. You know you will either let them kiss you and drag you back to bed, or end up spilling your heart open before breakfast. You’re at crossroads and Remus is looking at you like he can see it, like he knows. You wish he knew. Maybe everything would be easier… or maybe… just maybe… this wouldn't have happened, if they knew.  

No. You shake your head. Don’t go there. 

“...sweetheart?

You blink, forcing your head up to meet his gaze. “Hm? Yes?”

Remus parts his lips a bit, like he’s actively holding himself back and bracing for whatever he will ask you. You find yourself doing the same. But he shakes his head, too. His hand coasts up from your elbow higher and higher the length of your arm, all the way to your shoulder. It’s a nice touch, you almost shudder like your body is finally catching up and recognizing the feeling of his skin touching yours. You swallow thickly, feeling your weak defenses and self mantras dissolving when he pulls you to him into a hug. 

You suck in a breath, quiet so he doesn’t hear how complete you feel with his arms around you, chests pressed together in a way you know he’d hear your pounding heart if he pressed you closer. His arms tighten in the right places, around your back and shoulders with a hand up the back of your head that makes you think that maybe… things really are changing. Maybe you can call off work and talk things through. Maybe, yes, they’re what’s wrong with you, but there’s still time to make them right. But how can you even open your mouth to speak when the tears have already won you over? So you stay silent instead. Just a couple of minutes like this. You’ll take this, you’ll take the hug and the breakfast and the extra hours of morning light and warm coffee. 

His thumb strokes at the baby hairs of your neck, an absentminded sweep that one would think it’s just muscle memory if you didn’t know better. Remus’ hand splays over your back, pulling you closer like he physically wants—needs to mould you to him. It’s enough to make a sniffle escape you, traitorous and hopeful and pathetic. Naturally, more follow. Then, a sob tears right through your throat and the jumble of feelings you’re desperately trying to push down. And you can’t keep silent this time. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, a warm breath in your ear. His thumb strokes your nape again, again and again. “I’m so sorry.”

You shake your head, finding in yourself the strength to speak. “No. S’fine, I just…” your breath stutters, not quite catching up with the adrenaline of his arms around you. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately.”

Remus makes a sound, quiet but evident in his pain as he guides you a little away. His hands travel up to your face, eyebrows bunched together when your gazes meet and his eyes flit down to the tears in your cheeks. How many nights you spent the same way, crying, and crying and crying hoping they would come back—hoping they would hear or notice you’re falling apart between them in their sleep.

The front door opens and closes, followed by paper bags crinkling and tentative steps. You silence yourself immediately, knowing that, if he knew, if he heard… any plans to contain this would go down the drain. But Sirius has never been one to ignore the sound of your pain or the tension in the room once he notices it. Papers cling as he sets them down, boots stomping against the wooden floors as he starts towards the room.

Something primal about their worry, their combined panic and pain makes you move. You turn around, brushing your hair away and pretending nothing has happened, that you’re simultaneously choking on your own tears and the tension that has taken over the room. Sirius looks frustrated and sad and you’re desperately reminding yourself that it’s not at you. It can’t be at you. He would never.

“Hey—”

“I’ll be ready in a few minutes,” you speak over him, sidestepping Remus to get to your dresser. “Sorry.”

Sirius shakes his head. “What are you sorry for?”

You rummage a bit sharper inside your drawers, searching for what? You don’t know, but you have to move. You have to go. Their attention, while intoxicating as it used to be, now it feels like it’s cutting the oxygen of the room. You can’t tell them. You can’t, not when you’ve already ruined a perfectly good morning. Their plans for breakfast. Maybe walking you to work. All gone. Because you gave in, you clung to Remus and his touch and the way he hugged you. You can’t.

“You can’t what, sweetheart? Remus asks.

Your eyes snap up. “Huh?”

Sirius takes a step closer, deeper into the room. “You can’t… what?”

“What?”

They share a look, and alarm bells ring inside your head. You close the drawer, holding your clothes against your chest and trying to walk between them to get to the bathroom. Just a couple of minutes, a couple of steps—

“Wait.” Sirius says. His hand takes your elbow, too. It’s shaking. Or maybe that’s just you. 

“Sirius, I have to get ready,” you point at your clothes.

He bends slightly to the side, searching for your gaze and finding it hard to even look at him. Not when it’s hard to pinpoint what it means. Months ago, you used to know him and his moods, the way he thought and the way he went quiet when he struggled. Now you don’t know if the frown between his eyebrows has anything to do with you. Or stress. Or how he went out early in the morning for breakfast and returned to a flat full of doom and pain. This was a bad idea. You shouldn’t have waited, you should’ve get started on your day as you woke up and head out before it could get to this point. You should’ve stayed silent.

“Can you look at me, my love?”

You don’t at first. Not because you don’t want to, you so desperately want to look at him. But first you must swallow down whatever is obstructing your breath, the weight on your chest and make yourself better until it’s time to go. You want to look at him and smile and let him kiss you and guide you to the kitchen for breakfast. But part of you, the deepest and most selfish parts of you, wants to simply bite the bullet and look up. Let him see how much you’re hurting, even if that’s the least you want. It’s useless—you still don’t know what’s wrong with you.

He exhales deeply, it sounds shaky even to your own ears. But he only takes a step closer, hand lowering until he’s coaxing your arm out of holding onto your clothes to hold it to his chest. “Why don’t you stay home today?” he asks, voice at odds with his face. Soothing himself in real time when your eyes flicker up in surprise. “I know you need to go to work, but I… we can’t let you go like this. Not when there’s still something we’d like to talk to you about.”

Your throat constricts. “Talk?” you ask, eyes flickering from him to Remus. “About what? Can’t it wait?”

He glances up, definitely sending Remus a panicked look that you do catch this time. When you try to take his distraction to step away, to give them a moment, Sirius threads your fingers together. Pressed against his chest. 

“No, actually,” he says, surer this time. “It can’t. I’m sorry, love.”

You nod, swallowing nervously. “Okay. I’ll… um, see if I can call in sick at work.”

Remus clears his throat. “Why don’t you change, clean your face or take a quick shower while we set breakfast, hm?” His hand returns to your nape, grounding and heavy at once. Like the hand tightening around your heart.

A panicked and intrusive thought crashes into your mind out of sudden—what if they’re breaking up with you? What if this is it? What if all this time they were slowly pulling away to make the fall less painful, the news easy to digest? What if—

“It’s okay, dove. Nothing’s wrong,” Remus reassures quickly, like he can feel the panic radiating off you. Or picking up the way your heart pounds. Either way, it doesn’t help to calm you down. He takes a step closer. “We just want to talk, uh… catch up, more like it.”

“Catch up?”

“Yeah.”

Sirius’ thumb brushes the back of your hand, looking more and more like he wants to cry. You nod. You’d accept anything to lessen whatever tension has them looking so devastated, so sad. He mirrors it, looking a tad relieved and kissing your cheek before walking out the room. Remus does the same, giving your nape a loving squeeze before following him out. 

You don’t allow yourself to process it, not yet. You go through the motions first. You make the bed, switch your clothes and tidy the room before going into the bathroom to clean your face and brush your teeth and do your hair. Then, you call Marlene. It’s a conscious effort to keep your voice even when she asks if you’re okay, and you reassure her many times that you are, that you’re only feeling under the weather and that you owe her a favour for covering for you. When she hangs up. You let yourself cry. 

When you step out, a couple of minutes later, you think you’ve successfully rearranged your insides so they don’t come spilling out the moment you open your mouth. It takes a bit, and a hurried and pathetic attempt to remember everything the mind healer told you, the breathing exercises and the quiet mantras to calm yourself. They help, but just a bit. All the work comes undone when you step out the bathroom, finding the empty room and the door ajar. Whispers echo from the living room, quieter and broken despite their desperate attempts to even their tones. 

You muster your courage, your strength and your pain altogether to round the bed; crouching down to open the drawer and collect your notes. A small museum of your relationship, the good and the bad. The notes and the silence, the love and the loneliness. All cramped between your clothes and old books under the bed. You fold them and tuck them in your pocket before walking out of the room. Not yet. 

“It’s okay, love. It’s okay, we’re okay,” Remus whispers, over and over as Sirius holds onto him. “She’s okay. We’ll talk, yeah? We’ll fix it.”

