Kathie's fic library

Your refute of your fae form hung in the air, bed sheets crumpling between your fingers, expression distraught. There was no reason for them to believe you, though they weren’t outright throwing you into the dungeons you knew lurked below. That had to be a good sign. Your lungs felt as if they were going to burst. 

“I swear,” you repeated, only because no one had said anything. There was only blinking and dead air. “I don’t even have any magic or special skills that would help me in an uprising. I didn’t have this body a few hours ago. You have to believe me.” 

Something flickered on Rhysand’s face as your pleading faded. Another silent conversation then took place. He looked to Azriel—who seemed to flinch—and Azriel gave him one stiff nod. The High Lord ticked his jaw and rubbed his hand along his chin. 

“It would be easier for us to believe your story,” Rhysand slowly replied, though his voice was void of the earlier suspicion. He sounded tired. “If you did not sit in this room, emanating power.” 

You paused, brows furrowing. You looked within yourself for whatever he was talking about, but everything felt different about you, so it was impossible to pinpoint. You didn’t feel powerful, and you certainly didn’t feel emanating, but you were also interpreting a strange language and seeing colors you never had before, so your judgment was unreliable.

You grimaced. “I… am?” 

“It’s quite overwhelming,” Mor gently offered, hands clasped together in front of her waist. She brought her fingers up and pinched them. “Maybe even a little bit suffocating. So you’ll have to forgive the third degree. There are many threats we have to look out for. Especially in recent months.” 

“Suffocating,” you whispered under your breath. “I didn’t mean—” 

“It’s all right,” Azriel interrupted as your fear began to grow once more. 

You craned your neck up to look at him, still so close and imposing over the bed. He had a strange smile on his face that looked as if it was meant to be comforting, but it came across as pained and lingering. You blinked at him. 

“We could clear most of this up now if you were to let me in,” Rhysand posed, snapping your gaze away from the Spymaster. He tapped his temple and nodded towards you. “It wouldn’t hurt if you allowed me to look.” 

“Look?” 

“In your mind. I’m Daemati. I can confirm everything you say if you allow me in.” 

Right. You’d read about that. You remembered. You’d wanted him to look not too long ago, but that had been before—before the pain and fear and blubbering confession. Before you realized you were even more different than you’d thought. 

“How do I do that?” you posed, eagerly straightening on the bed. “Can I just say you can come in, or—” 

“No,” Rhysand shook his head. “It’s more contingent on that wall around your mind. The barrier. It’s—very strong. If you get yourself to lower it, or even just find a point for me to see in, that would be helpful.”

You blinked, searching your mind for the offending force. You shifted to sit on your heels, vaguely aware that you’d distanced yourself from the headboard as the conversation had gone on. If anyone were going to believe you, you needed to do this. You needed to remove the barrier and let Rhysand— 

You paused, an airy breath escaping you. 

Was this real? 

It had to be. 

You bit hard into your bottom lip and focused, but instead of a barrier, you passed by a thread. The same thread that had led you here, and the same one that elicited such a panic within you when you pulled at it before. You formed your thoughts around it, letting a few brush along its edges. A choking sound caught in the room. You searched harder for the barrier. 

Your mind was like a physical space, unusual in its layout. You could see the wall Rhysand was referring to, but it didn’t necessarily look like a wall. It was made up of fractured lines and letters that mixed into words you couldn’t read. Alarmingly, the words were so familiar you almost had the ability to make them out, but the moment you tried, they would warp and become illegible. 

Frustrated tears welled in your eyes—frustrated and confused and scared. Each time you got closer to the wall, it would inch away, and you ran and ran until an ache permeated along your temples. You wouldn’t allow yourself to fall into the abyss that panicked over this strange form of your mind. But you had never been able to see inside this way, so—no, this was real. You were going to approach everything as if it were real, because if you didn’t, you would be crazy and in denial. You could only pick one. Could only accept one at a time. 

There was a small dent in the wall. You could pick out where the letters wavered there, a small warped outline hovering just above the floor of the space. You were out of breath by the time you had an answer for Rhysand, the act of searching your mind more taxing than you had anticipated. 

“I think there is something—a way for you—” 

“I see it,” Rhysand quickly responded. He dove in before you were ready, a blinding panic filling you. It didn’t hurt, but something felt wrong. Like he wasn’t supposed to be there, and you supposed he wasn’t, but it was more intrinsic than that. The discrepancy felt ancient.

You sucked in a breath and fell forward slightly, reaching to steady yourself and grasping at the first thing within reach. Fingers wrapped around your wrist and held you steady, and you clenched your eyes shut as the invasion continued. 

Memories were tumbling around behind the wall—of New York, the busy streets when you went to the city, a few moments on a train as you scrolled on your phone. You felt each memory being observed by the High Lord, but those weren’t all of your memories. You couldn’t show him everything, even though you willed it. A blurry image of your reflection materialized in your mind—the you from before. You fixed your hair in a floor-length mirror in a fitting room, ears rounded, features plain in the way any human’s were. And then Rhysand was forced from your mind with that same ancient force, a harsh shove sending him stumbling back in the physical space. 

You let out a shuddering exhale. The High Lord paled. 

~~

You were left alone without much fanfare, though the several baffled looks thrown your way made you feel like a sideshow. Rhysand had been quick to share what he had seen, and the fingers gently holding you in place had let go—slowly, reluctantly but not. Mor had been the last to leave the room, a fleeting smile and a promise to grab you for lunch offered at the threshold of the door—your door, you supposed. 

You weren’t quite sure what was in store for you here. Oddities were not uncommon from what you could remember from the books, but this level of oddity was probably uncharted. There was also the frustrating fact that you couldn’t just show Rhysand all of your memories at once, but that frustration was also paired with the harrowing realization that you didn’t know everything that was kept behind that wall in your mind. As you had examined it, you had realized. 

You rocked up from the bed for hopefully the last time that day, drifting to the window and then to the door. You’d seen enough of the billowing clouds and unfamiliar foliage, and you wanted to prove more to yourself. 

This was real. This was real, and you were left to interpret it, and now that you were not an alleged member of an unknown uprising, you felt more comfortable branching out. 

The door to your room clicked open, silk flowing past your calves and the floor seeping a chill into the soles of your feet. Nothing creaked or groaned as you walked past the hulking door, though you could hear other things that you shouldn’t have been able to. A wind whistling in a tree far off, the low murmur of speaking several rooms away, the rhythm of heartbeats all out of cohesion—it was all very overwhelming and rivaled the jarring nature of your sight. 

Still, you trekked down the hall. 

The House of Wind was similar to how your brain had conjured it up. Sprawling hallways made way for doors with intricate carvings, and you let your fingers trail along the stars and clouds in the wood. You felt the cold marble beneath your bare feet. You focused on just your heartbeat and tried to remember what your apartment looked like back home. Tried to recreate the dull hum of the refrigerator in your ears and pretend you were feeling the worn carpet that came with old apartments. 

That all felt distant, somehow, but you knew it was there. You had been there, and now you were here. 

You turned down another hallway and the window there was so large, so… revealing, you almost gasped. The city you couldn’t see before was in perfect view from this vantage point, and your fae eyes—you were fae, you had accepted—could make out each billowing chimney and the route of the winding pathways. You approached without meaning to, setting fingers on the window panes and nearly pressing your nose against them as well. 

Velaris. 

This was Velaris. 

You felt yourself spiralling again, but the panic was interrupted. Someone cleared their throat, the sound purposefully gentle, but everything was startling, so you jumped, yelping and covering your mouth. When you spun on your heel, it was Azriel, and he looked pained again. You wondered if that had to do with his harrowing backstory, but you could remember that he was joyful in the books. At times. 

“I apologize,” Azriel said with a slight bow of his head. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“Everything scares me,” you tried to brush off with a choppy, placating laugh, but Azriel’s expression only became more closed. 

“I apologize for that as well.” 

Your eyes flicked behind him, taking in the massive wings that seemed glued to his back. They didn’t move as you remembered they had before, the muscle looking stiff. 

“It’s not your fault.” You blinked back to meet his eyes and held them for only a second before searching for a nondescript landing place. “I’m usually very good at adjusting to things. I—I think I’m having difficulty coming to terms with this, though, so it may take me some time.” 

“You said this wasn’t real,” Azriel stated. You watched his hands flex at his sides. “Do you… still feel that way?” 

You nodded jerkily. “Yes.” An audible exhale. “And no.” 

You looked off to the side, observing the way the light from the window reflected in broken streams along the wall. You couldn’t tell what season it was here, but the clear skies may have told the story of Spring. There weren’t very many colors in the trees when you had looked down. Perhaps it was Summer. None of that mattered. 

“Is there anything I can do—” Azriel started, and when you looked up, he was leaning slightly, eyes ready to meet yours “—to show you that this is real? To help?” 

“I don’t—” He didn’t know that you knew things about him. He didn’t know that this was a book, a story, and that this would perhaps never feel real. Something told you to keep that to yourself. Your mind hadn’t let Rhysand see that part. “I think I need time to adjust, maybe.” 

Azriel’s brow twitched, but he didn’t give anything else away. He nodded once, eyes fluttering to the ground before pressing his mouth into the whisper of a smile. “Lunch, then?” 

Walking beside him involved shadows. They whisked past you and trailed along their master, though he paid them no mind. You, on the other hand, eyed each of their movements, unsure what they were reporting back to him in their brief whispers. You shouldn’t know that they told him things. You shouldn’t know that he commanded them. 

“They will not hurt you,” Azriel reassured. He held out his hand and let one pool into the divot of his palm. “They are like extensions of me, but their own beings. They collect information.” 

“Should you be telling me that?”

“Perhaps not,” Azriel hummed absent-mindedly. “But you can’t spread secrets to my enemies if I am one of the only three people you know.”

An unexpected laugh bubbled past your lips, the first real bout of humor to find you. You covered your mouth again, this time from pleasant shock, and continued to walk beside the Shadowsinger. He stared at you openly as you did so, only turning back to the hallway when you cleared your throat and pressed your lips together to hide the lingering smile. 

“I suppose you’re right,” you agreed. “I’ll have to meet more people.” 

“You will regret wanting for that.”

“And what is that supposed to—” 

You heard him before you saw him, a low voice asking several questions in the room over. He sounded serious and firm, but his words were trailing and seeking rather than demanding. It wasn’t Rhysand, and the responding female voice was not Mor. You blinked to orient yourself to the onslaught of sounds as those two also spoke up in the conversation. Four—four people in the room and four heartbeats and four paced breaths and—

“Are you all right?” Azriel asked, and you looked to see his eyes searching yours. 

“Oh, um, yes.” You glanced at the door where you were sure to enter. “I’m getting used to… hearing things. It's a lot.” 

“If you need more time—” 

“No!” you rushed out, settling yourself when Azriel’s brow furrowed. “No, I just need a moment. I want to have lunch. I want to see more and see that this is real. My brain couldn’t possibly conjure up something so large. I need to see that it’s big.”

Azriel seemed to contemplate. He glanced at the door and then back at you, tracing the outline of your face as the muscle in his jaw feathered. You had no idea what was running through his mind, so you guessed. 

“I promise I’m not a danger to anyone. It really is just the sound. Sometimes the colors and the light. Senses, I guess. But that’s part of all of this—the proving. I don’t have any plans to hurt anyone in there. If that was what—” 

“It wasn’t,” Azriel shot down. He moved his hand to the door. “If it… if anything starts to hurt, we can stop. We can introduce you to things more slowly.” 

You felt the confusion show on your face. “Hurt?” 

 “If it’s too much.” 

“I don’t think I understand.” 

Azriel shifted his weight between his feet. “I only mean that you can leave whenever you might need to. I didn’t understand when you first woke up, but I do know. I understand that this is more than you are used to, but it doesn’t have to be pain that makes things real.” 

Oh. 

Oh. 

Your face heated. “Azriel. Is this about the head thing?” 

He cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t—” 

“I promise I will not slam my head into any walls or hard surfaces again. That was—”

“Rather terrifying.”

“Right,” you blunted. “I can imagine it wasn’t pleasant watching a strange girl freak out and then try to put her head through a wall. But I’m more settled now. I promise, this will help more than anything.” 

He searched your face for a moment longer, his mouth parted as if to say more, but he didn’t. 

You gave a sheepish smile. “Sorry for being dramatic.” 

The door wrenched open before he could speak to the troubled expression morphing his face. A grinning, much larger Illyrian took up the doorway, his wings on full display and contrasting the small shape Azriel had been trying to shove himself into. This man’s hair was longer, his features more rugged and bright. When you startled, a habit it seemed, a sturdy chest connected with your back. 

 “Cassian,” the man greeted, raising his brows in an inviting motion. “Heard you’re not where you're supposed to be. Happens a lot around here.” 

Your gaze flicked down to his outstretched hand, and the size of it dwarfed yours as you hesitantly reached out to accept the shake. He rattled you with one firm, steady flip of his wrist, and the presence at your back seemed to become more imposing. 

“Cassian,” Azriel grumbled out.

Cassian only clicked his tongue. “Yeah, got it.” He gave you a conspiratorial look. “He warned me not to be overwhelming. But you can handle it. And I’m not overwhelming.” 

The casual air of his words had you blinking, your hand still connected with his. Everyone else in this world had been so formal with you. You knew the contrast to your world had a lot to do with the speech patterns and lack of modernization, but Cassian almost seemed modern. Like you could pluck him out of Prythian and smack him in the middle of Boston and he would adapt within hours. Maybe even pop onto public transit and yell at a curb-side vendor before asking any questions. 

“Right. You have mastered the art of subtly, surely,” Mor spoke from around the door. She peeked her head over. “Now let them actually enter the room, Cassian.” 

Another wolfish grin directed at you, and Cassian seemed about ready to tug you into the quaint dining room by your hand, but a low sound at your back halted his almost-tug. Cassian’s grin turned teasing as he stared above your shoulder, and he raised his hands up in surrender, a low whistle humming in the air. 

“Oh, enough,” Mor murmured at him, smacking his chest. “Let them in.” 

Things were certainly different from when you had first woken up. The suspicion was gone from each look thrown your way, replaced instead with curiosity and knowing gazes that you couldn’t place. The light mood you found in Cassian was contagious as you took in the room. Rhysand sat at a long table beside a woman you knew to be Feyre, the pair sharing a private smile and an even quieter laugh. He hadn’t wanted you to be around Feyre—you could remember him saying that. 

You knew fae were territorial and protective of mates, and that plot point had been one of your favorites when you read the books, so for him to allow you near her so quickly— 

“Oh, hello,” a light feminine voice chimed out. The tone was similar to yours. Familiar but entirely not. “I’m Feyre.” 

You offered a nod. Your name. “Nice to meet you.” 

She gave you a sympathetic look as you winced against shimmering light reflecting off the pebbled glass of several shining utensils. The entire dining room was alight. “Would you like to sit down? I’m told you have had quite the journey. I’d like to hear about it, if you would be open to sharing.” 

“I don’t have very much to offer,” you replied, following her outstretched hand to the open chair at the table. “In terms of the journey, I mean.” 

Mor took up the seat across from you, her gaze pointedly down, allowing you to speak. Feyre sat at your left side and Rhysand at the head of the table. There were people missing, even as Cassian found his own place and Azriel lingered near the opposite end. You wondered where the others were, and then cursed yourself for knowing too much. 

On the table, the food was like the language—foreign, but eerily familiar. Everything looked like something you had eaten before, but it also didn’t. The colors were slightly off, the proportions skewed. You felt your brow twitch as you tried to make out the type of meat that rested on a bed of greenery, and then took a breath through your lips as your nose began to burn at the extra attention to scent. 

“You just woke up here?” Feyre casually asked. She had begun to eat, and so had the rest of the table. Azriel had sat down at some point, though, not directly beside you. Something about that felt unnatural. 

“Um, yes. There was a pain in my stomach—like a pulling. I passed out from it, and then I woke up in this house.” 

Feyre briefly flicked her gaze across the table before asking, “Do you still feel the pain?” 

“No. No, that’s gone.”

She hummed. Rhysand spoke. “Tell us of New York.” 

He said the name with such lavish carefulness you almost snorted. “New York is the state I live in. I guess—within the continent I live on, New York is very small, but many people live there. I moved there for school.” 

“Is that where scholars typically go?” Mor inquired. 

“There are schools all over the country. I was—or am—getting my degree in library science. I’m going to be a librarian.” 

The switch to speaking in the past tense was unnerving, and you corrected yourself quickly. You shifted in your seat and picked up your fork, poking at the resemblance of a tomato. 

“Library science,” Mor enunciated. “You have to become educated in the study of the library?” 

“Yes. It’s very extensive. Libraries are crucial to conveying knowledge where I’m from. Things are more digital now, which many people think makes libraries archaic, but we actually offer quite a bit in that realm.” 

“Digital.” Cassian repeated the word under his breath.

“You are very passionate,” Feyre observed, a smile in her voice. 

With a furious heat taking over your face, you replied, “I guess so.” 

“Perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that you landed in our library, then,” Rhysand hummed, his eyes shining violet over the rim of his glass. 

Maybe this would be a good time to tell them; you were talking about books, about libraries, and this would be the time. You weren’t sure how they would react, but it had been almost a full day in this world and no one had really tried to kill you. No, they were being… kind? Less doubtful? You weren’t sure, once again, what any of it meant. 

Instead of talking, you shoved a piece of spiced meat in your mouth and chewed.

The flavor of it was unlike anything you had tasted before. Your taste buds reacted neutrally, as if you had whatever this was hundreds of times, but your thoughts were driving the meal, and you couldn’t connect your past to the present. 

The meat became ash in your mouth. Your fork dropped unceremoniously on the table, and you pressed your fingers to the polished wood to stop yourself from spitting it out. Casual conversation had begun to flow amongst the group, but it quieted at the sound. Your face heated again. The metal clattering against wood still stung at your sensitive ears. 

“That bad?” Cassian jested. 

You squeezed your eyes shut tightly and swallowed with considerable effort. 

“She doesn’t like boar,” Rhysand drawled back. “Noted.” 

Noted. Noted?

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” you coughed. You reached for the intricately gemmed goblet at your seat and sipped at what you hoped was water. It was not. More choking ensued. Droplets of blood-red wine spilled over the lip as you placed the cup down unsteadily. “Is that alcoholic?” you wheezed. 

From the other side of the table, Azriel’s chair scraped against the floor. He was moving things away and pulling out your own chair in a few swift movements. You followed him up only because your brain was in too many directions at once, the unfamiliar spices from the meat mingling with wine in the middle of the day, and then there were the concerned questions peppering the air from those around you, and this room was so bright. Why was every window in this damn house open? 

“Something plain,” you heard Feyre instruct as you were guided out of the room in a fit of dramatics. “And water. Do you want me to—” 

“No,” was all that came from the Shadowsinger beside you. The hallways became darker. Shadows were lining the walls. When you were alone, Azriel said, “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have assumed everything was okay for you.” 

“It was a normal lunch,” you argued, fingers curling around nothing as you followed his slow steps. He had to be slowing them down for you. “At least I can attest to the reality of this place even more now. I’ve never eaten anything like that in my life.” 

