#daughter reader

You were born to a soldier on Pandora, a Seargant who seemed unbothered by her pregnancy during her term. The RDA wasn’t progressive, not at all, but they weren’t so cruel (at least to their own race) that they’d force a pregnant woman into work. Your mother simply made the decision to keep working, no matter how unsafe it was.

After she gave birth to you, she seemed… inattentive at best. She took maternity leave for the required period of time and got back into the action once she was cleared, leaving you essentially alone. It wasn’t long after her redeployment that she was killed in action along with the rest of her squad. An unfortunate accident in the dangerous wilds of Pandora

So, motherless and unclaimed by a father, you were orphaned. Too young for Cryo, they let you stay. Your mother's room became yours and yours alone. 

Of course, the RDA base was no place for a child. Ill-equipped and non-accommodative. The higher-ups reasoned that you’d best be left to the scientists and doctors. They’d know how to take care of a kid best, right?

Of course, no one really paid much attention to you. Giving the minimum attention necessary to keep you alive, lest they carry the guilt of neglecting an infant to death.

Grace wasn’t sure what to think of you when you were put in her care. She was a scientist, not a babysitter. Her focus was on the Na’vi, their way of life, and the organisms living on Pandora. She didn’t have time to look after a kid.

You were shucked off onto some lower-level scientists and assistants. She didn’t hear much from you other than your crying, which was always met with swift confinement to your room with your current caretaker. 

Eventually, though, you became autonomous. You were quick, slippery, and curious. The ones in charge of you didn’t pay much attention, which led to you sneaking around. Once, finding your way into Grace's lab.

She found you at her desk, standing on her chair in only an ill-fitting t-shirt and diapers, leaning over and staring at the projection of various pictures she had up. 

Grace wasn’t cruel; she may not have wanted to be responsible for you, but she held the same fondness for kids that most did.

Carefully, she picked you up, sitting you in her lap, and asked you what you were doing.

“Pic!” Is all you blurted out, head turned around, and staring at her with your wide and curious eyes. Grace chuckled, nodding as she hummed and affirmed your babbles.

You spent the rest of that day in her hold, watching as she scrolled through the pictures and videos she had in the database, explaining, in the most child-friendly way, the ones you were interested in. 

Being just over a year old, you weren’t still in her lap. Wriggling around, grabbing at her and objects, even standing up in her lap and jumping up and down, which she swiftly stopped. Despite all this, Grace was patient with you. Perhaps it was your curiosity for Pandora that softened her, the fact that you were interested in something she’d devoted her life to researching. 

A new brain to fill, maybe.

So, you made frequent trips to the lab after that. Slipped past your caretakers and crawling into Grace or Max’s laps, whoever was available, and babbling on and on. You weren’t the center of attention or a priority, but you became somewhat of a soft spot for Grace and her fellow scientists. Not as much of a burden, anymore.

It wasn’t long before you started picking up on the Na’vi phrases being used, especially once you discovered the parts of the lab dedicated more towards the avatars and culture of the Na’vi. Grace, ever the enabler of your interest in Pandora, started speaking to you in almost strictly Na’vi.

Being so young, you picked up on it incredibly quickly, nearly at the same speed as English, which you’d only really started learning a month or two prior.

It was cute to them, having a little human baby babbling in Na’vi and focusing so intently on the fauna and flora you saw in catalogs. Some even joked that your bedtime book should be the one Grace wrote. 

They called you the LabRat around the base. A term of endearment, of course. Many knew about you, the loose kid on base who scurried around and spent almost as much time in the lab as the scientists. You were cute. But really, that’s all you were to them, a cute kid. 

But to Grace? Somewhere along the way, she grew more fond of you than she’d expected. She ate with you at breakfast, watching you messily eat out of the corner of her eye as she held conversations with the other scientists. You stuck to her side, only ever really leaving it when you wanted to be with Max or go to sleep. Even then, she often had to carry you to your room multiple times throughout the day when you fell asleep in her lap.

You spent a lot of time with Max, too. Whenever Grace was in her Avatar, which was often, you found yourself with him. He was always a little softer with you, having been more fond and sympathetic with you earlier on. 

He treated you more like a kid than most others. He didn’t really try to feed your curiosity with Pandora, instead focusing on the fact that you were a deprived orphan child. He was the most suited to take care of you, probably. 

At some point, you found your way into the Avatar lab, watching through the windows. No one really saw it coming, but you escaped. With your little mask that was slightly too big for your face, you ran out the door, gunning right for Grace’s Avatar. 

They didn’t really think you’d recognize her, but you did, and you wanted to see her. Of course, you were a little intimidated by her drastic change in appearance and height, but at this point, you knew about the Na’vi and Avatars, so you didn’t have much of a problem.

Grace, in her Avatar form, was perhaps even more loving towards you. Maybe it was the youth of the body, or the fact that she had her own internal favoritism for it, but she seemed happier. Something you picked up on quickly. 

You loved being outside. No longer were you content being cooped up in the lab, you wanted to see the forest! Of course, they weren’t exactly ok with the idea, but your crying eventually convinced them.

Grace decided to take you to the school. She’d made excellent progress with the Omaticaya through the school, maybe it would be good to start introducing some direct human contact… through you. And she figured it could be good for your development, meeting beings that weren’t just inattentive scientists and soldiers.

With your mask on and sporting your cutest clothes, Grace took you to the school. The Na’vi kids were unsure about you at first, with their adverse feelings about Skypeople, but eventually they opened up. 

You were small, so incredibly small. Even the young children had no problems holding and cradling you. You were cute in your own, human, way.

They were intrigued by the fact that your Na’vi was as good as your English. Granted, neither were particularly good, seeing as you were a toddler, but it's the fact that they were at the same level that they admired.

Sylwanin was especially interested in you, often taking you in her arms, cooing and coddling you. 

“Sa’nok, she’s so small!” She’d exclaim to Grace, who’d laugh in response.

“Well, she’s human. You’re probably at least 2 feet taller than my human body, and I’m an adult.” She leaned over Sylwanin, smiling down at the scene. “She’s just a youngin’, not even 2 years old.”

From then on, you were a regular addition to Grace’s school and a personal favorite of Sylwanin and Neytiri. The two sisters absolutely adored you. Cooing over you and your babbles, sitting you in between them or on one of their laps during the lessons.

Often, they’d sit in the back with you, giggling at your tiny body and antics, brushing your hair, or watching as you fiddled with whatever toy or objects you could get your hands on. 

Between your time in the lab and out at the school, you were the first human to be culturally raised Na’vi. It was fascinating to Grace. 

Tsu’tey was cautious of you at first, unsure of how to handle how small and frail you were. But out of everything, you were also incredibly persistent and curious. Somehow, you found yourself worming your way into Tsu’tey’s arms, waddling up to him and demanding he pick you up through body language.

Sylwanin found this utterly adorable, how you’d stand there and “Hmf!” until he reached down and picked you up. He didn’t really know how to hold you, hands tucked under your armpits, torso and legs dangling in the air, but you crawled your way around him, finding yourself sitting on his shoulders. Well, shoulder, to be exact. You could comfortably sit on one, granted it was with one of his hands on your legs to keep your balance while you grabbed onto his braids.

“Tey-Tey” “Wanin” and “Tiri” you called them, not really able to pronounce their full names. They, of course, didn’t care, cooing at the babble of nicknames you gave them. 

In turn, they started to call you “Syulì'ang”, a butterfly-like insect that was known for its characteristic claws that latched it onto whatever it landed on. A fitting nickname, they all thought. 

Their sweet Syulì'ang. Tsu’tey was more or less simply amused by you once he was comfortable. He wasn't as doting as Sylwanin or Neytiri or some of the others; he liked you, but it was more or less than he was entertained by you. 

Of course, that changed the more you stuck around. By the time you’d learned to walk well enough to walk to the school yourself, with Grace accompanying you, of course, he was always waiting by the doorway. He’d give a simple nod to Grace when the pair of you came into view, and he tried to remain stoic as you ran forward, your small body knocking into his tall legs and calling out his name, but Grace, and just about anyone else who really knew him, could see through it. 

You spent your developmental years at the school, growing up so quickly that the Na’vi kids didn’t know what to do. When they first met you, you could barely walk, and all you could really do was babble and string together words, but years passed, and you began holding conversations and moving around fairly fluidly. 

Of course, you were still small and babyish, still just a toddler, but toddlers grew and changed fast. 

You were like their baby sister. Tsmuke, they called you. To them, you were really no different from another Na’vi kid. You spoke fluently, you were young and saw the world in a manner that seemed to reflect their own cultural point of view, perhaps from your exposure to it. 

Grace couldn’t really place when she started to love you. Maybe it was when you first called her “Sa’nok”, copying the kids at the schoolhouse. Maybe it was when that transformed into “Sa’nu”, or when it became “mama” when back in the lab. Maybe it was that day you first caught her attention, having snuck into the lab and into her heart.

She never corrected you when you called her those things, even when she got odd stares from the others around when you did. They just didn’t get it. They were too wrapped up in their own world. And yeah, so was she, but at some point, you became a part of her world. 

She didn’t really think of herself as your parent, but she didn’t mind if you thought of her as one. She wasn’t really the nicest; she was definitely more of a ‘tough love’ kind of parental figure, but that wasn’t really all that bad. 

Pandora wasn’t suited for you. You weren’t supposed to be there, and it wasn’t a good place for you by any means. You weren’t given proper attention or affection, and when you were, it wasn't consistent. Grace and Max, and the Na’vi kids weren’t role model family figures, but they tried, and they loved you, no matter how… odd it was. 

At some point, you’d met Mo’at and Eytukan. Likely, they’d heard of you from their daughters and Tsu’tey. It was hard to tell what they thought of you, after all, they had their own reservations about the humans, only allowing the school to function due to Sylwanin's request. 

But they liked you enough. You were a kid, a toddler, innocent in what was being done to their planet. You didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of any prejudice they held towards the humans. You spoke the language and learned beside their children. You seemed to love the forest as if it were your own home.

Formally, you met Mo’at when you fell down and scraped yourself while running out of the school, being chased by Sylwanin. You cried, of course, but Sylwanin, as calm as ever, simply scooped you up and told Grace she was taking you to her mother to get fixed up, running off before she could object.

You watched the Tsahik in awe as she worked on you, rubbing a salve on your wounds, her jewelry and beadings clinking together as she did so. You watch her in silence, Sylwanin giggling at your entranced demeanor. At the end, climbing back into Sylwanin’s arms, you turned and told Mo’at she was magnificent. A big word for your age. 

Mo’at had to admit, you were a charming little kid. 

Neytiri was especially charmed by you, often taking you from anyone else's arms to hold you in hers. It became a running joke that she’d adopt and steal you away if she could. She never denied it.

You could always be found fiddling with her hair or necklaces, pulling at them or putting them in your mouth. Neytiri, despite not liking your actions, was patient with you, simply giggling as she pulled it from your grasp and pointed your attention elsewhere.

Some people on base started to voice complaints about you being out too much. Being gifted jewelry and pieces by Sylwanin and Neytiri, and one piece from Tsu’tey, you began dressing in them every day. 

Of course, the complaints went nowhere, being no more than off-hand comments made by people who had no role or responsibility in your upbringing. As loved as you were, you were still overlooked more often than not, just an orphan kid who wandered in and out of the base. Outside of Grace, Max, and a few other scientists, no one really cared.

You had your routine. Getting up, spending time with Max before running out with Grace to the school. The school was your favorite place, you often told Neytiri and Tsu’tey in giddy whispers. You felt free and loved. It was your place.

When Sylwanin stopped showing up, you were sad. You missed her. Really, she was your favorite. 

You didn’t understand why you stopped going to the school, why Grace started arguing with a bunch of the soldiers more often, and why you were no longer allowed outside of the base. You cried a lot, saying you wanted your Tsmuke’s and Tsmukan. You wanted to go to the school, you wanted to see Neytiri and Sylwanin and Tsu’tey and the others. 

You cried when a scientist, tired of your whining, told you they probably didn’t want to see you.

Grace had a hard time comforting you. She didn’t know what to say, struggling with her own grief and guilt in the whole situation. All she could do was hold you and tell you that things were going to be okay. 

It was a while before you stopped crying so much. You still whined about wanting to go outside, but you learned to stop when asked. You spent your nights fiddling with the gifts from Neytiri and Sylwanin, the jewelry they crafted for you, the toy Mo’at gifted you once, and the Ikran Tsu’tey carved for you out of wood. They were your most treasured pieces. 

You worked on your own gifts for them, on and off, through the two years you spent without them. 

You were six by the time Jake came around. You became attached to him very quickly. 

He’d just made it to base and was getting filled in by Norm. His introduction to Grace wasn’t going well, bordered by her hostility towards him being there in place of his brother. Before he could say anything else, you bounded into the room. 

“Sa'nu! sa'nu! 'ur 'upe oe run!” Mama! Mama! Look what I found! You yelled, stopping at her feet and shoving an insect you were cradling in your palm into her face. 

She glanced at the bug and tilted her head, raising a brow at you. “ Y/n, nga kame nga're ke tung wrrpa, ‘itetsyip.” You know you’re not allowed outside, little one.

You pouted, stomping your foot. “Oe ke wrrkä! tsal pamähem ne oe.” I didn't go out! It came to me. You insisted. Grace merely rolled her eyes with a grin as she ruffled your hair. 

Jake looked at Norm, confused, who translated a lazy “she’s showing her a bug.” for him. 

As if you just noticed their presence, you awkwardly glanced at the two, shyly shuffling behind Grace. Jake glanced between you and Grace before leaning in. 

“What’s that you got there?” He asked, smiling as he watched your facial expression change. Before he knew it, you were launched into a whole explanation about the bug. It's name, both scientific and Na’vi, and all the fun little characteristics you noticed and pointed out to him. 

It was easy to tell who you’re favorite was going to be among the newest science recruits. You became quick friends with the ex-Marine, demanding his attention whenever he wasn’t busy. 

You were an interesting little thing. Energetic as all could be, running around like you owned the place, switching between languages so casually as if they were one. Jake paid more attention to you in a week than most of the people on base had in your entire life. 

He’d come by your room, peaking in as you played with your toys or read a book you definitely didn’t actually understand. As soon as you noticed his presence, you’d abandon whatever it was you were doing to run to him, hoisting yourself up into his lap.

“What's up, little bug?” He’d say, smiling down at you as you went on and on about whatever it is you wanted to talk about. Most of it went right over his head, but he listened nonetheless. He got the memo pretty early on that you were essentially left to your own devices, only helped with the bare minimum by people who didn’t want to be responsible for you

So, he started being more attentive towards you. Call it fatherly instincts, he calls it common empathy. You didn’t have any plans or expectations for him, you weren’t disappointed in his presence in place of his brothers, you simply looked up at him with those wide and love-filled eyes. That was all he needed to become hooked. His little bug, he liked to call you.

To Norm, Jake had adapted a fatherly role scarily quickly. Of course, Norm thought you were cute, but he wasn’t really sure what to do with you. It puzzled him how well Jake was with you, for only knowing you for a few days. How you crawled into his lab during one of the briefings, obviously tired but wanting to be involved. 

The briefing was casual, so Jake wrapped his arms around you and cradled you, rocking you in his arms as he hummed a lullaby he’d grown up with on Earth.

It was the first time someone had sung you a lullaby, at least since you were a crying infant everyone was desperate to soothe. You fell asleep in his arms immediately. Grace only gave a passing glance and a chuckle, stating he was now on bedtime duty. 

And that he was. You were a stubborn kid when it came to bedtime, fighting your own sleep and exhaustion because you wanted to be where the attention was. You didn’t want to miss out on any of Grace or Max’s briefings or discoveries, no matter how dull they were, or the fact that they didn’t really happen after hours. Nevertheless, you were difficult to put to sleep. 

He was quickly called the Y/n Whisperer after he calmed you down from a tantrum and had you knocked out in bed within 10 minutes of you being told to go to sleep, an affair that often took at least half an hour and some strong bargaining. 

Jake was still reeling from it all. For him, he was still dealing with the fact that his brother was dead and he’d taken his place on a scientific mission on Pandora, whisked away from his dystopic life on Earth and given a brand new chance. It was dizzying, and now he had a kid attached to his leg. 

Call it what it was: whiplash. He doesn’t really understand why you liked him so much, why he was able to connect with you so well. Maybe it was because he was the first person to spare you a second glance in your entire life, a second glance you didn’t have to work and beg for. 

If given the chance, Jake was sure you two would be absolutely inseparable.

It was during dinner that things shifted. You were there for Jake's recounting of the events that transpired after he got chansed off by a Thanator. Through it all, all you heard was that he’d met Neytiri. 

Neytiri. Your Neytiri.

You missed her. You missed her so bad, and Jake got to see her. It had been two years, and you thought for sure there was no way you’d be able to see her again. But Jake saw her! He even went to the village, so he likely saw Tsu’tey, Mo’at, and Sylwanin! 

Seeing them was possible. That was the conclusion you came to. 

Tsu’tey was the one to find you the next day. You had snuck out, exopack secured on for the first time in nearly two years, and you set off. Your memory was hazy, and you hardly remembered your way through the forest.

Scratch that, you didn’t remember it at all. You got lost almost immediately, your excitement to see your friends slowly replaced with uncertainty and fear. You wandered through the woods, climbing across logs and rivers, becoming more and more sure that you weren’t going the right way…

Of course, you didn’t know what to do. No one could really blame you for how you started crying out, yelling for Neytiri, Tsu’tey, Sylwanin, Grace, whoever you thought could find you. 

It wasn’t until you heard the growl that you regretted your decision to be so loud. Nantang. They surrounded you, stalking and getting ready to pounce. All you could do was scream.

Tsu’tey found you, following the distant yelling for familiar names and then the high-pitched screams. He shot the Nantang, scaring off the others as he rode in on his pa’li. He was ready to shoot you, the human who had trespassed onto their land, but he paused. Arrow resting between his fingers, and breath hitched.

It was you.

He was quick, dismounting his direhorse and scooping you up in his arms, doing his best to soothe you with soft words as you cried and writhed in his hold. Blood was everywhere. He was horrified.

He acted on pure impulse. Jake. Jake probably knew you. He was also human, and he was an avatar- so he probably knew Grace- he had to get you to Jake.

So he rode on his direhorse as fast as he could, holding you tightly in his arms as you bled and bled and cried. Oh, how you cried, clinging to him and whimpering, he felt so helpless. Exactly like how he’d felt that day Sylwanin died in his arms at the school house. He couldn’t have that happen again. Not with you. Not with the small girl he’d grown so fond of. 

It was a blur, finding Jake and Neytiri, the morphing look of terror on their faces as they took in the sight of the girl in his arms and his disjointed explanation. It was a blur, and he was on his knees, Neytiri holding onto him as they both shook, taking in the situation as Jake ran off into the woods with you in his arms, pushing himself as fast as he could go. 