“I don’t know.” Sirius whispers back, voice fraught and quiet. Too quiet. You stay silent, watching with a tightness inside your chest. He shakes his head. “I don’t know if this is something we can fix, Remus.”

“But we’ll try, yeah? We will.”

You look away. You stay silent. And you let them be. Not yet.

You walk back to the room, sitting on the edge of the bed and trying to ignore the dark pitch on your stomach, growing and growing. Maybe you were right. Things were changing, but it took you a bit to realize you’re not part of those changes. 

This time, you don’t check the lock before the first sob escapes your lips, embarrassed and frustrated at yourself for all your attempts going in vain. For staying silent in hopes of salvaging this, hoping things would go back to normal, that your patience was a small sacrifice for a greater purpose. That you clung to them, to stop this good love from slipping away. Not noticing it was already far from reach.

You let them be, and stay silent as you cry. You cry and cling to traitorous hope that they’ll notice, or not. Or let you be. You’ve trapped yourself in a dilemma that is ultimately the result of your own actions, wanting to be seen without having to beg. 

No. 

You shake your head, rub your face, then press the heels of your hands into your eyes. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. You can still make it right. It doesn’t have to feel wrong, not always. Every love has its period of uncertainty, of pain and loneliness. This is a good love, you can’t let it slip away. Even good love has to go through changes. Not yet. You will talk to them—and say what? You will try, but not yet—

“y/n?” Sirius asks, tentative at first as he pushes the door open. Slow, a contrast to the way your hands fly to clean your cheeks. He sucks in a breath. 

You stand. “Sorry, I’ll be right there.”

He reaches for you, not even giving you enough time to take a step. His arms tighten around you, nearly collapsing into you with the force of his hug. His desperation. Whatever it is, you’re too raw and confused—it must rub off on you. Because it all goes downhill after that. 

₊˚⊹ ᢉ𐭩

The breakfast has turned soggy, you push it around your plate and pretend you’re not eating it because you’re still too raw. Not because you fear this will be the last. 

The notes and pages grow heavy with every passing minute, every hug and every silent look. How funny it all is, that you’ve finally gotten what you wanted, and you can’t bring yourself to enjoy it. Or at least not the way you’d want to. Not when you can’t bring yourself to open your mouth without feeling like you’re running on borrowed time, and silencing yourself immediately. 

You set your fork down, glancing around the flat. The table, same one you’d share early breakfast and late dinners. The first piece of furniture you picked together. Then, the living room, the coffee table, the bookshelves, the turntables and the kitchen and— your hand flies to your face, choking up on realizations and grief. This can’t be. How can it be the end? This is good, you formed a home together. This is a good love, how can it end?

A chair scrapes, and Remus is already crouching by your side, pulling it aside to reach for you. His knees crack but his arms are desperate and steady when they pull you to him. This time, you have no qualms in scolding yourself for melting into his touch, his embrace that feels sacred and devastating at once. Your chest hurts and hiccups as you cry, turning your head and maybe hide away in his arms. 

“I tried,” you whisper. It comes out like a whispered confession, like something that escapes your lips. “I just want you to know that I did try to keep up.”

He pulls away, but it’s Sirius who speaks first. “We know that now,” his voice is quiet, heavy with sorrow. Or grief. Whatever it is, your heart clenches. “We’re the ones who didn’t.”

“No—”

“We didn’t, y/n.”

“You had many things going on. Regulus, and the full moons and the transformations and—”

“And so did you. It seems.”

You suck in a breath, eyes flickering between them. Remus thumbs at your tears, his own eyes glassy and full of despair. “What do you mean?” They share a quick look, and the weight on your chest expands. Heavier and heavier, it cuts your oxygen. “Who told you?”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Remus murmurs, thumb sweeping your cheek when tears won’t stop trailing down your face. “Someone had to point it out for us to notice.”

“Who?” you swallow thickly. “Was it Marlene? Lily?”

Remus closes his eyes, and Sirius only runs a hand over his face. “You see now?” he asks, too full of grief. “All the people who noticed before we did?”

“You had many things on your plate and I couldn’t do that to you, I knew you were struggling and—”

Sirius shakes his head. “You were struggling, too! For months!”

You look away. “I didn’t mean for it to get bad,” you confess. “I tried. I really did, I promise.” you explain. No, you beg. You plead. Because the idea of your silence being the reason they walk away is too terrifying to even entertain. “I just…”

Remus strokes your face. “Please don’t silence yourself,” his arm lowers to your lap, holding your hand in his. His scars glisten with the tears he’s cleaned. Yours, Sirius’, his own. “Don’t slip away.”

Your face twists in pain, because it is a virtue to not let good love slip away—and right now it’s beginning to feel like a flaw. For slipping away from them, for letting it get to this point. For staying silent.

“I just…” you hold onto his hand. “I just missed you, so, so much. And I didn’t know why.” Their faces crack at the way your voice catches, heavy with pain and grief and the months you had to endure their absence. 

“Oh, my love—” Sirius’ voice cracks, chair scraping as he stands. You’re fisting his jumper before he can even fully wrap his arms around you, clinging and clinging, and feeling the way they cling to you in return. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. They repeat, over and over and over, and you stay silent. Because it’s starting to feel like the moment they say goodbye. And you’re clinging to hope that maybe, you can get a couple of extra minutes like this. Clinging to hope. Clinging to them.  

Remus’ arms shake when he tries to fix his hold around you, and his fingers brush the pages peeking from the back pocket of your trousers. He draws back a bit, just enough to pull them out. 

Your breath hitches. Then even more when you look up to realize they’re not surprised at what they find. Remus unfolds them like he had been the one folding them back into your pocket, into your drawer. Sirius steps back, hands at your jaw as he cleans your tears. And the table suddenly feels like there’s something hanging in the air that you’re not privy to. 

“I was going to tell you,” you’re quick to explain, words tripping out of your tongue. Barely taking shape before you’re uttering them, barely making sense to your own ears before they make sense to them. “I just… I didn’t know how and I didn’t know…” you falter.

Remus looks up. “Earlier you said that lately you don’t know what’s wrong with you,” his voice is terrifyingly calm as he thumbs at the pages. He hands them back to you. “Is this… why?”

For some reason, you find yourself nodding. Speaking. Pushing past your dread and let the truth slip out. “Yeah,” you rub your eyes. “Yes. I… well, I thought maybe it was work at first but—turns out I’m fine. The healer said I was fine.”

Sirius dabs at his cheeks. “So you kept going.”

“Yeah. I… it didn’t make sense. What she said and how I felt.”

Remus’ hands travel up, resting on your shoulders before thumbing at your jaw, your neck. Grounding motions that only bring more pain rather than comfort. “And how do you feel?”

Even if you try to look away, his sad eyes are a sight too hard to ignore. You thumb at the pages, the corner you ripped with the mind healer’s number to hide it from them, the little love notes you clung to when uncertainty was too big to ignore. To brush off. 

“I…” your eyebrows twitch together, a fleeting movement that tells them everything. Everything you’re trying and failing to put into words. 

He can’t help it, Sirius shakes his head at your silence. Your struggle to find the words. “I’m sorry.”

“I just…” you run a hand through your chest, trying to suppress the weight inside. Forcing it to either dissipate or to take the shape of something that can be easy to understand. You look away, then. “You know, the first person I tried to talk about this with was Lily. One day I stopped by to visit her. I told her as best as I could, hoping she would help me understand… she listened. And all she said is that I seemed very sad for a girl so in love. And it’s the only thing that has made sense through all of this. I love you so much, and yet I’m sad all the time.”

Remus looks away, eyes slipping shut. You wonder if it’s too much for you to clean his tears, but then remember this might be your last chance, so you do. He leans into your palm, and the knot in your throat tightens. Sirius makes a sound that makes your insides rattle and freeze at the same time.

“No.”

“Sirius—”

“No. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Your eyebrows twitch again. The faintest of movements. “I know.”

His voice cracks. “You were supposed to be happy and… and feel loved not—” his face glistens with tears. “Not sad. Not like this.”

You run a finger through Remus’ face, touch featherlight as you follow after a rogue tear that drags a path down one of his scars. He opens his eyes with realization, taking your hand in his to lower them to his chest. 