Though even as you said the words, you held a drop of doubt firm within you.

“Feyre had trouble adjusting to the food,” Azriel said. Mostly to himself. “We should have prepared for that.” 

“Feyre?” 

“She was human. From the human lands here. She became fae, as you did.”

But you already knew that. You nodded and bit into your tongue. “You know, you didn’t have to drag me out. I know everyone wants to ask me more questions.” 

“They can ask you another time. You have had a very long—” his eyes flickered to the back of your head and trailed down to your twitching fingers “—stressful day.” 

“Another time,” you repeated. If you woke up tomorrow and were still here, maybe. “Does that mean you plan to keep me around?” 

“Where else would you go?” 

“You could send me away. I don’t… belong here.” 

“You are here now. You landed here. You will stay here.” 

“Why?” 

Azriel hesitated. 

You asked again, “Why would you all trust me so quickly?” 

“Rhys saw inside your mind—saw that there is truth to where you say you came from,” Azriel finally offered. “And with the state of the continent, there are many unknown variables.” 

The taste of the meat was still in the back of your throat and you swallowed hard. “Do you trust me?” 

You caught the underlying meaning in Azriel’s words. Maybe they trusted you, trusted that part of you that you were able to share, but you were also an unknown variable. You needed to be where they could monitor you, and you didn’t blame them. If this were truly all real, all their world, you could pose a threat. But they were being nice, accommodating, and you couldn’t parse out what all of the glances and hospitality meant.

“I want to,” Azriel said. 

That had been real then. There was evidence that you had been there. Your head ached because you had done something to it. You reached your hand up to brush along your hair and had the absent thought to pinch yourself, even though you’d already experienced pain in this strange state, and so the theory that you were dreaming was squashed. You hadn’t been too attached to that one, anyway; everything had been too vivid, too coherent for it to be a figment of a dream. 

But that still left psychosis, or maybe a coma. You figured there was a difference between normal dreaming and medically induced dreaming. Given the long duration of typical comas, there were many opportunities for something like this to occur. But you had somewhat of a hard time believing a dream—even a comatose one—could be so clear. Most of your knowledge of comas was from fiction, so what you believed was also not a very reliable source. You cursed yourself for not delving further into the medical textbooks in the campus library when you were on shift.

Frustration nipped at your chest when logic and sense continued to evade you, so you huffed, slapped your palms on the bed, and gave in to the nonsensical. You slid from the bed, finally doing so without watchful eyes, and meandered around the room. You’d taken it in from the bed, mostly, but there was still the chance that you’d go to open a drawer and it would be a cardboard cutout of a desk rather than the real deal. You sighed from your nose when you opened four drawers, and all of them were, unfortunately, very real. 

To your continued disappointment, the room was rather empty save for the furniture and the pictures on the wall. It made sense that a flighty stranger would be placed in a barren guest room, but you were hoping for a little more context. For that, you walked over to the window and tried to make sense of something there. 

Your breath caught in your throat at the view. You remembered from the books that the House was built into the side of a mountain, but it was surreal to see the plummet. No rock face or landing was keeping this building up, and the sky seemed… endless, clouds and strange-looking birds flying past the walls as if the house were part of the environment, and you supposed it was. 

Velaris—the name was dropped into your memory. You peered down and could see speckles of a city, the city, but were too far up to make anything out. The passing clouds were another deterrent, and you gave up with the window after another beat. You turned, and in the vaguest reflection, you startled.

Your hand moved up before you willed it to, tracing over the shell of your ear and then slamming back down to your side. But that wasn’t enough time to properly assess, so you found your ear again, moving it in every direction it would manage, pulling closer to the window to find the point you were sure you were feeling. It was getting you nowhere, the bright sunlight washing out your reflection.

There was a mirror in this room. You remembered how it had made you panic. You spun on your heel, fingers still running over your cartilage, but you looked across the room and found nothing. The wall held a suspicious space where a picture, or a mirror, might hang, and you searched your thoughts for what you had seen before. 

Yes, there had been a mirror, and you could picture yourself in it—a blurry image of yourself, tainted by panic. Your limbs had seemed longer. Your skin had seemed to glow.

But then you had bashed your head into the wall, and thus, your mirror privileges were taken away. 

You turned back to the window and searched for the outline of your ear. 

“Um, hello.” 

You gasped, maybe yelped, your back connecting with the wall as you registered that another person had entered the room. You could hear their blood running in their veins and exactly how fast their heart beat; that didn’t seem normal. You ignored it as you took in the effervescent woman before you. 

Her hair was golden and sleek, falling in waves along her back and covering her shoulders. She wore casual clothes that seemed out of place on her, a plain shirt tucked into a flowing, draping skirt—not actually casual, not by your standards, but in comparison to what you knew this setting to be, it was quite lax. 

This had to be Mor. She clasped her hands together in front of her waist and tipped onto the balls of her feet. 

“I’m Mor,” she smiled, and you felt the muscle in your eye twitch. “I know… Well, I know that you have been through a lot, and I didn’t think you’d want to talk to those two buffoons any longer. I heard they didn’t even introduce themselves when you woke up. It’s no wonder you… well—” 

Mor seemed to wince at herself, words trailing off. Her head lopped to the side, and you snatched your hand to your side, realizing that you were still clutching the high point of your ear—which was undoubtedly pointed. 

“Tried to bash my head in?” you offered. You sounded insane, voice twinkling and light. Was that your voice? It had to be. Perhaps you were depersonalizing along with your psychotic break. 

Mor grimaced. “Right. That’s what I meant.” She nodded to the bed, taking a hesitant seat on the edge. “Would you mind talking with me for a little? I just want to know more about where you came from. We don’t—none of us want to hurt you, but the circumstances of your… appearance have been strange.”

Of course they didn’t want to hurt you; you figured that wasn’t their way. You had stopped reading the series a few years ago, too inundated with work and school and trying to figure your life out, but from what you’d heard, the cast of this novel had been acquainted with unexplained figures appearing in their home. You weren’t sure where you were in their timeline, however. That thought struck you as you slowly stepped towards the bed and sat too far away from Mor. 

“The men in here before,” you started, once again giving in and leaning into the crazy. “They mentioned something about me landing in the library?” 

Mor perked up, obviously eager to have a conversation going. “Yes. We have a library further down the mountain. There have been reports from the priestesses there that a creature living in the depths has been unsettled over the last few days, today being the most unruly. One went down to see if she could speak to him—rather brave for a priestess—and she saw you. You were, well, unclothed. And unconscious. She called for us then. You only woke up that first time when Rhysand and Azriel were in the room. Unfortunately.” 

Bryaxis—that was the creature. You also knew of the library, and the priestesses, and were able to pinpoint somewhere in your mind that Cassian, who you had not yet met, was terrified of the very creature living just beneath this house. But you couldn’t say any of that. Couldn’t paint yourself suspicious with too much information.

Of course, if you were imagining this all, that wouldn’t really matter. Unless, of course, you chose to punish yourself in this wild fever dream. That would definitely be something your brain did. 

You shook the spiralling thoughts away. 

“How long was I out?” you asked, because that was neutral. 

“About a day and a half. Rhys had tried to—wait, are you aware of… where you are?” 

“Um, Velaris?” you offered, the name sounding bulky as it came out of your mouth. 

Mor paused. Her expression twitched. 

Wrong answer. Wrong answer. You should have said no. You should have said Night Court, or even Prythian, or anything other than the only secret city in the book.

But could you keep your origins a secret? 

You felt a hysterical laugh build at the base of your throat, and the thought to ask the year drifted through your mind because, at least then, maybe you could know where in this delirious fantasy delusion your brain had dropped you off at, but you didn’t know how time was quantified here. You hadn’t the slightest frame of reference, and you couldn’t exactly ask, “Mor, remind me, have you yet killed the King of Hybern, or are we in book two?” and expect to be trusted. 

You kept your mouth shut as Mor processes the two words you have spoken. 

“Yes,” she eventually replied, the ghost of a confused smile on her face. “Are you from here? A citizen? Or, um—” 

She was having trouble finding words. In the books, you remembered Mor as confident, sure of herself, and casually intimidating. Right now, she was none of those things, and it was because of you. 

And you had a decision to make. 

You could lie, but you’d never been a very good liar, and your lack of context would make it difficult to fit into the time. One wrong move and this would all be over, your fate most likely ending with Azriel’s blade to your throat out of fear you were infiltrating their lands, and you weren’t exactly sure what would happen if you died in this strange figment of your recollection. If you were hallucinating, or even dreaming as a comatose, there could be repercussions. 

You were taking too long to answer. Mor’s expression had gone from hesitant to wary, and you were still mulling over your options. Still considering the impossible as if you weren’t already experiencing it. 

“I’m not from here,” you landed on. You stared down at the lithe stretch of your fingers and then tucked them beneath your thighs. “I think my home is very, very far away.” 

“You think?” Mor pressed. 

“I’m not exactly sure where it would be in relation to here. I don’t think I could show you on a map. Or a globe. Do you have planets here?” 

“Do we have planets?” 

“Right. That feels like a ridiculous question. I’m not quite sure how to explain any of this.” 

“Perhaps it should be done all at once.”

~~

It took a few moments for Azriel and Rhysand to return to the room. You had half a mind to ask for the rest of the inner circle to join, simply to get more explaining out of the way, but you still hadn’t decided how much you were planning to share—how much you wanted them to know that you knew.

You startled when Azriel's wings displaced the air in the room. You heard them before you saw them, the sheer size creating a presence that body alone couldn’t replicate. So far, your reflection and the ethereal, larger-than-life qualities of the fae were the most jarring to come to terms with, but you had yet to leave this room, so there were surely other feats you would need to overcome. Unless your brain shook itself loose from this state before then. 

When you jumped, Azriel seemed to as well. His feet moved in a small, unsteady pattern, his wings pressing into his back. He had kept his eyes down upon entering, but you must have made a sound, a gasp, and he looked at you with a pinched expression. You tried to avert your gaze, but it got caught on the shadows again. He was so huge, his wings hooked and towering, the inky wisps taking up even more space. 

Rhysand had also joined the group, though you found it much easier for your eyes to pass over his form as he settled against the window. 

“I apologize for scaring you earlier,” Rhysand offered, a sincere hand over his heart. He didn’t need to apologize; you had scared yourself. The lack of reflective surfaces in the room was a testament to that. “We hadn’t meant to. Truly.” 

You shook your head but didn’t reply. Struggled to reply. This felt insane. 

“Mor said you aren’t from here?” Rhysand posed. 

“I’m not,” you said, taciturn from lack of direction. You hadn’t made up your mind. Hadn’t made sense of your brain and why it was taking you on this strange trip. You could give in, or you could give way to reason and see yourself back to reality from pure spite. 

To your dismay, being curt only got you more pressing, gentle looks. Rhysand was looking at you with a tender caution, and that was confusing because before, it was only suspicion. Before, he had stayed by the door and observed you like an animal. 

Was this your brain digging in?

The High Lord met you on the bed, sitting on the corner and giving you space, but coming down to your level. "I realize that you may have been through a lot, so I’ll give you some information first, okay?” he enticed. Azriel was still standing by the window, every muscle in his body seemingly on edge. You threw him a glance before nodding at Rhys. “You know you are in Velaris—Mor told me that. And she was also gracious enough to share our names, I’ve heard.” 

Mor snorted, crossing her arms as she stood beside Azriel. 

Rhysand lowered his brows from the look he threw her. “I am the High Lord of this court. You were discovered in my library. The library is not open to the public, so since you arrived there, seemingly by a magical occurrence, my inner circle and I have had many questions.” 

“Why don’t you just look into my mind and answer your questions?” you shouted into your thoughts. “Mind-reading would be the clearest solution, since I’m already going insane.” 

“I don’t know how I ended up there,” you said instead, digging your fingers into the plush material of the bed. “I wasn’t feeling well, I passed out, and then I woke up here. I don’t—I don’t even know what your library looks like.” 

A partial lie. You had read about the contents of the library and had a general description floating in your mind, but you could only remember the vaguest outline of the space. 

Azriel was next to speak. “What do you mean—not feeling well?” 

That was simpler to answer; you could handle that. Maybe Azriel was a doctor, and this was reality seeping through. “It was like a pain in my stomach, but more like an excruciating pulling. Something was… strange inside of me. I thought maybe my appendix, but now that I’m thinking back, I’m sure that couldn’t have been it. I got up to get help, but I barely made it to the door before I was out. That’s all I remember before I woke up in this room.” 

“Appendix?” Mor murmured as Rhysand paused, let the word simmer in the space, and then leaned his elbows on his knees.

Anxiety spiked as he sat there, contemplating. Your fingers felt glued to the bed, the back of your neck prickling. You gnawed on the inside of your cheek as silence ticked past, and then you were screaming again. You were tired of screaming. 

A slinking feeling had inched its way into your mind, rolling along the edges and searching for a weak point. You thrashed back on the bed, pushing yourself against the headboard even though the threat wasn’t physical. The feeling flattened against the surface of your mind, expanding in rolling darkness, and prickled pain across your vision. You held your head in your hands but felt no relief. 

“Rhys,” Azriel said, his voice low and strained. “It is not working.” 

“Working?” you breathed out, clutching then at your chest. “What’s—” 

“Let me—” 

“Rhys.” Azriel snapped when you let out another shout. His voice was calm, a measured calm, when he said, “We can ask her. We don’t need to resort to this yet.” 

“We tried asking,” Rhysand countered. Your mind was still being invaded. Invaded, but nothing gleaned. Something ached, and something else was a sharp crack.

“I don’t—” you started and failed. “You can ask me. Ask me!” 

Shit. Shit. What was this? Were you being lobotomized in real time, unable to find your way back to the present before you were deemed really and truly unfixable? Something in your head knocked, but you were unable to answer with the pressing pain. Unable to even make sense of a knock in your mind. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t—” 

Mor’s hesitant tone was cut off. Rhysand gritted out, “We don’t have the luxury of waiting for a lie. She wasn’t telling us everything. If she’s working with them—for him—we need to—” 

“Need to what?” Azriel spat out, his voice sounding closer. The pain lessened, but the fog in your mind remained. 

“Azriel, I don’t want to hurt her, but—” 

“And so you won’t.” 

A long, pointed pause. 

The High Lord spoke once more. “We can’t take any chances.” 

“You haven’t given her a chance.” 

“No fae has that strong a barrier in their mind without having secrets. We cannot afford secrets.” 

“I can’t—” 

Your whimper cut Azriel off, the pain building again, and you couldn’t take it. It seemed never-ending. If you could drop whatever barrier they were talking about, you would, but without even the slightest knowledge of what it was, Rhysand would never stop his assault. You cracked your eyes open despite the light blistering your vision, tears brimming from the discomfort. 

“I won’t lie,” you promised, heaving out breaths before the pain could take over again. “I won’t. I promise. Please don’t do that again. Please. I don’t know—I didn’t make a barrier.” 

Azriel was nearly on the bed, his knees brushing along the mattress where he stood. You would have been startled by the proximity, but the throbbing in your head had lowered the threshold for shock. Still, the hulking Illyrian dwarfed you where you sat, shadows pooling along your lap. If you extended your hand, you could have grabbed his. 

The thought quickly extinguished from your mind. 

“Are you working for the uprising?” 

That threw you. You shook the lingering murkiness from your mind and squinted into the room to find Rhysand, the shadow from Azriel helping immensely. “I don’t know anything about an uprising.” 

It didn’t ring a single bell from the books. Maybe it was from one of the newer series you hadn’t read yet? Or a novella? An uprising seemed much too poignant for a novella. 

An ache was returning in your brain, and so you panicked. “I swear. I swear! I don’t even know how I’m here! I live in New York! I’m getting my master’s degree, and my student loans barely cover my rent! My upstairs neighbor got a tiny dog that keeps me awake half the night, and I swear I’m hallucinating all of this from chronic lack of sleep, so I’m probably shouting this into a void, but that hurts so bad and I’m begging you to believe me. I know I sound crazy. I just—” 

You paused. Took in the room. The pain had ceased, but the looks you were getting weren’t much better. You thought back to the source material these characters came from, and said what you thought might make sense. 

“I’m human. I’m not—I’m not supposed to be here. I got so scared when I saw myself because I don’t look like that. I’m not from here, and I meant that. I need to go home. Through a portal or some magic object or through that creature in the library maybe. And I don’t know what uprising you’re talking about because I come from a place where the most exciting things that happen are on my phone so I need to get back home because I have experienced more pain and fear in the last hour than I have in my entire life.” 

The room stayed silent. 

Your body still felt off. It was stiff in a way you hadn’t experienced, but also light and airy in a way that felt preternatural. Sounds had begun to filter through the staunch wall of your brain, and they felt sharp, biting. There was an underlying panic that perhaps you had been out for much longer than you first estimated, but something else soothed that panic each time it rose. It made you feel right, despite every wave of confusion, and you leaned into that feeling rather than giving in to the fear. 

Something was buzzing beneath your skin. It flowed in your blood and seemed to zap your veins. Drugs—it was definitely drugs through an IV. Probably pain killers and antibiotics and several other things keeping you alive as your appendix acted against you. There was a chance it had already been taken out, and you preferred that narrative. No time to be anxious about surviving a surgery that already happened. 

Low murmuring suddenly ripped past the mundane sounds of whatever room you were in, and then the panic was back in full force. 

“Explain it again?” 

“The priestesses said it was sudden. Bryaxis was unsettled—and then she was there. Unconscious.” 

The content of the conversation was enough to make your breathing shallow, but it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t just that there was nothing medical about the words floating above you, or that you were suddenly concerned you had been taken to a… convent? A church?

No, it was that the words sounded so, so foreign, each consonant and vowel weaving together to form echoes of a language you had never heard before, not even in passing. It was unusual, possibly European, but also not in the slightest. You thought it could have been Latin, but even that didn’t sound correct. The worst part, the terrifying part, was that you understood it. You could tell it was different, and still, everything was so clear in your mind. Like it was relayed through a translation app and inputted directly into your brain. 

You felt yourself shift as the fear tightened your throat, and to your surprise, nothing was dragging against you—no wires or IVs or tubes helping you stay afloat after a major surgery. You took in a deep breath and smelled no antiseptic or starched linen sheets. Instead, the air held an herbal hint, spices and heady plants alarming your senses.

Were you kidnapped? Had your organs been harvested? You began to second-guess the integrity of your roommates, running through their university housing profiles in your head. Two grad students, quiet, no parties, night-owls—nothing about being part of an underground organ-harvesting ring. But, then again, maybe they had been waiting for the perfect moment, for you to be vulnerable enough to cart off without a fight.

Your breaths became even more difficult to capture. 

“She’s waking up,” one of the male voices said.

You choked on the strange scent of the air, and then your eyes opened and adjusted to the dim, humming light in the room. You were in a room that was, as predicted, not in a hospital. Deep, polished wood made up the roof beams, with red rock twining between tiny cracks and fissures. There were pictures on the walls depicting a town with sprawling lights and a rushing river, and mountains with snow-capped peaks and figures outlined upon them. A window was allowing light in from the far side of the room, and you snapped your head up once the rush of consciousness became less novel. 