Jake was scared. You were such a sweet girl, and in the days he’d known you, he was hooked. You were small, petulant, stubborn, smart; you were a good kid. You were funny and fun to be around, and he liked you. He saw why Grace had such a soft spot for you, who wouldn’t?

But now you’re in his arms, bleeding, and Grace is gonna be horrified. 

He got you to the base, bursting through the doors, demanding a doctor, yelling you needed help because you were hurt and bleeding. You were small, hurt, bleeding, and it felt like you were at death's door.

You were swept out of his arms, and all you could do was whimper, reaching back out to the strong arms you felt safe in. They hooked you up to machines, tended to your wounds. They assured Jake and a just-arriving-frazzled Grace that you were gonna be fine. 

But the base wasn’t a hospital. Yeah, it was a military base, and those often come with medical centers, but it wasn’t good, especially not for a child. With how advanced they were, they weren’t well equipped.

You suffered for days, writhing and screaming in pain, tears only stopping once you ran out of them. 

Despite Grace and Max’s pleas and Jake's insistence towards Quaritch, you were essentially… ignored.

You were loved. But you were still just a bastard orphaned child; the RDA simply didn’t want to deal with you, especially with your seemingly growing allegiance to the Na’vi.

Of course, they did what they could to help you, but it was minimal. 

You were going to die, Grace and Jake were sure of it.

So, desperate, he went to Mo’at. He pleaded for her to help you. She didn’t need much convincing.

The night before Grace planned to move the operation to the Hallelujah Mountains, they snuck you out, careful to remove all your hook-ups to the machines. 

They took you to the village, breaking so many rules, desperate to help you. 

You were frail, withering away in his hold. The best he could do was whisper comforts as he carried you. 

Mo’at worked quickly, shooing them out of her tent as she worked on you. Salves, mixes, incense. She worked for hours. You were just a little kid; you had so much before you. She pleaded to the Great Mother to help you, even if you were a human she could barely reach. 

You were getting better, but it wasn’t enough. Something was wrong, very wrong, and she didn’t know what it was or how to help.

She pulled away, examining you with a hitched breath. Just as she went to move to grab another tool, something caught her attention. 

An Atokirina.

It floated in the air, pulsing until it wilted down to meet your skin. 

Mo’at’s eyes widened. 

“We must take her to the Tree of Souls.” She declared as she stepped out of her tent, the group that had gathered in front of it standing and moving in confusion.

They wanted to question it. Jake wanted to ask what was wrong, how you were doing, and if you’d live. All the words were on the tip of his tongue, but Grace grabbed his hand. She kept her gaze forward, at the tent, but she’d communicated enough.

Tsu’tey was the one to take you into his arms, lips pursed, and eyes gazing down at you in worry. For a moment, Jake wanted to be the one to hold you, but you curled into Tsu’teys arms so comfortably- so familiar, a moment of comfort and assurance when you were in so much pain.

Neytiri followed close behind, hand resting on your forehead as they walked, her eyes focused on your face scrunched in agony, your pinched brows and wavering lips. How she wanted to soothe you, to hold you, and kiss away the creases of pain in your face. 

You’d grown so much since they’d last seen you. You were still so small, but so much more grown. They had missed you so much, their grief compelled by the loss of two sisters. They nearly begged Mo’at and Eytukan to call off the ban on humans on their land, if only to see you.

And now, you were back in their arms, but by the force of necessity and desperation. Out of the fear of death. 

The clan, having roused at the commotion, made their way to the Tree of Souls with the group. They didn’t question their Tsahik’s care of the human child, many of them having heard the accounts of you and your kindred nature from the many children who’d attended the school.

Arriving at the Tree, Neytiri and Tsu’tey kept Grace and Jake at a distance, allowing Mo’at to prepare as the clan gathered around. They pulled Jake and Grace down to the ground with them, connecting their Kuru to the roots sticking up. They started to hum, moving as a group. 

With everything in them, they begged Eywa to help you.

You were human, yes, but they loved you. You were their sister. You were Grace's daughter, by love if not biology. You were a sweet kid, and they wanted- needed you to stay. 

“Allow this child to heal, Great Mother, allow her to heal and walk among us. To live, to feel your embrace.” Mo’at’s words echoed, her chants and pleas thrumming through the crowd. 

Placed at the base of the spirit tree, you lay there, wrapped in luminescent tendrils. They wrapped around your small body, seemingly consuming you as they grew. The light of the tendrils pulsed with your every breath, echoing across the tree like a ripple in water. 

You… you felt free. The tendrils were warm, encasing you in what felt like a mother's embrace. Your vision was blurred, but you saw.  You saw so much, all you could do was smile. You saw Sylwanin, every time you’d seen her, every word, every movement. She wrapped around you. You saw the sea, you saw the forest and the land. It was breathtaking.

Mo’at faltered, her chants falling off the tip of her tongue as she glanced down at you. At this, the ones who’d brought you here opened their eyes.

They didn’t know what to do. 

You were there, alive. More alive than you’d ever been, but they could feel that you were slipping away. 

Neytiri crawled towards you, Grace scrambling up and finding herself at your side. She took your hand in hers as Neytiri caressed your hair.

They knew it was a desperate attempt, taking you here, unlikely to work, but it hurt. They weren’t ready to let go. The humans weren’t going to help you. What else were they to do? 

Tears slid down Grace’s face as she watched you, your eyes glazed over as a smile crept onto your lips. 

“Y/n- Syulì'ang please-” Neytiri whispered, her voice cracking. She leaned down, placing a kiss on your forehead. “Stay” she begged

“Syulì'ang,” Tsu’tey choked out, pleading, biting back his words, and tears with them. “Be strong, stay with us.”

You heard their words. You wanted to reach up, to comfort them. Grace was right in front of you, and all you wanted was to reach up and wipe the tears off her face. 

Grace cried. Silent, of course. Tears slipping down her cheeks like arrows of fire burning their way through the air. They hurt like it. She wondered if they’d scar, if there would be a trail of scarred flesh down her cheeks when she was done. 

You were her child, at least, the closest she had to one. You were the best thing she’d had in a long time. And now, you were slipping away. Like the school, like Sylwanin, like Neytiri and Tsu’tey and the children who’d called her Sa’nok. You called her Sa’nu.

The grief was endless. A fountain pouring from Neytiri as she wept, hands shaking as she tried to fight the urge to take you into her arms. She’d seen you grow up, your words develop from babbles to sentences, your mind expand. She wore the bracelet you’d made for her. It was ill-fitting and poorly crafted, but she weaved it into her armband, careful to preserve its shape and structure. She meant to always have you with her, even if she couldn't physically. 

You were more than a child she saw as a sister; you could have been her child. A ridiculous notion, but she felt so strongly about you. She wanted to take you in, hold you close, and carry you as she did her chores and duties. She wanted to hunt and bring it home for you to eat till you were full. Perhaps, to her, you were an odd mixture of a sister and child, but that just meant she loved you all the more.

Her sweet Syulì'ang. She’d named you after the insect, a beautiful creature that fluttered around and gripped onto surfaces when it meant to. She wished and wished and wished that you'd stay, that you’d grip onto the ground and stay there with her. She did not like humans, but you? You, she loved.

So it hurt, watching as your eyes closed, feeling your pulse slow, have you die right in front of her, right in her reach. 

Your eyes, heavy, rose up to the sky. “Sa’nu, Tsmuke, Tsmukan, Jake-” Your words were quiet, strained, and heavy. But you spoke anyway, a warmth passing through your body. “Eywa, she’s” It was hard to speak. “She’s like the waves-” your breath released from your lips, cutting off your words.

The tendrils around you pulsed before they dulled, the light dimming across the Tree of Souls.

Jake could only hold Neytiri as she cried, his own tears falling as he felt his entire demeanor freeze.

They left you by the tree, something Grace opposed. But Mo’at had insisted it was Eywa’s wish. Jake and Grace weren’t happy, nor were Tsu’tey and Neytiri; they wanted to give you a proper burial, but they complied with their Tsahik’s declaration.

It was mere days later that Neytiri visited again, only to be met with an empty landscape. You were nowhere in sight, only an abundance of tendrils in your place, pulsing with light as Eywa breathed below them.

Ronal, for weeks, dreamed of a face. A human one. She’d never seen the girl before, unfamiliar with the face and voice she kept meeting in her dreams. It bothered her, being met so forcefully with a demon's face, but behind it, she felt the Great Mother's words. 

She couldn’t make sense of it; it drove her wild how she prayed and prayed, and all she was met with were new visions of the girl. With a newborn baby, she felt stretched thin. She confided in Tonowari about her dreams. He did what he could to comfort her, putting in effort to relieve her of as much stress as he could. 

Ronal prayed, seeking answers and clarity. What did the Great Mother want?

One night, she dreamed of the spirit tree, along with the girl. She dreamt of whispers, of a new face, of a young Metkayina child she held in her arms. 

She woke up in a cold sweat, right as dawn rose in the sky. 

She made her way through the village, mounting her tsurak, and traveled to the cove of the ancestors. She felt a weight in her chest as she arrived. She dove under, swimming through the featherlike branches as she made her way to the center of the tree. 

She reached forward, placing her palms on the branches wrapped tightly in on itself. Slowly, she unwrapped it, pulling it away from the other ‘leaves’ wrapped around. Once she got to the center, she pulled back.

An infant lay in the middle, wrapped in the leaves. Slowly, she pulled it out, taking it into her arms, she swam up. Breaching the surface, she looked down, watching as the baby breathed in the air. 

The first breath.

Ronal gazed down at the baby, brows pinched together as she took her in. Confusion was the least she could describe it as. 

A moment passed. Ronal mounted her tsurak, and she returned home.

Whispers surrounded her as she walked through the village, eyes following her and landing on the unknown infant in her embrace. In the mere minutes she’d had the baby, she felt an overwhelming sense of maternal instinct towards it. She reasoned she felt that way about most babies, but this was stronger.

She approached her Marui, Tonowari, meeting her at the entrance. He gazed down at her, then the baby, confusion panting his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out, stuck in the flurry of words he was trying to put together.

“The Great Mother brought her to me,” Ronal spoke, calm and melodic. “To us.” Tonowari gazed up at her. 

Words exchanged between them in complete silence. 

He nodded, stepping aside, allowing Ronal to enter the Marui. 

The two took to their daughter quickly, entranced by the baby given to them by Eywa. They were lost, confused by her appearance, but they didn’t question it. They simply placed her in the cradle with their other baby, Ao’nung, watching as they turned and curled to hold each other.

“You dreamt of her.” Tonowari’s voice broke the silence.

Ronal, attention on the baby's unwavering, nodded. “Last night, yes.”

He looked to his wife, tentative as he examined her facial expression. “And the others?” He questioned. 

There was a moment of silence, Ronal’s hand coming to rest on the edge of the cradle. 

“I do not care. She is my daughter. She is ours now.”

Tonowari stared at his wife before nodding, reaching down to cup his daughter's face in his hand. “And what is our daughter's name?” He spoke, already transfixed by the infant lying in the cradle he crafted by hand. 

Ronal tilted her head, watching the girl. After a moment, she gazed to Tonowar, their eyes meeting as a soft smile graced her lips.

“Syuli”

After your death, Jake’s loyalty to the RDA wavered. Grace had accepted her fate as a trapped scientist long ago, but Jake refused. He bonded with Neytiri and Tsu’tey quicker, earning the faith of the clan before he finished his Iknimaya. 

He saw it in black and white. The humans left you alone and to die, the Na’vi loved you as their own and wept at your death. His decision was clear-cut.

Still, his fast actions weren’t enough to prevent the events that led to Neytiri’s belief of his betrayal. Or the destruction of the home tree. Or the death of those he fought by.

By the end of the war, your death was followed by many others. Black stains on Jake’s heart. He mourned you, grieved for you. The devastation of the war was hard enough, but you? You weren’t even a casualty; you were a victim of the most unfortunate of circumstances. He replayed it in his head over and over again, each time wondering what he could have done to save you, to prevent your death. 

It drove him to the worst of his depths. A side of himself he hadn’t even seen when his brother died. 

The only thing keeping him afloat was Neytiri and the child that lay in her womb.

“She is with Grace now, my Jake, with the Great Mother.” Neytiri would say, burying her grief. Twice, she's lost you now. When Sylwanin died and her parents shut down their connections with the humans, she wept for not only her sister but for you. Would she never see you again? At least back then, she found comfort in the fact that you were safe and in Grace’s care. 

Perhaps you still were, in her arms, just as you are in the Great Mothers. But you’re not in hers. That’s what hurt. How you’d never grow up, forever stuck as the small child she knew and loved. 

Time passed, and she had Neteyam. Her sweet baby boy. She felt the cracks in her heart start to be stitched back together, only further healed when they took in Kiri. 

She saw it in Jake, too, how he took to his fatherly role immediately, perhaps better prepared after his time with you. Slowly but surely, they came to be okay again. 

Still, you burned in their hearts. As she wove her songcord, she pulled one of the beads from the bracelet you made her, as carefully as she could, and wove it in. 

A‘eveng, Y/n, ohe oamum 

Wamintxu fi oe, a syawn

a’atanur oe mameyam 

meyam ohe ngenga, tsalsungay pehrr lom

A child, Y/n, i knew

showed to me, a blessing

a light I held in my arms

I hold you, even when gone

It was hard to speak about you to the kids. They didn’t want to introduce the idea of someone dying at such a young age. They also still grieved you, struggling to accept your death. It wasn’t fair. You should be with them, growing up alongside their children. You would have been such a good big sister.

This hit Jake especially hard, knowing how you’d been excited to have another kid on base; Spider. You raved to him about how you were going to bring him to the lab all the time, what toys you’d give him, and how you wanted to teach him Na’vi and have him as a little brother. At least, the closest you could have to one.

So it was hard watching Spider do all that, grow up and learn Na’vi, come into his family and be seen by his kids as a fellow sibling, knowing it was everything you wanted. 

But years passed, and their family grew, and it grew strong. Their children knew of you in passing, in hushed breaths like how they spoke of Sylwanin and the others they’d loved that left them through such harsh tragedies. 

Neytiri and Jake didn’t want the children to wonder what it would have been like to have you in the family. It was already too painful for them to wonder themselves.

Their children grew, their personalities developed, and they came into their own. It was hard not to see you in each of them. Tuk’s curiosity, Lo’ak’s mischief, the softness in Kiri’s eyes, and how Neteyam was so thoughtful with his words. For all its hurt, it also gave them comfort. They’d continue to see you, even when you weren’t with them. 

Their grief became something mellow, something they could plant love and strength into.

But then the RDA came back. Like an old scar tearing apart, refusing to heal. Their lives turned upside down, and their healing came to a harsh halt, slowly stepping backwards against the blood and gunfire they stood in.

That eclipse, when the kids were in the hands of the recoms, Jake felt barbed wire wrapping around his throat. 

He heard their whines, their yelps of pain, and he almost lost them. He refused to risk it. Not again.

“He had our children. Had them under his knife.” He was scared, begging Neytiri to leave, to find a better place for them. He hadn’t been able to find one for you. He wouldn’t let that happen again. “Look, I got nothing… I've got no plan. But I can protect this family. That I can do.”

Neytiri heard the unsaid, seeing what he saw when he spoke. 

“But I do know one thing, wherever we go, this family is our fortress.” It was unintentional, his hands placed delicately on her shoulders, one slipping down, grazing the armband she’d woven with your bracelet in it.

They had to protect their children. 

The Travel to the Metkayina was difficult, tiring, laborious, and met with storms that raged against them. But they pushed through. They’ve pushed through worse; they’d do this for their family.

They landed on the beach, drawing the attention of the clan, who gathered around them in confusion and awe. They were nervous, holding themselves close together as they were gawked at and picked on by oncoming clan members.

Jake felt a sense of relief when Tonowari, an honorable man and the clan's Olo’eyktan, arrived at the scene, greeting them warmly and with a smile. He felt confident, with Tonowari on their side, he believed he could get past the wall Ronal would inevitably put up.

As the crowd parted, he prepared himself, but he felt all the breath be taken out of his lungs.

Ronal stalked closer, her imposing demeanor, but that wasn’t what shocked him. Behind her, following at her heels, was a young girl. Teal skin with swirling stripes.

She resembled you. 

He couldn’t place it; the girl was Metkayina, in every way. But something about her face, the way her expression was set in it, how she carried herself. The air around her, the look in her eyes. All of it set off bells in his chest, ringing and clanging against the grief that settled there. The grief for you. 

She stood behind Ronal, tilting her head exactly the way you did when you were curious about something. 

Neytiri had seen it hundreds of times, holding you in her lap at the schoolhouse. She let out a breath. Jake glanced at her, millions of words passing between them.

She saw it too.

Jake took a moment to collect himself, pulling back from the shock he’d experienced but couldn’t explain. He went on with his prepared speech. He was seeking Uturu; sanctuary, safety for his family. 

His veins were buzzing. He didn’t want to be turned away, to force his children to retreat in defeat, praying they’d find another clan willing to listen and take them in. He felt helpless.

Ronal, skeptical, circled the family. She pulled at their tails, remarking how inefficient they’d be in the water, in their way of life. 

She approached Kiri, taking her hands in hers. A scowl crossed her face. Four fingers. Kiri held her breath, self-conscious of her extra finger, a tell-tale sign of their human descent. Demon descent.

Ronal gazed down, tilting her head.

She looked up to her daughter, the one who’d arrived with her. She watched her for a moment, the dreams she saw all those years ago flooding her mind. Something she’d never speak aloud.

She dropped Kiri’s hands, walking past the children and Jake Sully. “You are ill fit to live here.”

“We can adapt. We can learn.” He pleaded, desperate to convince them to let his family stay. Desperate to appease the leaders of the clan. 

“I’m done with war.” He spoke to Tonowari, quiet and between them. “I just want to keep my family safe.”

Ronal watched him, not convinced by his words. Behind her, her daughter stepped forward, placing her hand on her mother's shoulder.

“Sa’nu.” The words escaped her lips, and Jake breathed in. He saw you, sitting in Grace’s lap in the lab, running up to her excitedly, lying at the spirit tree, dying. 

Ronal looked at her daughter, words exchanged between their gazes, she turned to her mate, being met with the same sentiment. A moment passed, and she nodded. 

“Jake Sully and his family will stay with us.” Tonowari announced, explaining to the clan their duty to teach them their ways of life. 

Jake sighed in relief, bringing forth a ‘thank you’ from his family. 

“Our children, Syuli, Ao’nung, and Tsireya, will show your children what to do.”

Ao’nung stepped forth, displeased by his father's decision, but silenced.

“Come, we will show you our village!” Tsireya stepped forward, hand in hand with her sister. 

You looked to the family that had arrived at your village. You took in their faces. 

They felt familiar to you. You couldn’t place it.