“You were sad because we kept asking you to wait, wasn’t it?”

Sirius looks back at you, fear and realization dawning on him when you don’t answer. Remus inhales sharply. 

You stare back at him, focusing on his tears and finding a way to make it easier to say. To make the words and their meaning easier to hear. “I just…” you sniffle. “I knew it was out of protection, that it was for my own good,” you pause, swallowing back a sob even when it begs to escape your lips. “But you never once stopped to ask me if that’s what I wanted.”

The silence that follows is deafening enough that you feel it in your own bones, your heart, freezing with dread and refusing to stutter with hope when the words finally leave your lips. Hope that they’ll understand. Hope that you love them despite it all. And hope that they know you would’ve stayed—

“I would’ve stayed,” you whisper, dragging the back of your hand over your cheeks. “There’s nothing none of you could’ve done or said to scare me off. I just…” you take a sharp inhale, and your hand turns, covering your face as the tears start falling again. “I just wanted to be there. Not just for the good—but… the ugly parts as well. That’s all I wanted.”

Sirius shifts, bending to take your face in his hands. Cleaning your tears when all you want to do is clean his. “You can have them. The good and the ugly parts.”

You shake your head. “You don’t have to say this.”

“I do. I do, y/n. I’m so sorry,” he holds you closer, bending down and down until his forehead is nearly pressed against yours. “You can have them.”

“Just,” Remus’ hold tightens around you. “Just please stop talking like you’re already halfway out the door.”

Traitorous hope flickers on inside your chest, too fast and burning too bright you can’t bring yourself to extinguish it. You swallow thickly, hoping it dies down. You know better than to go down that road again, but your heartstrings keep tugging you that way. Back to them, to their arms, their easy affections and the way they cling to you the longer the silence stretches on between you.  

You shake your head, just to yourself at first. Don’t go there, don’t go there. The more you repeat it to yourself, the higher the flame gets. Burning brighter and brighter.

“You said it, you said this isn’t something that can be fixed,” you explain. Almost pleading, pleading for them to understand you. To know why what they’re saying it’s only feeding the fire of your hope. “And maybe you’re right—”

“No.” Sirius says, with resolve and stuttering breaths as he shakes his head. “No, we’re not. Because that’s not what I meant.”

“What?” 

“I don’t know if the way we’ve hurt you is something that can be fixed that easily,” he says, bending closer until he meets your equally teary gaze. “that’s what I meant.”

“We’d never think of us as something unfixable, dove.” Remus adds, voice fraught. “Never.”

“No?” your voice quietens. Why wouldn’t it? When hope keeps pressing down and down at your chest, trying to find its way back in, it doesn’t care if there isn’t room for something else. “Even after this?”

“Even after this,” he agrees immediately. “There’s nothing worth more time and effort and fixing than this. Nothing.”

“But—”

“Earlier you kept saying you tried. Many times.” Sirius steps in, voice gaining momentum. “And you’re not the only one trying. Not anymore.”

You feel like the flame inside your chest has spread throughout your body. Hope is a dangerous thing. As intoxicating as it is painful. 

“I don’t know if I’d handle it again. I won’t survive it,” you confess, first to yourself before glancing up to meet their teary gazes. “Don’t make me hope.”

As soon as the words leave your lips, you brace. You wait for the moment they draw away from you, realizing the depth of your pain. What they’ll have to work with and decide it’s not worth it in the end. 

Except… they don’t. If anything, they get closer.

Remus brings your hands to his chest again. “Then don’t hope.” 

Your breath hitches. “What?”

“You took the risk before, and see how much it hurt you. It’s okay not to hope, and we won’t expect you to,” he goes on. “Because that’s for us to do… for us to earn.” 

“If you need to doubt, doubt us.” Sirius says, thumb sweeping at your cheeks and silently relieved there are no new tears to clean. “And…” he pauses, wetting his lips. “If you need time. Take it.”

And just like that, the flicker of hope extinguishes. But Remus only holds you closer, feeling the way it dims and the way your eyes gloss over again. 

“Not time away. Just time to earn your trust again, to show you that we’ll work through fixing this. To show you the good and the ugly parts.”

You nod, slowly and just once. “Okay,” you exhale deeply. Maybe the first one that actually leaves all the way in a while. “Okay, yeah.”

Sirius mirrors your nod, holding your gaze as you try to gather your thoughts. Remus brings your hand up to his lips, kissing your knuckles and pressing them to his chest. In the same stutter of breath, you reach for each other again. And this time, you don’t cling as hard. 

You nudge closer to him, and he turns his head to kiss your temple. So unbearably soft and tender you feel teary once again. Sirius steps back, holding your face in his hands and kissing the tears away while Remus stands. He drops a quick kiss to the crown of your head before reaching for the plates and the rest of the food to take them to the kitchen.

“Why don’t we go outside for a walk?” he says, rejoining you a bit later with a little, if fleetingly tentative smile. “The weather’s nice enough, maybe we can clear our heads. What do you think, dovey?”

“Actually,” you sniffle, brushing your hair away and feeling acutely aware of how not okay you might look right now. “I was thinking we could have a lie-in?”

Sirius tucks you to his side. “Of course.”

“But we can take a walk later.”

Remus hums, cupping your cheek. “That’s okay, too. But only if you feel like it,” his thumb strokes the corner of your lips. Feeling the way they twitch, the faintest of movements. “But first… breakfast?”

“Sure,” you nod. 

“Perfect.” Sirius holds you to him a bit tighter before letting go, pushing the sleeves of his jumper up his elbows. “What are you in the mood for? I got you french toast but I reckon we can whip you up something better.”

“French toast’s fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course,” you stand, suddenly aware that you’re still holding onto your papers. “But, um, I sort of need a big cup of coffee first.”

Sirius points at you. “You’ve got it, my love.”

Remus tucks you to his side, and your arms come around him in muscle memory that pushes past missed times and your own reservations. He guides you back to the room, pausing by the living room to pick up his book on the way. You settle between the covers, not caring if you’ve made the bed not even hours ago. He follows after you, settling by your side and making himself comfortable. 

“What did you think about it?” he asks, turning the book for you to see the cover. 

It takes you a bit to pinpoint the book and its contents. “Oh,” you shift, turning to lie on your side to look at him. “You were right. S’a bit boring.”

His lips twitch. “Yeah?”

“Heavy world building.”

“Hm,” he turns back to the book, contemplatingly. “Suppose I’ll have to sit this one out, then.”

“I mean,” you reach for the covers, fiddling with a loose thread. “I think you’ll like it, but I personally found it very slow at times.”

Remus shuffles closer, arm around you. “Are you calling me slow?” he asks quietly. Both in a shared secret and like he’s trying to coax a smile out of you. 

It almost works. Your lips twitch more obviously this time. You feel his lips curling into a smile when he kisses your temple.   

“Read it to me?” you whisper. “Maybe you’ll get me to like it.”

He pulls you impossibly closer to him, and your arm circles around his torso for steadying. Slow at first, tentative. But Remus shifts until there’s no other choice but to hug him. 

“Of course I’ll read it to you,” he whispers back. “Are you ready?”

“Now?”

“Sure. Unless you had any other plans in mind?”

“No,” you raise a hand, finger tracing idle patterns on his sternum. “Just sleep in I suppose.”

“Then you’ve asked the right person,” Sirius says as he walks in. Somehow managing to carry three steaming cups of coffee without burning himself. He sets them by your nightstand. “But wait for me?”

“Sure,” you reply, sitting straight to take your coffee. You pass Remus his as Sirius walks back out the room to get started on breakfast. “Here.”

“Thanks, dovey,” he takes it. Then winces at the scorching hot temperature of the mug. He still gives it a sip, and your lips curl around the rim of your mug as you drink yours. He sets it on his nightstand, and gestures at you to return to your previous position. 

You do. Readily. Surely. 

Sirius curses under his breath from the kitchen, cupboards opening and closing as he walks around preparing breakfast. You nuzzle closer to Remus, and he holds you to him before pulling the covers higher over you. Together, you wait for breakfast. 