Two men stood by the door, both imposing in their statures, neither looking like the type to steal someone’s organs. They were well-dressed and put together, calm with their attention fixed on you, and you’d never witnessed any organized crime, but the lavish room you were in, paired with the careful, guarded looks you were receiving, didn’t add up to the assumptions in your head. The comparisons didn’t help you feel calm. 

Your hands hovered over the plush blanket on your lap, fingers shaking. You let out a sudden gasp of air that quivered in your chest and flinched as the two men reacted to the sound. Neither had moved from their positions by the door, though you knew by their expressions that they would if they had to. The shorter one, his eyes more cunning and knowing, tilted his chin up and began to speak. 

“Where did you come from?” he asked, tone clear. “And how did you land in my library?” 

The lack of malice in his curiosity told you he was in control of the situation. The taller man behind him, lean but still taking up so much of the doorway, looked on with equally searching eyes, but he was more guarded, more reserved, his brow twitching as you observed him. You had a hard time discerning which of the two was more dangerous. 

“Um,” you stammered, still frozen in place. Your voice was more melodic than you had expected. “I don’t—exactly know how I got here. I’m from the—I, um, I’m in grad school on the east coast.” 

“The east?” the man in the back echoed. His voice was so low you felt it in your chest. “Of what court?” 

You paused. “New York?” 

The one with the deep blue eyes squinted. “Where is that?”

Confusion overrode panic. “New York? As in, the state?” 

Everyone knew about New York, even if they only conceptualized it in terms of taxi cabs and hot dogs and the Statue of Liberty. It was possible, though highly unlikely, that you had been taken to a remote island, on which no one had a map, or access to the news, or even an internet connection, but these men looked… knowledgeable. You couldn’t exactly pinpoint why, but they didn’t seem the type to be uninformed. 

You glanced out the window to get a better concept of your surroundings, but saw only a clouded blue sky. You were high up, then, granting even more evidence against your remote island theory—if they could build a house several stories high, they would know about New York. 

You worried your bottom lip as the clouds inched their way across the window, the room silent. Through the corner of your vision, you saw the men looking at each other—furrowing and straightening their brows, squinting and grimacing and huffing out breaths. If there were words accompanying their expressions, it would have made more sense, but as it stood, you were beginning to amount a new fear: that you were kidnapped, and your kidnappers were clinically insane. 

The most reasonable avenue would be the escape, but you would need to scope out your surroundings first, and each time you even shifted on the bed, eyes shot to you. Were you not allowed to move? Were you chained to the bed? You took stock of your legs and feet under the blanket, not feeling bound by anything other than the tucked-in sheets. There were no bars on the window, either, and the room itself was rather welcoming. You glanced over at the side table, tinctures and small vials labeled with scrawling text. Your fingers spasmed as you read the words clearly, despite the letters looking foreign. 

This could have been a very, very realistic dream. 

After another moment of the men staring at each other, you decided to take a chance, feeling resolute in both the dream and the insane kidnapper theory. You slid one leg out from under the blanket, but movement by the door stopped you. 

The taller man had turned to you again, expression watchful, feet moving on the plush carpet. You sucked in a breath and stalled your attempt to get to the window. And then you felt yourself scream. Just one scream—an accident, really, your hand coming out to cover your mouth as the men stood at alert. Your breaths were making strange sounds past your fingers, and your shoulders were unintentionally raised. 

Wings. 

The man had wings, and they didn’t look fake. They moved along with him, membranes allowing light to pass through and highlight the veins tracking back to the roots. And the closer you looked at him, the worse it became. There were glowing, blue… gems—no, sconces of light attached to his body, and they seemed to move with him too. They sparked and swirled as he took you in, responding to him in a way that couldn’t be manufactured. 

But what had you jumping from the bed were the shadows emanating from him, wisps of darkness flowing from his shoulders. Some of them seemed to tug at him, others cloaked him in their murky air. You jolted up and got caught on the sheets, tugging your ankle loose until your hands finally met the carpeted ground. Someone was saying something, but you couldn’t hear them, too panicked to make sense of this strange language you suddenly understood. You ended up with your palms flat on the ground and your knees supporting you, vaguely aware that you were wrapped in some sort of silk material that you were positive did not come from your closet. 

“Easy,” the winged man warned, but his hands were up in a placating gesture, and he had begun to crouch to meet you at your level. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

Your chest had begun to sting with your quick inhales. The man took the smallest step forward, and you rushed back, your head slamming into a table and making your vision blur. 

“Azriel, you are scaring her,” the other man patiently said. He hadn’t moved from the door, but something about him felt more imposing. Your head was throbbing too much to make sense of it. 

Azriel looked over his shoulder. “Well, what would you like me to do instead, Rhys?” he quipped out, as if this were some kind of game and you weren’t being held hostage. 

Okay. 

You were the one going insane. That had to be it. You had fallen into the hall back at your apartment and had some sort of psychotic break, prompting your very appropriately acting roommates to put you on a psych hold. That was it. That was why you were seeing shadows and wings and glowing bulbs. You blinked hard and tried to orient yourself to that truth, hoping that some clarity would come with the revelation, but when you opened your eyes, you were still there. 

“This isn’t real,” tumbled from your lips, sounding breathy and light. “You—you aren’t real. And I’m going insane.” 

Azriel shook his head. “This is real. You are in the Night Court. Is that where you’re from? Or are you from somewhere else?” 

“Night Court?” you mumbled to yourself, gaze falling to your fingers as you fiddled with the hem of the satiny dress. And you focused on them, then, more intently than you had when you first woke up. You flipped your palm over and looked at the length of your fingers, at the elegance that flowed along your wrists and up your arms. They were your hands, but they weren’t. Not at all. 

Night Court. 

You couldn’t focus on just one thing anymore, your eyes traveling around the room without abandon. They went from Azriel, to the man at the door, to the window, to the paintings along the wall. 

Were you from somewhere else? You were from New York. You were getting your master’s in library science, and you were going to be a librarian. You had a tiny, cramped apartment in Syracuse with roommates getting grad degrees in STEM. Night Court—that didn’t make sense. 

It didn’t make sense because you were crazy. You had gone crazy. The energy drinks had driven you insane with their promises of copious vitamins and energy and a faster metabolism. This was the price. 

At some point, Azriel had dropped to his knees to mirror you on the ground. “I don’t think she’s going to answer us, Rhys,” he quietly called out, eyes never leaving you. “Maybe Feyre would be better.” 

“I’m not sending Feyre in when I can’t see if she has… motives.” 

Something clicked in your brain. Things lined up, information being shelved in alphabetical order until confusion made way for understanding, and then that understanding lingered. 

“Feyre?” you mumbled again. The man, Rhysand, your brain provided for you, perked up in the doorway. “That book.” 

“What book?” Rhysand quickly asked. 

“The—series. It’s… I read it a few years ago, but I don’t think it’s—” Your next breath was an incredulous laugh. “Oh my god. I am actually going insane. I’m hallucinating, and it’s—I should have gone to law school, oh my god.” 

“Law school?” Azriel echoed. 

You snapped your gaze up to look at him, finally taking in the hazel of his eyes and the shadows that weaved into his dark hair. Then you found his hands, confirming something to yourself when scarred tissue rested atop his thighs. Rhysand was next, and you located his pointed ears and elongated features almost instantly. 

Another disbelieving laugh fell from your lips. Azriel moved again, and you shot back, head connecting with the table for a second time. Pain split down your neck, something rattling on the surface above. You brought your hand up to tame the ache, but Azriel’s hand had raised too, and for a second, the shortest second, your fingers brushed. You tore your hand away, pressing it into the base of your skull, snapping your eyes to his. 

Something pulled. The air stagnated. 

It felt like the pull from right before all of this happened, before your brain short-circuited and threw you into a fantasy land you’d read about during your gap year. You leaned into it, hopeful that somehow, it would zap you back into reality. That maybe if you honed in on the feeling, you would find that this was all some coma-induced dream you could forget about with time, but always reference when you told the story of your appendix bursting—because you were still holding out hope that it was actually that. 

It did the opposite. You gave in to the pull, tugging on the glowing thread, and it made you feel more rooted in the spot. More concrete in the make-believe. Still just ahead of you, Azriel made a gasping sound that echoed each of your panicked breaths from before. You scanned his expression, etched your gaze into the high corners of his face, but he was seemingly frozen. His chest didn’t move. His shadows paused. 

“What—” 

You didn’t get the chance to finish your question, not that it had ever been formed in your head. Azriel shot to his feet, stumbling back and causing you to flinch again, to cower into the table that you had been trying to inch away from. He looked down at you, and his expression pinched, looking pained, before his hand gripped at his chest, covering his heart as his shadows wove between his fingers. One came down and brushed your cheek, and you screamed, jolting into the light of the window. 

Azriel flinched at the sound. He took another step back, and then another. You hadn’t realized you were breathing hard again until your shoulders met the far wall, your bone digging into the wood. Your mind was racing at an impossible speed, all your theories and concerns and all of the confusing sensations melding together. And maybe you could have handled it, maybe you could have collected yourself, but there was a mirror just across the room. You looked at it with your blurry, unfocused vision, and you thought it was another painting. At first. But then you moved, and the figure etched within it moved with you. And it was a mirror, and it was you, but it wasn’t. 

You looked like yourself, could recognize yourself, but you were changed. 

Made. 

The thought sang in your head, unfounded, and your panic turned to terror. Because this entire time, thoughts had all been yours. They had been unorganized and scary and untrue, but they had all come from you. But that one hadn’t been. 

So, you did the first thing you could think of on your own, the first thing that truly felt like it could bring you back to yourself. You reared your head forward, and then you let it fall back with force. The pain was similar to before, but it was numbing, almost. And it didn’t bring you back. Someone shouted, panicked, but you thought maybe the numbing was reality, so you edged forward again. 

You didn’t have the chance to try a second time. 

Your head slammed back, but it hit something soft, something that gathered the momentum and didn’t let it continue. Azriel was in front of you again, no longer edging out of the room, and it was his hand that stopped your assault. He was staring at you with wide, horrified eyes, and then he wasn’t. He yelled something over his shoulder, and then Rhysand was in front of you. The door opened. Footsteps followed. 

“Do something.” 

“I can’t—”

“Anything.” 

"Losing me?" you echoed. You stepped over the contents of your life and he did not move from the doorway. "Rhys, what are you talking about? You know this is temporary."

"Temporary. Right."

It was. Of course it was. There was no world where you could leave and stay gone, but you needed to leave. For a little while. Just until your family had everything squared away. Just until your father would stop sending you letters, begging you to marry a man you refused to.

"Rhys. It is. I swear to you. I don't want to go back, but—"

"Then don't." His eyes were glistening as he finally made his way toward you, expression pulling taut as he held your face in his hands. "Don't go. They treat you terribly. They will force you into things. You've told me before that you feel responsible, and I know you—"

"I won't—"

"I know that it feels like you won't give in now. But once you get there? I remember how things were after you first left. I can't—you know I can't come. I can't be there for you."

"That would make it political," you nodded. You clutched at Rhysand's fingers. "I know. We've spoken about this at length, my love. I will go, ensure my sisters are taken care of, explain to my father that I will not comply with his ridiculous requests, and then I'll check on the house staff. That is all."

Rhysand repeated your last three words, whispering them into the night.

You gave him a reassuring smile.

He dragged a thumb down and traced your throat. "If they hurt you—" he began, eyes darkening. "—I will make this political."

Your smile turned into a line. "I don't think they will. Things are different now," you quietly offered. "I have you."

"You do have me." His forehead met yours. "So come back."

"A couple of days. Just the week."

"Azriel will come with you."

"He will not."

"It would ease my mind."

You drew back and raised a brow. "And it would cause havoc in my household. I can lay low, Rhys. I can do this."

He hummed, the corner of his mouth twitching up in a fleeting semblance of a smile. His thumb hadn't left the column of your throat, smoothing soft lines into your skin. He looked at you as if you were going to war, and he was the only one in the room to ever accomplish such a feat. You were nothing more than a nobleman's daughter.

"Sorry. I'm sorry," you rushed, your voice as shaky as your hands. "I should have been faster. I'm so sorry, Azriel."

He was pale and sweating when you returned to his side. You felt the blood leave your own face as you dabbed at his faebane-wrought wound, attempting to soothe the ache as Madja had taught you. Magic could not do anything against faebane, so it was a waiting game.

He gritted his teeth and attempted a shake of his head. "Don't—don't apologize. Thank you. It's helping."

"Right, okay," you mumbled to yourself. You hovered your palms over the now-covered wound. "You're okay. It's okay."

Your skin felt like it was vibrating, your breathing becoming harsh and out of time. There wasn't much of a wound left on Azriel's side after all of your attempts at healing, but the lingering scent of blood and his stained leathers remained. You stared at the mishapened crimson until the image became distorted in your mind. The ringing began then, sounding at a distance until it was practically thrumming at your ear.

This was panic. You were familiar with it. But there was no time to panic, no place when Azriel needed you.

You spun on your heel and pressed a hand to your chest, trying and failing to gulp in any air you could. Tears sprang to your eyes when the attempts began to hurt, when you started to feel lightheaded, and the world was crumbling down on you.

He was hurt. Azriel was hurt, and all you could do was wait. He was going to die one day, and you would never see him again and—

A face in front of yours, beaded in sweat, pallid in the low faelight you'd cast, but a face so familiar you would know it blind. Azriel's hazel eyes bore into yours, and his lips were moving to form slow, measured words that you could not hear. You felt him first, the careful rhythm of his thumbs drawing circles on your shoulders, both grounding and shocking your senses. When you began to blink harder, he ran a hand over your hair and pulled you closer until your forehead rested against his.

"You're okay," he murmured into the sliver of space between you. "I'm okay, and you're okay. You'll always be okay with me. Deep breaths, angel. One at a time."

You tracked his exaggerated inhales and matched the steady exhales. He offered you an encouraging nod when you finally caught your breath, and then pulled back enough to press his lips to your forehead. He held you there for a long moment. Your fingers found purchase in the material at his chest.

"Back with me?" Azriel lowly asked.

"Yes," you stuttered out, feeling strange and airy, but more present than you had before.

"Good," Azriel breathed. "Good—can you... Don't panic, angel, but I need your help lying down again. Can you do that for me?"

You jolted, tore back from him, and slammed back to the moment in totality. You opened your mouth to apologize, to yell at him, to panic, when Azriel gently shook his head. He faltered where he stood, and you gripped his arms to steady him.

You snorted and then turned back to your fries.

You had always been a constant in Bucky's life—first in middle school, then high school, and now entering your last year in college. Inseparable was a common term used to describe your relationship, but there was something that separated you, and it had been a more... recent development.

Bucky had joined a frat. A very popular frat. You had not liked the frat, but you put up with it. But then Bucky started sleeping with women, and you put up with that far less, because Bucky started sleeping with... a lot of women. So, it was fair. You kept your distance, made your own friends, and you made time to see each other when you could.

Bucky coveted those times, even if he wouldn't admit to it. Even if each quick dinner, each passing coffee in the dining hall, began to feel like he was falling off a cliff. A very sudden, very steep cliff.

The women were not a distraction at first. He was supposed to have sex with women. That's what guys like him did in college. But, recently, for the past few weeks, they were a distraction. A distraction from you. He couldn't stop thinking about you, and that wasn't the plan.

"Why are you staring off into space like a freak?" you laughed, tossing a fry at his face. It smacked between his eyes.

"I'm not," he argued. "What, a guy can't think anymore? That illegal?"

You puffed out a laugh. "What could you possibly be thinking about?" You shoved the plate away and rested your face in your hands. "The next girl you'll waste the time of? Maybe you're worried that you left one in your bed and now she's going through your underwear drawer."

"Ha. Ha," Bucky mocked. "No, smart ass. I was thinking about what to get you for your birthday, but now, since I'm not allowed to think, I think I'll just forget."

"Not my birthday!" you gasped, hands coming down on the table. "You said you were going to take me to Disneyland."

"I was kidding about that. You actually want to go to Disneyland?"

"Not anymore. Not after you've dangled it in front of my nose like this."

Bucky let out another sarcastic laugh, sliding out of the booth after tossing a few bills on the table. He shrugged his jacket on and held out an expectant hand that you stared at dubiously before taking with a roll of your eyes.

"Yeah, yeah," Bucky droned. "Let's get out of here before your hysterics get us kicked out."

He helped you into your own jacket, lingered with his nose by your temple and greedily took time he wasn't allowed, and then pushed a rough kiss to the side of your head because that was a normal thing to do. He was being normal. His feelings were normal.

You tugged him into the parking lot and blabbed on about Disneyland and terrible fries and looked at him like you always did, and he looked at you like you were holding his entire life in your hands. You didn't seem to notice the difference.

Bucky kept it to himself and pretended he wasn't crossing a line.

A beat of silence. Jack pursed his lips and took it as a good sign, a contemplative one. He had lots of time to think on days like these. He liked thinking. He was a good thinker.

"Yesterday was a good day," Robby pointed out.

"Most of them are good now."

"But not today."

"No," Jack confirmed, sniffing. "No, this morning, she screamed when she woke up and thought we'd had a one-night stand. Not the best reaction from my girlfriend of five years."

"Maybe it's because she's still your girlfriend after five years," Robby shrugged, teasing.

It was a blow Robby couldn't have known he made. Jack took in a deep breath and thought of the proposal he'd had planned just under a year ago. Before the accident. Before pieces of your memory faded and returned at random, decimating the easy routine of your life together.

It was a cruel twist of fate that made it him. You always forgot him, like he was etched into that one specific neural pathway, and the semi that had sideswiped you made sure you smashed your head just there. Some days it was like that never even happened. Other days, like today, that part of your brain was unreachable, painful.

Jack rode out each of those days, grateful that you were still alive. There was a long stretch of time when people thought you wouldn't be. He remembered that time like a dismal grey cast over the parts of the hospital that held reminders—the elevator, the fourth floor, the cafeteria on broccoli cheddar soup day.

So he would take you on your bad days, but he didn't want to make it worse by getting married. He didn't know what benchmark would tell him it was okay again. Maybe, what, a month of no bad days? Six months? And how would it be different, he wondered, if you woke up married rather than dating? Would it be different for you?

"Hey, I was just kidding, man," Robby placated, tapping Jack's chest. "You guys have been through a lot. I don't think you have to subscribe to a timeline."

"Yeah, I know."

Robby eyed him. "Good. Good."

"I want to, though." Jack turned his head to the side but kept his gaze on a far wall. "Marry her. I just—I don't want things to be worse. I don't want her to be confused one day and not even have her own name."

Robby tsked, rubbing his hands together and hanging his head slightly. "I don't know, brother. Even on bad days, she still looks for you every time she walks into the ED. I don't know if—"

"Dr. Abbot?"

Jack spun at the sound of his name, trying to balance giving you his full attention and not scaring you off. He righted, then relaxed his shoulders, then schooled his face into attention and patience and nonchalance.