Tsireya tugged you along through the village, humming as you made your way across the woven walkways. Neytiri and Jake, though focused on taking in their new home, couldn’t help but watch you. The bounce in your step all too familiar.

It was eerie, and they didn’t understand their attribution of you to the little girl they’d known all those years ago. 

You became a constant in their life, always around their kids, peeking into their Marui to offer fruits you’d picked with your mother. You were a sweetheart, thoughtful, and kind to their children. 

Your mother stayed skeptical of her allowance of the foreigners into their clan, fueled by your growing night problems. 

It had been years since she last caught you sleepwalking. It was a problem when you were a child, roaming around the village in the midst of the night. Many concerned clan members came to her with stories of how you found yourself at the edge of the walkways, staring up into the open sky with a withered look on your face.

You sleep-talked, she discovered after staying up to follow you one night. You spoke garbled sentences, strung together words that didn’t make sense. You spoke in a mix of Na’vi and English.

How you even knew the language? She couldn’t understand. 

She prayed nightly, seeking for guidance on how to help her sweet baby girl. Again, she was only met with visions of that human child.

It all came to a head one night when Tsireya woke her up, lip jutting out as she whispered that you’d fallen during your walks. Ronal soothed her daughter, telling her to go back to sleep before leaving to find you. 

You were on your knees, hands clasped together as you spoke in broken prayers, eyes glazed over. You were somewhere she didn’t know.

She was tired of it, worried to death, and lost. So, she did the only thing she could think of. She pulled you into the water carefully, holding you as she rode to the Cove of the Ancestors. You came out of your trance, slowly but surely, but still drowsy and out of it. 

She was able to coax you to enough consciousness to get you to dive under, connecting with the spirit tree. 

She doesn’t know what you saw when you did. All she knows is that you hadn’t sleep-walked, or talked since. She knew you were special. A child she would never truly understand, but she loved and cherished you with everything she had. 

She saw the way the animals around you seemed to move in sync with you, how the luminescence at night pulsed with your breath. She didn’t ask for answers. She loved you and she trusted the Great Mother. 

But here you were again, standing at the entrance of their Marui, eyes glazed over, staring off into the stars. Ever since they’d let the Sullys stay, you’d been walking and talking in your sleep again. 

It wasn’t as intense, thankfully, but it was enough to rouse her or her children from sleep every so often.

They worried for you. They took turns staying up, watching you, easing you back to sleep, careful not to startle you from your trance. During the day, they acted as if nothing was different. They knew you were different, but they loved you nonetheless. You were their daughter, their sister. 

Ao’nung picked on you, teasing you and going out of his way to bother you. It was his way of showing his love, he joked. He had his moments. Picking you up in his arms and carrying you across the village to your mother for treatment when you hurt yourself on a spear, ignoring your complaints that it was your hand that was injured, not your legs, you could still walk! He ignored you, carefully setting you down in their Marui, lurking by the door until you were bandaged up and ready to leave.

Tsireya was easier. You got along with your younger sister without any problems, aside from the occasional spat that never went anywhere. You two were two peas in a pod. Inseparable. Hands clasped together, arms wrapped around each other. You were always together. It’s how you thrived. 

Ronal and Tonowari, they never gave a second thought to the fact that you weren’t theirs, because you were. From the moment they’d set you down in that cradle, you’d become theirs. Their love for you was strong and unwavering. They called your name out with affection, they weaved you jewelry and clothes with love, they never let you doubt you were loved. They held you as you slept, as you dreamt.

And you dreamt. You dreamt every night. Of faces, of voices, of people you didn’t know, but knew. 

By the time you woke up, your dreams were in blurry fragments, unable to be pieced together or made sense of. 

Your family didn’t voice their worries to you. They saw how you flourished when interacting with their new clan members. 

You were patient with them, guiding them through your way of life like it was the easiest thing to do. You blended in with them, conversing with the children so easily, it was as if you’d been doing it your entire life. 

You and your siblings, Rotxo, and the Sully kids became somewhat of a friend group. Always together, at least in fragments. You felt as if your family had expanded.

The Sully kids adored you, especially Kiri. It was something about the way the two of you seemed to understand nature that connected you. And perhaps, your mysterious origins. 

You confided in Kiri, and Kiri alone, about your peculiar birth. The whole clan knew, they’d witnessed it firsthand, but the story hadn’t made its way to the Sullys. Perhaps it was because it was accepted, no one thought twice about it, you were Ronal and Tonowari's daughter. No one thought to mention that, by biological means, you weren’t.

You told her how you didn’t know your biological parents. No one did. Abandoned at the Spirit tree, you were taken in by Ronal and Tonowari, raised alongside Tsireya, and essentially as Ao’nung’s twin. 

She told you about her mother, a scientist who was beloved by their clan, who died during the first war against the humans. She was born from her Avatar.

Grace.

You spoke her name before Kiri told you.

An odd look passed her face. It wasn't until it dripped from your chin that you realised a tear had slipped down your cheek.

“I-i’m sorry, I'm just-” You strung together words, embarrassed and confused by your unconscious outburst. “It’s hard to speak about my birth.” You blamed it on that. Kiri accepted your words, wrapping her arms around you in an embrace that felt warmer than anything else you’d experienced.

You grew a lot closer to the Sully kids. It was their parents who were odd to be around.

Jake and Neytiri didn’t know what to think of you. You were Ronal and Tonowari’s daughter, Na’vi, born and raised in the reef. Yet when they looked at you, heard your voice, all they could see was that little girl they’d loved. 

They were going crazy. That was the only explanation. Driven mad by the destruction of their home and subsequent forced abandonment of it. 

They wanted to talk to you. They ached to. But it ached just as much to do so. It wasn’t fair to you, their projections of grief onto you. 

You were kind, you spoke for them when they first arrived, and you went out of your way to welcome them. You taught their children and defended them, taking them in as if they were your blood. 

But every time they saw you, they were swarmed by a whirlpool of grief and relief. 

“She speaks like her.” Neytiri would whisper one night, when all the children were off in the village attending a celebration, Jake lying next to her.

“Yeah.” He’d say, eyes locked on Neytiri’s face, watching as she wandered through her mind. Watching as a tear slipped down her cheek. 

For weeks, they watched you, watching every movement and quirk you exhibited. How you spoke, how you moved through the walkways, your sense of humor. The way you scrunched your nose in a certain way when faced with food you didn’t like. It all pointed back.

Back to her.

That girl.

She haunted them. 

A ghost following them around. One they thought they’d put to rest over a decade ago. 

They had moved on. They grieved her, yes, but they had learned to live without her. Just as they did with every person they lost. 

But she was back. 

They thought it was in their heads at first, but the more they saw, the more they became sure. 

Her body had disappeared, Neytiri recounted to him, a whisper under her breath as they watched you talk to Neteyam and Tsireya from afar. They’d left her at the tree like Mo’at demanded, abiding by Eywa's wishes. Her body was gone far too quickly to have been natural decomposition, and no creature would dare feast on a body wrapped in Eywa’s arms like she was.

They didn’t question it, too wrapped up in their grief to try and breach the topic. They simply accepted it. Eywa wanted her. She was with Grace, they believed. 

But she wasn’t.

She was in the reef, living amongst the people, living. 

They saw you, and they saw her. One in the same.

They’d grieved you, and now you stood right in front of them, out of their reach.

It tore them apart. They must have been going insane because you were not that girl they knew, you were not the girl they loved and doted on. But you were.

You couldn’t be. 

But they watched and they watched and they saw. They saw her. 

“It’s not her.” Jake’s voice was steel. Laced with a hardened grief. 

“I know what I saw, you know what you see.” Neytiri defended, unsure of how to explain it. 

He shook his head, pacing back and forth in the Marui, sliding a hand down his face. 

“She’s a Metkayina! She’s Ronal and Tonowai’s daughter! That's it.” He spoke so certainly, as if he were trying to convince himself.

The two breathed heavily, working through their mind and hearts to get their words. Logic wasn’t making sense, but they tried to cling to it, both of them in different ways. 

“Ronal didn’t give birth to her, nor did Tonowair father her.” Neytiris' words were heavy, like steel and stone. “A gift from Eywa, Ronal calls her.”

Their eyes met. 

At this point, they were haunted less by you and more by the fact that you were back. It wasn’t easy mourning someone, learning to accept their death after having grown to love them so fiercely, to learn how to live without them. All of that, only for them to appear again. 

All those walls they’d built, all the strength they’d planted in their grief, it was crumbling, the base of it all blowing away like sand in the wind. 

It almost hurt more than the grief itself. 

They simmered in it for weeks, speaking through glances and hushed whispers. 

It was quiet that day. Jake was making his rounds through the village when he heard it. The humming. Not just the humming but the tune.

Slowly, he rounded the corner, peaking around the Marui, eyes landing on you sitting on the edge of the walkway, legs dangling from an opening. You sat there, beading an arm piece as you hummed.

You hummed the lullaby Jake had used to sing that girl to sleep. The lullaby from Earth.

He felt his chest crack open. He wanted to say something, to reach out and speak to you-

“Sempu!” You called out, spotting Tonowari walk up from another direction. Wordlessly, you held up your work for him, a smile spreading across your face as he approached and knelt down.

“Ah, this is great work, my little ‘itetsyip.” He leaned in, hand reaching up to pull it closer to examine it. He grinned, nodding towards you. “You are an exceptional crafter.”

Jake watched the scene, brows furrowing, a weight resting in his chest. 

You rolled your eyes. “Oh, bah! You and Mother praise me far too much.” 

Tonowair simply chuckled, his hand moving to cradle your cheek as you grinned at him. 

“No, we simply see how great you are.”

Jake started to notice more after that. He watched not just you, but your life. How you wandered freely through the village, greeting your clan members eagerly, your cheerfulness returned. You were surrounded by kids your age, all watching you with a mix of adoration and respect. You bonded with your siblings, giggling over inside jokes and banter. 

Your parents were doting. They didn’t spoil you; they made sure you were responsible and self-aware, but they loved you, and they showed it. The more he watched, the more Neytiri did too; perhaps she’d been watching the full scene the whole time.

You weren’t alone.

You smiled so widely, and you never had to beg, you never had to work for attention or affection. You were accepted wholeheartedly. 

You had everything you wanted here, Neytiri and Jake realized. You had everything they wanted to give you, and you didn’t have any barriers. You weren’t human or parentless. You moved about freely. You weren’t raised to expect to come second, third, or fourth place. 

Neytiri and Jake had wanted to give you that life. But they couldn’t. They never could.

The Great Mother didn’t fulfill their desires to be the one to love you; she gave you what you needed. She gave you the opportunity to live. 

It was bittersweet. You had the life you wanted. You were loved. 

Just not by them. 

And that was ok. 

They’d lived their lives, they’d found happiness, a family, and they were good. 

Jack's relationship with your mother was unconventional. Still mourning the loss of his wife, Jack had bumped into your mother at a bar after trying to smother his feelings with alcohol and ending going home with her. They had formed a with-benefits pact afterwards, neither wanting a relation but rather a way to blow off steam. Your conception followed a few months later and Jack kept his opinion to himself; he didn't want a child, not while he was still knee deep in grief but he would never ask or tell your mother to get an abortion so he left the decision in her hands, stepping up when she decided to keep the baby.

Their co-parent dynamic didn't last long, your mother left when you were only four weeks old, still in NICU. Traumatised by the c-section and your subsequent stay in the NICU, she bowed out, unable to deal, leaving you with just your dad.

You had your first surgery before you had even hit two weeks, an open heart surgery that Jack spent the duration of stalking the halls of the hospital, unable to physically sit still. When he returns to ward, he finds you in the observation room, hooked up to a ventilator, chest tubes protruding from your tiny little body, machines tracking vitals, ready to blare in alarm when something strays from the perfectly calculated numbers it desired. 

He wasn't allowed into the room, forced to look at you from the other side of the large window, watching as your chest moved with every breath you took. The nurses had assured him that you'd only be in there for a few days, under constant observation to make sure that everything went well post-surgery and then you would be back to your regular room.

Your surgeon, the best in the city–is beside him, telling him that everything went to plan, there were no complications and it was the best outcome they could ever hope for. You weren't totally out of the woods yet, your life would be filled with complex medical issues, but this was the first step of many. 

When you were three years old, you moved to Pittsburgh, your father got a job offer there and that's where you have ever since. 

You were kept firmly away from the hospital, more specifically the ED unless you had a medical emergency. Your weakened immune system paired with the ED waiting room was Jack's worst nightmare, so you were strictly ordered to stay well away. 

Your surgeries and hospital visits hadn't stopped since you were a baby but instead of having you go to PTMC, you go to the closeby children's hospital. It's not that he didn't trust the doctors who worked in PTMC, but he preferred having you in the children's hospital.

Your father loved what he did, he loved the buzz it gave him, the high stress, busy environment is what he excelled in. Despite it being a second home; a place that he secretly loves a lot, it was also a place of too much death and despair and sometimes miracles but it was enough to keep you away.

The people he worked with knew he had a daughter, he was always happy to talk about you, updating Lena and Dana with whatever milestone and accomplishment you had achieved over the years, happily flaunting the homemade keychain you made him; multiple hanging from his backpack in a multitude of colours and his phone wallpaper was one of the first times he got to hold you, when you were still so tiny and fragile, curled up his chest, soaking up his body heat.

Despite your existence being known, only one of his colleagues had ever met you and that was Robby when you were seven. After an extremely rough shift, Robby didn't want to go home to his empty apartment so he reached out to Jack whose day off it was and Jack invited him around for beers, take out and whatever sports game that was on that night. You were meant to be at a friend's house for a sleepover, a rare occasion that Jack only allowed with the few parents he approved but your friend had fallen sick, the first signs appearing after a few hours. Your friend's parents knew of your medical issues and how strict your father is concerning your health so your friend's parents quickly bundled you up and drove you home.

Your dad hadn't answered his phone but you had assured Mrs Myers, your friend's mom, that he would be home. Your dad tended to be more of a homebody, preferring to stay at home on his days off so you knew he would be at home.

You release a sigh as you dump your backpack on the front porch before you incessantly ring the doorbell, knowing that it would irritate your dad. You peer over your shoulder, looking at where Mrs Myers idles in her car parked in front of the car, waiting until she sees your dad open the door before she pulls away.

It's not long before you see the entrance lights flicked on through the window panels of the door before the familiar silhouette of your father appears, beelining towards the door. 

Your dad blinks down at you in surprise before they land on the car idling at the curb. Mrs Myers gives him a one handed wave before she peels off down the street and your father is looking back down at you in confusion. He's quick to crouch down, hands simultaneously checking your body for any scrapes of bruises and checking to see if you had a fever. 

"What's wrong? Why are you here? Are you sick?" The questions spill from your dad in quick succession.

"Anna started to get sick so Mrs Myers took me home," You tell him, letting him fret over you, completely used to it now, "She called and texted you but you didn't answer."

Your dad pats his pockets, searching for his phone before he sighs, remembering where he left it, "Sorry buggie, I left it in the kitchen. I have a friend over, I got distracted."

You raise your arms up at him, wanting to be lifted and though you were too old for it, Jack always indulged you, telling himself that it was because you were still small for your age.

"A friend?" You may be young but you knew your dad didn't hang out with friends that much, "A girl- friend?"

Your dad rolls his eyes at you but a smile tugs on his lips as he lifts you, settling you on his hip before he swings your bag onto his free shoulder and re-enters the house. He pulls your shoes off, throwing them down to the heap of shoes near the door and dumps your bag on the staircase to remind him to bring it upstairs later on. He swings through the kitchen to collect his forgotten phone and a pizza flyer before he enters the living room where you're greeted with a stranger. 

Your hands tighten in your dad's t-shirt, gripping harder when he tries to set you down on the ground, apprehensive of the stranger.

"Lovebug, this Robby. I work with him at the hospital." Jack tells you, "He had a bad day at work so I'm trying to cheer him up."

Robby stands, staying far enough away to give you space and extends his hand out, greeting you, "Hello, I'm Michael. It's nice to meet you."

You giggle at his seriousness, as if he was introducing himself to an adult and not little you. You reach forward, one hand still gripping your dads t-shirt as you shake the extended hand, "I thought your name is Robby?"

"It is, it's my nickname. My last name is Robinavitch, so people call me Robby." Robby explains as he settles back onto the couch. Your dad once again tries to place you down but you protest, looking up at him in confusion.

"I'm just gonna get us some drinks," Your dad tells you, nudging you so that you sit down properly before handing you the pizza flyer, "Here, look at this and choose what pizza you want."

Happily distracted, you hum as you read the options as your dad dips out of the room, returning only moments later with two beer bottles and your water bottle, setting them down on the coffee table before he falls back onto the couch with a sigh, sitting in the middle of the couch.

Your hand automatically rests on his arm, as if to remind yourself that he's right next to you and hasn't disappeared. Robby spies it and flicks his inquisitive gaze over to Jack, "Clingy?"

"Stage four clinger," The huff that comes out of Jack is fond, "It's my fault though, I'm a bit of an enabler."

"She's your kid, it's understandable," Robby rationalises. 

"Whenever I look at her all I see is that tiny baby who had to fight through every odd to get here today. She's already had three surgeries and she's only seven, she's got a lifetime of surgeries ahead of her plus she gets sick so easily, a simple cold will wipe her out for a week and it'll take another week to get her back to full health." Jack glances down at you, making sure you were properly distracted before he turns back to Robby, "I feel like I'm failing her sometimes, always keeping her by my side, wrapping her up in so much bubblewrap but I'm scared that if I don't then something will happen to her."

Robby watches you for a moment, noting how comfortable you were curled up into your fathers side, still looking over the flyer not bothered by the conversation happening beside you.

"I think you're doing a great job."

Jack looks at Robby in shock, not expecting him to say that.

"Look at her, sure she's a bit clingy but she's seven and you're her whole world. She's in and out of hospitals but she has you and you're always there when she wakes up after a surgery, you're there when she's sick and you help her recover and she knows, more than anything else in the world, that you're there for her." Robby continues, " She has friends and sleepovers and even when they're cancelled she gets to chill at home with you and order pizza."

Jack doesn't respond at first, absorbing Robby's words. He had always doubted his fathering abilities, solo parenting along with working long hours had him harbouring a lot of guilt but Robby's words settled something within him.

"Daddy!" Your chirp, waving the flyer in front of him to grab his attention, "I'm ready. I know what I want!"

"You're ready? Okay, how about we give the flyer to Robby so he can choose his while you tell me what you want." Jack says as he passes the flyer over to Robby.

"I want a cheese pizza."

Robby snorts into the glossy pizza menu. Ten minutes of deliberating only to decide on cheese pizza is something only a seven year old could do.

"Just cheese?" Jack asks, "Are you sure?"

"...And sweetcorn!"

"Okay, okay," Jack laughs as he reaches for his phone, dialling the familiar number that he called at least once a week as he turns to Robby, "You ready?"