When Sirius comes back, you share bites and sips of coffee between chapters. Pauses to shift and to ask questions about the book, small debates about what should’ve happened instead and what Remus, personally, had done if he was the writer. You finish your coffee and your french toast, leaving the plates together by the nightstand and settling more comfortably between them. Listening as they argue about whether the protagonist is too romantic with her descriptions of everything or that’s just poor writing—things you thought yourself when you first read the book. Sirius asks about your opinion and you pretend you’re falling asleep. He lets you, dropping a kiss to your shoulder and pulling you to him when Remus gets too heated reading and describing an action scene. 

The shift came first. The unease settling into your stomach, your hand hovering over the phone as the bedsheets shrugged down your body. The other side, his side, was empty, cool and dull where it once would have left you kicking off the covers from your legs. An annoyed groan coming from being shoved too far into the pillow. How you missed that noise.

Your fingers wrapped the cord with a desperate hesitation. Push and pull back before you finally plucked the courage to press it to your ear.

“So sorry for the late call. But you were the only contact.” A man’s voice comes through the speaker, tired and gruff, one you’d expect to hear from the movies. Like he was torn between duty and doing right and falling asleep where he sat.

“No.. it’s okay, what is it?” You spoke quickly, stuttering it out as sleep clings to your eyes, falling away every second the anxiety crept in.

The officer droned on, and from consistent lack of sleep and your cheek shoved hovering over the receiver, you’d hardly listened. You waited for words, something to make your ears prick up. And it came, slowly.

“There’s no simple way to put this..”

The breath caught in your throat, hitching and drafting in the cold. You didn’t say anything, you couldn’t, your heart thumped too loud in your chest and ears to do anything other than breathe. This was news. It could be anything, it could be bad, it could be—

“We’ve got someone you might want to talk to.”

A sound escaped your mouth, about to speak, about to ask, pushing yourself up onto your one arm.

“Miss it’s—“ Suddenly, his voice stopped. The other end crackling with static before settling to an anticipatory silence. And that’s when it came, tired and shaky, and all him.

“Hey baby, it’s Bobby..”

The phone suddenly weighed a ton, and it shook in your hand. You hadn’t finished what you were even about to say, the way you felt the sob erupt in your throat, before you sprung out of bed. It dropped back onto the nightstand with a clatter and you didn’t pick it back up. In fact you didn’t pick up anything. Only a hoodie that lay on the chair, his, no car keys.

He came back to you in arms of police. Slumped on a bench in a hallway after questioning in a dimly lit corridor with his hands in his lap. The hoodie they gave him was different to his own, the clothes he’d worn the morning he’d disappeared were gone. They stitched his face in two places, one across his nose, the other at his jaw, and bruises littered in other place, his hands twitching and feet tapping impatiently.

Bobby didn’t have time to speak, your had flung your arms around him as soon as you met eyes around the corner. He embraced you tighter, arms circling around your waist, and a hand holding your head into his neck. He felt thinner, his body sagging against yours as he fell into it. Your tears stained his shoulder, and his own fell into your hair, soft sobs wracking your bodies.

“God I’ve missed you..”

“Yeah, no kidding..” You mumbled through your tears, offering what smile could reach your face. Your fingers finding their way over his face as his does yours, taking each other in with a disbelief that makes your eyes grow wide.

No one else had been accounted for. Clark, Kat, even a mention of Clark’s therapist, Mary that he’d mentioned to you once on one of his drunken rants. The time he had shouted at you and Bobby to get out of the store far before closing time. That was months ago, weeks before they all had even gone missing. But you didn’t leave time to question it, and neither did the detective standing in the doorway.

He sent you both away with a curt nod, and a careful order to get him some rest and ‘take good care of him, he looks pretty banged up’. And he does, he looks like he’s been through hell. His face paled and sunken in, eyes dark around the edges, but his body is warm against you, gentle.

And he didn’t let go all the way home, didn’t even stop looking at you. His hand threaded through yours over the gearstick as you drove, the last hours of night falling around you.

He was here, he was home..

—

“You might want to slow down..”

“Mmhm.. no way.” His spoon scrapes the bowl with a screech and he shovels another spoonful of cheerios into his mouth. He eats the way a dog would. Shameless and happily. Though he’s never been much for manners.

Bobby, always in a rush. And he does it in a way that almost makes you forgive him on the spot. Flashing that soft grin with a mouthful you, and that twinkle in his eyes.

You hadn’t asked him what he ate there, where he was, and he didn’t tell you. He only began to speak of some of it in detail, the things he could remember, or rather the things he could put into words, after days.

But there’s blips in his memory. things that don’t add up.

There were walls, and doors. An endless place where nothing made sense, and he wasn’t alone. The thoughts you conjure up look like something from someone on a bad acid trip, and for a while you wonder if it was. If someone laced some of his pot and he took off. But the look in his eyes says something different.

The look says others were involved, says that the evidence is all there, but even that couldn’t account for what happened. It’s real. And whatever, wherever he’s been, he doesn’t want to relive any of it.

You’ve seen it sometimes in mirrors and reflections. Where he passed by the bay window and stares too long in the bathroom. His eye, his body. It’s no different to how it’s always been, save for the bruises. But there’s the same slouch in his frame and swagger in his hips. But he pauses.

Almost inhumanly, like when someone forgets what they doing and have to counteract and rethink. But it’s more than that with him you notice, it’s like he’s recalibrating, like how a machine would.

Shut down, start again, think it over, and carry on.

It starts with small things. And then he becomes hyper fixated on you, and how you hurt.

He notices you flinch when you burn your hand on the stove. It’s nothing, just a quick sting, a sharp breath you barely mean to take back.

But Bobby sees it like it’s an emergency.

His eyes track your hand immediately, “That hurt.”

You shrug it off, turning to face him, “It’s fine, it’s just—”

“It shouldn’t be.”

The way he says it isn’t angry, but it’s final.

From then on, he watches. Not constantly, obviously, but it’s enough that you feel it. Like everything around you is learning you, like he is.

The next time you cut your finger, he’s already there before you even register it. He takes your hand gently, like he’s afraid of pressure itself.

“You don’t need this,” he says.

You blink. “Need what?”

“This.” He turns your hand slightly, studying the tiny line of red like it’s an error in something perfect. “Getting hurt and just… accepting it.”

You let out a breath. “Bobby, people get small cuts all the time.” His gaze lifts to yours.

It’s flat again. Focused.

“But why should you? Why should any of us?”

There it is again, that wrong kind of logic. His voice gets breathy then, almost like he’s about to break, tears under the laughter that comes from his mouth.

You try to laugh it off, try to pull your finger back, but he holds it in his, “Because that’s life.”

He tilts his head slightly, like the word “life” doesn’t translate correctly anymore.

“You had to adapt in there.. just to survive. It became everything.”

His thumb brushes just above the cut, small droplets beading with sting down your skin and you wince.

“And now you don’t have to adapt anymore.”

Your words register, but he doesn’t answer to them. Because it’s true, he doesn’t. Whatever that seems to mean.

“I’d take it away if I could.”

You go still.

“What do you mean?”

His eyes don’t move from your skin, and it tells you what he doesn’t say.

Your hurt, I’d take it all away if I could. I don’t know how, it doesn’t make sense, but I’d try. I’d try it all for you. I’d make being here count.

That lands wrong in your chest.

“Bobby… no. That’s not how it works.”

He finally looks up again.

And there’s something almost offended there now. Not at you, but at the idea that he can’t do that, that his brain is working far too fast for his thinking.

“I can take it away.. let me take it away for you baby.”

His hand raises to your cheek, your finger still clutched in his other, drawn right close to his face. It’s like it had something to give, and it’s almost him, it’s so close to being. It’s rushed and soft and careful, and it doesn’t know where to land. A finger slides through your hair, your breathing sharp as your finger presses to his lips, leaving a trail of blood.

“I’m better.”

The words crack strangely, and he’s repeating something he needs to believe.

For a second something flickers across his face. Confusion like grief, a fracture opening beneath the surface that leaves his smile appearing and disappearing in the same breath.

“I’m better,” he says again, quieter this time.

And God, part of him seems almost devastated by it.

Because whatever happened to him, whatever was taken apart and put back together wrong, it left one thing untouched.

You.

His eyes search your face with an intensity that makes your chest tighten.

You know that look.

Bobby used to look at you like that when he was in love. His jaw ticking and eyes blinking carefully. Now he looks at you like you’re the only thing keeping him anchored.