"Or—Jack. Sorry. I know you said Jack, but I—"

"Hey, no worries," Jack soothed, pulling a hand from beneath his casually crossed arms to wave you off. "What can I do for you?"

"Um," you started, mouth twisting in discomfort. He was the only one who knew it was from discomfort. He knew so many things about you. "I don't..."

When your fingers became a tight ball, all wound together and tense, Jack found himself covering them with his own gentle touch. You didn't pull away. He changed his evaluation of the day from not great to not so bad.

"You wanna talk in the hall?" he asked, his voice dropping, head tilting down to give you privacy.

You flushed at the closeness, shoulders rising.

Not so bad was then changed to actually kind of okay.

"I don't know my locker combination," you whispered to him, avoiding his eyes. "I thought I did, but you told me we shared one and then you told me the numbers and my brain feels all..."

"Plugged in wrong?"

"Yeah," you breathed out. "Exactly like that."

That stung, but you took it in stride, pressing your lips together and nodding. You were both covered in dirt and blood from the previous scuttle, your hands scraped up and your hair in disarray. But if those had been your only afflictions, the personal escort wouldn't have been necessary. No, it was your broken ribs that called for the carrying and the soft way in which Azriel was holding you. He was angry, enraged, but he held you like he knew it hurt.

And, damn, did it hurt.

But it had been worth it.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?"

You blinked, tearing your focus from counting each tree you passed as a distraction from the pain. "What?"

Azriel looked at you for the first time since the last Undead fell to the ground. He snapped his gaze down, assessing your reorienting eyes and the color still on your cheeks. His brow only furrowed a fraction. "Are you hurt anywhere else? Are you bleeding?"

"Oh. No. It's just the ribs."

His jaw worked again. "Ribs that will take weeks to heal. You will be vulnerable for weeks."

"I know that. I know, Azriel," you quietly affirmed, breathing through your nose to stave off the ache. You were almost to the camp. He could get some distance from you then—cool off a bit.

"Then why?" he probed, going back on his dismissal of an explanation. He looked angry again. "Why would you do that when you know I—"

"I just had to, okay?" you quipped, feeling your eye twitch at your sudden intake of air. "Leave in alone, Az."

Azriel stopped abruptly. You could smell lingering smoke and poorly cooked meat from where you sat in his arms, freedom from this conversation just a few more agonizing steps away. But they were not steps you could take, so you remained in this purgatory.

"Leave it alone?" he seethed, face inches from yours. "I had to watch you run headfirst into a pack of Undead, no weapons, no cover—and you want me to be okay with that? To brush it off? I thought you were dead. Or worse. And your explanation is that you just had to? No. Not good enough."

It was your turn to offer stilted silence. You looked off to the side, unable to meet his gaze, but then sucked in a breath when you turned just a hair too far, your ribs screaming at you. Azriel's face immediately softened at your jolt, hardness melting into a flash of concern. If you hadn't been injured, he would have pressed more. He looked along your body once, shook his head, and then continued on.

It would be torture to continue on like this.

He would avoid you for days, and that would be so annoying.

Even more annoying than a set of cracked ribs.

"I was going to wait until you weren't so mad at me," you started, letting out an uncomfortable whimper as you shifted in his hold.

"What are you—stop moving. Hey, stop, you'll—"

"Here."

With a final pained breath, the necklace was out. You had the braided cord twined between your fingers and the pendant hanging down against the inside of your wrist. It wasn't damaged, thankfully, and the wide expanse of bat wings glinted before intricately designed mountain peaks. You had seen him wear the piece every day since you met him. There was no world in which you could simply leave it to be stomped and gnawed on by a pack of Undead.

Azriel said nothing. He had started walking again after your last flinch, but you were stopped once more as he stared at your fingers, at the token you were offering. It had been his mother's. He had told you that, so many nights ago—maybe it had been a year. Time wasn't always counted correctly.

He gave you silence, and then, "Never do that again."

Your hand fell. Azriel kept walking.

"What?" you choked out.

"If the choice is you or an object—if it's you or anything—get yourself out. Know that. Know that I don't care about anything else."

"I didn't mean—"

"I haven't made myself clear then."

You sank into yourself, feeling chastised and unsure. The necklace was still woven between your fingers, and camp was coming closer, closer, closer. You had second-guessed yourself when you jumped into action, and now it was clear you—

Azriel pressed the slope of his nose to your temple. He breathed in.

What if you weren’t fine? What if you believed him, and then you died or there was a complication or several other things all aligned perfectly, and you were patient zero for some strange, unresolvable medical anomaly? It was all possible, even if the chances were slim, and waiting in this dismal room was making him consider it all. He wished he had gone into surgery. He wouldn’t be going through any of this if he were a surgeon. 

Jack’s knee had begun to shake when a nurse finally entered the waiting room and looked around. It was the same nurse who had assured him, several times, that they were aware of your allergies and would call him immediately if anything went wrong, so Jack shot up from his chair. He ignored the ache in his leg and brushed down the material of his jeans, and he walked over to her before she could even register who he was. 

“How’s she doing?” Jack greeted, hands pressed together to look casual, but he was anything but casual. His wife was lying in a hospital bed, and he wasn’t there, and that was not casual. 

Nurse Caroline, Jack had taken it upon himself to remember, gave him a soft smile. She still had a scrub cap on and didn’t look stressed or nervous, but Jack was familiar with compartmentalizing in front of patients’ families, and he was a patient’s family. He held his breath and tried to look casual again. 

“She’s doing just fine, Dr. Abbot. There was a minor complication with bleeding, but nothing we couldn’t handle. We’ve been observing her for the past half hour, and she’s responding well to the titration of meds. Starting to wake up, but she’s pretty out of it. Don’t be alarmed.” 

“What kind of complication?” Jack asked, right on the heels of nurse Caroline as she guided him through the maze of patient rooms. “Something surgery-related or a predisposition?” 

Caroline hooked her chin over her shoulder. “I’ll give you the full note in her discharge summary, how about that? You can review the entire procedure.” 

“Not sure I need to do that,” Jack muttered under his breath, though the thought comforted him. “Just a rundown would be fine.” 

“Right. And I’m sure about a thousand follow-up questions after? I know how you doctors are.” She pointed at him with a teasing smile. “And I especially know how you are when we’re working on your wives. You can read the summary and bring any questions to her post-op in two weeks, capiche?” 

Jack grumbled something back, the sound left in the hall as he entered your room. And you looked… fine. About what he expected you to look like after surgery. He didn’t particularly enjoy the bleary way you were staring up at the ceiling, your waning skin, or even that you were in a hospital bed at all, but those were all temporary things. He could pack away the comparisons to nightmares he’s had about you in the ED and lower his tone to a comforting decibel. You needed that more than you needed a panicky, nauseous husband. 

“Hey, baby,” Jack all but whispered, his hand coming to rest on the top of your head. He leaned down and tried to enter your line of sight. “How you feeling?” 

You didn’t answer right away, or even focus your gaze on him. Jack’s thumb rubbed along your forehead, and he looked up to Caroline in the corner of the room, her attention fixed on the computer. “How long did you say she’s been awake?” 

“Only a few minutes,” nurse Caroline replied. “Some people just take a little longer to come out of it, as I’m sure you’re aware.” 

“But—” 

“Just give it a sec, Dr. Abbot. Before you freak out.” 

Jack nodded—to himself, as Caroline hadn’t looked up from her computer once—and furrowed his brow as he turned his gaze back down to you. He blinked as he realized you were already looking at him, a layer of relief resting atop his panic. He offered you a smile that radiated fondness and adjusted his hand on your head, brushing your hair back. 

“There’s my girl,” Jack quietly encouraged. “Feeling pretty crappy, huh?” 

You squinted and nodded, and Jack asked, “Do you have her on pain meds?” which nurse Caroline quickly affirmed. She seemed very well-versed in treating doctors and related categories, and Jack was subtly grateful for her nonchalance. He wondered if she was chosen specifically for the ED attending’s case, and then stopped wondering as you started to speak. 

“Are you my doctor?” you hoarsely asked, grimacing as you shifted on the bed. 

Jack’s smile widened. “Not today. Tried to be, but they told me I don’t have enough specialized training to remove a gallbladder.” 

“They took my gallbladder?” 

“Yeah, sweetheart. It was causing you more trouble than it was worth. Better to take it out.” 

You made a worried sound, your eyes hazy. “Can I live without my gallbladder? Can I have someone else’s?”

Jack quietly chuckled to himself, his fingers continuing to draw shapes along your temples, your forehead, your jaw. “You can live a perfectly healthy life without one. I’ll help you figure it all out, okay? Worst case scenario, I’ll find a way to give you mine.” 

You hummed, leaning into his touch, and Jack felt his chest warm. Everything was fine. You were uncomfortable and confused, but you were fine. He was about to ask Caroline more about your post-op appointment and when you could be discharged when you jolted against him. He snapped his gaze down to you instantly, assessing for anything that could have gone wrong. His hands went from caressing you to hovering an inch over your body, afraid to do more. 

“What is it?” he pressed out.

But your wide eyes were not filled with pain. Instead, they were tracking the wedding band on Jack’s left hand, a hint of fear in your expression. “Are you married?” you whispered. 

Instinctively, Jack rolled the ring in his fingers. He slowly replied, “Yes,” and let caution simmer in the space between you. Somewhere behind him, Caroline had finally turned away from her computer, brows raised at the scene. 

“Oh my god,” you groaned, and Jack winced as you shoved your head back against the bed. “And to think I was being all… like that with you. How mortifying.”

“I don’t—” 

“And you were being all… touchy. You have a wife.” You ran a hand over your face, your IV trailing alongside you and making Jack wince again as he worried for the tangled lines. “I am so embarrassed.” 

Jack didn’t quite know what to say. You were very clearly still out of it, your brows furrowed in confusion and your eyes looking lost, but all the usual tactics he would use to comfort you were not going to work. His adoring husband repertoire was effectively useless. Jack felt his heart break a little at the notion of being a stranger, but this was temporary. You likely wouldn't even remember it. 

Jack swallowed, cleared his throat, and shoved his hands in his pockets because he couldn’t just have them hanging. “Hey, no need to be embarrassed. I’m… uh—I do have a wife, but—” 

“But he’s your post-op nurse,” Caroline cut in from behind him. She threw him a look that said don’t confuse her when she’s coming off of anesthesia and rounded the other side of your bed. “The touching is necessary. In fact, he’s also going to be your driver home. New service we have.” 

“Oh,” you mumbled out, playing with your fingers in your lap. Jack felt his own hands twitch in his pockets at your slight pout. “So everything is fine?” 

It took Jack a moment to realize you were looking at him. He sprang into action as he caught your expecting gaze. “Oh, more than fine, sweet—uh, miss. We’re going to get you home, and I’ll be back for more post-op care.” 

“Be back at my house?” 

“Yeah. I’ll… be there a lot.” 

“Lucky me,” you yawned. “But not lucky wife.” 

Jack pressed his lips into a line to stave off the laugh. “My wife’s okay with it. She knows it’s part of the job.” 

Caroline had begun checking final vitals and milling about your bed. She removed your IV and scanned your hospital bracelet before returning to the computer. Jack watched each step carefully, hands still shoved into his pockets, and nodded when discharge paperwork was sent to his email. He didn’t really need it, but he knew the procedure notes would be attached, so he would read every word as you slept. A quick check-in from the surgeon was the final key to going home, and Jack had carefully guided you into a wheelchair with hands that knew you better than he led on. You were half-asleep by the time you reached his truck. 

“Hey, wake up for me, baby. Gotta get you settled in.”

You squinted and grimaced, and Jack wished he could have just carried you in without the hassle, but the nurse said your stitches were in a delicate zone and you needed careful movement. You threw an arm over his shoulders, and Jack fought the urge to kiss your head as he buckled you into the seat. He didn’t want to startle you. It took physical force to shut the door without touching you more. 

He opted for a soft smile when your head rested against his passenger-side window, feeling jittery as he started the engine and backed out of the employee parking garage at the PTMC. You spoke again when you were a few miles away from home. 

“Your wife must really love you,” you sleepily pointed out, eyes struggling to stay open. “If you treat her like you treat your patients.” 

The lingering warmth in Jack’s chest made his heart skip a beat. He kept his eyes on the road. “I like to think I treat her just a little more special.” 

“Really love you, then.” 

“Yeah, that’s the hope,” Jack smiled to himself. “But pretty sure I love her a whole lot more than that.” 

“That’s nice, Nurse.” 

And when you got into the house just a couple of minutes later, your wedding pictures sprawled across the walls, Jack’s belongings mixed with yours, your jaw dropped, a starry-eyed gaze turning on your “post-op nurse.” 

“Am I your wife?” you gaped. 

Jack took the opportunity to finally touch you, bringing his hands from the clinical guidance around your shoulders to rest delicately around your waist—just to help you walk inside. And maybe because it had only been a car ride, but he missed touching you like he was your husband. He smiled at you from over your shoulder. 

“Yeah, baby. We had a pretty fun wedding. You’ll remember it when you wake up.” 

“Ho-ly shit,” you replied, stunned as Jack led you through the living room filled with your life together. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jack let his nose brush along your temple. “Better to leave things simple when you wake up from a surgery. Wouldn’t want to stress you out with big news.” 

“Are you actually a nurse?” 

“I’m a doctor.” 

“Shit,” you repeated. Jack took on more of your weight as you started to fall forward. 

“Okay, no more big news until you’re lying down,” Jack stressed, gently tucking your hair back as you approached the bed and struggled to sit down. You swayed slightly where he put you, and Jack crouched down to meet your dazed expression. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know after you sleep some of this off. Promise.” 

“Where’s my wedding ring?” 

He took your hand into his, kissing the empty space. “No jewelry in surgery. Did you hear me? Sleep first, then information.” 

“Am I a doctor? I don’t think I am. Do we have children?” 

“I love you so much.” Jack paused, tapping your cheek lightly. “It’s time to sleep.” 

“You’ll tell me everything when I wake up?” 

His eyes narrowed the second you stepped into the Pitt—or, rather, stumbled into the Pitt. You were favoring your left side just a hair, your toe catching on the vinyl tile, and he could tell it wasn’t on purpose. Jack scanned you for injuries and found none. 

Patient presents with an unsteady gait. Unknown etiology. 

Stumbling into the first shift of four was not inherently unusual. Jack filed the information away. He met you in the hall after rounds and pretended he wasn’t double-checking the amount of weight you were putting on your right leg. 

“Good weekend?” he greeted, bumping his shoulder into yours. “Saw on Instagram that you went to that fancy coffee shop downtown. Thought we were supposed to go together.” 

You huffed out a laugh, knocking your head to the side. “You actually go on Instagram?”

“You told me to follow you.” 

“Yeah, but I didn’t know you were keeping it up with it. 

“Only yours,” Jack hummed out. “But I am very with the times.” 

“Right. And I’m Oprah,” you laughed. 

“I can get with Oprah,” Jack nodded, arms crossing over his chest. “Very wise.” 

You started to roll your eyes and offer Jack the slap on his arm that he was vying for, but you blinked too hard instead, a quick squeeze to settle yourself. Jack’s expression faltered, his hands reaching towards you. Not too close—not obvious—but enough to do something if he needed to.

You focused back in on him before he could point it out. 

“I’ll let you know if I hear Oprah is on the market,” you breathed out, patting Jack on the chest as you continued down the hall. 

Patient demonstrates periods of inattention and difficulty focusing, possibly due to fatigue, weakness, presyncope, etc. Differentials to be assessed. 

He was trying not to hover. You hated hovering, and Jack could tell he was pushing it. He was letting his gaze linger a bit too long when he caught you across the room and stood too close every time you got up from your chair. He was analyzing the depth of your breaths through subtle counts because he was pretty sure you weren’t taking full ones, but he couldn’t quite confirm it. 

Something was up. 

But he was pushing it.

“I ordered repeat labs for our guy with jaundice. And the tox screen in South 15 came back clear, so we have to re-evaluate the cocaine hypothesis,” you prattled off, hands on your hips as you gazed up at the board. “Anything else I should—okay, what?” 

Jack had forgotten to look away as you turned your head and looked at him. You had caught him having a staredown with your well-being and did not seem amused by the analyzing gaze. The attending righted his posture and blinked. 

“What? What’s up?” Jack asked, trying and failing to feign innocence. He raised his hands in mock surrender when you gave him a hard look. “I was listening to you. What, is it illegal to look at you while you talk?” 

“You were not just listening to me! You’ve been all… assessing all shift. So quit it.” 

“I have not been assessing,” he lied, trailing after you down the hall. Damn, you were moving fast. “You’ve just been a little off, is all. I’ve been keeping an eye on it.” 

You waved him off and changed course for the bathroom. “Well, don’t. I’m fine, Jack. Don’t be weird.” 

Jack pressed his hands against his chest. “I’m not being weird. You’re being weird. That’s why I was concerned.” 

You spun to face him, arms crossed and expression fixed into an oncoming lecture. When you and Jack began exploring your obvious feelings for each other, you made it clear that you didn’t want anyone to know. Not until things were sure and you were more established in your role as a doctor. You didn’t want people to think you were messing around with an attending just for the relationship to crumble and your career to be lost in the aftermath. 

Jack was fine with waiting. He had absolutely no plans of letting your relationship crumble, but he was fine with the cautious approach. Things were still new, and if you wanted to wait until you felt more secure with him, he was going to do a damn good job providing that. 

But your breathing was off; he finally caught it as you eyed him down in the hall, and that was concerning. He was officially entering concerned doctor territory, and you were officially entering leave me the hell alone territory. The combination was not ideal. 

“Just—keep your distance, okay? People have been eyeing us all shift. I want to continue pretending there isn’t gossip flying around the day shift nurses, but that can’t happen if you give them something to gossip about.” “But if you just—” 

“Jack.” 

He raised his hands again. “Alright, my bad.” 

You pushed into the bathroom, door swinging shut behind you, and Jack let his head hang, sighing into the abyss. 

Patient with ongoing dyspnea that cannot be assessed in a medical setting. Patient resistant to treatment and going AMA. 

It came to a head three hours in. Jack saw the way you kept blinking and pressing your hands against your head, shaky fingers threading by your scalp and creating pressure. A headache—you had a headache, you kept stumbling, and Jack knew you were having trouble breathing. He tapped his palms against the counter in a nervous tic and listed out every differential in his head. 

It didn’t help that you kept glaring at him. And avoiding him. Jack couldn’t keep an eye on you if you were hyperaware of his presence, but he couldn’t exactly slink around the ED unnoticed, so he did what he could. He tracked the movement of your shoulder as you stood with your back to him, and he kept a ready stance when he saw you stumble in the hall.  He was one more hand flex and grimace away from telling Lena to keep another eye on you, but then you caught yourself against a wall, expression pained, and he figured his action was warranted. 

He jogged across the Pitt, hands immediately finding your shoulders and head lowered to search for your eyes. They were unfocused when he got there, blinking again—he was trying to catch you amidst the blinking. 