Now almost ten years later, you have transformed into a little independent butterfly, often hanging out with friends or at the part-time job you convinced your dad to allow you to get. Your dad still fretted over you; quarantining you whenever you or your friends got sick, not wanting to take the risk and he always checked up throughout the day, especially ever since he moved to the night shift.

Jack still carried the keychains you made when you were younger on his backpack and the background on his phone was still of you but it was no longer the one of you as a baby as Jack had frequently changed it over the years as you grew.

It was the fourth of July, you were hanging with your friends all day while your dad pulled a daytime SWAT shift before working his regular nightshift. You had raised your concerns with him, criticising him for working the whole day with minimal rest in between but he brushed off your concerns and even though you didn't like it, you trusted him to know his limits. 

Your dad had been going along like normal, you woke up feeling fine, you ate breakfast with your dad and the early afternoon you had spent with friends was fun, doing last minute grocery store runs for the barbeque, fighting against everyone else as they did the same thing.

It wasn't until the sun began to set; the sky darkening into a deep orange, the bonfire was burning steadily and the stronger drinks that you were technically too young to drink were getting passed around, did you get hit with a sudden shortness of breath. At first you thought it was your asthma playing because of the fumes and smoke coming from the bonfire so you dug through your bag for the inhaler you always carried with you and took a couple of puffs in hopes it would settle your lungs but to no avail, the heaviness remained.

Then comes the wave of fatigue and you stumble over your feet as your chest begins to feel heavy, like someone was crushing it, putting on so much pressure it felt like you couldn't breath.

Your breath was coming out in panicked pants as one of your friends caught on to what was happening, rushing over to your side as they helped you lay down flat, crying out over her shoulder for someone to call 911. 

You faintly hear someone call out 'Call Mr. Abbot too!', before you pass out completely.

"Ah fuck…"

Robby curses as your unconscious body is wheeled past him by the emt's, straight into Trauma One with Al-Hashimi, Langdon and Javadi quickly following behind.

"Dana?" 

The charge nurse hums in acknowledgement.

"Page Abbot. Tell him it's urgent. Top priority. ASAP."

Dana looks up at him, confused, painting her features as her eyes briefly flutter to the busy trauma room before they return to Robby, "For this patient? How do you know that you will need him?"

"For an emergency contact. That's his daughter." With that, Robby pulls off his hoodie and disappears into trauma one.

Dana stares in shock as Robby disappears into the room before reality slams into her and she's reaching for the phone and dialling Abbot's number. She knew Jack had a daughter, she had even seen photos but Robby's reaction was more than just as simple as his friend's kid coming through, he knew something was seriously wrong before the rest of them did.

Trauma One was heaving with a mess of bodies and energy, Al-Hashimi and Langdon were trying to stabilise your vitals, calling at each other over your body, guessing what could have caused your condition. Javadi was at the computer, eyes wide as she read through your medical history, telling the doctors your chronic conditions, everything that could possibly be contributing towards your current condition.

They had only just managed to stabilise you, with the cardiology consult with them. Your vitals just pushing at the boundaries, ready to dip again at any moment when your father finally storms in, still disheveled as he only had woken up moments ago, the incessant buzzing of his phone waking him from his brief nap, his heart dropping at the notifications from your friends and Dana.

Jack ignores everyone in the room, he heads straight to your side and takes you in, trying to figure out what happened to you. He's quiet as he rubs his thumb across your cheek and only takes his eyes off you to take note of what your monitor displays.

"What happened?" Jack's voice is low and full of emotion.

"She collapsed at a bonfire with her friends," Robby tells him, "Her friends told the EMTs that at first she was struggling to breath and she tried her inhaler but shortly after that she collapsed."

There's a pause before Jack speaks again, "...Is it her heart?"

This time the cardiology consultant speaks up, "Yes. She needs emergency surgery, as soon as possible."

"Here?" Jack looks up at them, panic swimming in his eyes, "It can't be here. She goes to the children's hospital for everything, her doctor is there and every surgery she's ever had since she was three has been there. She has to go there."

The cardiologist exchanges a look with Robby before they speak again, "I understand this is difficult Dr Abbot but we're running out of time here. We don't know if they're affected by hacking either and even if they're not, requesting a transfer and getting transport over there will take time we don't have."

Robby steps forward, clasping Jack on the shoulder as he bends down to whisper to him, giving them a little bit of privacy from everyone else in the room. "I know you trust the team over there more than anyone else but you have to trust the one we have here right now. She needs surgery, Jack."

Jack gazes down at you again, seeing your eyelids flutter as you slowly gain consciousness before he looks back up at Robby and nods, "...She needs the surgery. What do I need to sign?"

The consent form is pushed in front of him and Jack immediately signs it, prompting the room back into motion again. Instructions are being called as they begin to take you upstairs to surgery.

You're half conscious as they move you into the elevator but your eyes remain on your dad. He had taken a hold of your hand at some point but you were gripping as hard as you could.

He tries to pull away once you reach the surgical floor but you cling to him, your eyes watering with tears, "Please stay…"

Jack turns to the cardiologist, ready to beg to stay in some capacity when the surgeon nods before he could even open his mouth, "Sterile scrub and gown up and you can stay during anaesthesia."

Being an attending physician at the hospital had its perks it seemed.

Jack squeezes your hand and presses a kiss to your forehead, "I'll be back soon buggie. I'll be there until you go to sleep, I promise."

Jack, scrubbed up, is by your side as anaesthetic does its job. 

"I love you so much buggie, you're my world." Jack whispers to you, eyes watering as he watches you eyelids slowly flutter closed, "My whole world and I'll do anything for you. I'll be right by your side when you wake up as well, I promise."

Jack continues to whisper to you until he has to leave, reminding you that you were strong and you would get through this unexpected surgery and you would continue to get stronger and stronger.

Your drift in and out of consciousness at first, not having a grasp on where you were or what had happened. You can tell your chest hurts and you can hear solid beeping whenever you're briefly conscious but when you wake properly, the first thing you notice is the tube in your throat, catching you off guard as you choke around it.

"Hey, hey, it's okay." A voice tells you, "Try to breathe normally…that's it, nice and slowly…in and out, that's it."

Wherever you are suddenly gets busier, multiple people are talking over each other and multiple hands on you. It overwhelms you but there's nothing you can do other than sit through it, letting it wash over you. Someone holds your hand through everything, their thumb running over your knuckles repetitively as they whisper something about buggie.

The room slowly quietens again but someone is calling your attention, it was a nurse explaining what was happening. You would remain on the ventilator for a little bit longer as they monitor you to make sure you could breathe comfortably enough on your own, then they would take you off it.

Once they leave you stare absentmindedly into the room, trying to short your racing thoughts out. You can't remember how you got to the hospital but you could guess why you were there judging by the soft ache in your chest. 

"How you doing lovebug?"

The voice startles you and you flinch as you look to your right, blinking in confusion at the man beside you before it suddenly hits you all at once. Tears spill from your eyes as you reach towards your dad, unable to speak but he knows what you want to say.

"I know honey, I know." Your dad comforts you, "I'm here for you."

You squeeze his hand, hoping it conveys what you want to say and when your dad tears up, you know it was.

When you start bouncing—slow and struggling at first, moans stuttering with every inch you lift and drops, you can hear his quiet grunts in your ear, breath warm and heavy against your skin.

His cock hits so deep, you're seeing stars with every bounce.

“You’re gonna break yourself,” he snarls, holding your hips tighter.

“Then help me,” you beg, clawing at his chest. “Please—Daddy—”

And he does.

With an almost irritated huff, his big hands grip your thighs bruisingly, nails digging into your soft flesh before he lifts you up- and drops you down.

Again. And again.

He’s using you like a fleshlight—just a tight, soaked little cocksleeve in his lap, babbling nonsense and squealing.

“Too much—hahhh—Daddy I’m gonna—gonna—!”

Your orgasm is explosive, legs twitching as his cockhead bullies your womb, every hit making you spurt out on his torso and your own thighs.

And when you cry, trying to crawl away?

He grabs your waist, slamming you all the way down, grip tight on your waist.

“Stay put.”

“Wait—don’t—don’t cum insid—nnNNGH—!”

Too late.

His cock twitches, deep in your womb, then erupts. Cum floods your walls, so much so that you can feel it pour out around the seal, leaking down your thighs, pooling on his throne.

And although you collapse against him, lungs fighting to intake more air, you feel him readjust.

"I'm not done." He hisses, lifting your limp body right back up. His cock wasn't even remotely soft when he pulls out for a second.

Not even close.

"You’re not done till I say you are," he growls, dragging your limp, leaking body back onto his lap. "I didn't raise a weak child."

You whimper, breath hitching as he lines up again—his cock still hard, still fat, still dripping.

"N-nooo—Daddy—it’s too much, it’s too—nnghh—"

He slides in anyway.

This time he doesn’t wait. No prep, no warning. He bottoms out, one brutal thrust—and you're done.

Body jerking, mind disintegrating.

"Uhh—uhhhhn—ah! ah! fuh—pussy—d-daddy—uh—nuh—mmn—c-cum—p-please—"

You weren't even aware your voice could get this high-pitched- words slurred, broken up by every thrust that bounces you off his cock like a ragdoll.

He fucks you so deep, your belly bulges every time, and he presses on it just to hear you cry out that it's too much.

“Feel that?" He brushes his sharp teeth over your shoulder, threatening to pierce the delicate skin already blooming with pretty purple bruises from how harshly he holds you.

"You won't be walking till you give me everything."

He's nearly sunken into the couch, layered underneath thick throw blankets and his daughter, her socked feet pressing into his hip.

A random movie is playing on the TV, bathing the room in a series of blues and purples. His daughter is a soft weight against him, a well-worn Minnesota shirt hanging off her shoulders, a splattering of signatures embedded into the fabric.

She's got one hand cradling her cheek as she sleeps up against Sam, his paws pressing up against her hair. The other hand is fisting a handful of a throw blanket underneath her chin, bundled up as a makeshift pillow. He's got the urge to take a photo of her, peaceful in sleep.

His phone buzzes once, then twice, on the coffee table. At first, he's content to leave it be. After all, it's nearly 11 P.M. on a Saturday night, in Pittsburgh, and it was well-known that he spent a good chunk of his free nights with his daughter. (They had spent the day at home, having an impromptu movie day. His daughter had shown him what seemed to be a million new clothes, excitedly chattering about the upcoming summer. It had been everything he needed before a playoff run.)

But, instead of stopping, his phone continued to buzz, nearly vibrating itself off the table.

Carefully, he grabs hold of his daughter's ankles, lifting her feet off his lap as he leans forward to grab his still buzzing phone, dropping them back down once he's got it in his hand. As he turns the screen on, he's immediately bombarded by a million notifications with Brad Marchand's name on every single one.

Brad Marchand (11:23): Hey, I'm going to assume you haven't seen this yet, and I hope your kiddo hasn't either.

Brad Marchand (11:23): https://twitter.com//2030094960507093254?s=20

Brad Marchand (11:24):https://twitter.com//crosby//20300949605001392?.a=20

Brad Marchand (11:25): Hold on, I'll send you a few more. I've already reached out to Mackinnon about it all. He's pretty active on Twitter. I think he'll do some good damage control.

He furrows his brows before clicking on the link, waiting for his browser to load.

It spins once, then twice, before the screen loads through, the familiar white background of Twitter filling his screen, and immediately, his screen is flooded. Photos upon photos of his own daughter fill the screen: her at the mall, at ballet class, in the box at games, scurrying down Pittsburgh's streets.

She's not looking at the camera in any of the blurry photos, more often than not, mid-scurry. They're all taken from a distance, slightly blurry, the pixels distorted from the zoom.

He clicked on one labeled Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, 03:23, 11.12. He was so caught up in looking at the photo of his daughter through a window, mid-spin amongst her classmates, that he nearly missed the first response to the picture.

Nearly.

His eyes flickered down, then shoot open.

Underneath the original photo, a grossly edited photo of his daughter stared back up at him, nauseatingly realistic looking. If his daughter hadn't been right next to him, snoring her head off into a pillow, Sidney would've vomited if he saw the photos. If he had been on a roadie, he would've flown home, driven by nothing but the need to see his daughter breathing.

Even with her, half-sprawled on his lap, his fingers still wander to her tibial pulse point, feeling the soft thumping underneath his thumb as he stares at the photo. The fuzz of her Hello Kitty socks is warm against the exposed skin of his hip as he clicks onto the photo, nausea churning in his stomach.

Bloomed over his screen is a photoshopped image of his daughter, stuffed into a barrel; her skin is pale and blooming with darkened veins, sickly shades of green and blue decorating her screen. Her eyes, normally a dark brown that mirrors his, are blown wide and cloudy, her pupils a cloudy grey.

The longer he looks, the more obvious it becomes that it's photoshopped. Her freckles are missing, her nose isn't quite right, nor is the curl pattern of her hair. In the comments, someone is raving about how realistic it looks, and how the movie Megan is Missing had 'god plenty of screengrabs to use in edits'.

Nonetheless, he surges off the couch, ignoring the low noise of complaint before the snoring returns, her feet now tucked underneath the abandoned blankets.

He goes back to the other link, clicks, clicks once more, and is faced with the same setup: his daughter, or his daughter's body in this instance, lying on a rug with her head missing, splashes of red covering her body.

He recognizes this photo- it had been one Geno had posted for her birthday. In the original photo, she'd been cradling Sam in the crook of her arm, dressed like him for Halloween, her makeup smudged as he lapped licks all over her cheeks. In that photo, she had been wide-eyed and grinning, her mouth stained neon blue from a lollipop.

Hell, that's Sidney's rug underneath her, photoshopped all bloody. The same rug is right in front of his bed, a mere staircase away, unstained.

He clicks another: his daughter, photoshopped onto a stage, neck bent at an awkward angle. He recognizes the photo from his daughter's school's performance of Giselle, she had 'died' in the first act, crumpled onto the stage. In the original photo, there's the smallest uptick of a smile on her lips.

Another of her crumpled on a sidewalk, blood all around her body, crushed like a snail on concrete. That photo had been posted by the Penguin's Instagram page to announce the Little Penguin's chalk day. In the original photo, she's lying on top of a poorly drawn unicorn, grinning from ear to ear.

He clicks on another, and another, and another.

⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩

By three in the morning, Sidney has puked twice.

Once, it was from the low boil of anger in his stomach, settling uneasily against his dinner. He had momentarily retreated to the kitchen to puke in the sink, unwilling to move too far from his still-sleeping daughter, keeping an eye on her from over the cabinet tops.

The second time had been from a particularly gruesome photo. It had been an edited photo that his mother had posted on Facebook; one of his daughter sitting in front of a fire, proudly showing off a well-toasted marshmallow. He didn't even want to think about what the edited photo looked like; the charred glimpse of his daughter was enough to send him back to the sink.

He's called a half-asleep Marchand back, called an angry, wide-awake Nate MacKinnon, sent an email to the PR department, and downloaded Twitter.

He's also embarrassingly moved his daughter into his bedroom, promptly locked all the windows and doors, and dragged in a kitchen chair. Now, he sits like a sentinel at the edge of the bed, still clasping her ankle. All he can do is watch the time slip by on the bedside clock.

He's seen every possible image of his daughter, photoshopped in some grotesque pose, attached to a simple photo of her through her everyday life. He's scrolled through hundreds of tweets condemning his baby girl to death, endless, nonsensical rants about how she was dragging the team down. (As if! His baby girl had been such a pillar in his career; Sidney's not even sure if he'd be able to continue chugging along if she died. In the event his daughter ever died, far before her time, when Sidney himself was still on Earth, the world would never see Sidney Crosby again. He'd spend his days tucked away in Halifax, roaming the halls of a too-empty lakehouse.)

His baby.

The same little girl who still slept tucked into his side, who enjoyed playing Sudoku of all games, and made elaborate yogurt bowls in the morning. The same girl who still had him braid her hair in the mornings, still slept in themed pajamas with a stuffed animal in the crook of her arm; the same one who called him Papa with undertones of a well-developed Canadian accent. The same little girl whom he had cradled in his arms all those years ago, still pink and crinkly from birth, with a head full of hair.

His daughter, whom he had raised since she was a little toothy baby.

Sidney's daughter. His daughter- his flesh, blood, and DNA.

His daughter, who, according to a small chunk of his own fans, deserved to die.

⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩

By six, the PR department has gotten back in touch with him.

There's a drafted message sitting in his Twitter drafts, queued to post at nine, brimming with poorly contained anger, scathing, and demeaning. It's four paragraphs in length, neatly typed out and spaced, a condemnation of his own fans. It pairs nicely with the damage Nate has been kicking up on Twitter, accompanied by Marchy's Instagram stories of Sidney's daughter rolling around with his own daughters, with a short, scathing caption.

(From his spot on the chair, he can see his daughter's phone buzzing on her bedside table, the dimmed screen flashing.)

The panic has drifted from his body now, replaced by a burning anger. He's got a fistful of the comforter in his hands, nails digging into the soft fabric, knuckles white. The middle of his lower lip is bleeding, raw from where he's been biting down on it.

His daughter has barely moved. Her cheeks are still endearingly smushed into the pillows, drool pooling on her chin as she snores, her eyebrows twitching. He's moved from the chair to the bed, keeping one large hand on her curls, nails scraping against her scalp. He can't bring himself to be away from her any longer, not while she's been… condemned to death right under his nose.

It feels like he's failed somehow. How did he, as a father, miss this? Did she know about it? Had his daughter seen the seemingly endless images of her and felt like she couldn't tell him? Had she scrolled the same way he had, a morbid curiosity burning in her stomach as she continued to flick through the fake images? Did she sit in front of her mirror and cock her head- like she does whenever her pigtails are uneven, and imagine herself splattered on the concrete? As she walked down the sidewalks of Pittsburgh, flanked by her ballet friends, did she imagine a car slamming into her?

How had he missed the fact that people were stalking his daughter? How did he not notice the slew of photos of his daughter on the internet, unaware that the camera was pointed at her, capturing her everyday life? Or, had she known? Did she wake every morning knowing that somewhere in Pittsburgh, people were waiting for her, their computers loaded up with screen grabs of gory death scenes from movies, ready to photobash her into a corpse?

He feels like an outsider. Like a helpless bystander watching a slow-mo car crash, unable to do anything without the proper knowledge of what happened—

-her phone flashes again.

He's grabbing her phone before he can even think about it, thumb gliding over the numbers, 8778. It buzzes in his hands again, notifications popping up on the screen as it unlocks.

Floods of Twitter mentions fill her screen, numerous messages popping up before they're pushed down by more. There are a few other messages, three from Nate and two from Marchy, a handful of notifications from Instagram mentions, and a singular missed call from a spam number.

However, it's a text message that catches his eye:

emma: lmao, have u seen this one? absolutely wild! i'm pretty sure this one is from the walking dead lol, u look similar to their zombies.

Sidney clicks the link.