Like if he can just fix enough of the world around you, maybe the pieces inside him will stop rattling. Because he tries to silence it, he wants to so bad, he wants to take away every memory from that fucked up place. But he just.. can’t.

He leans closer, voice lowering, almost intimate

“I can make it better for you too.”

Your hand stays in his, threading through his fingers. But you realise, distantly, that this isn’t relief breaking through him.

It’s obsession.

Every time you wince, every time you get tired, every tiny hurt catches his attention and never quite lets it go. He circles back to them hours later. Days later. Asking if it still aches. If it’s gone. If he can help.

As if he’s collecting evidence, as if loving you has become tangled up with fixing.

And somewhere inside that fractured mind he’s decided that if you’re safe, if you’re comfortable, if nothing ever hurts you again, then maybe all of this was worth it.

Because that's when it dawns on you further. He hasn't let go since he came back. Not once. And now the way he holds you feels less like reassurance..

But it's still him. It's still Bobby, yours. And he reminds you of it. He reiterates it over and over everytime he sees the change in your eyes.

Because he does, he notices everything. The flicker of uncertainty, the gentle blow of your pupil with everything you can't name, the wanting, the longing. The fact he knows he's been missing for months and he left you alone, and that he is so sorry baby..

But he's here now. And he's good, great even, and he can prove it, he swears up and down that he can.

He just wants you.

And it’s not that you don’t. You do. You feel the want in every tug in your bones, every brush of his hand and breath at your ear. He’s been gone too long, the apartment empty and wrong. Now somehow it feels whole again. It’s sharper now, but hungry in all the ways it ever has been. When his teeth graze your throat and hands slide down your sides. They dig in. Searching, groping at the flesh, and his breathing is so ragged it consumes you.

You pull away. It’s instinct, it’s not want. Something creeping inside of you tells you it in harsh pangs in your gut.

He lets you, resting back into the kitchen counter, hands bracing there as he watches. His eyes follow you as you stand there, motionless and thinking. Bobby can’t read your mind, no amount of burning his gaze into your skull can do that, but the weight of it undoes you.

“I think you need rest..”

He just nods and lets you again. Allows you to lead him, and to take the first few steps as you turn away from him before he pushes mindlessly off of the counter. after you.

The bed is warm with both of you in it, the sheets pulled tight over your bodies in the first bit of normality you’ve both allowed yourself. He stills, splaying out on his back with one arm tucked behind his head in the pillows. You half expected him to fumble with his camera, mess about with it and keep the red light blinking for hours. Like he always has. But he doesn’t. Instead, his breathing evens out, an unusual slow.

But you curl around him anyway. He’s only just gotten home, the rest will come with time. For now your just thankful he’s even here, thankful for the fact he holds you even tighter, and you can hear the stuttering of his heartbeat in his chest, so calming that you surrender to it. The beating in your ears is a lull, its safety, its home. And he’s home. The tears almost fall again, welling at your eyes as you force them shut with a sting.

You don’t want to unnerve him, not after everything he’s been through. He deserves normalcy, and time, and this is it. So you push it down, swallowing it sharply until you succumb to sleep, fingers clutching tightly just to reassure yourself he’s there.

But Bobby hears it, the bobbing of your throat as you hold everything back. He doesn’t say anything, he knows better than to push. Because that’s it, he already knows.

He dreamt every space of time in there wondering, hoping, driving himself crazy just with the hope that he’d be in your arms again, and he is. He can’t seem to cry, even though he feels he could, but it claws deep in his chest, right where you lay, an empty void.

One they told him would be normal. That it’s common in his circumstances to feel an emptiness, a reintegration with society, particularly without knowing where, how and why can be difficult. It will be. But there was no telling how much.

Because where he went wasn’t on some crazy bender, it wasn’t a break from reality like the “kids these days and their down sides of smoking too much pot”. Where he went wasn’t Santa Clara. Where he went wasn’t anywhere at all, but he’d been there.

A place one you’ve been, you don’t truly leave.

The world around just seems surreal, like peeling back the chipped paint and cracked sidewalks would reveal everything. And maybe it could, after all it’s nothingness he fell into. His mind drifts as he stares up at the ceiling, fingers softly soothing at your back. He thinks of Clark, and Kat, and whoever else might have ever found that place. He wonders if they ever got out, or if the screams he heard were real, if the blood that caught under his nails and the dirt that sifted over his clothes were by his hands.

There’s no telling. But these hands, they hold you, that’s all he can think of. And they continue to rub at your back and comb through your hair. And because of it, somehow, some part of him feels together, and he’s able to for once close his eyes and feel sleep ways over him.

—

You try to ignore his words, the odd things they come out of his mouth, the things he mouths to himself when he thinks no one is looking.

But you can’t help it, it’s everywhere.

The first few days, he bounces back fast. He’s himself, and you’re certain he is. He’s bright and smiley, flashing you that grin even where it pulls at the stitches across his nose and chin. His hand folds into yours, threading through your fingers and curling at your knuckles and the kiss he pressed to your lips is tender.

But he has moments. Blips in his memory, like when he tells the stories of what he saw in there, he becomes jittery and lit of place.

You reassure him. You try. The store has been closed for further investigation, yellow banded tape crossed over every window and door. As if hadn’t cautioned out customers before, but that was the last place, the place where he disappeared. Even after all the pointing and the answers to the questions, he gives the detectives a direction, a complete map of what he saw. But they turn a blind eye, they don’t even look.

They just pave over the whole thing. Some even look at him likes he’s gone crazy.

You went through a wall?

Not through the wall, it’s.. listen, it’s a door. I don’t know how it works, but Clark, he showed me. It’s literally downstairs, the lower level I can show you.

Okay, that’s enough kid..

He patted him on the back, turning the pair of you away. They’d only called him back into questioning just to get a better idea, thinking that sitting down and retracing steps would work better than forcing him to speak the night he ran into the station.

Bobby never looked so angry, so ready to jump if you didn’t have your arm around you. He knows how it sounds, how stupid and crazy it sounds, and it really does. But he was there, he did go through the wall, and he didn’t come back until he found himself back months later. And that was only luck.

You watch him carefully. All the things he does. The checking, the overcompensating.. The way he wants to break back into the place, to show you everything on the camcorder, everything he picked up and that the police don’t want to hear. But how can he, because everytime he looks your way, the way he glances at you just to ask.

You don’t think I’m crazy do you?

—

The light reaches you before you can barely open your eyes all the way, rubbing them just to blink through the weariness. The bed dipped earlier but you thought nothing of it, just the steady warmth returning until it didn’t. You could hear him in the bathroom for a while, stepping back into the room with a creak in the floorboards, and he stopped for a moment. Watching.

But he didn’t come back to bed. And after a while, your body already wired, it kept you awake.

The static flickers on the tv, a dark greyish blue consuming the room.

His back faces you, his legs pressed over his knees from where he sits on the floor. Nothing plays on the video, just the grainy black and white shuffling over and over again with the noise over the top. Your steps reach the back of the couch, squinting just to see him properly.

“You scared of me now?” His speaks through the dark almost expectantly.

“Bobby what are you doing?”

“Answer me..”

“No I’m not.. why..” You answer gently.

“Then why’d you pull away.”

The shadow of his nose turns toward the light, golden strands of hair slipping into his eyes, leaving you out of view. But not unseen.

His gaze finds you anyway.

“When did I—”

“The other night. In the kitchen.”

Silence comes then, and his jaw works, chewing the inside of his cheek with everything pent up.

Like he’s chewing on something he doesn’t know how to swallow.

“You remember that?”

The question comes out quieter than you expect, but it’s not defensive, part of it is hopeful, part of it hungry.

You nod, only once and Bobby exhales through his nose. For a second his shoulders loosen, as if something had been handed back. Reassurance.

“You stayed.”

Your stomach twists. His voice seems smaller, shaky where he can’t seem to fully look at you, but he tries.

“Of course I stayed.”

His eyes flick over your face. Searching and searching. He’s looking for the moment you’ll take the words back, that you’ll call him crazy like the rest of them and leave him. But you don’t. And part of him knows that.