“Hey, you alright?” he stressed, tracking the way your hands shook as he steadied you. 

“Yeah,” you affirmed, trying and failing to push away. A small group of nurses had gathered, concerned faces looking on. “Yeah. I’m just—maybe I need to eat something or—” 

You went limp, effectively stopping Jack’s heart in the process. He hauled you against him with a long “whoa” that sent the entire ED on alert and cradled your neck as he tried to get your eyes back open. Your head only rolled in his hand, and his breathing felt punctured. 

He said your name and did not get an answer. “Okay. Okay—someone get me a bed and a room cleared,” he calmly ordered, gaze never leaving your face, arms secure around you. He turned his head to mirror each time you lopped over. “I need you to try and open your eyes, y/n. Can you do that?” 

A bed was wheeled into the hall, and Jack lifted your legs from the ground to lay you in it, quickly walking alongside the small team that had formed. He swiped his flashlight from his chest pocket, assessed your pupils, then moved down to your lymph nodes as you were settled into a room. 

“Okay, vitals and get an IV for stat labs—y/n? Come on, let me know you can hear me, sweetheart,” Jack called out, checking your pupils again, flashing the light too many times than was necessary. 

It was the third pass that got you to respond. You groaned, bringing your shaking hands up to push his flashlight away. Jack felt all of the air leave his lungs, a weight dropping to his feet and keeping him rooted to the ground. His head hung again, and he glanced up after a steadying sigh. You were wincing at the overhead light in the room, face an unnatural shade, but more alert and conscious. 

“Fuck. Okay, you scared the shit out of me,” Jack accused. He cupped your face and raised his brows. “You’re fine? Really?” 

You let out a muffled sound. “Sorry. That was weird.” 

“Yeah, you think? Weird—told you you were the one being weird.” Jack glanced at your vitals on the screen. “You’re tachy and your blood pressure’s pretty low. Any ideas?” 

“My mouth hurts,” you mumbled out, gaze blearily trying to focus on the screen. “Maybe… ow, Jack.” 

“Sorry, sweetheart. Okay, yeah, not counting on your medical opinion right now. Let’s get some ibuprofen on board and push fluids until we get the labs back. I want a head CT to rule out—” Jack paused as he looked around the room. Half of the nurses were honing in on Jack’s hands on your face, the other half were smirking at the man himself. Jack looked back down at you, at how hard you were trying to focus on him, and he figured he would deal with the rest later. “Hey, we’ll get this all sorted, alright?”

About twenty minutes later, you were sitting upright and much more cognizant. Jack had the lights dim in the room and a bag of pretzels glued to your hand even though your blood sugar came back normal, and he found you just as he left you as he pushed back inside. He hadn’t really been able to focus since you went down, so stalking the lab for your results was easy. 

“Labs came back,” Jack revealed, sitting on the edge of your bed. You’d given up on making him leave you alone after his second visit to your room. “Wanna take a wild guess?” 

You groaned, shoving another pretzel in your mouth. “No. Just tell me.” 

“Iron-deficiency anemia. You honestly might need an iron infusion with the levels you’re at. How long have you felt like this?” 

“Seriously?” you sighed. “I fainted because I don’t eat enough legumes?” 

“Hey, this is serious,” Jack chastised. He leaned in closer and took your hand in his. “It’s not just a little deficiency. You were down for the count for a while there. We gotta get this figured out.” 

“We?” 

Jack took in the color returning to your face and intertwined your fingers with his. “Yeah, sweetheart, we. Unfortunately, I think I kinda gave us away when you passed out. Forgot I was supposed to be playing it cool because you looked almost dead.” 

“That’s a little dramatic.” You puffed out your cheeks with a loaded breath. “So… everyone knows?”

“There’s about a 95% chance it’s made its rounds. And been sent out to many day shift nurses who have probably sent it to—” 

“Okay, okay. Everyone knows.” 

You slumped back against the bed, pretzel bag crinkling as it fell beside you. Jack hadn’t let go of your hand, and with the clammy pallor it still resembled, he didn’t have it in him to let go. He had been right to worry this morning, and his slow action was eating at him.

“I’m serious, though,” Jack began. You cracked an eye open. “Your ferritin levels are alarmingly low. We’ll have to think about infusions and then go to supplements after we get you more regulated.” 

“I can just call my PCP and—” 

“I’d like to help. I can help.”

You paused, lingering humor and frustration wiped from your expression. Jack watched emotions flit across your face and saw each settle as your hand twitched in his. Just slightly. Enough to almost be a squeeze. 

“You don’t have to do that,” you softly said. “I know it freaked you out that I fainted, but you don’t have to take on some huge responsibility when it comes to me. We only just started seeing each other.” 

Well, you could ask, but he would probably say yes, and you liked the night shift staff too much to do that to them. 

“What the hell happened in here?” you heard Ellis ask, her backpack slung over her shoulder with casual air. You envied her rested face. “Why’s it so damn hot?” 

You grimaced, the expression making your head hurt. “What didn’t happen here?”

“That bad, huh?” 

“I mean, I’m sure there’s been worse days. Not sure when those would have happened. Maybe before electricity and the discovery of germ theory.” 

Ellis leaned her forearms on the counter by your computer, raising a brow. “Germ theory bad? Damn.” 

You finished your blessed last note and slammed the key to lock your account. “Just—maybe screen some patients for bird flu if they’ve been here all day. All I’ll say.” 

Ellis blew out a breath as you leaned back in your chair and pressed a hand to your forehead. You needed to drink about a gallon of water to abate the headache permeating along your temples—or maybe three. Jack liked to keep those gross electrolyte packets at your place for days like these, and while you usually had to choke them down and beg him to leave you alone, the sour peach flavor was calling your name. 

And so was about 14 hours of sleep wrapped in that hoodie Jack got from some national park you couldn’t remember the name of. 

“Let me know when you’re ready to do handoffs,” you called as residents and trickled in, your face in your hand and your eyes barely open. “I’ll be here.” 

“And don’t you just look so excited?” 

Jack’s voice sent a tiny jolt of energy through you—a really tiny, almost neuron-firing-level of energy. You cracked an eye wider and saw your boyfriend standing where Ellis once was, his expression far fonder and far less filled with disgruntled trepidation. 

“I’m thrilled,” you droned out, fighting off the smile working onto your face.

“Yeah, I can tell.” Jack rounded the nurse’s station and leaned over your shoulder, pressing his lips to your temple in a chaste kiss that jostled you around. “Are you good to drive home, or do you need me to have Shen take over for the first half hour?” 

“I can drive home,” you scoffed. “I’m tired, not incapacitated.” 

Jack hummed by your ear, spinning your chair and touching your forehead with the back of his fingers. “We should get an ice pack on the back of your neck before you head out.” 

You swatted at his hand with a breathy laugh, rolling away from his assessment. “You should go get ready for report. Sooner you do that, the sooner I can leave.” 

“You told me the AC went out nine hours ago. When’s the last time you drank water?” 

“Will you leave me alone?” you exasperated, still laughing, still the happiest you’d been all shift. “Go find Robby. He’s in an awful mood, and if he’s distracted, I can slip out and take care of myself, Dr. Overbearing.” 

Jack knocked his head to the side as he looked at you, the fondness still open on his face. He reached into the side pocket of his bag and tossed you his water bottle, giving you a pointed look as he backed away and headed to the lockers. 

The day was awful, but as you took a large sip of that damn electrolyte water and thought about the way Jack always looked at you, it felt a little less awful. 

Until Robby burst through the elevators with a vendetta. 

His ambush started on an uneven playing field. You had a clipboard in hand as you rattled off the vitals of a woman presenting with a kidney infection, the eager intern beside you nodding intently. The air had kicked on about five minutes into your rounds, and you silently cursed it for working just as you were leaving. 

“Another hour of observation and she should be good to go. Needs a ride due to the morphine dose,” you rattled off. 

“Got it,” the resident relayed back. “For the fracture in north 12, did you say—” 

Robby’s voice interrupted the flow of your rounds. 

Your name was a harsh strike through the air, and you jumped at his curt shout, your clipboard rattling. The intern stared at you with wide eyes as you waited for the telltale signs of Robby’s approach, but they never came. He wanted you to go to him. That wasn’t great. You’d also never heard him say your name with so much vitriol before, and you couldn’t pinpoint anything throughout the day that would have warranted such a call. 

“Um,” you paused. You shot your gaze to the side and considered pretending that you hadn’t heard him, but the entire room had paused when he shouted, so there was really no pretending. “Why don’t you catch up with Dr. King’s handoffs? I only had a few left.” 

The intern looked like she wanted to say more, maybe offer encouragement as you went off on your final mission in life, but she only nodded and scurried away, leaving you to parade yourself awkwardly into the hall. 

Robby did not look patient or kind or understanding when you got there. He had his hands on top of his head and was staring at the ceiling, his weight bouncing on his toes until the door to the Pitt closed, and you were alone with his frustration. He took in a large breath and looked at you, brows raised. 

The silence dragged. 

“You know I don’t treat you differently just because of your relationship with Jack,” Robby started, kissing his teeth. “I told you that when you started dating.” 

You blinked, unsure where the conversation was heading. You weren’t even sure if half the staff at PTMC knew you were dating Jack; special treatment was not an expectation nor a perk, and you had only recently become more lax in keeping your relationship private.

“What? Robby, I know that. I would never—” 

He was already shaking his head, the quickness of his words overpowering your rebuttal. “You fucked up. You fucked up, and I can’t make concessions for you just because of your relationship with an attending. I told Jack that if you were going to make your relationship public, you had to be perfect. If you weren’t perfect, it would—” 

“Wait—you told Jack? Why are you talking to him about my career? And you never told me that I needed to be perfect. I didn’t realize my relationship suddenly gave me unreachable contingencies.” 

Robby shrugged. “It makes sense. If you make mistakes, it looks bad on him. If you aren’t disciplined properly, it looks like favoritism.” 

“Disciplined? What have I done to warrant being disciplined?” 

Your body was heating up despite the air feeling cooler than it had all day. Your hands clenched into fists as you ran through the decisions you made throughout the shift, all the patients you’d treated and discharged. Nothing was alarming. It had been the environment, not the caseload, that made this day so chaotic. 

“You tell me,” Robby posed, and his nonchalance was starting to piss you off. 

An entire day of everything going wrong, and you kept a positive attitude. You had led the interns and taken the grunt work, and you had only eaten about half of a granola bar throughout your shift because of it. You could only recall one major trauma from the day, and you’d been pulled from the hall to assist with it. You hadn’t been part of the intake or the transfer. Everything else had been run-of-the-mill injuries and angry, sweaty patients. 

You opened your mouth and closed it a few times. “I—I have absolutely no idea.” 

Robby nodded, and you could tell from the redness working up his neck that he was about to blow. He’d been a ticking time bomb all day, something—maybe the heat or the multiple shifts—eating away at him. And you, alone in the hall, were about to be the victim of that repression. 

It all blew up at once. Robby was jutting his hands out as he yelled about improperly ordered labs and a missed CT. Then there was something about an incident in the hall with the same patient and letting a med student perform a procedure you shouldn’t have. He paused for a moment when your eyes became glassy, but started up again with a shake of his head because you were a doctor. You needed to know when to take criticism. 

He threw his hands up when he shouted about legal action and pressed his tongue into his cheek when you couldn’t answer a question about charting. He didn’t let you get a word in to answer him, but there was also the issue that the case wasn’t yours. You distinctly remembered Santos complaining about the situation earlier in the shift, med student intervention and all, but apparently, Robby was just getting word about it. And you had been incorrectly tied to each mistake. 

Silent tears were running down your cheeks as he made the final blow. 

“You know, maybe this isn’t where you should be. You’re sloppy now—distracted by your personal life. That’s not what a doctor is. Figure. It. out. Or I’m recommending a transfer because I can’t run my ED with an incompetent—” 

“Hey, whoa!” Jack was quickly jogging down the hall, and you blinked at the ground to steady yourself. More tears fell. He stepped in front of you, fingers tenting against Robby’s chest and pushing slightly. You hadn’t realized how close he had gotten while he yelled. “Wanna tell me why the hell you’re talking to her like that?” 

Robby laughed—a mean laugh. “Fuck, how ironic. You come to her rescue when she can’t handle it? She messed up, Jack. Multiple times. She deserves to hear it.” 

You saw Jack’s shoulders tense through your blurry gaze. 

“What the fuck are you talking about? We don’t talk to any of our doctors like that. Calling her incompetent—what’s going on with you?” 

“She missed basic signs. Didn’t run the tests she was supposed to and couldn’t figure out how to teach the med students the fundamentals. She’s been too busy cozying up at your apartment to—” 

“Watch yourself,” Jack snapped in a low tone. “This is about the medicine, but it could pretty quickly be about something else.”

You let out a shaky breath, begging the tears to stop, but it was like a dam had cracked from the stress of the day, and being yelled at for several minutes was not something your nervous system could regulate. You clutched your scrub top in your fists and counted your breaths, feeling pathetic and angry in each of your movements. 

“Can’t seem to separate them with her,” Robby accused. “Even now. I can’t teach my senior resident without her boyfriend getting in the way.” 

“That wasn’t teaching. You were berating her in the hallway. She never cries, and she hasn’t stopped since I got here, so, Robby, you need to back the hell up and reassess.” 

There was more silence, the two men staring each other down, and then Robby slapped his hands against his thighs and shot out a quick “find me when she’s ready to take accountability,” before harshly pushing his way back into the Pitt. Your tears had finally begun to slow as the heat in the hallway dissipated, but you felt them well up again when Jack turned to you and hushed out a gentle sound. 

“C’mere, it’s alright,” he muttered, yanking you against his chest. You pressed your face into his shirt and tried again to calm your breath, latching onto the soap and detergent and the feel of his body against yours. He held you for a moment and then spoke close to your ear. “The hell was that about?” 

You gripped the material along his back. “Wasn’t even my case,” you hiccuped, words uneven. “I don’t know why I’m crying.” 

“Probably because you had the shift from hell and then got screamed at.” 

You felt Jack tuck your hair back from the stickiness of your face and kiss you where his touch lingered. Your eyes fluttered shut. “Maybe I deserved it.” 

Jack pulled away, a frown etched on his face. “You just said it wasn’t yours.” 

“It wasn’t.” You bit into your lip and looked down at his sure hands along your waist. “But maybe he was right, and I’m distracted by our relationship—being a bad doctor and not working how I’m supposed to. I mean, you’re here, comforting me, and anyone else would have had to take what Robby said and get over it.” 

“Robby wouldn’t have had that argument to use against anyone else,” Jack countered, palms running flat along your head until they cradled the back of your neck. “He’s pissed about something else, not you. You’re a damn good doctor. If workplace relationships jeopardized that, he would be an issue too.” Jack’s jaw flexed, and he muttered a quiet, “Hypocrite,” to the air beside him. 

You were vaguely aware that Robby hooked up with a nurse from admin. Some of your anger flickered back to life at the reminder of his distracting relationships, but your head was pounding, and Jack kept scanning your face for any sign of happiness, his brows furrowed and his face wincing, so you sighed and tried to play along. When the twitch of your smile was mirrored on Jack’s face, it felt worth it to try and forget.” 

“Are you comparing me to Robby’s late-night hookups?”

“Never,” Jack whispered, pulling you closer and slotting his mouth against yours. “You’re my whole world, baby.” 

You huffed, clutching his wrists. “Yeah, well, your whole world has a puffy face and just got reamed out by your best friend, so I need a couple of minutes before I can finish my handoff report.” 

“Want to sit in my truck for a while?” 

“Do you still have the gushers I left in there?”

“Why do you think I offered?”

You sat in Jack’s truck for approximately ten minutes, eating every last one of the gushers in the oversized bag Jack bought you on a road trip a couple of weeks ago. The air conditioning blasted the heat from your face, and you downed an entire water bottle he had left for you in the door. And while you recalibrated, Jack found Robby. 

“Got a sec?” Jack barely asked, sweeping past Robby to meet back up in the hall. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for his friend to let the door swing behind him. 

“Look—” Robby started. “I get that she’s your girl, and it can be difficult to—” 

“Wasn’t her case,” Jack interrupted, expression as neutral as he could get it. “It was Santos’. She wasn’t going to tell you that, but I will.” 

Robby paused, nodding jerkily. “Okay. Okay, my bad. I’ll talk to her.” 

“You will.” 

Robby eyed Jack. “But my point still stands. She needs to be able to take whatever this ED throws at her. She can’t have you swooping in to protect her.” 

Jack pursed his lips, nodding back at Robby to make the space feel equal. “Robby, I respect you. A lot. You’re one of the few people left that I’ve cared about for most of my life.” He took a step closer. “But I’ll protect her from what she needs protecting from.” 

The air between them was heavy and uncomfortable, and Jack couldn’t remember a time it had ever felt like that. Maybe a few months after his wife died and he lashed out. Maybe when Robby wouldn’t ask for help and Jack forced it a little too hard. Or maybe it had never felt like this—with Jack on the offensive, unwilling to let anything slide. 

Robby must have felt it too. “Heard,” he affirmed. 

“Good.” Jack went to leave the hall, patting Robby’s shoulder as he went. But he felt there was more to say, so Jack paused, looking at the wall behind Robby’s head. In a matter-of-fact tone, he said, “And if you ever make her cry like that again, I will beat the shit out of you.” 

Robby’s head turned to look at his friend fully, and Jack met him there. He lifted the side of his mouth in a fleeting smile, patted him on the shoulder once more, and then left Robby in the hall. 

When he found room four, his assumptions were confirmed. Penny was in line with the rest of her kindergarten class, speaking animatedly with a boy beside her while firmly rooted on the numbers painted on the floor. She was excited, but Jack could tell she was putting considerable effort into staying right where she was supposed to be. He had to fight the smile that crept up on his face. 

“Your daddy’s a manager?” Penny asked, tugging on the straps of her backpack. “Wow! What does that mean?” 

The boy next to her raised a brow. “I don’t know. I think he tells people what to do. He has a computer.” 

“What does he tell them to do?” 

“Work more! He always says everyone is a lazy piece of—” 

The teacher in the hall clapped her hands, drawing the class's attention. “Let’s make sure we are using kind words while we wait to go home.” 

A long drone of “Yes, Miss Cindy” reset each conversation in the line, but Penny clearly wasn’t done. Jack took a few steps closer and nodded at Miss Cindy in greeting, content to wait until Penny turned and noticed the surprise. You hadn’t told her Jack was picking her up, and Jack loved how Penny got when she was surprised. 

“Well, want to know what my daddy does?” Penny posed, bouncing up on her toes. 

Jack paused. 

You never talked about Penny’s birth father. You’d offered a simple explanation the first time Jack skirted around the topic: he was there for the birth, and then he never was again. You never tried to fight for child support, not wanting to drag Penny through messy custody battles or inconsistent relationships. Penny knew she had a dad, just like everyone had a dad, but you tried hard to make that hole feel small. Jack thought you did a damn good job. 

And he hoped he played a role in that, as well. 