It's another picture of his daughter, grossly mutated, just barely identifiable. This time, it's a screengrab from one of his own interviews, his daughter curled into his stall, half-propped against the wall, sleeping.

At the time, she had been quietly snoring, just barely audible enough to be picked up by the microphones. Geno had been laughing in the background the entire time, bending over to prod at her cheeks as Sidney himself tried not to laugh, unable to properly answer one of the interviewer's questions, fumbling a response about the Avalanche.

When they had shuffled off, he had taken a photo of her, his chest bursting with fondness at the sight of her.

Now, he barely recognizes her.

In the new photo, her face is mashed in, obviously a layer from a zombie movie, as there are large bite marks scattered over the visible skin. The arm that had been tucked underneath her neck was gone, alongside one of her socked feet that had been hanging over the edge of his stall. She does, in fact, look like a zombie from The Walking Dead.

While it's not the most gruesome photo he's seen tonight, it still sends a massive shiver up his spine.

⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩

By the time his daughter finally stirs awake, the PR-approved statement has been posted. He's not in the lineup for tomorrow’s open practice, nor is she expected to attend her ballet classes this week. Her phone has been stuffed away in Sidney's bedside table, completely shut off, hidden away from her eyes. When she gets it back, she'll note that her Twitter password and recovery email have been changed.

But that's all later.

Now, she groans, limbs stretching out as she stretches, twisting deeper into the sheets. He's moved from his chair to sit on the edge of the bed, a hand cupping her cheek, rubbing his thumb over the crease between her brows. She smiles up at him, eyes bleary and unfocused as she blinks away sleep, her eyes hooded.

“Go-oood Morning, Papa, Sam," sweetly, his daughter hiccups in the midst of her good mornings, stretching out a hand to pat Sam's head. His stomach plummets as her eyes flutter shut, muttering underneath her breath.

He's got half the mind to immediately launch into interrogative mode, to shake his daughter until he understands why she had hidden this from him; to understand why she hadn't come to him when the first photo of her fake mutilated body came across her screen.

Instead, he grabs her by the waist and maneuvers them until he's up against the headboard, her head lolling onto his shoulder, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He cradles her face in his hands, soaking in the sight of his breathing, lively daughter.

She's warm with life, cheeks flushed with still-pumping blood as she yawns, heavy huffs of breath pushing through her nose. She jerks back with wide eyes as her stomach rumbles with hunger, momentarily embarrassed by the loud noises. So unapologetically alive.

She opens her mouth, likely about to ask for breakfast, when he strikes.

"Emma sent you something interesting this morning."

His daughter stiffens, shoulders baring out; any previous laxity is gone, replaced by weariness. Ever so softly, she pushes against him, trying to withdraw from his grasp. But Sidney doesn't budge. He allows himself to grab onto her sides instead, taking her silence for the admission of guilt. She knows exactly what he’s talking about.

Her brows furrow together, slanting down, eyes darting around his face. Then, slowly, they slide over to where her phone had been sitting upon the bedside table, now gone. She blinks once, then twice, before promptly opening and closing her mouth.

They just blink at each other for a few minutes. As if sensing the tension, Sam sneezes before he rolls off the bed, his paws clicking against the hardwood as he retreats. His daughter huffs low, her shoulders drooping, blinking up at him with still-tired eyes.

“You, uh, weren't supposed to see that-"

"Were you going to tell me?"

She blinks at him, eyebrows raised as if she weren't expecting him to ask. She hesitates for the shortest of moments, uneased, "No."

No. No, Dad, I wasn't going to tell you people are following me through Pittsburgh and editing photos of me into corpses. No, Papa, I wasn't going to tell you that @SidCrosbLuvr1223 thinks I should jump off of PPG Arena because I'm obviously the reason the Penguins lost last week's game. No, Papa, I wasn't going to tell you that-

“I didn't want to worry you. It's, uh, just some photos. I didn't really think that it would be this big of an issue-"

"Because you didn't think!"

His voice comes out sharper than intended, bordering on a snap as she pulls back, anger dancing across her face. Before she can get another word out, he's barreling forwards, nearly frantic. They're both rearing up in the same anger, the same slant of their eyes, and clench of their jaw. If Sidney's teeth hadn't been knocked loose and replaced, he'd be in awe of the impressive size of her canines that once rivaled his.

“In what world would I not want to know that people are stalking you? I cannot fathom why you wouldn't tell me about this-"

"I didn't want to worry you before playoffs-"

"It's my job to worry about you! You're my child! I think I deserve to know whenever my child is in trouble, and I sure as hell deserve to know that she's getting death threats-"

"Would you just calm down, Jesus! It's not that deep-"

"I just saw a photo of you without your head! Marchand saw a photo of you in a barrel! What the hell do you think would've happened if I saw that on a roadie? Huh? What do you think I would've done if I were in Canada and saw a photo of you splattered on the concrete?"

"They're fake-"

"Goddamnit, that's not the point!"

Horrifyingly, Sidney realizes that his daughter is crying.

Despite the fact that her face is flushed in anger, her brows furrowed so low that they're nearly touching, jaw clenched tight enough to crack, she's crying. Tears brimmed in her waterline, clumping her lashes together, threatening to spill over. Her eyes have gone glossy; her usual dark eyes are glittery in the dimmed lighting of the bedside lamps. Her throat bobs with unmurmured cries, periodically swallowing back cries.

A single sniffle dissipates his anger as quickly as it came, swallowed by a chest-deep agony, a mournful noise bullying its way out of his throat. With a single tug, he pulls her down, pressing his chin to the top of her head. Slowly, he feels the coolness of tears soaking his shirt, periodically muffled sniffles filling the air.

He breathes once, then twice, scratching at her scalp with one of his hands, the other rubbing her back in circular, soothing motions. Just like when she was a small baby, when his hand used to span the entirety of her back.

"Sweetpea, you're my world. You're my baby, you understand me? It is never your responsibility to worry about my feelings; you have to tell me these things so I can keep you safe," his daughter makes a low, mournful noise, dragging her head across his shoulder in disagreement.

"No, no. Listen to me, you're my baby, alright? It's my job to keep you safe, to keep you happy and healthy. If anything- fuck, if anything happened to you, I don't know what I'd do. What if those people got violent? What if they followed you one day and just took you? If they can kill you over a screen, surely they can do it in person-"

Even more horrifyingly, Sidney realizes he's crying. They're not the same thick sobs that his daughter is muffling; instead, they silently slip down his face, trailing to the corners of his mouth as he struggles to swallow around the sudden thickness of his throat.

He buries his face into her unbrushed curls, inhaling the scent of her shampoo as he rocks them back and forth, holding her as closely as possible.

"I'm not mad at you, Sweetpea. I'm mad at this situation. I'm mad that people think they have the right to say these things about you, that they make those god-awful photos and don't feel shame about it. I'm so mad, I don't think I can even think straight. Just- just know that I'm not mad at you."

All he gets is a muffled noise of agreement and a slow nod. Perhaps it had been harsh of him to yell, maybe, if he wasn't so scared, he would've handled it better, gentler. But, even with her pressed in his arms, sniffling against the skin of his collarbone, flashes of the photos still paint themselves across his brain.

She doesn't say anything when he holds her a little tighter.

⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩

“Alright, c'mon, baby. I think Sam is about to eat our trash if we don't get him breakfast soon."

The joke falls slightly flat as she rolls sideways out of his arms, flopping back onto the bed with a muted sniffle. Still, she cracks a small smile. It'll be tense for a few hours, as it always is after they fight. They'll both be balanced on a quick trigger with their anger, their emotions frayed raw.

But they'll both orbit one another.

She'll follow him to the rooms throughout their house, unwilling to let anger separate them during the scant hours of free time they have together during the season. He'll track her whenever she steps away for something, quietly keeping watch as she skitters throughout the halls.

At some point, the anger will morph into something softer, something rawer. But, until then, they'll just rotate around one another. So, Sidney watches as she shuffles into the bathroom, the sound of the shower starting up filling the room as steam creeps through the door.

He doesn't move from the bed.

It's only when the shower shuts off that he moves, stepping over that godforsaken rug as he heads to the kitchen.

⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩

Now that Sidney knows, the tweets have mostly stopped.

He doesn't know if it was from the response or the sheer amount of cussing and kicking Nate had been doing on Twitter, alongside Marchy's posts. Perhaps it was the photo carousel that Geno had posted of him with Sidney's daughter. Geno had captioned it, Маленький Пингвин — я её люблю. Little Penguin, I love her.

(The first photo was taken at the 2007 NHL Awards when Sidney himself was just nineteen, Geno had been twenty, and his daughter had been just a few months old. In said photo, Geno's got her propped up against his chest, both of them smiling at the camera. In the background, Sidney's just barely visible on stage, giving a speech after one of his three trophies that night.)

Every now and then, a particularly cruel comment will flit across his feed, and with the secrecy of having a secret account- a fanpage about the Fairy Penguin breed (which he thought was delightfully ironic, since they were named Little Penguins) he was free to kick up a small, scathing storm of words.

Some nights, he still wakes up in a cold sweat, thinking of bashed-in faces and dulled eyes. When he's at home, sometimes he'll lie awake to the sound of her breathing, pressing his thumb against her pulse point. If he's away, he'll stare at their synced watches, watching as her heart rate steadily coasts through the night.

He can’t bring himself to look at barrels, or watch zombie movies, without his stomach churning. A small, obsessive part of him thrums rapidly whenever she stays behind on a roadie, however many hours away. He can’t help the slow mounting panic that fills his stomach whenever he thinks about it too hard, that somewhere in Pittsburgh, in the same city his daughter slept, someone had wanted her dead.

(Going to the cops had been a useless affair. It had enraged him so badly he had to step out at certain points, forced to listen to them tell him that there was nothing they could do. Keep an eye on her, they said, come back if it gets worse. He didn’t think it could get much worse than stalking and corpse-ifying his daughter.)

Even now, as she sleeps in the bed next to his, in a fancy hotel in the middle of New York, he can’t help but watch the slight rising and falling of the blankets. Maybe, someday, the paranoia will leave him. But for now, he keeps an eye out for signs of life.

when you finally did meet baby malkin, you started crying. you held the little baby and swore that you were going to be best friends, holding him so gently and kissing his little forehead softly. the hearts of anna, geno, and your dad were melted into puddles.

there's no question about who the de facto babysitter is, because it's obviously you. any time you can, you're hanging out with nikita. you spend all of the penguins parties holding him, or holding his hand and following him around when he starts to walk. he's your little buddy, and it's the best thing ever.

you become nika's favorite person really quick. he recognizes the sound of your voice as a baby, reaches for you whenever you're near, and cries when you leave. sometimes, if he's really inconsolable, geno will facetime sid and ask to put you on, and this works to calm baby nika down like 99% of the time.

the older nikita gets, the more obsessed with you he becomes. he tells everyone you're best friends, and wants to hang out with you as much as possible. the two of you sit together at all the home games, talking animatedly and sharing a thing of popcorn.

he follows you around like a little duckling, hiding behind you when new people are introduced to him. he holds your hand whenever a room gets even slightly crowded to stay close to you, and abandons his parents the second he sees you.

it's not annoying, though. in fact, it's the opposite. you love nika, love hanging out with him. he's adorable, too, and has the cutest little chubby cheeks, which you love squishing. even though this usually annoys the heck out of him, nika just smiles and lets you do it. you're the only person he lets squish his cheeks, which geno reminds you of pretty regularly, never failing to make you smile.

around the time he turned five, nikita's obsession with you changed a little bit. not too much, and not in a weird way. he just started looking at you with little heart eyes, telling you how pretty you are, holding open doors for you whenever possible.

you don't notice, not really. honestly, his behavior hasn't changed that much, he just kisses the top of your hand whenever you say goodbye now, and you thought that was just a cute thing he picked up from a movie.

nika's six when you learn to drive, and then you start taking him out on little day dates on weekends. you pick him up from school when you're in town, and your babysitting gig becomes official.

you and nika spend a lot of time together, and it's awesome. you watch movies, and play games. the two of you become puzzle experts. you see new movies together, explore nearby arcades.

when it came time to teach nika how to skate, of course you were at the rink with them. you held onto his little hands and skated backwards as he started inching around on the ice, never letting him fall. geno and sid watched from the sidelines with proud smiles on their faces, loving seeing their babies together.

it's a bittersweet moment for them both. for sid, seeing his baby as a teenager, interact with his teammate's kid, is wild. he has a love/hate relationship with seeing such clear evidence that his baby... isn't a baby anymore. geno loves it because nika is very rarely as happy as he is when he's with you. he loves that the two of you have a relationship, and such a loving one at that. nika's your baby, even though he's not biologically related to you at all.

you make an effort to try and go to nika's games as often as you can. you write his number on your cheek, and cheer louder for him than anyone else. whenever he makes a goal, he points right at you with a huge smile on his face.

when you start dating mack, you're excited to introduce him to nika. you'd been telling nika about how you met him at the world championships, how you'd been texting him pretty much constantly ever since you met, and how you like him a lot. nika wasn't super into the idea of you having a boyfriend, but was constantly asking you if mack treated you well, if he made you happy, things like that. it was literally the sweetest thing ever.

nikita is your favorite person to gossip with. you'll just send your uncle geno a text saying that you'd like to talk to your best friend, and then your phone rings. it's usually nika sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal with a huge smile on his face.

"okay, what did she do this time?" looking so eager and excited to hear all the drama.

every once in a while, you'll spend a day with nika on the weekends. bring him to your dorm to hang for a while, take him to lunch, take him to a movie. every time, you deck him out head to toe in upitt garb, and he goes home declaring he's going to go to upitt when he gets older.

mack and nika have beef. you think it's so stupid because your boyfriend is 19 and nika is 9, but mack insists that it's valid. whenever they're in each other's presence, they compete for your attention, and brag to each other about how nice they are to you. geno think it's the funniest thing in the world, but you beg to differ.

they've literally had competitions in the past. who can run the fastest, who knows the most about you... it's kind of annoying but also kind of really cute. and it never fails to amaze you just how many things those two notice about you. like the way you don't allow your food to touch on the plate, and how you always start with your thumb when painting your nails, and keep your rubber band on your right hand.

nika buys you gifts for any and every occasion. your birthday, christmas, valentine's day... literally everything. it's always something pretty, like a necklace or earrings. sometimes it's an art kit, tickets to some sort of experience, something the two of you can do together. you always tell him that he doesn't have to, that hanging out with him is a present enough, but he insists.

for your eighteenth birthday, he bought you a silver bracelet with a charm of your initials on it. you wear it every day, and every time nika sees it, he smiles really big.

despite being a bit tall for his age, nika loves it when you give him piggyback rides. and you love giving them to him, walking around with him, pretending he's suddenly gotten really tall, pretending to drop him, and swinging him back and forth on your back. nothing makes you happier than hearing his excited little giggles right in your ear.

he likes to call while you're getting ready. he likes watching your process, watching you curl your hair, do your makeup, accessorize your outfit. he tells you about his day, gripes about annoying kids on his hockey team, occasionally will complain about something his dad did, which always makes you laugh. he obviously compliments you the entire time, telling you the curl you just did looks "so super bouncy," that your mascara looks "perfectly pointy," and making sure you know just how beautiful you are.

you and nika are partners-in-crime, too. you've always loved playing pranks on the guys on your dad's team, and when nika was born, you decided that he was going to be your little assistant. when he was little, he would toddle after you as you set up pranks, would hide with you, and giggle uncontrollably when someone inevitably ended up with whipped cream on their face.

as he got older, he helped even more. he came up with a lot of the pranks the two of you did, picked your victims, and of course helped set everything up. you like taking videos, documenting the entire process, and then posting them on your tiktok. your followers love your pranks with nika series.

because of this, nika has become a very prominent and regular figure on your tiktok page. you vlog picking him up from school, your weekend dates with him, sometimes make little snippet compilations of the facetime calls between the two of you. your fans love nika, and love your relationship.

every once in a while, you'll take a video of nika and mack arguing about something. it's usually at a family dinner with you, your dad, geno and anna, and of course, nika. whenever mack is in town he joins too, and that's when the majority of nika and mack's interaction is. the videos are usually them doing weird little competitions with you snickering in the background, either egging them on or telling them to knock it off, depending on your mood.

nikita malkin is one of your favorite people on the planet. he's sweet, and kind, and is down for pretty much anything. he's been your buddy since he was born, and you can't wait to see what he grows up and does.

geno is beyond glad that his son has you. nika's probably the only child him and his wife are ever going to have, so he's glad that he has someone to hang out with, to talk to, to get into trouble with on occasion. you also keep him humble, often reminding him that just because he's the son of a professional hockey player doesn't mean he gets to be a little brat. obviously geno and anna try to keep that in his mind, but it has more of an effect coming from you.

the big thing is that you love him. you love talking to him and hanging out with him and doing things with him. he's one of the sweetest kids you've ever met, and you're so glad you have him in your life.

he's glad he has you, too.

The long stretch of track ahead of them felt never-ending, rusted rails submerged in murky water trailing as far as the eye could see. They passed sign after sign in a foreign language, bold and red, warning them of what was ahead, though neither of them needed help understanding the danger anymore.

Leon hoped it led to an exit. Or at the very least, a way out of this suffocating tunnel.

The flickering lights above them only made his head pound harder as they pushed forward, one arm slung around her shoulders while she limped beside him on her bad ankle—his partner, his wife, her weight leaning heavier into him with every step.

“Just a little further,” he said, his voice low but firm. “You can make it.”

She winced each time her foot touched the ground, trying to drag it behind her instead of lifting it fully, her breath catching every few steps no matter how hard she tried to hide it.

The dogs had gotten her good.

They’d come out of nowhere, fast and vicious; one of them had taken a chunk out of her ankle before Leon could put it down. He’d told himself it was just a bite. Just a wound. Something they could manage once they were out of here.

That’s what this was supposed to be.

In and out.

Contain the threat. Stay with the team.

But an ill-timed explosion had split them from the others, collapsing the path behind them and forcing the two of them deeper underground, into the abandoned transit system beneath the old Eastern European city. It was something repurposed, repainted, and rotting with the remnants of illegal biohazard containment.

Now it was just them.

Something clattered in the distance behind them, metal against concrete, sharp enough to make them both turn. The movement pulled through her entire body, and the second she shifted her weight, a sharp gasp tore from her as she doubled over, her hand flying to her ankle.

Leon’s grip slipped as she went down.

Her hands hit the cracked tile, her body folding in on itself as the pain finally caught up with her.

“Hey—” he dropped with her immediately, reaching for her, trying to pull her back up, but she couldn’t stand. Couldn’t even push herself up. The blood had soaked through too much already, spreading dark across the concrete beneath her.

“Shit,” he muttered, his voice tightening as he hooked his hands under her arms and dragged her back against the nearest wall. He steadied her there, one hand braced at her shoulder before moving quickly to her leg, pulling out his flashlight and flicking it on.