And he can’t let go of that, he never could before, and he wasn’t going to now. So he seizes it, rising for his feet in barely a blink and he’s in front of you. The static still mumbles on the tv, but it just shadows you both.

A hand clamps harsh around your waist, moving you in his grip to face him. His face is wet with tears, twinkling in the light where they remain following you.

“Bobby..?” You call out to him softly and he only presses into you.

“Shh.. it’s okay,” His breath hits your neck, breathless and snarling, but his face hardly moves. Your fingers brace around the counter he backs you both up into, his thumbs rubbing circles at your flesh where you don’t move away. You don’t pull away. You can’t and you don’t want to. But you feel the shift.

“I want you.”

His hand curls at the back of your back, backing you both into the edge of the couch, your legs hitting it with a thump. His mouth slides down to your ear, shaking you into his hold, pressing himself, his aching need into you. The motion makes you gasp, lips parting and he catches them, messy and wet with his own mouth.

“I want you to be mine again..” He mumbles against your lips, rolling the plumpness between his teeth.

“Bobby I’am yours..” His face comes into full view then, patterned by the moonlight breaking through the blinds.

“You promise ?”

His head falls back, body contorting around you, rocking back just to get a better look at you.

In this light, his canines just look that bit sharper, longer, glinting in the crackle of the tv set. The whites of his eyes keel over and roll back as they take you in, pupils blown in a black that covers the iris completely.

You don’t question it, something tells you not to. Some part of it is alluring, drawing you in like a dangerous honey, and you nod softly.

And that’s all he takes. In every way he can, in every way Bobby does. He collides. It’s slow but it’s desperate, his mouth consumes yours skillfully, tongue licking into yours as his hand circles to the back of your head.

“All mine.. just mine.”

He kisses you like that until your back hits the wall and your legs stumble, just so thy he can catch you into his arms. He wraps them around his waist, carrying you all the way, shedding your sleep shirt over your head and tossing it to the floor. There is an ache in the way he takes his time, gripping and tugging at every bit of flesh, kicking the door open with a careless groan.

You drop onto the bed with a huff, arms splaying out just for a moment until he’s on you again. His knees rise over your hips, squeezing you from the sides, caging you in.

His face goes blank where it drapes at your neck. Blue eyes faded to nothing but desire and primal hunger. And need. The primal urge is all too much, it consumes him, lights a fire deep in his belly and he knows in every shiver that creeps his spine, he has to have you. His hands hook around the waistband of your shorts, shrugging them off in one quick motion along with your panties, sliding down the thin fabric down your legs.

Then it’s all mess and warmth, the steady descent of him drowning in you, giving in to what he’s spent so long thinking of, dreaming of.

The sensation coasts down your body in waves, left by open mouthed kisses sucked over your skin. His lips press sweetly before they part, biting down roughly, catching you in his arms before you can pull back. The wince wracks your whole body, shivering under his touch as his fingers dig into the flesh of your navel, following the arch of your hips. It chases the feeling against you, the hard rip of teeth slicing into your skin, drawing red marks that bruise underneath it.

The one at your thigh drips languidly, acrid and tacky in thin droplets. Blood, your blood. And it’s his tongue that smoothes over it, soothing the wound where it opens, tears pricking your eyes where you become entirely undone. Your eyelids flutter, hands fisting the sheets around you and whatever else you can grab at.

He traces down where the trail follows, down across your thigh where the blood smears, down over the mound of your pussy where it mixes with your arousal, slick and dripping in your heat.

Bobby takes one longing look, one dark one shooting straight between your legs where you can see him. His touch is reverent, his mouth is hot right where you ache, and his eyes are completely blown black. Animalistic.

He delves in shamelessly, drinking you down with a long, flat suck through your folds, tongue dragging along your hole and circling at your clit.

“Taste s’good..”

He laps at you mercilessly, loud and unclean, claiming in a way that only comes from longing, or in Bobby’s case, devotion. His nose drags across your swollen clit, the skin rippling where you shake and tremble but he doesn’t let up. He devours you. Hands curl underneath you, tugging your further down onto him than even possible from the flesh of tour ass, your thighs fallen limp and curled over his back, the taut muscle flexing where he eagerly fucks you with his tongue.

His mouth closes over your pussy, rising just to catch where he sucks down hard on your clit, as it pulses and clenched around nothing.

“Good girl, so needy for it..” Wet muscle works its way into your hole, delving and lapping, feeling for where your moans pitch highest, working you there until you come undone. And you do. In hot pulses of pleasure that sift through your body, leaving your fingers tangled into his hair, holding and gripping as you rock yourself through his high. His tongue doesn’t relent, and neither does he, simply lets you chase the high until you’re dripping down his chin, sweet wetness that he slurps back into his mouth with a dark grin.

You whine out his name, eyes fluttering closed as your head lulls back onto the mattress. Something snaps again in him, harder this time, and unrestrained. One that leaves his fingers pinned around your wrists, shrugging the rest of his jeans down right to his knees.

“Open up your eyes.. look at me.”

Slender fingers cup your jaw, the other spreading your legs wider, thighs parting so he settles between them. He frees himself and his cock is dripping, twitching from where it sits so hard, an aching red and leaking from its tip. The sight makes you salivate, drenching the back of your throat near as much as your thighs.

“There she is..”

His hand wraps around it once, fisting it in a heavy pump that makes him groan, his throat bobbing as he rises back over you. The muscle of his biceps tick as they frame you, laying right beside your head, fingers flexing out to pat the strands of your hair. A delicate softness for all the depraved things he wants to do, that he’s compelled to do to you.

The tip of nose brushes your cheek, breath stuttering where he slides his hardness through your slick folds, resting himself with short thrusts on your pussy. The whine catches in your chest, your breaths mingling, and he looks down at you, and it takes a few blinks for you to notice. He’s really looking. Committing you to memory as if he’s seeing you for the first time all over again, his head tilts, only slightly, studying you once over.

His mouth claims your own, lips shoving into yours in a biting kiss, and then he gives in. He rolls his hips back to punch them into you, nestling right deep where you take all of him at once, stretching you deliciously to the limit.

“Oh, fuck..”

You gasp into his mouth, breath mingled with his own as his eyes squeeze shut, cursing at the clenching of your pussy around him, sucking him in greedily.

“I know, I know.. So good for me..” He rocks into you then, silencing your whines with his mouth, slipping his tongue so deep whatever is left of your faded mind swears it hits the back of your throat. His hips grind and ride over you until it punches deeper and consumes you.

“My angel, my girl..”

His cock drags inside of you, pounding over and over again until the breath is stolen from your lungs, constricted by his arm around your neck and the sheer weight of him pressing into you. biting into the back of your neck. Sweat coats your bodies, a sheen of arousal that grows hotter between you, beckoning him more, to give you more, to never leave your side again. And he vows it, pledges it into your body with his own.

Just like he won’t let you go.

His teeth bare sink into flesh without thinking, settling at the curve at of your jugular, not enough to tear, but enough to feel the pinch constrict. The tears fall over your cheeks, pattering in droplets right into where his mouth sits on your skin. He licks them away steadily right with the flick of his tongue, salt and sweat coating his lips with every other part of you that he’s collecting.

“Come on that’s it.. you got another one f’me yeah?” He rasps darkly, smirk pulling where his teeth graze your ear, smug and merciless.

Your whines keen into the sheets, shoved with a gasp every time he tugs you back onto him, mouth roaming relentlessly, restlessly where he can’t get enough of you. The feeling is too much, not enough, it’s burning hot where your skin slides together, his hips cracking into the curve of your ass just to drag further into your sopping pussy.

Your tits bounce with the force of his grinding, Bobby’s fingers pinching around to cup them, face pressing further down your body, curling over you. He growls low and guttural, suckling over every patch of skin he can find, “Shit.. take it baby, take all of me," His hands roam, scooping at the back of your thighs where they fall. He feels you falter, your thighs twitching and shaking, and he snags them, squeezing them as he shoves them up to your chest as he rises, moving you closer into him.

“Bobby.. fuck—“

He ruts into you at a pitiless pace, fingers pinching tight as they curl around your knees and legs, snapping right into your wet heat, and the whole of your body tightens. His thumb, or his fingers, you can’t tell, swipe over your throbbing clit, already too much and he circles, thumbing it in a rhythm that sends you over the edge. Your body leans forward, shooting up into him with a sharp cry of his name, heat bursting through your body, right deep where he kisses your cervix and all the way into your the tips of your toes.