Jack held his breath as the boy nodded excitedly, and then he felt like he was free-falling as she answered. “He’s a doctor for emergencies! He works when everyone is asleep so he can help people during the nighttime.” 

“But how are there emergencies if everyone is asleep?”

Penny puckered her lips as she thought. “I don’t know. I guess if they wake up, maybe.” 

Jack tried and failed to settle the grin that had taken over his face. Penny had never called him anything but Jack. He hadn’t wanted to ask you for more when it came to your daughter, and he wanted Penny to be comfortable, but Jack felt like Penny’s dad. Penny was his girl. You’d been engaged for a few months, and he couldn’t ask for more than he had, even if he only had the feeling, not the title. He couldn’t be greedy. 

Hearing Penny call him dad made Jack feel greedy. 

He leaned over behind Penny and tugged on her sleeve, raising his brows as she spun and let out a gasp. It was only a tick of a second before she launched herself at him, exclaiming a loud “Jack!” that now held a different meaning for him. He wondered how many times she’d talked about him and called him something different. 

Jack grunted as he lifted her to his hip, trying to find her eyes with her arms clutched tight around his neck. “Hey, Penny girl. Is it alright if I take you home today?” 

Penny squealed and nodded against him, but then became serious as she leaned up. “Does mommy know? She told me to never go home with strangers.” 

Jack raised a brow, both of his girls overcautious and full of rules, as always. “Am I a stranger now?” 

Penny threw her head back in a giggle. “No! But no one else has ever picked me up from school before.” 

“First time for everything. It’s exciting. We can get something up for mommy on the way home.” 

“Like flowers?” 

“How’d you know?” 

“You always get mommy flowers.” 

“You want some too?

Penny blew a raspberry as they finally made it to his truck. “What am I gonna do with flowers? They just sit there. That’s so silly, Jack.” 

“How about a toy, then?” Jack offered, tapping Penny’s nose after buckling her in. He rested a hand on the door and shifted the car seat around to make sure it was locked in place. You were rubbing off on him, clearly. “What do you think?” 

Penny tapped her chin. “I’ll consider it.” 

~~

When you finally got home that night, looking frazzled and far too apologetic for Jack’s liking, Jack had a towel on his shoulder and a pot simmering on the stove. He’d stayed at your place despite you insisting that the neighbor could watch her for an hour, so he figured starting dinner was the next course of action. 

You hadn’t moved in together just yet. For Penny’s sake. 

You sighed when you spotted him, putting your bags down with a defeated sound. “You really didn’t have to stay,” you almost whined. Jack was already on you, hands on your hips and gaze locked on the furrow of your brow. “The lady next door loves Penny. She could have watched her.” 

“Yeah? Well, what if I love Penny?” Jack countered, pressing his lips to yours. He saw another argument brewing, so he squeezed your cheeks and kissed you again. “Seriously. I’m gonna be the one picking her up on my days off soon. Let me practice.” 

You shook your head. “You do not have to do that. You work all the time, Jack. I wouldn’t make you take care of Penny when you finally have time to rest.” 

“Make me take care of her?” 

“Yeah. You have enough on your plate and—”

“Hey,” Jack softly called, tugging you in closer. “When I asked you to marry me, I meant that I wanted both of you. You aren’t making me take care of her. I want to.” 

You looked up at him, hands resting on his chest, and Jack saw the conflict raging in you, the fear that this would be too much. You didn’t talk about Penny’s birth father, but Jack could pick apart the damage that was done by him. He could see it in every anxiety-fueled phone call about Penny and in all the things you tried to take on alone. You wouldn’t accept help, not fully, but Jack was ready to fight you on that. For the rest of his life, if he needed to. 

“Was she okay for you?” you asked, because Jack was pretty sure you knew he would fight you on that. 

“She was perfect,” he answered, his hands holding your head steady as he leaned down to look at you. “Like her mom.” 

You scoffed out a laugh. “Don’t try too hard, Dr. Abbot. The ladies like mystery.” 

“Yeah? Well ignore the flowers in the kitchen then. I want to be mysterious about them.” 

Your smile was soft and vulnerable as you leaned up to kiss him, and Jack backed away only because the noodles in the pot were going to stick together if he didn’t stir them, and Penny was entering a picky eating phase. He could handle a picky eating phase, along with everything that came after. 

And later in the night, when Penny fell asleep over Jack’s legs and Mulan played softly in the background, he thought to bring it up. Casually. More as a curious pondering than a request, because he didn’t want to ask for too much. You played with Penny’s hair as the Huns fought to invade China, and Jack threw his thoughts into the air. 

“Does Penny—” he paused. You lifted your head from his shoulder, and Jack caught your engagement ring glinting under the dim living room light. “Does she ever… call me anything when I’m not around? To other people?” 

You became still, gaze falling to Jack’s chest. “I’ve talked to her about that. I didn’t want you to feel like you had to… be anything you didn’t want to be. Like if you wanted things to be more separated. But sometimes—you know, she’s just a kid—so sometimes—” 

Jack gently shushed you, taking your hand in his because that was the closest thing he could read. “What’d I say earlier, huh? I was asking because I don’t want things to be separated. And she always just calls me Jack, so I was wondering—” 

“She calls you dad all the time,” you revealed, looking down at Penny’s face smushed against Jack’s thigh. “To her friends, her teachers, a random guy in the grocery store.” 

Jack huffed out a breathy laugh. “Seriously?” 

“Yeah. She loves talking about you.” You looked back up at him. “Are you okay with her calling you that?” 

And for some reason—Jack would blame it on the sentimental music in the movie—tears welled in his eyes at the question. At the gentle way you looked at him. Jack cleared his throat of the sticky emotion and nodded, his brow twitching. 

“Yeah,” he almost whispered, voice sounding hoarse. “Yeah, if she wants to.” 

“I think she was waiting for permission. To make sure it was okay.” 

“You two and your rule following,” Jack gruffed, tugging you closer and kissing your temple to hide his misty eyes. 

Jack had a talk with Penny a few days later, after she slipped up and the echo of the word dad bounced around in Jack’s truck. He’d had to pull over to ease the tension that wound up Penny’s expression, sitting her on the tailgate in some gas station parking lot as you stayed in the passenger seat. 

Jack watched as Penny wound her small fingers into a knot on her lap, and he covered them with one of his hands, tipping her chin up with the other. 

“I’m not mad at you,” Jack assured, paying attention to each grimace she tried to hide.

“But I’m really sorry,” Penny edged out. “Because I know my daddy isn’t here anymore, and my mommy says that’s okay, and that you are kind of like a daddy but that sometimes people—” 

“Penny girl,” Jack softly interrupted. “It’s okay, alright? You know how your mom and I are getting married?” 

Penny nodded. 

“Well that means that we’re family. You, me, and you mom. All of us. And I know your daddy isn’t around, and I know you’re too smart for your own good, but sometimes mommys and daddys can be new people.” 

“I was gonna say that next,” Penny mumbled.

“I know you were.” Jack smiled in the empty parking lot and brought Penny’s gaze back up to him. “I love you, kid. You can call me anything you want. And before you ask, yes, your mom is okay with it. I asked her myself.” 

“You asked mommy if it was okay to be my daddy?” 

“Of course I did. Gotta make sure I check all the boxes with you two.” 

You had been dodgy about your daughter at first, sharing the information as if it were a combination of landmines and wincing as if he were already edging up from the table to run. It made sense that he didn’t know about her. He had met you in a coffee shop after a fourteen-hour shift and still thanked whatever higher power was responsible for the delirium-infused confidence that led him to you, but he didn’t know much. He just knew you were beautiful and you were in front of him and you stared up at him with eyes that made him blink faster, so he asked you out. 

You told him about her on the third date, and Jack couldn’t stand the way you flinched, so he held your hand across the table, rubbed his thumb along your knuckles, and said, “Whenever you’d let me, I’d love to meet her.” 

“Are you serious?” had tumbled out of your mouth directly after, and Jack couldn’t take that either, knowing that so many people had missed out on you and told you that that reaction was warranted. So he pressed your fingers to his lips and quirked his mouth into a smile despite his uncovered frustration. 

“Of course I’m serious. I’m always serious.” 

Jack Abbot fell in love with Penny almost as fast as he fell in love with you. Middle-of-the-night illnesses frequently tainted his exposure to children, so Jack had almost forgotten how energetic and full of life a four-year-old could be. Penny was shy, bashful in ways like her mother, but she was also intelligent and loved squids (you said it was a phase) and asked Jack questions about bones because you told her he was a doctor and she had just learned about bones in preschool. 

“Have you ever seen a bone?” 

“I’ve seen lots of bones,” Jack had whispered back to her, eyes flashing wide for emphasis. 

“That’s literally crazy,” Penny had gasped, looking over her shoulder at you as you paid for a snack at the farmer’s market stall. “My mommy says that if I ever see one of my bones, I need to tell her right away.” 

Jack knelt beside Penny on the grass. “Your mommy’s right. You want to see something cool? I don’t have a bone in my leg.” 

“What!” 

It hadn’t taken long for Penny to become accustomed to Jack’s presence. She asked about him when he wasn’t around. She joined calls when you checked in early during his shifts. She saved a book full of stickers to show him when he came over for dinner, which he did often. Said stickers also somehow appeared on his prosthetic, something your daughter still had a hard time believing to be real. 

And Jack hadn’t been expecting it, but he had begun to think of children again—thinking of his life in squid stickers and irrational questions and a weight on his lap as he sat on your couch and watched an animated dog teach him a life lesson. 

He had begun to enjoy getting out of work. He got to bring bagels to your place early in the morning and kiss you against your kitchen counters and fix Penny’s wild hair as she tumbled into the living room. His hobbies had changed; adrenaline was replaced with soccer games and sticky fingers and lying in bed with you right up until he had to throw his scrubs on. 

Everything had become simple in Jack’s life. There was work, there was you, and there was Penny. And in a few weeks, he would ask you to make his life even simpler. 

~~

A gratefully unfamiliar dread pulsed through Jack’s chest as he turned the corner of the Pitt and saw you. He took inventory instantly, cataloging the tone of your skin, each of your limbs, the small smile on your face as you spoke casually to Mateo. You were fine, you looked to be fine, but Jack still picked up the pace because you were in the emergency department, and you never came to visit without Penny. 

Jack’s eyes shot to your legs, and more panic filled him at the empty space.

“Hey,” Jack breathed, his mouth twitching into a smile that did not reach his searching eyes. He placed a hand on your cheek and tried not to furrow his brows. “You okay? Where’s Penny?” 

Your smile was much warmer. You gripped his wrist, and Jack felt the almost imperceptible way you leaned your face into his touch. “I’m fine, and Penny’s fine. I did late pickup so I could see you before we take the train upstate.”

Upstate. Upstate—right. Jack had primed his brain to work a double, so that often meant blocking the shifts with tasks. He was just about finished with the day shift, and your trip to see your family was a night shift event. Your train was leaving at 7:30 pm—an in-between-shift event, then.

“You coulda brought her by, too,” Jack quietly replied, brushing his thumb along your cheek as Mateo swiveled his stool to the other side of the nurse’s hub. Relief was slowly trickling through the shock of seeing you unannounced.

“Oh, I see. If I don’t bring Penny, I shouldn’t come at all?” you teased. 

Jack moved his hand down to fix your scarf, tucking it closer to your neck. “Didn’t say that,” he argued. “I just wanted to say goodbye to both my girls.” 

Your face heated furiously, an outcome Jack had been hoping for. He loved to get you flustered, and that was the quickest way to do it. Never failed. 

“We would’ve missed our train if I brought her.” You poked Jack’s chest. “You two always get into it, and then I have to drag her away because she gets too upset to leave you.” 

“Can’t help it. I’m just so much fun to be around.” 

“Yeah, well, you’ll have to be fun over FaceTime for the next few days, Dr. Abbot.”

Jack tsked, looking off to the side to tamp down his disappointment. You’d had this visit planned for a few months now, but it didn’t make watching you go any easier. He had wanted to go with you, eager to meet your family, but the Pitt needed an attending on doubles, and Jack was the only one available. You’d assured him several times that it was fine, and there would be more opportunities to come. He knew it was fine. What wasn’t fine was watching his family leave and feeling incomplete. 

He needed to ask you that question. 

“You sure you can’t wait until tomorrow so I can drive you up?” Jack tried. He moved his fixing touch to the zipper on your jacket, tugging it up to keep in the warmth. “No train that way.” 

You brushed his hand off and stepped closer, raising your brows. “Right. Have you drive that far after working a double? Just for you to drive back home, sleep for 45 minutes, and then work again? Not happening, Jack. The train is fine. We’re fine.” 

“You keep saying that,” he murmured under his breath. He placed his hands along your jaw, holding you again, even though he knew several eyes watched on. “Call me when you get on the train. And have Penny bring that spray hand sanitizer she made me spend ten dollars on. It’s flu season. And—” 

“Jack,” you gently interrupted. “I love you. So much. But when I say we’re fine, I mean it. And stop buying her everything she sees in Sephora. She doesn’t even need to be in Sephora. She’s five.” 

“I love you more,” was how Jack decided to respond. He tilted his head back and looked at you fully, his hands moving your face to one side and then the other. 

“Memorizing me?” you teased. 

“Something like that.” 

Continuing his shift was difficult. Jack had already felt the weight of the double being exacerbated by your departure, but then you FaceTimed him on the train, and the night got heavier. Penny held up her hand sanitizer with a mouthful of marshmallow muffling her words, and Jack just wished he could be sitting beside you on that stupid train. He’d paid more for the two of you to have a private compartment, and it was nice knowing you were cared for, but he had become the one taking care of you. 

He felt his back stiffen as the night went on. 

“You gotta loosen up, Dr. Abbot,” Mateo called out after five minutes of Jack scrolling through his camera roll. He’d stopped on a picture of you and Penny on the hood of his truck. “You knew they were leaving all day. We still got nine hours before you can go home and make scrapbooks.” 

Jack hooked his chin over his shoulder, placing his phone face down on the charting station. “Mind your business.” 

Mateo put his hands up in surrender. “They’re coming back in three days. You work all three of those days. It’ll be quick.” The younger man patted Jack’s shoulder. “Then maybe you can finally fish that ring out of your locker.” 

“What do you know about that, huh?” Jack accused, crossing his arms in a show of intimidation that didn’t match his almost-smile. 

“Nothing you didn’t just confirm,” Mateo quipped back. “I’ve babysat at her place enough times to catch a vibe.” 

“Catch a vibe?” 

“Yeah. It’s emanating from you.” 

Dr. Shen passed by the pair, settling into a stool and logging into the computer. “What’s emanating from him?” 

“My vibe, apparently,” Jack spoke to the ceiling. 

Mateo cut in, resting his arms on the counter. “That he’s gonna propose.” 

“I did not say that,” Jack shot back. 

“You don’t have to say anything if it’s a vibe,” Shen informed him, gaze focused on his notes. He took a casual sip of watered-down coffee. “Can you do it within the next three months, though? I want to win the pool to pay off my car.” 

Mateo let out a hiss, resting his head on his elbows. “Dude. He wasn’t supposed to know about the betting pool. Now he’s gonna be weird about it.” 

“He’s not going to—” 

“Okay, what?” Jack almost sighed, head jolting back. “There’s a betting pool? Since when?” 

“Since you started wearing that little bracelet with the sea creatures on it. It got bigger after y/n came by that one time with lunch and you practically ran down the hallway.” 

Jack stared at Shen as he recounted the betrayal happening under his nose. “Alright. Who’s in it?” 

“Who isn’t—”

 “Got incoming traumas. The T Line crashed. Unidentified number of casualties, but we’re getting at least a dozen wounded.” 

It took a moment for the humor to dissipate from Jack’s body. He heard the charge nurse’s calls to clear the trauma bays and could recognize the movement in the room. Mateo was staring at the side of Jack’s face and Shen had shot up from the charting computer to do… something, but Jack was swimming in a state of thick confusion.

He did some math in his head. 

It might not have been your train. You FaceTimed him thirty minutes ago, and the train hadn’t left yet. You were just sitting with Penny. You had said there was a small delay, but you both were settled into the “stupidly-priced private seats,” and Penny was eager to watch Bluey during the wait. You were wearing an old college sweater he’d left at your apartment. 

But that was thirty minutes ago. 

It could have been your train. 

“Dr. Abbot?” Mateo’s call was a jumbled haze. “Dr. Abbot, what can I—” 

“My girls are on the train,” Jack muttered to himself. 

“What?”

“My girls are on the train,” he said again, clearer this time. His gaze shot to the board as if he’d see your name, a pinpoint focus washing over him. If he were calm enough, nothing could happen.

Mateo said something else, maybe a reassurance or a passing encouragement, but Jack couldn’t register it. He took his shaking hands and donned the PPE needed for a disaster of this magnitude, drowning out the orders ringing through the ED. Shen had taken over as head, and Jack couldn’t remember if he’d told him to do that. He probably hadn’t. 

The first patient wasn’t you. Neither was the second. Or the third. At some point near the beginning, Jack had texted you—a quick text, asking if you were okay, even though that was a ridiculous question. But if you weren’t a patient, and if you didn’t answer him, then the unidentified number of casualties Lena announced was a harrowing reality. 

But it couldn’t be you. 

Jack was doing everything right. He was calm and working doubles and he had paid for you to have better seats. Penny wouldn’t get the flu and he was going to have the lattice on your balcony fixed before you got home. 

You couldn’t be an unidentified casualty. 

“Hey, you good?” Dr. Ellis barked at Jack as he blinked hard in a trauma bay. The man lying in the bed had his arm in the wrong direction, bruises already covering the left side of his body. 

Every moment he wasn’t checking the incoming patients was a moment he couldn’t be sure of you. A moment Penny could be wheeled by. 

Jack cleared his throat harshly. “I’m good. Roll him on three.” 

You weren’t the fourth patient he saw, either. 

But you were the fifth. 

He had prepared himself for it, but nothing would have been enough, he soon realized. No amount of grounding or breathing exercises or visualization would have made it easier. Your eyes were open, but they couldn’t focus on him, not even as he stuttered out a breath and shot to the side of the gurney, his feet quick beside you. 

He said your name, repeated it, but your eyes kept flashing past the overhead lights. An EMT was shouting out your vitals and Jack heard them, but his waterline was burning and the collar of your sweatshirt was rimmed red with blood. His sweatshirt. He’d left it at your place a few days ago. 

Crush injury. Fully conscious but lacks verbal response. Jane Doe—you weren’t Jane Doe. You were his. 

As they landed you in trauma one, Jack began to assess. He ignored that his hands had begun to shake again. “I need you to hear me, baby,” Jack called as he moved meticulously through his assessment. “I just need to know that you can. Can you do that for me? Let me know if you can hear me?” 

A nurse was untangling an ultrasound machine as Jack moved to palpate your abdomen. You flinched. He felt himself unravel. 

“I needed that yesterday!” he shouted, ripping the machine from the older woman’s hands. It wasn’t her fault. Jack would apologize later if he could ever form words again. “Why isn’t anyone giving me info?” 