The beam cut through the dim light, landing on the wound.

And then—

She started coughing.

Hard.

Doubling over beside him as it tore through her chest, sharp and violent, blood hitting the gray floor in uneven splatters before it lingered at her lips. When she looked back at him, something in her eyes had shifted.

Fading.

“Hey—hey, just hang in there,” Leon said quickly, his voice rushing now, his hand moving instinctively to steady her. “Okay? I’m gonna get us out of here. We just need to—”

“Leon—”

“We just have to get you up—”

“Leon.”

It stopped him. The way she said it.

He lowered the flashlight slightly, the beam dipping toward the ground as his eyes found hers again, really looking this time as her head rested back against the wall.

And then it was a lot clearer.

The dark veins creeping beneath her skin, stretching up her neck, threading down her arms like something alive beneath the surface. The blood. The coughing. The way her breathing had already started to shallow.

Her T-virus. Stage 3.

His stomach dropped.

He reached for her ankle anyway, his hand wrapping around her good one, squeezing like he could anchor her there, like he could still fix this if he just moved fast enough, thought hard enough, and refused to accept what he was seeing.

He would carry her. He would drag her if he had to. There was still a way out, there had to be.

“You’ve gotta get out of here,” she said through a strained breath, her eyes lowering to him where he knelt in front of her.

“Don’t,” he shook his head immediately. “Don’t say that. We’re getting out of here. We just—just need to get you up—”

“No.”

The word landed heavier than anything else.

Leon rocked back slightly, the breath leaving him in a slow, controlled exhale as he set the flashlight down beside them, the beam casting uneven shadows across the tunnel.

“I’m not letting you give up,” he said, quieter now, but no less firm. “Not like this.”

She coughed again, her hand coming up to catch it, blood staining her palm before it fell back to her side.

“I’m not giving up,” she said, a faint, pained laugh slipping through despite it all. “It’s only giving up if there’s still a chance.”

Leon’s gaze dropped for a moment, catching on the darkness stretching down the tunnel behind her. Somewhere far off, water dripped steadily, rhythmic, echoing like a clock counting down something neither of them could stop.

When he looked back at her, her eyes were heavier now, her breaths shorter, each one taking more effort than the last.

He didn’t know it would move this fast.

Didn’t know it would take her like this.

If he had—if he had known—he never would’ve let her come. Never would’ve let her step onto that plane. Never would’ve—

But she hadn’t told him. Had carried it alone until recently, and now it was too late.

She reached for her holster.

Leon’s head snapped up as she pulled her gun free, checking the chamber with practiced ease despite the tremor in her hands.

His chest tightened instantly as he pushed himself to his feet.

“What are you doing?”

“Leon, you have to—”

“No.”

She extended her arm toward him; the grip of the gun turned in his direction. Offering it. Asking him.

“No,” he said again, sharper this time, shaking his head as he stepped back like distance alone could undo what she was asking.

“Don’t do that.”

Her arm didn’t waver.

Her eyes stayed on him.

“You know what happens next,” she said quietly.

Leon shook his head almost immediately, taking a step back, like putting distance between them might change something, like if he moved far enough away from it, he wouldn’t have to face what she was asking. “No,” he said, the word rough, uneven, his voice already slipping despite how hard he tried to keep it steady. “No, we’re not doing this.”

Her grip tightened around the gun, though her arm didn’t waver; her eyes locked onto his in a way that didn’t leave room for misunderstanding.

“Leon.”

“No,” he repeated, louder this time, his hands coming up like he could physically push the moment away. “We’re getting out of here. I’ll carry you if I have to; I don’t care how far it is, I’ll get you out—”

“You won’t make it.”

“I will,” he shot back immediately, his voice tightening with something desperate now, something that didn’t sound like certainty so much as refusal.

“You won’t,” she said again, firmer this time, though there was a strain beneath it now, something slipping under the surface. “And neither will anyone else if you don’t do this.”

“That’s not your call,” he snapped, the control finally cracking as he shook his head, pacing a step before stopping again, his chest rising too fast. “You don’t get to decide that. Not for me.”

Her expression didn’t soften. If anything, it settled further, something resolute taking hold as she looked at him.

“You don’t get to pretend this ends any other way.”

That hit him harder than anything else she’d said.

He stood there, staring at her like if he looked long enough, he’d find something that proved her wrong, that gave him another option, another way out, another path that didn’t end with this.

“There’s always something,” he said finally, quieter now, but the desperation in it hadn’t gone anywhere; it had just settled deeper. “There’s always a way out of this. I just need—”

“There isn’t,” she cut in, and this time her voice broke through clean, not loud, not angry, just final in a way that didn’t leave space for argument. “Not for me.”

The tunnel seemed to close in around them then, the drip of water somewhere down the line echoing louder than it should have, each second stretching too long as the weight of it settled between them. The lights barley hanging onto their last flicker.

Leon didn’t move. Couldn’t.

Because he knew. God, he knew.

She took a breath, unsteady now, the first real crack in her composure as she pushed the gun further toward him, forcing it into his space, into his hands whether he wanted it there or not.

“Please,” she said, softer now, her voice thinning under the weight of it. “Don’t make me become something you have to fight.”

His hand hovered there, just inches from the grip, his fingers trembling despite himself as he stared at it like it didn’t belong in this moment, like it didn’t belong between them.

“I can’t,” he said, barely above a whisper, his eyes dragging back up to hers. “I’m not doing that to you.”

Something flickered across her face then, hurt, maybe, but it didn’t last, didn’t take root long enough to change her mind.

“Then you’re doing it to everyone else,” she said quietly.

That landed. Harder than anything.

Leon’s breath caught as his hand finally moved, his fingers curling around the grip of the gun like it weighed more than it should, like it didn’t belong in his hand like this, like it never should have.

His arm didn’t lift right away.

He just stood there, staring at her, waiting for something to stop this, for something to change, for something, anything, to pull them out of this moment.

But nothing did.

She exhaled slowly, her shoulders sinking back against the wall as she looked at him, really looked at him, like she was committing him to memory in the seconds she had left.

“I love you,” she said.

That nearly broke him.

His vision blurred, his grip tightening as his arm finally, slowly, began to rise, the motion heavy, unwilling, like every part of him was fighting it even as it happened. The light bar above her head began to tick, flicking off, then on. 

“Don’t,” he breathed, shaking his head, his voice cracking now despite everything. “Don’t say that right now—”

Her voice cut through him. Sharp. Final.

“Do it.”

“Do it!’

–

Leon jolted awake, sweat clinging to his exposed back as he shifted through the sea of blankets twisted around him. His breathing came heavy and uneven as he threw his legs over the side of the bed, grounding himself against the scratched wood beneath his feet. His hands pressed firmly into his knees as he forced himself to take breath after breath, trying to slow the panic still clawing its way through his chest.

It had been weeks since he’d had that dream.

Weeks since he’d seen himself back in that tunnel, standing in front of her like it had all just happened yesterday—like ten years hadn’t passed, like the pain hadn’t dulled even slightly, like the wound never had the chance to close in the first place. The memory still sat just beneath the surface, raw and waiting, and every time it came back, it took everything in him with it.

Morning had barely begun to seep through the crooked blinds when Leon finally lifted his head, dragging a hand through his greying hair as he forced himself to push away from the mattress. The right side of the bed remained untouched, as it always did, but his restless movements had still managed to leave the sheets in disarray, twisted and pulled like he’d been fighting something in his sleep.

He didn’t bother making it.

Not yet.

He needed the bathroom. Needed something cold. Something real.

It had been a while since he’d been out in the field, taking time off he’d told himself he needed, though it had mostly turned into days spent sitting in this house, letting time pass without much thought. The quiet had settled in too easily, filling spaces that used to feel lived in.

When he stepped into the connected bathroom, he flicked on the light, immediately squinting as the fluorescent bulb flickered before fully coming to life. He shut his eyes again, longer this time, like he could block it out before it had the chance to settle in—before it could remind him too much of that place, of those same flickering lights hanging above him the day everything changed.

The cold water handle turned sharply under his grip, the stream rushing to life as he shoved his hands beneath it, barely hesitating before leaning forward and dragging the water up over his face. He stayed there longer than necessary, letting the cold bite into his skin, grounding him in something that wasn’t memory, wasn’t her voice, wasn’t that moment replaying itself over and over again.

It helped.

Not enough.

But enough to move.

When he finally pulled back, he grabbed a nearby towel, dragging it over his face slowly, deliberately, lingering just long enough to avoid looking at himself in the mirror. But eventually, he did.

And it was worse than he expected.

Dark circles had settled deep beneath his eyes, heavier than just lack of sleep, something more permanent etched into his features. The exhaustion wasn’t new, but it looked different now, older, worn down in a way he couldn’t ignore anymore.

And then there was the infection.

Faint, but there.

Darkened veins just beneath his skin, subtle but unmistakable, clinging to him like a reminder he couldn’t shake no matter how much time had passed. The same thing that had taken her now sat quietly beneath his own skin, waiting, patient in a way that felt cruel.

Leon looked away.

The towel slipped from his hands, left hanging loosely over the bar beside the sink as he stepped back into the bedroom.

The light had started to creep in more now, revealing the state he’d let the place fall into. A pile of clean laundry sat untouched on the chair by his desk, while worn socks had found a home beneath the edge of the bed. His watch lay discarded on the nightstand next to two empty glasses that had once held milk, left there longer than they should have been.

He winced slightly, rubbing the back of his neck as he crossed the room, digging through the clean pile for something to wear. A loose shirt and a pair of shorts would do.

After pulling them on, he grabbed the empty glasses and made his way toward the kitchen.

The moment he stepped through the threshold, rounding the island, he was met with a loud, insistent meow at his feet.

Leon blinked down at the small blur weaving between his legs.

Whiskers.

Or rather—

his daughter’s cat.

The little thing circled him relentlessly, brushing against his ankles as it cried out again, far too loud for something its size. Leon adjusted his steps carefully to avoid stepping on it, setting the glasses down in the sink with a quiet clink.

“Hang on, furball,” he muttered, his voice still rough from sleep. “I’ll feed you in a second.”

The cat, unsurprisingly, did not care.

As Leon reached for the clear container on the counter, he glanced at the microwave, the red numbers blinking back at him. 6:45.

Too early.

He scooped some food into Whiskers’ metal bowl, the kibble clattering softly as it hit, before turning to refill his other bowl with water. The routine was automatic, something his body did without much thought, but it was in that pause, that small moment between movements, that something began to feel off.

It didn’t click right away.

Not until he looked down at the cat.

Whiskers was always with her.

Curled up at her feet, sprawled across her pillow, or tucked somewhere beneath the blankets she inevitably wrapped herself in. Half the time, she’d shut her door just to keep him inside so he wouldn’t wander off in the middle of the night.

So why was he out here?

Leon’s gaze lifted slowly, squinting through the dim light of the house as he looked down the hall, toward her door at the far end past the living room. The light beneath it was off, which wasn’t unusual this early, but the door itself was shut—fully shut, like she’d pushed him out.

He let out a quiet huff of amusement, the thought coming easy enough.

“Got caught acting a fool, little guy?” he muttered, glancing back down as Whiskers tore into his food like he hadn’t eaten in days, despite Leon feeding him not even a few hours ago before heading to bed.

Still.

Something about it lingered.

Leon looked back down the hall one more time, his gaze resting there just a second longer than it needed to before he finally turned away, moving deeper into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and reached for the carton of eggs, the cool air brushing against his skin as he pulled them free.

He just hoped you’d slept better than he had.

–

You woke to the smell of bacon and immediately started coughing.

It was like the first breath you took scraped past your throat and came back up with a vengeance, sharp and hot, your chest tightening as you pushed yourself deeper into the mattress. The heat was worse, clinging to your skin in a way that made you uncomfortable, too warm beneath the blankets you’d been wrapped in only seconds before.

You shoved them off instantly, letting them fall to your waist as you stared up at the ceiling, your eyes landing on the glow-in-the-dark stars still scattered above you.

You never took them down.

Not after all this time.

They were the last thing you saw every night, just like they always had been—right after your mom leaned over to kiss your forehead, and your dad reached for the light switch, the room falling dark as the stars slowly lit up above you.

You turned onto your side, reaching for your phone on the charger beside your bed, your nightstand cluttered with candy wrappers and hair ties that never quite made it back to the bathroom. When you clicked the power button, the brightness made you squint immediately.

7:10.

You groaned softly, dropping the phone back onto the table before rolling over again, burying your face into the pillow like you could steal another few minutes of sleep.

You coughed again.

Harder this time.

It rattled through your chest as you pressed your face deeper into the fabric, trying to muffle it, brushing it off the same way you always did. You probably slept with your mouth open again, snoring like an idiot, drying your throat out. That’s all it was.

It had to be.

It took you a few more minutes to finally drag yourself out of bed, the smell of breakfast strong enough to pull you the rest of the way into the morning whether you were ready or not. You shuffled into the bathroom, brushing your teeth and running a hand through your hair, doing just enough to feel somewhat put together before slipping on your bunny slippers and adjusting your pajama top across your chest.

Your body still felt sluggish, heavy in a way that didn’t quite make sense, but you ignored it, stretching your neck as you scratched absentmindedly at the back of your head before pushing your bedroom door open.

The light hit you immediately. Too bright and real.

Morning had fully settled in now, and with it came the smell of bacon and eggs drifting through the house.

Your dad stood at the stove, moving like it was second nature, shaking pepper into a pan of scrambled eggs as if this were just another normal morning.

You weren’t sure how he did that. How he woke up every day and just… kept going.

Like everything wasn’t sitting right there under the surface.

Whiskers was sprawled out across the hardwood floor in front of the glass doors, stretched out in the sunlight like he’d been there for hours, soaking in warmth that had only just begun to reach inside.

“Morning, sweetheart.”

Your dad glanced over his shoulder at you, already stirring the eggs again like nothing had changed.

You just groaned in response, making your way further into the kitchen, deciding you’d become a person once you had coffee in your system. You slid onto one of the barstools at the island, pulling yourself up just enough to slump forward against the counter, rubbing at your eyes.

“Morning,” you mumbled through a yawn.

He was already plating the food, scooping eggs onto a plate before grabbing a few strips of bacon and stacking them neatly beside it. By the time you blinked your eyes open again, he was setting the plate down in front of you, licking a bit of grease from his fingers like it was routine.

“You’re up early.”

You looked down at the food, your brows lifting slightly.

It smelled really good.

“Coffee?”

Your eyes flicked up to him just as he grabbed a mug from the counter, setting it down in front of you before reaching into the fridge for your creamer like he’d done it a hundred times before.

And for a second—

It almost felt normal.

Too normal.

“Dad… what’s up?”

He glanced back at you, creamer still in hand, brows pulling together slightly. “What do you mean?”

“This…”

“Oh.” He shrugged lightly, pouring the creamer before sliding the cup toward you. “I don’t know. Just hungry. You hungry?”

You hesitated.

Your eyes drifted past him, landing on Whiskers stretched out in the sunlight—and just like that, last night came rushing back all at once.

You’d kicked him out.

Shut the door on him while you sat on the floor crying because he’d knocked over your music box, the one your mom gave you, and shattered it like it didn’t matter.

Like it wasn’t one of the last things you had left of her.

Looking at him now, you knew he didn’t mean it.

Couldn’t have.

But that didn’t stop the way it felt.

Your gaze shifted back to your dad, taking him in properly this time—the way he moved, the way he talked, the way he tried.

And then it clicked.

He was doing the same thing you were. Distracting himself.

Because whatever last night was, whatever it stirred up, it hadn’t just stayed with you. It showed in the dark circles under his eyes, the ones that never really went away anymore. You were starting to get them too.

“Yeah—yeah, I’ll eat.”

He was about to say something, like the words were right there on the tip of his tongue, but instead he turned back to the stove, grabbing himself a plate as if the moment had already passed. “How was class yesterday?”

You were already halfway through a piece of bacon when you answered, barely looking up from your plate. “It was alright.” You’d been taking classes at the community college just up the road, close enough that he could convince himself you were safe, and it was the first time in a long time you’d been around people again. 

But…Alright was an understatement. 

You still hadn’t pulled yourself together enough to talk to anyone, and sitting in a room full of strangers felt suffocating more often than not. On top of that, walking into the school therapist’s office, quietly, without telling your dad, was hard enough on its own. He didn’t know, but you needed it. You just wished he would consider it too, though you were pretty sure he wouldn’t. His definition of PTSD was “Push that shit down," and it showed.

“My grades are good,” you added, quieter this time, like that part might make it easier for him to accept everything else you weren’t saying.

He sat across from you, pouring himself a cup of coffee before shaking a little too much pepper onto his eggs, like the motion itself gave him something to focus on. “That’s good,” he said with a small nod. “I’m proud.” But he didn’t look at you. Instead, he hunched over his plate, eating quickly, distracted, like finishing the food would give him an excuse to move on from the conversation altogether.

You slowed down, lifting your coffee instead, letting the warmth settle into your hands as you took a sip. Pumpkin spice—your favorite. The vanilla creamer swirled through it just right, exactly how you liked it. You watched him over the rim of the mug, really watched him this time, taking in the way he avoided your gaze, the way his shoulders stayed tense even in a moment that was supposed to be normal.

“Dad…” you said finally, your voice softer but steady enough to pull his attention.

He looked up, his fork hovering midair as his eyes met yours.

“Did you… sleep at all?”

For a second, something flickered across his face, something real, but it disappeared just as quickly as it came. He shoved the last of his eggs into his mouth, barely chewing before standing and draining the rest of his coffee in one go, already turning toward the sink like the question hadn’t landed at all. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, his voice too quick, too easy. “Don’t worry about me.”

You didn’t respond right away. You just watched him, tracking every movement—the way he rinsed his plate too fast, the way his hands moved with too much urgency, the way he reached for the pan like he needed something to do, anything to keep from standing still.

“Dad.”

He stopped completely. The water shut off, just a trickle left in the sink basin, the sudden drip of it louder than anything else in the room as he wiped his hands on his shorts before turning to face you, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed like he was bracing himself.

“Listen—”

“I knew it,” you cut in, pushing your chair back slightly as you sat up straighter. “That’s what this is. A distraction.” You gestured toward the counter, toward the food, toward the forced normalcy of it all. “Why can’t you just talk to me? You won’t talk to anyone else and I’m right here.”

He looked away for a second, just long enough for you to notice, and then let out a quiet breath as he shifted his weight forward. “It’s not that simple—”

“It is,” you snapped, your hands lifting in frustration before falling again. “It is that simple. You just won’t do it.”

You waited then, giving him a chance to say anything that mattered, something real, something that didn’t sound like the same excuse he always fell back on. But he didn’t. He just stood there, still and quiet, like whatever you’d said had landed harder than he was willing to admit, like he’d already lost the argument before it even began.

And that was worse.