Your pussy flutters around him, and the pulse is dizzying. He stutters, staggering where he tries to keep himself upright, fucking you through your high as it filters out, your hips spasming at the touch. He thrusts sloppily into you, slowly grinding down, rolling properly into you until he is collapsing.

He wants to keep you like this, to fill you, to do it over and over again until neither of you can take it. It burns in his chest, with every aching drag of his cock inside of you, and every loud ring of your moans in his ears.

“That’s it, that’s my girl..” His groan is hoarse, breaking at the edges where it’s rough, bordering on a whine as he shoves his face into your neck. His breath brushes your damp skin, inhaling your scent heavily, still suffering inside of you.

“Fuck I’ll..” His chest falls over yours, unhooking your legs carefully to lay down at his dies, “I’ll give you everything..” He punctuates with one last pump, stilling as his lips purse against you.

Neither of you seem to disconnect from one another, his arms releasing you just enough to curl around the back of you. The sleep that was lost before gently intoxicating you both in your bliss. He kisses at the back of your neck and your shoulder, the sheets swarmed over you and his arm that hands over your waist.

“I love you..”

Are the only words you hear, over and over again as he whispers them into your ear. You mumble it back softly with your eyes closed, falling back into the warm wall of his chest.

And only then does he drift, soothed at your side, where he belongs. Where he’s home.

—

Part of him wants back there, and it’s not conscious, it’s the twitch in his sleep and the tug in his peripheral. Part of him wants to take you with him. But he can’t, he won’t subject you to that, nor even to change it. So he holds you tighter, pulls you closer.

It’s more calculated than it once was, but it’s just as warm, inviting, sometimes too much. That you have to remind yourself to be careful, that he’s hurting and it’s going to take time.

But some things don’t change, they don’t change at all.

He was protective over it at first, scrolling through tape after tape just to jam up the roll so none of it could be seen again. Only the old ones came through, the soft memories, not the evidence. Screams and questions were replaced with gentle laughter and cursing when he’d drop it from zooming too close.

The camera sits in your hands, heavy and jarring. The noise whirrs sharply, echoing in the thin halls of your shared apartment, and you go to cover it, even though he’s out. You sent him on a grocery store run minutes ago, just before he slipped you a kiss through the screen door.

You flicker through every video. You wanted to see for yourself, to hear him out and find the evidence that you believe from him. But there’s nothing, and you go to put it down. You’re so close to. But then it comes up, flashing blue and broken before the colours come through.

It’s titled from back then. A week or so only after he went missing. Your eyes squint at the small screen just to get a better view, and it shakes you.

It’s Bobby. Yellow walls are tall behind him, like old wallpaper you’d find in an office, more like an abandoned one. The lights flicker and buzz around him, but it’s dark, only half of his face showing up.

“Okay. I’m not sure what this place is.. it’s fucked up. It took Kat, I don’t where where the fuck Clark is. I haven’t seen either of them.. But.. this thing, whatever it is keeps coming through. It’s followed me for days.. I don’t get it, it’s like it’s trying to be me. It mimics, and it.. changes.” A sharp crackle fills the audio, and all you can see is his face. It’s scared, panicked even, holding the camera with two hands just to keep it in hand.

You go to turn it off, clapping it in your hands just to get it to work again, but all you can hear is the buzzing, his voice following after his mouth moves.

“.. not me..”

The clip jumps, scratching along with the distortion of the video. Bobby’s face phases out, a loud beeping sound coming from the tape, until he comes back into view.

He doesn’t look panicked this time, in fact his face is relaxed, calm with an uneasy curve at his lips. He’s smiling. Not wide, but hopeful, soft like he’s looking right through the lens and at you. The sound doesn’t come through until the video fades, static covering the screen and a muffled,

“But I’m coming home baby.”

The Marauders go on, and you tell yourself you've spent enough time dissecting them. You let go. There are certain things you still can't help but notice—the fondness behind Remus' exasperation when Sirius bumps their hips together playfully, how James grins sheepishly at someone backstage when he's handed yet another drumstick—but for the most part, you just experience the music.

It goes by faster than usual. The songs are mostly the same ones you've heard at every show thus far, though the sparkle of those hasn't worn off for you either. All too soon, the boys are ending on Sweet and Easy, the crowd screaming for more even after they've repeated the riff at the end twice.

You're left buzzing, that raw feeling coursing through you, feeling the best you have in days. You figure you have some time before Lily rounds everyone up to go back to wherever you're staying tonight—you think it's still Birmingham one more day, if James' Cadbury World plans are any indication, but Lily said something about switching hotels—so you go outside to smoke with a gangle of fans.

In addition to a bummed cigarette, you get some half decent material from them. The feature isn't likely to include fan quotes, but if the band flakes on you and you need to fluff it up, these will be useable. You manage to sneak in a few questions about the direction The Marauders might go in without letting anything slip about new music, and the fans don't suspect you of knowing anything worth letting slip anyway. They just want to talk about a band they adore, and you're more than pleased to let them.

Even later, you won't know exactly how it began. The street in front of the venue has been crowded since you stepped outside, but suddenly it's crammed with bodies. You drop your cigarette on instinct when somebody pushes past you. Not two seconds later, someone going the other direction stamps it out. Voices rise, a familiar, foreboding thrum charing the air: anger.

You squash down your panic, looking for an exit route. These things happen. Riots are common at rock concerts. Back when you were going to these gigs in a more regular fashion, you would have remembered to find your way out quickly afterwards, before any could break out. You don't know who's fighting who at this one, or what side you might be presumed to be on. You should go before you find out.

The crowd is near impossible to move through. You find the venue doors locked, and your chest tightens. Any other time you'd just go, but you need to get inside to meet up with Mary, Lily, and the boys. You try to make your way around the building—weathering a few stepped-on toes, a wayward elbow, and a powerful shove.

The last one nearly sends you to the pavement. Another stranger grips you around the elbow to haul you back up, you gasping out a thanks while your ankle twinges and the man who shoved you doesn't so much as look back.

You find the side entrance you'd come in with the band, knocking on the door and trying to muster whatever professionalism you'd lost in the cigarette-smoggy mayhem a few feet behind you.

A security guard pokes his head out.

"Hi," you say. "Are The Marauders still inside?"

He huffs a laugh, already going to close the door again. "Nope."

You shove your foot in the way. Force down a wince—you must have tweaked your ankle when you almost fell. "I'm from Spellbound Magazine." You show him your press pass. "I'm with the band."

The security guard looks right past the piece of plastic, unimpressed. "The band's gone. You can catch them at another show, but not here."

A bolt of panic goes through you. You do your best to smother it. Security does this sort of thing all the time. He thinks you're someone who's not supposed to be here, so he's lying to get you to go away. You just have to prove yourself.

The guard looks down at your shoe, still wedged in the door, then at you, and you know you have a short window.

"If you find Mary—or anyone who works with the band, they'll tell you I'm with them. I came in this door a few hours ago, I just stepped outside."

"You can find see band somewhere else," the security guard says. He gives the toe of your shoe a kick—not even a hard one, but your ankle smarts and it does the trick. "Night."

The metal door shuts with a clang.

Deja-vu.

You don't have much time to think of another plan before commotion from the street catches your attention. The shouts are getting louder and angrier, and you know what that means even before the first shrill whistle pierces the air. The police have arrived.

You step closer to the alley wall, hoping to escape notice and hunker down here until someone you know eventually comes out, but it's not long before people are flooding the alley. There are so many of them you don't think they can all have been at the show. One of the fans you interviewed earlier grabs for you.

"Come on!"

"Oh, no, I—" You mean to let them pass, but the police are advancing behind, arresting those at the back of the crowd. You don't know if the same press pass the venue security disregarded a minute ago is going to make much difference to them. "Shit."

You let yourself be tugged down the alley, then propelled by the general mass of people when the one who tugged you loses their grip. You know for sure you messed up your ankle now. It throbs with every step, and it doesn't help matters that you often don't know where the next step will land, finding yourself moving left or right by the will of the crowd. Every time you try to break away, it seems like the police are right there, and so you keep moving.