Dr. Ellis entered the trauma bay, confusion laced with apprehension at the sound of Jack’s anger. All the confusion was wiped clear when she saw who was on the bed. When she saw the blood sticking to the cracks in Jack’s hands and the sheen of sweat on his forehead. 

“You need me to take this?” Dr. Ellis asked, but it was hardly a question. She was direct when she needed to be, even towards an attending, but Jack was not in the mind to be overpowered by reason and level-headedness. 

“No,” he simply replied, eyes glued to the grainy screen of the ultrasound. 

“Are you sure you should—” 

“Free fluid in the abdomen. I need—” 

Jack stopped cold when a sound escaped you. It was breathy, barely even there to make out, but he felt his gaze drop to your face before his mind could even register it. Someone took the Doppler from his hands and the room erupted in movement and calls and beeps from machines, but Jack had his hands on your face as he had just a few hours ago, begging your eyes to focus on him. 

“What was that?” he breathed back, eyes racing over every inch of your face. He cataloged four bruises before you finally found his eyes. “There you are. There’s my girl. You’re doing so good, and we got you, okay?” 

“P-Penny,” you uttered. Your hand twitched up to grasp Jack’s arm, and he silently thanked god that you could move it. “Penny.” 

Jack had been thinking about Penny since you entered the Pitt. He had hoped, in some unreasonable way, that she would be with you. That you both would be fine, maybe with minor injuries, and he would sweep you away into the break room while he managed the crisis. But you were the crisis, and Penny wasn’t here. He had no idea where she was. 

“I know, baby. I know. I’m gonna find Penny. She’ll be just fine. Both my girls will, okay? Promise. Promise on everything.” 

He was speaking so low, his hand on the top of your head and his face close. He felt the dread pool in his gut at the lies he was telling. Jack had no way of finding Penny. He couldn’t leave you and search the wreck for a little girl. They probably wouldn’t let him past the police tape. 

“F-find. Her. Jack, please,” you pleaded. Your nails dug into his arm and Jack had to move his jaw to stop from crying. Your face was becoming pallid and someone was calling surgery. 

“I’ll find her,” he smiled. A sad smile. A waning one. “You don’t worry about a thing. I’ll find her and bring her right to you.” 

“Jack.” 

It was Robby’s voice that tore Jack’s face from yours. He had to have ridden fast to get there. His hair was swept back and he still had his jacket on and Robby was supposed to be out on vacation for another few days, but he was there. He was there, and he shook his head when Jack turned to find him. 

“Let them take her. You gotta back up.” 

They must have been asking for a while. Jack hadn’t registered a single request for him to move; he had been too caught up in tracking each minuscule twitch of your face—in remembering you before life changed, because it still felt the same, just more urgent, more scary. If he stopped looking at you, if you were taken away, there was the chance that you wouldn’t come back. That he would look up and find that Penny was gone. 

He hadn’t been ready for the after. 

Robby forced it, anyway. 

Jack felt like he was going to throw up as they wheeled you away, Dr. Walsh sending worried looks to each person in the trauma bay who wouldn’t meet her eye. Your blood was on the floor in free-flowing streaks that Jack couldn’t look away from, and he felt like he was going to throw up. The bay felt stagnant. The walls moved when he did not. His back hit a hard surface, and Jack let it hold him as he sank to the floor. 

He went to press his face in his hands, but stopped when he saw your blood filling the lines in his palms. 

He hadn’t told you he loved you. He let them take you, and he hadn’t reminded you. 

Robby crouched in front of Jack, hands flexing between his knees. “She’s gonna be okay.” 

Jack felt his head roll against the wall as his jaw trembled. “What’re you doing here?” he croaked out. 

“Mateo called me. Said your girl was in the crash. I was already home, so I came as fast as I could.” Robby paused, scratching his jaw. “Is Penny—” 

“I don’t know where Penny is.” 

“Okay. Okay, we wait then. We wait and see, and we fix what we can—” 

“I can’t just fucking wait, Robby,” Jack finally sobbed, the adrenaline from keeping you awake and talking wearing off in a hard crash. “I can’t wait to hear that she didn’t make it. Or that y/n doesn’t get out of that surgery. I can’t—I have to do something, and there’s nothing—there’s nothing I can do.” 

Jack's hands were raised in a helpless motion, his eyes fixed on the back wall of the trauma bay. He couldn’t see much through the tears, couldn’t feel much past the all-consuming fear, but he would try for you. For Penny. If the two of you were gone, he wasn’t sure if he could. 

“They’re all I got,” Jack nodded to himself, hands hanging over his tented knees. “And if I have to walk out there into a world where I’m alone again?” Jack pointed towards the door, finally meeting Robby’s pinched expression. “Not sure what I’d be doing it for.” 

“Don’t say that,” Robby cut through. “You don’t know that they won’t make it. You don’t. Stop giving up before you have to.”

“I don’t even know where my little girl is.” 

“So we find out. But we can’t do that from in here. We can’t do that when you’ve given up already.” 

So, Robby hauled Jack up from the floor of trauma one, and Jack followed him to the nurse’s hub. He washed his hands, he cracked his neck, and he let the central heating dry the stickiness of his tears as he stared up at the news reports of the crash. He wouldn’t be able to work; that was why Robby came in, but he could make calls. Jack knew people who knew people, and those people were in law enforcement. Those people would know more than he did. 

Jack was glued to the red phone in the Pitt for fifteen minutes, asking about a little girl that no one could find. Lena had sent him a concerned look one too many times and had yet to scold him for using the emergency line, but Jack hardly noticed. Robby was popping in and out of rooms in the role he was supposed to fill, but Jack hardly noticed. 

“Sorry, Abbot. Haven’t gotten the list yet. I’ll send you the info as soon as I get it.” 

Jack squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the growing ache above his nose. He shot out a quick thank you that didn’t sound genuine, and jumped out of his skin when a hand met his shoulder. 

“Anything I can do?” Lena asked. 

Jack only shook his head and went through his contact list in his head once more. It was all looking bleak. Jack’s world was looking bleak. And then the ambulance bay doors burst open, a bed being shoved down the hall, and Jack dropped the phone onto the counter. And then he was sprinting.

“Straggler from the crash. Says she’s five and asking for her mom, but mom couldn’t be found on scene. No obvious signs of trauma other than some cuts and bruises, but—” 

“Oh, fuck. Penny,” Jack gasped out, reaching for her on the bed that was far too big.

To her credit, it was only then that Penny started crying. She had been strong-faced when she got in, fear a shadow on her innocent face, but the moment she saw Jack, that was gone. Penny threw her arms around Jack’s neck and let out a wail he hoped never to hear again. She was trembling against him, retelling events no one could make out, and Jack pressed his nose to her temple as he rocked her where he stood. 

“I know, baby,” he shushed, words so similar to the ones he had spoken to you. “But you were so brave, you hear me? So brave. Your mom’s gonna be so proud of you.” 

Through hiccuping breaths, Penny asked, “Where is mommy?” 

Jack’s chest caved. “She’s getting fixed up upstairs. Mommy got hurt, but they’re fixing it.” 

“I didn’t get hurt because mommy was holding me.” 

“What was that, baby?” Jack asked, tucking Penny’s hair back from her face as he continued to sway. 

Penny looked up at him with big, watery eyes. “When the train started making noises, mommy grabbed me and held me really tight. I didn’t get hurt, but she did.” 

And of course you did. Of course that was why Penny was safe in his arms, and you were fighting for your life upstairs. Jack couldn’t imagine a world where that wasn’t the outcome. You would do anything for her. You were always going to do anything for her. 

Jack looked for you in Penny’s face as he offered the best smile he could muster. “She’s gonna be alright. She was protecting you, Penny. Mommy always protects you.” 

“Like how she used to check for monsters?” 

“Just like that. But I check for the monsters now. Safer that way.” 

“I wish you were with us on the train,” Penny choked out, clutching Jack’s scrubs in her tiny fists. “To make mommy safe, too.” 

Jack’s chest hurt. He pressed his forehead back to Penny’s temple, collected himself with a tight scrunch of his eyes, and grounded. “C’mon, sweetheart. I gotta check you over, okay? Make sure nothing’s wrong.” 

Jack cared for Penny in the same meticulous way he did you. He cleaned her scrapes and assessed her bruises, relishing the small giggle she let out when he prodded around to make sure nothing was happening internally. He felt the weight of the day in a lopsided, confusing uneasiness, one part of his life complete, the other in the balance. He would start to think of you, start to feel the dread, but then Penny would lay her head on his chest as he held her in the break room, and he had to snap back. 

You would want your daughter to feel safe. 

He needed to be a safe place. 

So Jack held Penny, bumping his knee to help her sleep, and he considered what he would have done a year ago. If he had been inundated with a tragedy, he would have thrown himself into work as a distraction. He would have thrown caution to the wind and taken case after case until his leg ached too much to continue. They would have had to tell him to stop, forced him to go home, and Jack would have done so only when he knew he would fall dead asleep the second he hit the mattress. 

Because that was what his life used to be. 

Today, no one had had to beg Jack to slow down. No one pulled him from patient rooms and gave him a stern talking to. They had called Robby as soon as they knew you were involved. They had expected him to slow down for you—for his family. 

Jack pressed a kiss to Penny’s head and enjoyed the difference. 

It was another hour before any news of you came. Penny had finally dozed off, and Jack’s left arm was dead from the weight of her head, but he was alert when Dr. Shen poked into the dim room and smiled softly. 

“She’s out. Asleep, but in recovery. They said she can have visitors, but I don’t know if—” 

Jack gazed down at Penny, still knocked out on top of him. “Can you get Mateo?” 

The pass-off was seamless, Jack running a hand over Penny’s head as Mateo nodded to the older man and promised to take care of things. It would be better for her to wake up with someone she knew, and Jack wasn’t going to leave her with anyone he didn’t trust. He trusted the entire staff, but Mateo was different. Mateo loved Penny. 

Jack cleared his mind on the elevator ride up, and then cleared it again as he walked through the maze of the ICU to find your room. He would bring Penny up when you were more stable, when he had a better idea of the state you were in. You hadn’t looked scary, but you were her mom. You were her mom, and Jack was—

“Jack?” 

He hadn’t been expecting your voice; Jack felt the breath knock from his lungs at the sound of it. His tears were fresh as he rounded your bed, checking vitals in a quick sweep before putting his hands anywhere they could reach. Your eyes were hazy as he leaned over you, but you had said his name, and something in him righted. 

“Hey,” he practically cooed, brushing your hair back as his eyes traced the shape of your face. “Didn’t think you’d be awake.” 

“Penny—” 

“Penny’s okay. She’s not hurt, sweetheart. Mateo’s got her.” 

Jack wasn’t sure he’d ever spoken so low before, so soft amidst beeping machines and the footsteps of nurses in the hall. You let out a breath, and your lashes fluttered shut, and it was clear to Jack that you shouldn’t be awake. That you had fought through exhaustion just to make sure your daughter was okay. 

Pride swelled in his chest, the first emotion to override the fear. “I’m so damn proud of you,” he softly stated. He fixed the blanket around your shoulders and felt his mouth twitch. “Protecting our girl like that. Making it through.” 

In response, Jack saw your own lips form a tired smile, hoarse voice asking, “Our girl?” 

“Yeah, our girl.” Jack kissed your forehead, then your cheek, and then checked the vitals again. “I’ll make it official soon,” he said, almost under his breath. 

“What—does that mean?” 

You were losing the fight to sleep, relief palpable in the room and lulling you off. Jack swung a chair by your bed, clicked his phone ringer on low for any texts about Penny, and waited for you to sleep. Waited to be there when you woke up. 

“You’re not,” Mor noted. “And pacing a hole into the floor isn’t going to help anything.” You went to roll your eyes at her, but then you found Mor’s concerned gaze, the way her fingers fidgeted in her lap, and you sat down beside her with a gentle huff. 

The clock by the door ticked minutes away, and you pulled at the skin around your nail. Rhysand and Azriel had been gone for approximately an hour and a half—you’d counted. That felt too long; winnowing there would have hardly taken a minute. 

“They’ll be okay,” Mor tried again, a gentle hand on your shoulder. “They both will. In… both times. Or however this is working.” 

A humorless laugh escaped you. “You can’t know that.” 

“Well—Well, we can. Sort of. If the future now is going well, doesn’t that mean the past hasn’t changed?” 

You furrowed your brows, confusion jarring enough to pull you out of misery. “What?” 

Mor jumped on the opening, nodding quickly as you stared at her. “Right. That makes sense, right? If Azriel really did get swapped with a version of himself from the past, then how we’re living now proves that, eventually, we figure everything out.” 

“I guess. But—No, that doesn’t make sense. Because then Azriel would already know about me when we return him to his time.” 

“Huh,” Mor hummed, sinking back in her seat. “Or… maybe it doesn’t work like that? Maybe this Azriel isn’t directly from the past.” 

“You’re making my head hurt.” 

“That’s better than the pacing.” 

A more meaningful laugh that time. You pressed your hand to your forehead and slumped back along with Mor. “This is so messed up.” 

“It is.” 

“I haven’t gone to my shop in days. Everyone is going to think it’s closed.” 

“Az won’t be happy about that,” Mor sang out. “You know he hates it when you neglect the things you enjoy.” 

“Yes, well, I think I get a pass due to current circumstances,” you shot back. “I don’t even know if I could go in there, anyway. I can’t be in our room at the House. I can’t be anywhere that reminds me of him.”

Suddenly, the front door slammed open, and Rhysand was in the doorway. “Azriel died!” Rhysand screamed. “He is dead.” 

“What :(“ you said, frowning obviously. 

“Yeah :/” Rhysand cried, and he was also frowning, obviously. 

The worst part was your bond not entirely understanding the differences. It called to this past Azriel, unsure why there was no response. He would enter rooms, and the thread would glow, eager after so much isolation, but that warmth would deplete when Azriel had no flicker of the feeling cross his face. 

You were alone, but your body was tricking you. 

Three days after you’d lost him, Azriel sat with you on one of the porches of the Riverhouse. You’d had trouble in the House of Wind recently—too many reminders and wrong turns. Rhys and Feyre had been kind enough to let you stay with them despite your many objections. They thought some distance would be good, but Azriel clearly did not understand your reason for staying away. 

He stared incessantly. He focused and furrowed his brows and asked you questions as if you would elicit some memory that would prove he was right, that he was meant to be in this time and the answer was just lost in his mind. But you looked at him and knew that wasn’t true. You looked at him, and the bond chaffed. 

You couldn’t understand it. All of the effort he was putting into this did not make sense. 

After an entire day’s worth of questions, you voiced your confusion. “Why are you doing this?” you softly whispered, gaze out at the Sidra. You tucked the blanket Feyre had draped over you an hour ago closer to your body. “What purpose could this possibly serve?” 

“I want to remember,” Azriel responded, voice low and intense, arms resting on his thighs as he tried to engage you. 

You shook your head at nothing. “It’s not there, Azriel. You heard Rhys—your memories are not locked away, they don’t exist.” 

“They could.” 

“No, they couldn’t,” you finalized. You turned to look at him, finally. It hurt. “A few days ago, I was nothing more than Mor’s friend to you. Nothing has changed.” 

“Everything has changed,” Azriel refuted, expression pinched. “You are my mate. Everything has changed.” 

“I do not become your mate for another year, Azriel. We—we grow to know each other. We loved each other before the bond, and it took time. This sense of obligation you feel for me has only been brought on by the promise of a bond you don’t even feel.” 

“It is not a sense of obligation.” 

“Is it not? What else could it be? That first night, you wanted nothing to do with me. Now I’m suddenly the only important thing in this time. But that isn’t even true, is it?” 

Azriel’s face morphed into confusion. You weren’t being fair again. None of this was fair. You turned back to the Sidra, blanket falling into your lap. 

“We will find a way to get you back to your time,” you offered, softer. “This will all settle. It will all make sense again.” 

“And I’m just supposed to go back to a time before you?” 

“What?” 

“How am I meant to go back and pretend I don’t know about you? Pretend I don’t know that we are destined for this grand future together—where you would throw yourself into the mouth of the unknown just to ensure that I am safe? Where you look at me like—” 

You felt yourself fracture, clutching the blanket on your knees. The wool was in large, chunky knots, and it gave you something to press into. Tears were burning your eyes again. You were tired of crying. He sounded like your Azriel. 

“You don’t even know me,” you whispered, braving a look directly into his eyes. You found glassy hazel. 

“I want to.” 

“It doesn’t happen like this. You love me without knowing. You love me because you want to, not because of a bond.” 

Azriel hesitated, looking to the Sidra before hanging his head. His scarred hands interlaced between his knees, and you traced the patterns on his skin with your eyes. The sound of the water lapping against a far shore echoed against the slats of wood on your High Lady’s home. There was nothing Azriel could say to that. He knew about the bond. He knew that was irreversible. 

You spoke again. “It will be better for you to go back. You have things there that you love. It would make more sense for you.” 

“Right,” Azriel gruffly replied.

You sighed, the sound getting lost in the gentle lapping of water. You opened your mouth to speak again, maybe to offer another reassurance, another hard truth, but the door to the patio opened, and your attention was drawn away from your rambling. 

“Y/n? I was hoping to get your opinion on—” 

Azriel rose from his seat in an instant, his expression becoming open, his mouth parting. You looked over your shoulder at the change, both devastated and unsurprised to see Elain in the doorway with a bowl resting on her hip. Azriel stepped forward and reached out a hand, instinct driving him to do… something. You bit into your cheek, hard, and turned your chin down. 

“Oh,” Elain flushed. You saw her edge the bowl away in your peripheral. “Hello. I thought y/n was alone out here. I wanted her to—y/n, would you like to join me in the kitchen, maybe?” 

“Do you need help?” Azriel inquired, gaze still fixed on Elain. 

You tasted blood on your tongue and tried to relax your jaw. Pain felt better than crying. Your cheek continued to bleed.

“Well, no,” Elain edged out, speaking slowly. If you looked, you would have seen her tilting her head toward you in a meaningful way. “I was just wanting her opinion. We often bake together. I was making a tart.”

Azriel nodded, opening his stance until he was between you and Elain. You looked back when your name was called once more, this time falling from Elain’s lips with a hint of anguished sympathy. It was a mistake to look at Azriel, you knew that, but you couldn’t help it. A quick pass over his face found him analyzing every inch of Elain’s, lost in the sight of her. His hands twitched, and you wished you had missed that, too. 

“Come to the kitchen with me,” Elain prompted, tilting her head to catch your attention. “It’s getting too cold out here.” 

You swallowed and righted yourself, nodding jerkily before rising from the chair. You’d been sitting for too long, and your legs protested, but Azriel was still staring at Elain, and so you moved past the pain. Elain gave you a kind smile as the blanket bunched up in your seat; you focused on that as you tried to walk past Azriel. As his fingers circled your wrist and gave a gentle tug. 