You let the silence sit for another second before reaching forward, grabbing the last piece of bacon from your plate more out of habit than anything else, pushing yourself off the stool as you turned away. “Whatever,” you muttered under your breath, already heading back down the hall.

You didn’t wait for him to stop you.

Didn’t wait for him to try.

You just walked back to your room, the weight of it all pressing heavier into your chest with each step before you shoved the door open and stepped inside, letting it slam shut behind you harder than you meant to.

–

Leon turned slowly, pressing both hands against the edge of the sink, his head dipping just enough for his hair to fall forward into his face as he stared down at nothing in particular. The faucet continued to drip in front of him, each drop echoing louder than it should have in the quiet kitchen, the sound stretching out, lingering longer than water ever should, settling somewhere deep in his chest in a way that made it impossible to ignore.

Drip. 

Drip.

It didn’t sound like water anymore. It sounded like a clock, steady and patient, tick.

Tick. 

“Do it!”

Leon’s hand shot out before he could stop himself, slamming beneath the faucet to cut the stream mid-fall, the sound stopping instantly, violently, leaving behind a silence that rang just as loud in his ears. He twisted the handle tighter than necessary, forcing it closed until there was nothing left—no drip, no echo, no reminder—and for a second he just stood there, his hand still resting against the metal, his breathing uneven as he tried to ground himself in something real, something that wasn’t memory.

That conversation could have gone better. It should have. He knew that. But the moment that dripping started, it was like everything else had been pushed out, like he couldn’t hear her anymore over the sound of it, like his mind had already left the room before he even realized it. 

He was supposed to focus on her, on what she was saying, on the fact that she was right there asking him for something he couldn’t give, but lately everything felt like it was pulling him backward instead of keeping him present, every small thing dragging him back to what he’d already lost, to what he could still lose if he wasn’t careful.

He heard her cough from down the hall again, faint but sharp enough to cut through everything else, and it settled into him immediately, threading through his thoughts in a way that made his chest tighten before he could stop it. 

It was a sign he hadn’t seen soon enough. Signs his wife had hidden from him until it was too late to do anything about them. The same signs he carried now, buried beneath his skin, quiet but present, something he kept to himself the same way she had, the same way he swore he never would.

He pushed himself away from the counter, turning toward the hallway without thinking, his focus already shifting back to her door, to the sound he’d just heard, to the need to check on her, to make sure—

His work phone rang.

The sharp, uptight tone cut through the house, echoing from his bedroom and snapping him out of it just enough to pause mid-step. His jaw tightened as his eyes flicked toward her door one more time, lingering there just a second too long before he forced himself to turn away, moving down the hall in the opposite direction as the ringing continued, insistent, impossible to ignore.

By the time he reached his room, the screen was already lit with Sherry’s name, a picture from years ago still set behind the contact, something he’d never bothered to change. He answered without hesitation, bringing the phone to his ear as he dragged a hand down his face, trying to steady himself before speaking.

“Hello?”

“Leon. It’s Sherry.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose as she said it, his eyes closing briefly like the confirmation was unnecessary, like he didn’t already know exactly who it was. “Is this important?” he asked, his voice edged with impatience he didn’t have the energy to hide. “I’m on leave.”

“Very,” she replied without hesitation. “You might want to check this out.”

His phone buzzed again almost immediately, and he pulled it away from his ear, putting her on speaker as he dragged the notification down, his eyes scanning the file as it loaded. Crime scene footage.

His thumb moved instinctively, scrolling through the images one by one, his focus sharpening despite himself as the details came into view, the bodies twisted and deteriorating, skin darkened and splitting, black veins spreading beneath the surface in patterns he recognized far too easily.

“There have been recent reports of Raccoon City survivors turning up as victims,” Sherry continued, her voice steady and measured, like she already knew what he was seeing. “Two confirmed dead, one missing. I know you’re off right now, but this one seems personal.”

Leon moved toward the nightstand without thinking, grabbing his glasses and sliding them on as he pulled up the full report, his eyes moving faster now, scanning, connecting, searching for something that didn’t line up, something that didn’t lead back to the same place. But it all did. Every name. Every detail. Every single one of them traced back to Raccoon City like it had never really let them go.

“Leon? You there?”

“Yeah—yeah, I’m here.” His voice came out quieter now, more focused, though there was something else underneath it, something tighter, something harder to ignore as he kept scrolling, trying to find a break in the pattern that wasn’t there.

“When did this start?” he asked, his gaze narrowing slightly as he pushed further into the report.

There was a brief pause, the sound of typing filtering through the line before she answered. “Within the last week. All recent.”

Leon pulled his glasses off, dragging a hand over his face as he brought the phone back to his ear, the weight of it settling heavier now, pressing into something he didn’t want to fully acknowledge.

“Alright,” he muttered under his breath, more to himself than to her. “Alright… just give me some time. I’ll figure something out and call you back.”

“Leon… is everything okay?”

Of course she asked. Sherry had always been like that, too aware, too quick to pick up on what people tried to hide. 

Much like his daughter. 

For a second he almost said something, almost told her the truth, that he hadn’t been sleeping, that the nightmares were back, that what she was talking about wasn’t just in those files, that it was already there, already under his skin, already moving in ways he couldn’t stop.

But he didn’t.

He couldn’t.

“Yeah,” he said instead, the answer coming too easily. “All good. I’ll call you later.”

He ended the call before she could respond, cutting off whatever she was about to say, the silence that followed settling into the room in a way that felt heavier than before. And for a moment, he just stood there, the phone still in his hand, his thoughts pulling him in too many directions at once—toward the past, toward the present, and toward the door down the hall he hadn’t gone back to yet.

—

The pieces of your mom’s music box sat on your dresser, carefully wrapped in a towel from your bathroom so none of the porcelain would go missing. It had always been beautiful. White, worn soft with age, passed down through hands that had held onto it long before it ever reached yours. Gold trim lined the edges of the lid, delicate and slightly faded, and when you opened it, a small ballerina stood at the center, waiting to be brought to life. If you wound the cog at the back just right, she would spin slowly, the soft, warped melody filling the room as she danced.

The song had never sounded quite right, not anymore, but your mom used to hum it anyway, brushing your hair back as she tucked you in, promising she’d see you again soon.

She always said that.

Your chest tightened at the thought, your gaze lingering on the broken shape beneath the towel before drifting away, like looking at it for too long might make it worse. It wasn’t just the music box. It never really was. It was everything it stood for, everything tied to it, everything that felt like it was slipping further out of reach the older you got.

And then there was your dad.

The way he moved through the house like nothing was wrong. The way he avoided things. The way he shut down instead of talking. You knew he was struggling; you weren’t blind to it, but that didn’t make it easier when he refused to let you in.

You wished he would just talk to you.

Just once.

You fell forward onto your bed, burying your face into the soft sheets as a quiet groan left your chest, hoping it might ease the tightness building behind your ribs. It didn’t. If anything, it made it worse, pressing it deeper until it felt like something was sitting heavy right beneath your lungs. Followed by the worst cough of the morning. 

It almost made you cry.

Over a broken music box.

Except…it wasn’t really about that.

It was just another reminder. Another piece of something you were losing too fast.

You pushed yourself back up slowly, curling your legs beneath you as you reached for your phone, unlocking it without thinking, your eyes skimming over the flood of notifications that didn’t matter. Your gaze dropped just beneath the time.

October 8th, 2028.

You stared at it for a second longer than necessary before locking the screen again and tossing the phone toward the end of the bed, letting it land wherever it did. Something twisted in your stomach then, sharp and uncomfortable, not quite pain but not something you could ignore either, and you leaned back slightly, your eyes settling on the door like you expected something to happen.

And then—

It did.

Three soft knocks.

You could see his shadow shift beneath the door, the subtle movement of his feet giving him away before he even spoke.

“Hey, I—” he hesitated, his voice quieter than before. “Can we talk, honey?”

You didn’t answer.

Didn’t move.

The handle turned anyway, the door opening just enough for him to glance in, one eye peeking through like he wasn’t sure what he was walking into. The second he saw you sitting there, shoulders slumped, something in your expression giving you away, he pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped inside.

“Is everything okay?”

He stayed near the doorway at first, like he didn’t want to crowd you, like he was waiting for permission he hadn’t been given. You didn’t look at him. Your eyes stayed fixed on the dresser instead, the tears already threatening to rise before you could stop them.

“Whiskers… he—”

Your voice caught, and that was all it took.

He followed your gaze, his own landing on the uneven shape beneath the towel before he moved toward it, slower this time, more careful. He reached out and unwrapped it gently, like he hoped it wasn’t what he thought. 

The second he saw it, his shoulders dropped.

He stood there for a moment, looking down at the towel wrapped around the music box like he was trying to piece it together without touching it, before he finally exhaled and turned back toward you, his expression softer now, something careful settling into place.

“We can fix it,” he said, nodding slightly like he needed you to believe it as much as he did. “It’s porcelain, right? There’s people who restore stuff like this. I’ll find someone; we’ll get it put back together—good as new.”

You didn’t move.

Didn’t answer.

Your arms stayed wrapped around yourself as your gaze drifted back toward the dresser, your chest still tight in a way that had nothing to do with the broken pieces. “It’s not about that,” you muttered, your voice quiet but strained.

He hesitated at that, shifting his weight slightly where he stood, like he didn’t quite know what to do with your answer. “I know,” he said after a second, his voice softer now. “I just… wanna help.”

The room went quiet again, the kind of quiet that didn’t feel peaceful, just full of everything neither of you were saying. You looked up at him then, really looked at him, taking in the way he hovered near the dresser instead of coming closer.

“Then talk to me,” you said, your voice steadier now even if your chest still felt tight. “What’s going on with you?”

That seemed to catch him off guard.

He didn’t answer right away, his eyes dropping for a second before he looked back at you, like he was deciding how much he wanted to say. “That’s… actually why I came in here,” he admitted, his tone shifting just slightly. “I haven’t exactly been—” he paused, rubbing at the back of his neck before letting out a quiet breath. “I haven’t been truthful.”

Your brows pulled together, confusion settling in quickly. “What do you mean?”

He hesitated again, longer this time, like whatever he was about to say didn’t come as easily as the rest.

“It’s just been a hard week,” he said finally, settling on something that didn’t quite answer your question. “That’s all.”

You stared at him for a second, and then it clicked.

“Is that why you took off work?” you asked quietly. “Because it’s her anniversary?”

He went still.

Not completely obvious—but enough. His shoulders tightened just slightly, his jaw setting as his gaze shifted away from you for a second before coming back.

“…Yeah,” he said.

You nodded slowly, your eyes dropping to your hands as you twisted the fabric of your sleeve between your fingers. “It’s been affecting me too,” you admitted, your voice softer now, the frustration from earlier fading into something heavier. “I just didn’t think you’d want to talk about it.”

You could see something change in his expression when you said that, something you couldn’t quite name, but he didn’t get the chance to respond.

You coughed.

It hit harder this time, suddenly, enough to pull you forward slightly, your hand coming up to cover your mouth as your chest tightened again. You tried to breathe through it, but it came again, sharper, dragging through your throat in a way that made your eyes water.

He moved instantly, stepping closer as your shoulders curled in.

“Hey—”

You coughed again, your hand pressing tighter against your mouth until it finally eased just enough for you to pull it away—

And freeze.

There was blood.

Not a lot.

But enough.

Your stomach dropped as your eyes snapped back up to him, panic hitting all at once. “What—” your voice shook as you looked down at your hand again. “That’s never—it's never been that bad before—”

He was already reaching for something, grabbing a towel from the dresser and pressing it into your hand before guiding you back slightly toward the bed. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said quickly, his voice steadier than yours felt. “Just sit back for me.”

You didn’t argue.

Didn’t question it.

You let him ease you down onto the mattress, your head still spinning slightly as you tried to slow your breathing, the panic sitting heavy in your chest.

“Let me see,” he said, reaching for your arm.

You held still as he pushed your sleeve up, your eyes following the movement until he stopped.

You saw it too.

Faint.

But there.

Dark lines just beneath your skin, subtle but wrong, spreading in a way that made your stomach twist.

For a second, neither of you said anything.

His hand lingered there just a moment longer before he pulled your sleeve back down, slower this time, like he didn’t want to draw attention to it even though you’d already seen it.

“We’re gonna figure this out,” he said, quieter now, his voice more controlled than before. “Okay? I’ve seen worse than this.”

You searched his face, trying to find something solid in it, something you could believe.

“You have?” you asked, your voice smaller now.

He nodded once.

“Yeah.”

He stepped back then, creating just a little distance like he needed the space, like he was already thinking ahead to something you weren’t part of yet.

“I need to go back into work,” he said after a second.

Your head lifted slightly. “Right now?”

“I won’t be gone long,” he added quickly. “I’ll call Sherry, maybe Jill too. I’ll have them check in on you while I’m gone, make sure everything’s okay.”

You stared at him, something uneasy settling in your chest that had nothing to do with the coughing, your fingers still curled loosely around the towel as your breathing tried to even out.

“Dad—”

“I’ve got it,” he said, not harsh, just firm enough to stop you, his voice steady in a way that made it hard to argue with. He stepped closer again, just enough to reach out and rest his hand briefly against your shoulder, grounding, familiar. “Stay in bed for now,” he added, his tone softening slightly. “I’ve got something you need to take for me, okay? I’ll call Sherry.”

You looked up at him, searching his face again, trying to figure out what he wasn’t saying, what he had already decided without telling you.

“…Okay,” you said after a second, even though the answer didn’t feel right sitting in your chest.

He gave a small nod, like that was enough, like that settled it, before pulling his hand back and stepping away again, already turning toward the door like he had somewhere else to be.

You watched him go. Watched the way he paused for half a second at the doorway, like he almost turned back, like he almost said something else—

But he didn’t.

The door opened.

Then closed.

And just like that, the room felt too quiet again.

—

It took Leon all of six seconds to make it from her bedroom to his, already pulling his phone out and dialing before he fully crossed the threshold. It only rang once before she picked up, like she’d been expecting it, like she’d been waiting for him to call the second something went wrong.

“That was fast,” Sherry said, the faint rhythm of her keyboard clicking through the line.

“Sherry, I need you to get ahold of Jill for me,” Leon said, already moving, already pushing into his closet as he tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder. He shoved aside boxes and old clothes without care, digging straight for the safe built into the back wall. “Tell her to get out here. Now.”

He punched in the code—032296—faster than he meant to, the numbers muscle memory at this point, and pulled the door open harder than necessary, the metal giving with a dull, hollow sound.

“Why—what’s going on?” The typing on her end stopped abruptly, the silence on the line tightening. “Is everything okay?”

Leon didn’t answer right away. He was already digging through the contents—paperwork shoved aside, ammo rattling faintly as he moved it, the edge of a locked case catching against his hand—until his fingers closed around the smaller secured metal box sitting at the bottom. He pulled it free and flipped it open, revealing the foam-lined interior.

A syringe rested in the center. Three vials to the right.

Two empty. One full.

“I’m coming in,” he said instead, his voice lower now, more focused, like he’d already moved past the question entirely. “Send me the location of that last victim and get Jill on the phone.”

“Leon—”

“She’s got it, Sher.”

The words came out before he could stop them, before he could soften them, and the second they were in the air, something inside him tightened hard enough to make his grip falter for just a second.

He reached for the vial anyway.

“Just like me,” he added, quieter now, the admission settling heavier than he wanted it to. “Just like you.”

A pause.

Longer this time.

“…Just like her mom.”

“Shit,” Sherry breathed, the word slipping out as the weight of it landed on both ends of the line.

Leon didn’t respond. He couldn’t. Not without letting too much of it bleed through, not without saying something he couldn’t take back, so he focused instead on the motion in his hands, clicking the vial into place, tapping the syringe to clear the air bubbles like he’d done it a hundred times before. It was a mixture Sherry’s team devised to prolong the effects of his virus, and now was the perfect time to use it. 

His hands didn’t shake.

That was the problem.

“I’m gonna need someone to stay with her while I’m gone,” he said, switching the phone to his other hand as he finished prepping the dose. “Can you handle that?”

“Y-Yeah, of course,” Sherry answered quickly. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call Claire?”

Leon stilled for a second, the question catching somewhere deeper than it should have. Claire. Raccoon City. If this was spreading again, if this had anything to do with what they’d all walked away from, then she wasn’t safe either.

None of them were.

He set the syringe down on the bed, turning back toward the safe, forcing himself to keep moving.

“No,” he said finally. “Send Jill. But call Claire into the office. Get her checked. If we have it, she has it.”

“On it.”

He reached for the gun case next, flipping it open with practiced ease as his fingers brushed over the familiar weight of it before lifting it free. The metal caught the morning light as he turned it slightly, checking it without really needing to.

“And Sherry?”

“Yeah, Leon?”

His grip tightened just slightly.

“Call in a request for Requiem ammo.”

– 

You’d skipped school, calling out with a note from your dad’s medical office claiming a “viral infection,” even though you knew it was complete bullshit. This wasn’t a viral infection. It felt worse than that, something heavier, something that sat wrong in your body in a way you couldn’t explain. It made you sluggish, itchy, and paranoid, like your skin didn’t quite fit right anymore, like your thoughts were always just a step behind where they should be. It felt like you were one step away from losing control entirely, and the fact that no one would tell you what the hell was actually going on only made it worse.

After giving you a terrifyingly big syringe filled with something he swore would help, your dad had called Jill Valentine to stay with you, which in theory you didn’t mind. Jill had always been around, a constant in your life for as long as you could remember, someone who felt more like family than anything else. But did you really need a babysitter? You could barely get out of bed as it was, your energy draining out of you faster than you could keep up with, and now you’d ended up planted in the chair by the large glass doors leading out to the back porch, a blanket wrapped around your legs while a cup of tea sat forgotten beside you, long since gone cold.

It had started raining sometime after your dad left, slow at first, then steady, the water sliding down the glass in uneven streaks that blurred the world outside. You watched it without really seeing it, your reflection faint in the pane, the gray sky stretching endlessly beyond it. It felt like the moment he walked out the door, everything shifted, like the house had hollowed out around you, leaving behind something quieter. You didn’t know where he’d gone or what he was doing, but you knew enough about his job to understand it wasn’t safe. And you knew him well enough to know he wasn’t thinking clearly right now.

He was leading with emotion.

Just like before.

Just like mom.

“I’ll see you soon.”

The words echoed back at you whether you wanted them to or not.

Jill must have picked up on it, because she spoke from the kitchen table without even looking up at first, her voice cutting through the quiet like she’d been listening the whole time. “I’m not here as surveillance,” she said, flipping a page in her book before finally glancing over the top of it. She took a loud, almost exaggerated sip of her drink before setting it down. “I’m here to make sure you don’t pass out or something.”

You glanced at her from the corner of your eye, giving her a look you didn’t bother softening. You didn’t want to be upset with her—you didn’t—but she was holding onto the same information your dad was, and right now that felt just as bad.