Eventually, you aren't being chased anymore. Those around you disperse, going home or to whatever bars are still open. You go in the opposite direction of all of them.

It takes you longer than it should to retrace your steps back to the venue. When you knock on the metal side door, there's no answer. Not that you really thought there would be. There isn't a single light on inside or out.

It occurs to you far too late that you should have just found the bus. If you'd gone there earlier, rather than wasting your time arguing pointlessly with security…it's what a smarter journalist would have done. But the bus will be gone now. The Marauders have long since left you behind.

You're too hopeless to laugh, though you recognize the humor in it. After all your worrying about them sneaking off on you, you'd been the one to disappear. You practically gave them no choice.

You sit down on the foul-smelling concrete and try to steady yourself enough to think of what to do next. You can find them again. You might have some explaining to do, and possibly they'll be upset with you for leaving without saying anything, but if you show up at whatever venue The Marauders are playing tomorrow and catch the attention of someone you know you're sure they'll let you explain yourself. That doesn't give you anywhere to stay tonight, obviously. You'll be okay, though; sitting in this alley until morning doesn't sound particularly enjoyable to you, but you can do it. You're as safe here as anywhere, and it'll only be a few hours until the sun rises. You just have to stay awake.

The echo of a passing voice makes its way down to you, and you burrow closer to the wall to escape its notice.

"Hey? Hey!"

Your track record for successfully melting into the shadows of this alley is not a stellar one.

"Y/n!"

You look up in surprise. In the mouth of the alley, a familiar shape is jogging toward you, followed by others.

"Have you been here this whole time?" James sounds more out of breath than a short jog would do. "Where were you hiding?"

You stare up at him, sure you've fallen asleep and are dreaming. "I…"

James drops to a crouch beside you, concern written all over him even in the dark. Sirius and Mary are behind him a moment later, then Lily and Remus. They surround you, seeming perplexed when you don't stand.

"Are you alright?" asks Remus.

You burst into tears.

It's terribly embarassing, and very unprofessional, but you find that once you start crying you can't stop. You don't mean to shock them. James gets past his alarm the fastest, putting an arm around you, and Lily murmurs something that sounds like a placation.

"I'm sorry," you blubber. "I was—I tried to come back, but they wouldn't let me in, and then the cops were here—"

"We heard," says Sirius, his voice nearly as gentle as you've ever heard it. It reminds you of how he spoke to Remus after Remus got shocked by the mic stand, "about the riot. Figured you might've gotten caught up in it. Are you hurt?"

You manage to tell them about your ankle. Remus prods at it a minute—apparently, he's had enough minor injuries to be a de facto expert—and determines it likely sprained. Mary runs to get you a jacket from the bus, apparently still parked nearby after they stayed to look for you. Lily promises to make sure you always have the relevant addresses in case you get separated again, or maybe Mary can get you a press pass that looks more official somehow—but, she says, it'd probably be best if you stay nearby when you can help it in the future.

Through all of this, you're crying. You're waved off each time you try to apologize for the dramatics. James has resigned himself to sitting on the foul-smelling cement beside you so he can rub your shoulder, and Remus keeps a hand clasped loosely around your ankle while Sirius watches you with dark, serious eyes.

"You got it?" he asks when Mary comes back with your coat and you stand wobbily.

"Yeah." Your voice is a wreck. You put your coat on, and James lifts your arm, encouraging you to put it around his shoulders and let him take some weight off your ankle. You wipe your face. "Sorry for—"

"That's enough," says Remus, managing to sound more kind than stern.

You murmur anyway, "Thanks for waiting for me."

Not anymore, you tell yourself sternly on your way down to the bus. You’re here to do a job. You’re here for yourself. There’s a wall between you and the band by the very nature of your role here, and your role is to make that wall appear transparent, not evaporate it. You won’t let yourself get so close again. 

Closeness has only given you less to write about. 

You return Lily’s polite nod as you step onboard the bus. Sirius is giving you some kind of look, but you pretend not to notice it poking at your periphery. You ignore too James’ patting of the extra space on his bench, passing the boys by to sit instead in an empty seat a few rows behind them. Close enough to overhear; not close enough to engage. As you should have been this whole while.

“Have a lie in this morning?” Remus asks you anyway.

“Yeah,” you reply. 

James turns fully around to speak to you, folding his arms atop of his seat. “I hope you’ve rested up,” he says. “Tomorrow, we’re going to Cadbury World.” 

“Oh.” It takes a second, but you find the right smile. Pleasant and distantly apologetic. “You all have fun, but I think I’m going to stay back. I have to edit this article for Tuesday.” 

James looks put out. You pull out your notepad before you can linger on it. 

“What’s the article about?” asks Remus. It may only be your own new wariness, but you think you detect a hint of vigilance in his tone.

You glance at Sirius on instinct to see if he’s eyeing you with the same distrust. His dark-rimmed stare is heavy, but it’s not…it’s not what you expect. There’s no accusation there. Sirius seems watchful, but not like he’s anticipating something in particular. Like he’s waiting to see what you do next.

You wonder if he thinks you’re angry with him. You’re not. You don’t blame him for thinking you’d sell James out for a story; Sirius is used to dealing with real journalists. He’s learnt to be calculating, to put himself as a shield between people like you and anything—or anyone—he wants to protect. To anticipate the worst you could do so he knows when to be ready. If you were half the journalist Spellbound thinks you are, you would have done it.

You just aren’t sure if you are that journalist. You aren’t sure if you want to be. 

“It’s something I was working on before I got here,” you say to mollify Remus. 

“Are you feeling alright?” asks Sirius. 

You feel your brows draw in tight, forgetting for a moment to control your expression. “I feel fine, why?” 

He shrugs. “You seem rather tired all of a sudden.” 

You put your pleasant smile back on. Sirius frowns. “I guess all this staying up from dusk to dawn is finally getting to me.” 

“Ah, yeah.” James sets his chin on his forearms, his eyes big with sympathy. “I crashed earlier in the tour, too. I think it’s a sort of hurdle you have to get over. Sorry.” 

“We can tuck you in with Remus tonight,” says Sirius lightly. A pink blush blooms over Remus’ cheeks. “He’s got all sorts of methods for getting a good sleep. We’ll have you fully nocturnal in no time, babe.” 

You direct your stare toward your notepad, trying to focus enough to make sense of the first sentence of the article you’re meant to be editing. “I’m not sure that will work out very well for when I eventually have to be awake during the day again.” 

“Why would you ever do that?” Sirius jokes. 

You’re tempted to look up and raise an eyebrow at him; you don’t. “Once I have what I need for the feature, I’m guessing Spellbound will want me working normal business hours.” 

There’s a pause. 

“Well,” says Sirius, “I don’t know why you’d ever work for them, in that case. They sound unhinged.” 

You try not to feel anything about the obviousness of James’ upset when he asks, “Are you nearly done with the feature already?” 

It’s almost laughable. As if they’ve given you near enough information to write the feature; you hardly have enough for a few paragraphs. But, it is like James to be optimistic. “Not quite.” 

Sirius tsks. “Guess we’re not going to be rid of you very soon, then.” 

You keep your expression neutral as you look up at him. “I’ll do my best to work efficiently.” 

Dark brows descend over stormcloud eyes. “Sure you’re not feeling ill?” 

“I’m fine.” 

“You should come to Cadbury World with us,” says James, looking worried now, too. “You seem like you could maybe use a break.” 

The useless mush of your heart softens instinctively at the earnestness in his voice. “Thanks,” you say, “but I think I ought to stay on task. We all want me to finish up and get out of your hair, right?” 

Remus makes a soft sound. “No one’s said that.” 

“Maybe we can do an interview after the show?” you go on. “If you’re ready, I can ask some more questions about the album. I know it’s not completely done yet, but the point of me being here is to get accounts of the process.” 

“I thought we agreed you’d be taking us to dinner first,” Sirius hums, in that teasing way of his. 

You don’t rise to the bait. “If you’d like to have the interview at a restaurant, that can be arranged.” You have no clue how you’ll finance it, but that can be a problem for later (and possibly for Spellbound). 

It’s not just Sirius who frowns at you now; all three of the boys look at you like you’ve boarded the bus with serpents for hair. 

“O…kay,” says Sirius. “We’ll see.”