Your eyes fluttered shut, but he tugged you again, and you had no choice but to turn and look at him. Conflict raged on his face. His fingers spasmed around your wrist and he looked angry and sad and rife with uncertainty. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t—” 

He couldn’t finish. He kept opening his mouth, his shadows pulsing out and then returning to a cling around his shoulders, but no more sound came out. You reached for his hand, unwinding his fingers until your wrist was bare. 

“There are things you love—people. None of them are me.” 

Azriel’s shoulders heaved as he took in your words. “I could love you.” 

And you believed he wanted to so badly. But not for the right reasons. He had jumped up when Elain entered, completely forgotten about you or how he had just begged you to give him a chance to stay. Azriel—this Azriel of the past—wanted a mate. He wanted sure love. What he’d had with Elain had always been rocky and uncertain, but that was something you both had come to terms with. Over time. Over months. 

“Our love has never worked that way.” 

Elain was waiting for you when you turned around. 

~~

“She isn’t going to like that.” 

“She isn’t exactly at liberty to make decisions about this right now.” 

“And we are just going to trust that she won’t follow you?” 

“She won’t know. We won’t tell her until after.” 

“Rhys, that isn’t entirely fair.” 

“Would you rather she be in danger?” 

You huffed out an exasperated breath, pushing open the door to the High Lord’s study. The three people in the room stood frozen, staring at your entrance with wide, unblinking eyes. 

“Done talking about me?” you accused, brow raised. “Or shall I leave while you discuss my mental state a little more?” 

Feyre was the first to break the silence. “It wasn’t like that,” she shook her head. “We were discussing possibilities.” 

“And realities,” Rhysand offered. “Like the one where you will put yourself in unnecessary danger to get Azriel back.” 

“Unnecessary,” you quipped back, stomping past Cassian to stand at the High Lord’s desk. “This is Azriel. How can—how can you call anything to do with this unnecessary?” 

“Hey, not what he meant,” Cassian calmed. He moved forward and set a placating hand on your shoulder, squeezing it. He looked over your head. “Just tell her the plan. Easier that way.” 

Rhysand sighed, itching his jaw. “I want to bring Az to the rift again, just him and me. There was nothing in his memory about the switch—only a bright light before he woke up on the border. I think if I were to get close enough, I might be able to feel Azriel—our Azriel’s—mind and reach out to him. Helion doesn’t have any information on what this could be. There’s no literature, and Amren is stumped, too. Proximity may be our only solution.” 

“Okay, fine,” you nodded, waving a hand in the air. “Let’s go then. I would be useful. If the bond started to feel closer, we would know it was really him.” 

Rhysand was already shaking his head. “Bring you to the thing you’ve said you want to jump into?” 

“Yes. Yes, Rhys. If this were Feyre, you would have already gone in. But you don’t have any restrictions, do you? You’re the High Lord, so you don’t have to listen to anyone but yourself. Other people are in danger, and it’s still your word—”

Cassain said your name gently, softly, shaking your shoulder and bringing you to reason. You knew, again, that you weren’t being fair. The second you caught even a glimpse of the bond, you would nosedive into that rift, and your family wanted you safe. But you didn’t care about safe. You didn’t care about precautions. 

“Let them go alone first,” Feyre spoke from the other side of the room. “Let them feel around. Once they have a better understanding, you can go. I promise you that as High Lady. I won’t let anyone stop you if you promise not to go alone.” 

You weighed your options, suddenly very aware of the several tactics your family could implement to keep you grounded. There was a very real possibility that they would lock you away to keep you from becoming a flight risk, and although you knew how to winnow, your magic was thready on bad days. And every day was a bad day recently. 

You caught Rhysand’s eyes. “You will tell me everything you find?” you probed. “Even if it’s not good news.”

A hint of surprise flickered on Rhysand’s face. He quickly glanced at Feyre before nodding. “Yes. Everything.” 

“And… if you reach him—you’ll tell him I love him?” 

Rhysand’s shoulders fell from their defensive posture. Cassian squeezed your shoulder once more. “Yes,” the High Lord nodded. “Of course I will.” 

“And tell him that I wanted to come, but you wouldn’t let me.” 

“Azriel would be irate with me if you were there, you know that.” 

You felt your mouth twitch into a fleeting smile, remembering the times Azriel had been irate with Rhysand. Several involved you in places you shouldn’t be, doing things that the Shadowsinger was yanking you away from in an instant. Your smile vanished as you remembered that the Azriel you had now had moved just as fast upon Elain entering a room. 

“Just… make sure he knows I’m here. Waiting for him.” 

“I’m sure he’s already painfully aware.” 

You moved quickly, whipping your head around to find Azriel now in the room. His expression was placated by the kind of calm he used after long missions, and you’d only seen that expression a few times. It usually dissolved the moment he saw you, his body melting into your greeting. But now, this Azriel was using it around you. Because of you. 

“Azriel,” Feyre called. “You—” 

“I was listening, yes.” The Shadowsinger finally tore his eyes from you. “When are we going?” 

You felt your body tense, fingers curling into your palms. 

“In a few hours, if you’re up for it. I need to inform Helion that we’ll be on the border, but that shouldn’t take long.”

“Anyone else going?” 

Something kept you glued to Azriel, taking in every twitch of his muscle, every blink. He looked younger, you thought. You hadn’t noticed before. There was more sleep pressed into the crevices of his face, less sun along his cheeks. Maybe you were imagining things; six years were nothing to fae. 

“No,” Rhysand responded, shuffling things around his desk. “Better for just us to go. Less noise and less worry.” 

Azriel swallowed. “Okay. Come get me when it’s time.” 

He turned, left the room, and you were following him out before you could stop yourself. You got to the hall, unsure where you were going or how long you would trail after him, but Azriel decided that for you. He stopped mid-way down the hall, his shoulders lowering just a fraction, his head shaking imperceptibly. 

“Do not ask me again. I don’t know if I can say no.” 

Your hand, which had been outstretched without your knowing, lowered to your side. “I wasn’t going to ask anything.” 

Your mate—soon-to-be-mate—turned his head just far enough to see you. “You think I do not know you, but I knew you were going to ask to come—for him. I know you enough in my bones to hear you ask even when you did not.” 

Your lashes fluttered, a feeling working up your spine and caving in your chest. You pressed your lips together and rolled your eyes up to the ceiling in a desperate attempt to quell the pressure. It did not work. 

“Azriel.” You addressed him with finality, sure that after this conversation, you would need to lock yourself in a room until you heard of their return. There was no other way to stop yourself from following them. 

Hazel eyes met yours then, head on and searching. 

“Be careful,” you urged. “Please. I can’t—” 

“Don’t worry.” A sad upturn of his mouth. “I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize this future.” 

Last night, after Feyre had removed the glass from your clumsy feet and calmed you, she shared the plan. Rhys was going to delve further into Azriel’s mind after contacting Helion. Your mate had been on a small peninsula between the coasts of Day and Night to investigate conflicting reports from the dwindling population settled there. It had all been very official; an organized contract was written up between the courts, with Azriel as the linchpin. He was to go to the sliver of land and collect information, and then report back to both High Lords. 

He had missed the check-in with Helion. 

You never knew what Azirel was doing when he went off for long stretches. He told you as little as possible to satisfy your worries. He never wanted you involved in court politics or spying or anything that could lead to danger. 

Elain probably knew more than you. 

You shook the thought away. It had become so easy for you to revert to old habits, to compare yourself to Elain and measure all of your shortcomings. You supposed everything would start to feel as it used to. Your relationship with Azriel certainly fell backward—rife with insecurity and uncertainty. 

It was neither of their faults. You picked at the skin of your thumb and took in steady breaths as you reminded yourself that this was all a fluke. This wasn’t evidence of your shortcomings or of betrayal. This was a situation with a solution, with a cause. 

“Mor,” Azriel gently warned, his gaze still fixed on you. Mor had started a new story, you vaguely recognized, and the distraction had stopped working about five minutes ago. From the corner of your eye, you saw the pair share a look. Azriel shook his head softly. 

Mor blew out a breath and sank back in her seat. “Well, if Rhys would hurry up,” she muttered under her breath. 

“It’s a long way to Day,” you hummed, looking back down at your fingers. “Probably a lot to talk about.” 

“He’ll be back soon. I believe it would be difficult to side-track him right now,” Azriel reassured. 

You raised your brows at his explanation. To him, you needed the context. To him, you hardly knew the High Lord. You let the redundancy simmer low in your chest and reminded yourself that staying back had been difficult for Azriel, too. His knee was shaking, and he’d had to stay home while his High Lord gathered intel. 

None of this was right.

“Right, of course,” was all you uttered back. 

You still stared down at your hands. Azriel still stared over at you. 

Azriel’s shadows created a faint hum in the room. You usually couldn’t hear them, but they were lingering around your shoulders and refused to abide by their master’s incessant calls to return.  You could see each tick of his head that went unanswered and felt a small sense of satisfaction that at least something was choosing you. Even if that was childish. Even if it was unwarranted. 

Rhysand returned to the House without much fanfare, his collar loose and his hair mussed. Feyre was quick in her step behind him, looking more determined than her mate. The energy in the room perked up in a dreary way as Cassian stomped in soon after. 

He clapped, startling the shadows until they wrapped you closer. “Everyone here?” Cassian assessed. 

“Everyone that needs to be,” Mor huffed out, sitting straighter. She was unwavering in her place next to you, Azriel in the chair across the room. 

“Great,” Cassian grinned. “So, that’s not Azriel.” 

A pause. The humming stopped. You could hear Feyre let out a delicate sigh and barely caught how she pinched the bridge of her nose, but you felt frozen. Azriel himself was frozen, unmoving. 

“I do not recall that being the way we were going to deliver the information, Cassian,” Rhysand chastised. 

“Better to get it out all at once.” 

“What?” Azriel hissed out, rising from his seat. You stared after him once his back was turned, analyzing every inch of his shoulders and wings and his hair. It looked like him. It was— “Are you accusing me of being a spy against you? A fake?” 

Cassian raised his hands. “No—Well, not exactly. It’s different.” 

“It’s entirely different. Which is why you should stop talking,” Rhysand directed, rubbing his hand over his jaw. He let his gaze trail over you before he spread his fingers out and curled them into his palms. “That is Azriel. You are. But you just—or it’s Helion’s theory that—you are not our Azriel.” 

“And whose Azriel is he then?” Mor scoffed, an air of concern washing over the contempt. She had risen from her spot beside you.

“That gets complicated,” Feyre offered. “Azriel was gathering intel on disappearances in the peninsula, but it wasn’t just that. The citizens were saying that people were going missing, but also that sometimes they would return… different. Maybe from poison or contamination. It seemed like a farce because of the recent unrest in the area. They want more resources from both Rhys and Helion since they’re technically on the border, so making up a lie for funds to investigate a fake issue wouldn’t be unusual.” 

“So you sent Az to look into it,” Mor nodded. 

“So we sent Az.” Rhysand sounded defeated. He rubbed at his face again. “Turns out it was an actual issue.” 

“Poison?” you murmured, the only one sitting in the room. Several eyes turned to you. You clutched the cushion beneath your legs. “How does that—I don’t—” 

“Not poison,” Feyre gently corrected. “That’s why it’s complicated.” 

You kept your gaze locked on the ground, but within that line, you saw Azriel move. He took a step back, heel clicking towards you, but then he stayed. 

“Explain it.” 

Azriel sounded defensive already, brimming with assurance that he could refute any points made. Rhysand cleared his throat, and Cassian leaned a shoulder against the wall. 

“There’s a rift—a split between Day and Night. The locals have said it feeds things in and spits them out. That it’s a warped tear in the sky that clashes and makes the ocean thrash when it’s open,” Rhysand recounted, eyes hazy as if recalling exact memories. 

“Sounds like a story to scare the local children into listening,” Mor quipped. 

“I thought the same. But we saw it,” Rhysand shook his head. “Or I saw it. From one of their minds. And when they were explaining how people came back from the rift, it sounded—” 

Cassian jerked his head towards Azriel. “Sounded like you.” 

You finally looked up, fingers aching from your grip on the couch. Azriel was stiff and unrelenting as he stood before the group, but he was deflating, slowly, his head making the smallest movements. Everyone watched him as if he were going to implode, and you watched him as if you couldn’t remember the last time anything made sense. 

“So you think he entered this rift?” you quietly asked. Azriel’s chin jerked to the side when you spoke, but he didn’t turn completely. 

“Yes,” Feyre nodded. “When Rhys checked his mind, there was nothing about the mission or… anything from the past few years. Not even anything hinting at locked-away memories. Or missing memories.”

“It was like there was a gap. But that gap wasn’t supposed to be filled yet,” Rhys finished. 

“Where am I supposed to be then?” Azriel bit out, rough now, maybe scared. “What’s the theory?” 

“You’re supposed to be in the past. You were switched.” 

Rhysand’s words were an echo, and then they were a raucous clanging in your mind. Azriel—your mindful, cautious Azriel—seemed actually to implode, his shadows bursting from your shoulders and clinging to their master. They swirled around him and coated his skin, blocking him and surrounding him and protecting him from words. 

“Switched?” Azriel breathed out. “I was not. I am not—an incorrect version of myself.” 

“That’s not what we’re saying,” Feyre comforted. 

“It is.” 

“Az, take a moment and think about—” 

“No, Cassian.” Azriel shot his hand through the air. “I’m not—this is something inside of my mind. I know it is. I can pinpoint it.” 

“Can you?” Rhysand asked, braving a step towards the agitated Shadowsinger. “How?” 

Azriel paused, his shoulders heaving. He didn’t have an answer, and Rhysand knew that. The High Lord looked to you, then, conveying something with his eyes that might have spelled an apology. You attempted to parse out the meaning, but too much was happening. Too much, and also not enough. 

Rhysand said your name. Attention turned to you. “When you feel the bond—when you look at Azriel, does it feel how it’s supposed to?” 

You wet your lips and blinked. “Supposed to?” 

“Does it feel complete when you look at him? Alive?” 

“It doesn’t feel broken, if that’s what you mean.” You furrowed your brows and searched inward. A directive question actually felt nice, even though it was making you focus on something you had tried hard to push to the side. “It feels distant. Far away.” 

“Far away?” Mor repeated, breathless. “What does that mean?” 

Rhysand turned to Azriel. “And what do you feel?”

“He doesn’t feel anything,” you answered for him, disconnecting from the crushing feeling that accompanied the words. “He told me last night.” 

Azriel was quick to refute. “That’s not true,” he said, staring at you. He looked to Rhys next. “That’s not true. I feel… I feel like I’m supposed to feel something for her. Protect her.” 

Rhysand nodded softly. “You feel drawn to her. You know very little about her, but something is bringing you in.” 

“Yes. So it is there.” 

“No, Az. That’s the before. Before the bond is realized.” 

Azriel’s hand flew to his chest, his head turning down. He looked searching, maybe hoping that he would find the bond, because that would prove he was who he wanted to be. That he belonged in the now. But you knew he didn’t, because he felt far; Rhys made you aware that Azriel felt far away, and there was a man in front of you who looked just like him, but he didn’t look at you like he loved you. Not yet.

“Where is he?” you whispered, feeling your eyes burn. Tears fell as you searched for Rhys, for Feyre, for the people who seemed to know how to get him back. “If he was switched, where is our Azriel? Is he okay?”

“He was likely sent to the past,” Feyre explained. She was the soft one in this, offering gentle truths while Rhysand conveyed the big ones. The hard ones. “He’s probably in the same situation we are in now. Trying to figure this out.” 

“How can we bring him back?” you panicked. “What if he doesn’t know how to get himself back?” 

“Hey, we’re going to figure this out,” Cassian tried to comfort. He moved to calm you, but Azriel stepped in his path. 

You stood from the couch and paced around the length of the carpet before stopping in front of Rhysand. “You can send me to the rift. I can go and get him and explain. He doesn’t have as much context as we do. He would need me.” 

“You’re not going to throw yourself into that thing,” Azriel growled from behind you. “It would make sense for me to go back through it. To undo it.” 

“No!” you stressed, grabbing Rhysand’s arm. The High Lord covered your hand with his and tried to speak, but you were too heightened, too afraid. “It might not work. I should go.” 

Rhysand lowered his head, voice calm. “And then we might lose you, too.” 

“That doesn’t matter!” 

Mor shot out your name in a gasping breath, but you kept your gaze unyielding on Rhysand. “It could switch me, yes, but that would be better. I could tell Azriel what’s happening and bring him back safely.” 

“What if that’s not what happens? What if you are just gone? Lost?” 

You reared back, hand covering your mouth. “Don’t say that. Don’t—because then you think Azriel could be lost, and he’s not.” 

“We wouldn’t chance it,” Rhysand affirmed, shaking his head, putting his foot down. “We wouldn’t want to lose you both.” 

You turned your attention to Azriel—an Azriel. Maybe not yours, but he said he felt something for you. Your Azriel would give you anything; this one could be the same. 

You spun on your heel and charged at the Shadowsinger, capturing his arms in your hold and not caring that it didn’t feel right. “You came from there. You could take me back,” you beseeched him. “Take me. You don’t want to be here, I know it.” 

Azriel took you in, brows furrowing as he scanned every corner of your face. The muscles of his arms jumped beneath your fingers, and he didn’t mirror your desperation, but something flickered on his face that you couldn’t place. It had been too long since you’d seen it. 

“I won’t put you in danger,” he seemed to wince. “I won't.” 

“I wouldn’t be in danger. He would find me. He would protect me.” 

Azriel knocked your hands from his arms and held the sides of your head, capturing your attention and forcing you to ground. “I am right here. No version of me would let my mate throw herself into the unknown. How am I supposed to have a life with you if you’re gone?” 

“You don’t want me,” you whispered, eyes flashing between each of his. 

Azriel struggled to find words. He kept searching your face, holding you steady, his expression pressed into a near-permanent wince. You thought you might have felt his thumb brush against your temple, but too many thoughts were roaring in your head for you to notice it. 

“Let me go,” you urged. 

But Azriel was already shaking his head. “I can’t.” 

Your breath came out as a hopeless, anguished sound. Knowing where your mate was and not being able to get to him, to fix this, was enough to make your chest pound with an uncomfortable weight. You pressed back from Azriel and tried to reconcile how you were so close to him, and yet, he was further away than he’d ever been. Azriel’s hands dropped to his sides as you left him. 

His gaze went over your head. “You must have some form of a plan.” 

Rhysand was still staring after you as Azriel spoke, conflict raging on his face. His head tilted to the side, and he rolled his shoulders back. “Helion is looking into it more. I’d also like to search your memories more for the moment the switch happened—if it was a switch. See if there are any leads.” 

Your breathing was becoming erratic, your chest heavier. You squeezed your eyes shut and pressed your hand to your ribs, tears continuing to fall. They hadn’t stopped. 

“Done,” Azriel confirmed. “What else?” 

“That’s it. For now,” Rhysand said. His voice felt distorted. 

You leaned over as your head began to spin, hands on your thighs. Immediately, Azriel had you in his hold again. You felt fingers cover yours. He came down to his knee and stared up at your face. He was blurry. Everything was blurry. 

“It’s okay,” Azriel softly assured. 

“It’s not,” you got out. “He’s—”