“And why would I pass out, Jill?” you asked, shifting slightly in the chair, your legs still pulled in close to your chest beneath the blanket. “Wanna tell me what the hell’s wrong with me?”

She looked at you properly then, her expression changing just enough to show she was weighing her words before she closed the book and set it face-down on the table. She finished her drink in one last sip before pushing herself up, carrying the glass to the sink and setting it inside with a quiet clink.

“Listen—”

You groaned immediately, turning your head back toward the window, pulling the blanket higher around yourself like it might block her out. She was just like him, standing there, about to give you some half-ass answer that didn’t actually explain anything.

Your dad had been gone for over twenty-four hours.

Not a single update.

And at this point, you were starting to think they had one; they just weren’t giving it to you.

“Oh, come on,” Jill said, a little sharper now as she leaned her hip against the counter. “Don’t be like that. Your dad asked me to keep it on the down low. What do you want me to do?”

You didn’t answer.

You just kept staring out into the backyard, watching the sky grow darker as the rain picked up, the steady sound of it filling the silence between you. Whiskers had long since disappeared under the couch after a poorly timed crack of thunder sent him flying off the windowsill, leaving you alone in the chair with nothing but your thoughts and the sound of the storm.

“Fine,” Jill said after a moment. “You want the truth?”

That got your attention.

Not enough to fully turn toward her, but enough to shift slightly in your seat, your grip tightening just a bit on the blanket.

“The truth is, I don’t know what the hell he’s doing out there,” she admitted, her tone more grounded now, less guarded. “All I know is that he’s doing the same damn thing he always does when he goes out.”

You looked at her then, the question already written across your face.

“Risking his life for someone else.”

Your shoulders dropped at that, some of the tension leaving you even as something heavier settled in its place. It didn’t surprise you—not really—but hearing it out loud made it real in a way you couldn’t ignore.

Jill leaned forward slightly, her hands braced against the counter, her short hair falling just enough into her face that she had to push it back. “And I know him well enough to say this,” she added, her voice quieter now but no less certain. “He wouldn’t be risking his life the way he is if this wasn’t important.”

You looked back out into the rain, sighing, because that was the same thing everyone said about him. 

Jill watched you for a moment longer, something in her expression softening as she pushed herself fully away from the counter, her arms folding loosely across her chest as she stepped a little closer into the room. The edge in her voice from before faded, replaced with something steadier, something quieter.

“Hey,” she said, gentler now. “I get it. You’re upset. You’ve got every right to be.” She paused, like she was choosing her words carefully instead of just brushing you off. “But you gotta trust him. I did. More times than I can count, and it never led me wrong.”

You didn’t respond right away, your eyes still fixed on the rain streaking down the glass, but you listened.

“He’s a good man,” Jill continued, her tone firm in a way that didn’t feel forced. “Stubborn as hell, sure. Drives everyone around him insane. But he’s good. And he’d do anything for you.” There was a brief pause before she added, softer this time, “Just like he did anything for your mom.”

That made you shift.

Your gaze finally pulled away from the window, settling on her as something more curious replaced the frustration that had been sitting heavy in your chest.

“What were they like?” you asked, your voice quieter now. “Together. When they were working.”

Jill huffed out a small breath, something almost like a laugh slipping through as she shook her head slightly, like the question alone pulled her back somewhere else.

“They were…” she trailed off for a second, searching for the right word before giving up on finding just one. “A nightmare, honestly. Not in a bad way—just… you couldn’t separate them. Wherever one went, the other wasn’t far behind.”

You leaned back slightly in the chair, your attention fully on her now.

“There was this one op,” she continued, shifting her weight as she spoke, her tone easing into something more natural. “Italy, some underground lab that should’ve been wiped off the map years before we got there. Whole place was crawling with infected, barely any visibility, comms were shot halfway through, and we got split up almost immediately.”

You could picture it.

Too easily.

“Your mom took point without even thinking about it,” Jill said, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Didn’t wait for backup, didn’t wait for a plan. Just moved. And your dad—” she shook her head again, softer this time, “he didn’t even argue. Just followed her straight into it like that was always the plan.”

Your chest tightened slightly at that.

“They fought like hell, don’t get me wrong,” she added. “Argued over everything. Who was right, who made the better call, who almost got the other one killed. But when it mattered…” She let the sentence hang for a second before finishing it more quietly. “They trusted each other completely.”

You swallowed, your fingers tightening slightly in the blanket wrapped around your legs.

“They got us out of that place,” Jill went on, her voice quieter now, more reflective. “Not clean, not easy—but they did it. And I remember thinking after, watching them stand there covered in god knows what, still bickering like nothing happened…” She let out a soft breath. “They were made for each other. No question.”

The room fell quiet again, but it felt different this time.

Heavier.

Softer.

“I’m sorry,” Jill added after a moment, her voice losing some of that steadiness. “That you lost her.”

You didn’t know what to say to that.

Didn’t know if there even was something to say.

Your chest felt tight again, but not the same way as before, something deeper sitting beneath it, something you couldn’t quite sort through—

Jill’s phone rang.

The sound cut clean through the moment, sharp and out of place as she straightened slightly, reaching for it almost immediately. She glanced at the screen, and whatever she saw there wiped the softness from her expression in an instant.

“Hold on,” she muttered, already turning away as she answered, stepping toward the back door to give herself some space. You didn’t catch everything she said, just pieces, low and controlled, her tone shifting into something more professional and guarded.

You stayed where you were, watching the rain, your thoughts drifting back to everything she’d just said, the image of them together settling into your mind whether you wanted it to or not.

It felt warm.

And it hurt.

The door slid open, then shut again a moment later as Jill stepped back inside, her posture different now, her expression tighter than before.

She didn’t sit back down.

Didn’t pick up her book.

She just looked at you.

“It’s about your dad.”

—

He’d been out here all night, fighting his way through hell and back more times than he could count before he finally caught up with Grace. This was supposed to be simple: get in, fix it, get out, but nothing ever worked that way anymore. Not for him. Not when it tied back to something like this. He came out here to set things right, to get ahead of something before it spiraled out of control, and instead he could feel it catching up to him, settling deeper beneath his skin with every step he took.

His infection wasn’t waiting anymore.

It was moving.

The thought of his daughter hit him harder than anything else, flashing through his mind in quick, fractured pieces that refused to settle. The way she looked at him that morning. The way she tried to push him to talk. The way she didn’t know what was happening to her yet. Grace was a lot like her—same stubbornness hidden beneath something softer, same way of looking at the world, like it still had something worth holding onto. Grace was just… more hesitant. Less sure of where she stood. His daughter wasn’t like that. She had fire in her, even when she didn’t know what to do with it.

He wondered, briefly, if she would’ve made it out here.

If she would’ve been good in the field like this.

Then the thought twisted.

Maybe not.

Maybe she’d stay far away from all of it if he didn’t come back.

The idea settled heavy in his chest, but he pushed it down the same way he always did, forcing himself forward, forcing himself to focus on what was in front of him instead of what was waiting at home.

He would come back.

He had to.

“Go,” he urged, his voice tighter than he meant it to be as he motioned Grace forward, keeping himself between her and whatever was still chasing them. He watched her jump from the platform, his eyes tracking her until she landed safely below, until he knew she was steady enough to keep moving.

Then he followed.

His hands caught the edge as he hauled himself over, dropping down into the pit below, his boots hitting the ground harder than he intended, the impact sending something sharp up through his legs as he steadied himself. Grace was already pushing herself back up, still catching her balance, still trying to orient herself—

And then the world shifted.

It started slow.

A tilt.

A pull.

Like the ground beneath him wasn’t where it was supposed to be anymore.

“Grace—”

The word barely made it out before everything slipped.

The edges of his vision blurred, the weight of his body suddenly too much to hold, something inside him dragging him under faster than he could fight it. The sounds around him dulled, stretched thin, his thoughts scattering before he could grab onto any one of them—

And then it all went black.

—

When the darkness settled, it didn’t feel like nothing.

It felt warm.

Leon stood in the doorway of his home, the familiar creak of the floor beneath his boots grounding him in something that didn’t make sense and yet felt completely real. The air was soft, untouched, carrying the faint scent of something cooking in the kitchen, and for a moment he didn’t move, didn’t breathe, just stood there like if he took a step forward, it might all fall apart.

Then he heard it. Laughter. Light, easy and alive in a way that didn’t belong to the world he had just left behind.

He stepped inside before he could stop himself, his eyes adjusting to the warm glow spilling through the house as it wrapped around him like it had been waiting. The kitchen came into view first, sunlight catching along the counters, and then he saw them—his daughter perched on the counter, legs swinging idly as she leaned forward, laughing at something just out of his sight.

And then she stepped into view.

His wife. Alive. Whole. Untouched.

She moved like nothing had ever happened, like time hadn’t taken anything from them, like the world hadn’t carved itself into something unrecognizable. She reached up, nudging their daughter’s knee with a soft smile, saying something he couldn’t quite hear, and for a moment Leon forgot how to breathe.

Neither of them questioned why he was there. Neither of them looked surprised.

They just accepted him. Like he had always been there. Like he had never left.

His daughter looked up first, her eyes finding him instantly, lighting in a way that hit him harder than anything else. “You’re late,” she said, her tone light, teasing, but something about it didn’t sit right.

Leon stepped forward slowly, his gaze flicking between them, trying to hold onto every detail before it slipped away. “Yeah,” he said, quieter than he expected. “Traffic.”

His wife smiled, something soft and knowing in the curve of her lips as she turned toward him. “You always have an excuse.”

It should have felt normal. It should have felt like home.

But something was off.

The music box sat open on the counter behind them, the ballerina spinning perfectly in time to a melody that wasn’t broken anymore, the tune clear and clean in a way it hadn’t been in years. It was too perfect, too whole, and Leon’s gaze lingered on it for just a second too long before something shifted.

The warmth thinned. The light dimmed.

And when he looked back at her— The kitchen was gone.

Cold replaced it.

Damp.

The air was thick and suffocating, the sound of distant dripping echoing through the space as the world snapped into something darker, something real. The subway tunnel stretched around them, cracked tile and rusted metal swallowing the edges of his vision, and his wife was there, on the ground, slumped against the wall, blood soaking through her clothes, her breathing uneven as her hand trembled against the concrete.

Leon staggered back a step, the shift hitting him all at once as his chest tightened, his gaze locking onto her as if he looked away, she might disappear again.

“You always leave,” she said, her voice raw, quieter than it should have been for something that carried so much weight. Her eyes lifted to him slowly, glassy but aware, and the look in them made something in him falter. “Why did you leave me?”

His head shook immediately, the words pushing out before he could stop them. “I didn’t want to—”

“You did,” she cut in, not raising her voice, not angry, just certain in a way that left no room to argue. “You always do.”

Leon’s breath caught, his hands hovering uselessly at his sides like he didn’t know whether to move toward her or stay where he was, like any choice he made would be the wrong one.

“I came back,” he said, his voice tightening, grasping for something that sounded right. “I’m here.”

She looked at him for a long moment, something soft flickering through the pain before it settled into something else entirely.

“Not in time.”

The words landed harder than anything else.

The tunnel seemed to close in around him, the dripping echoing louder now, rhythmic and relentless, and she shifted slightly against the wall, her breath hitching before she spoke again, quieter this time, but no less heavy.

“Don’t make her watch you disappear too.”

His chest tightened, something sharp pulling through him as the words settled in, and for a moment he couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but stand there as the weight of it pressed down.

Then the world shifted again.

The damp air vanished. The tunnel dissolved. And suddenly he turned around—

He was standing in a doorway.

Not the kitchen.

Hhis daughters room.

The glow-in-the-dark stars flickered faintly above, even in the daylight, casting soft shadows across the walls as she sat at the end of the bed, the broken music box resting in her hands. The porcelain pieces were cradled carefully in her lap, like she was afraid they might fall apart further if she held them wrong.

When she looked up at him, she wasn’t scared or confused. She just waited.

“You said you’d fix it.”

Leon stepped forward, something tightening painfully in his chest as his eyes dropped to the broken pieces, then back to her. “I will,” he said quickly, the words coming out sharper than he meant. “I just need—”

She coughed.

The sound cut through everything, sharp and wrong, and his focus snapped back to her as her hand came up to cover her mouth. When she pulled it away, the blood was there again, and the sight of it made something inside him twist as her sleeve slipped just enough to reveal the dark veins threading beneath her skin.

“You said you’d fix it,” she repeated, softer now.

His breath faltered as he took another step closer, reaching out like he could stop it, like he could undo it before it spread any further. “I’m trying,” he said, his voice breaking despite himself. “I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

She didn’t move. Didn’t reach back.

She just looked at him.

“You always say that.”

The room fell quiet. There was no music. No movement. Just the weight of everything sitting between them.

Then—

The sound cut through everything, pulling at him, dragging him back toward something he couldn’t see yet, something just out of reach.

“Dad.”

Leon’s head turned slightly, his focus shifting, the room around him beginning to blur at the edges as the warmth faded, the light dimming, everything slipping—

“Dad, wake up.”

Leon coughed hard as consciousness snapped back into place, air catching wrong in his lungs as everything rushed him at once, sound, light, and pain, all of it colliding as he dragged in a breath that didn’t feel like enough. His hand came up instinctively to his chest as he forced himself upright, his body lagging behind the command as the world tilted slightly before settling again.

Grace was already there, moving into his space the second he stirred, dropping beside him with a sharp exhale of relief that she didn’t even try to hide. “Leon—are you okay?” Her voice wavered despite herself, the question coming out faster than she could steady it as she hovered close, unsure whether to touch him or give him space.

“Yeah—” he rasped, still catching his breath, dragging a hand over his face as he blinked hard, trying to force the last of the haze away. “Yeah… I’m good.” His voice didn’t quite match the words, but he pushed through it anyway, shifting his weight until he felt grounded enough to sit up properly. “How long was I out?”

“I—I don’t know,” she admitted, her hands tightening slightly in her lap as she glanced at him, then away, then back again. “A while.”

Leon nodded faintly, more to himself than to her, his breathing still uneven as he pulled himself the rest of the way up, steadying through the motion until the spinning stopped fighting him. His body felt heavier than it should have, slower to respond, but he forced it into line, forcing himself back into control one piece at a time.

“Those marks…” Grace’s voice was quieter now, hesitant, her eyes fixed on him in a way that told him she’d already seen more than he would have preferred.

Leon followed her gaze briefly before looking back at her, already knowing what she was seeing, what it must look like from the outside. “It’s T-virus,” he said, the words coming out simpler than the truth behind them. He hesitated for just a second before adding, “Stage three infection.”

The silence that followed wasn’t long, but it was enough.

She shook her head slightly, confusion and disbelief mixing together as she tried to make sense of it. “If you’re that sick… why would you come here?”

Leon let out a quiet breath, something almost humorless pulling at the corner of his mouth as he looked away for a second, his gaze landing somewhere past her, somewhere distant.

That was the question, wasn’t it?

The one he didn’t have a clean answer for.

Leon let out a slow breath, like the answer wasn’t sitting in front of him, like it stretched somewhere further back, somewhere heavier. “Because this is my last chance to change things,” he said finally, his voice quieter now, steadier in a way that felt practiced. “My last chance to make things right that I’ve screwed up since the very beginning.”

He shifted his weight slightly, one hand still pressed faintly to his side as if grounding himself there, his jaw tightening before he continued. “I’ve lost people to this,” he added, the words coming out more plainly than he intended. “And I will keep losing people to this if I don’t do something about it.”

A small, breathless laugh slipped out of him then, barely there but enough to catch, like the weight of it had finally found a crack to push through. It didn’t sound amused. It sounded tired. “You know… all this time I’ve been dealing with it, carrying it around like it was mine to fix, and I couldn’t even tell my daughter about it.” He shook his head faintly, his eyes dropping for a second before he dragged them back up. “Thought if I kept it from her… she’d understand. Or maybe I just didn’t want her looking at me like that.”

Grace stared at him for a moment, something softer settling into her expression despite everything else still pressing in around them. “You have a daughter?”

That got something different out of him.

Not lighter.

But… softer.

“Yeah,” he said, and this time the word came easier. There was something almost grounding in it, like saying it out loud pulled him back into something real. “She’s twenty-four. Still lives in my spare bedroom.” A faint breath of something warmer touched his expression before he shook his head slightly. “Though I guess it was never really a spare. It was always hers. Always will be.”

For a second, the noise of everything around them seemed to fade, like the chaos had pulled back just enough to let that sit.

Then it came back.

Leon straightened slightly, his expression shifting again, settling into something more certain, something harder to shake. When he looked at Grace this time, there was no hesitation left in it.

“I’m here for her,” he said, his voice firm now, steady in a way it hadn’t been before. “Because I refuse to let her watch me disappear.”

—

The moment the call ended, everything moved fast.

Jill didn’t waste any time. The second she heard that your dad and the agent had been picked up, she was already grabbing her keys, already moving toward you, already pulling you up from the chair before you could even process what was happening. Her hand was firm on your arm, steady, guiding, as if she didn’t keep you moving, you might collapse right there.

“They found something,” she said quickly as she helped you toward the door, her voice sharp with urgency but edged with something else, something almost like relief. “Something that can help you. Something you need.”

You didn’t ask questions.

Didn’t have the energy to.

You just let her lead you, your body lagging behind your thoughts as she got you into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut before circling around to the driver’s side. The engine roared to life, and then you were moving—fast.

Too fast.

The world blurred past the windows, the rain still clinging to the roads as Jill pushed the car harder than she probably should have, weaving through turns with a focus that didn’t leave room for hesitation. You sat there, curled slightly into yourself beneath layers of fabric, long sleeves, a hoodie pulled tight, and sweatpants bunched at your ankles, your fingers gripping at the seat as your heart pounded harder with every mile.

You didn’t know what you were about to walk into.

But you knew it wasn’t good.

When you finally arrived, it was chaos.

Sirens cut through the air, flashing lights bouncing off wet pavement and broken ground as emergency units swarmed the scene. A helicopter had landed just beyond the clearing, its blades slowing as agents and medics moved around it in controlled disorder, voices overlapping, radios crackling, everything too loud, too bright, too real.

You’d never seen this side of his world before.

Not like this.

And for the first time, you understood.

Jill was already out of the car, moving to your side as she pulled the door open and helped you out, her grip steady as your shoes sank slightly into the mud beneath you. Your legs felt weak, your body heavier than it should have been, but none of it mattered, not when your eyes were already scanning, already searching.

And then—

You saw him.

Just across the clearing.

Standing near the helicopter, talking to a shorter-haired blonde girl sitting inside, his back turned slightly as he leaned in, like he was making sure she was okay.

Alive.

There.

Something inside you snapped loose.

All the worry, all the fear, all the thoughts that had been building over the last twenty-four hours came rushing forward at once, crashing through you so fast it almost knocked the breath from your lungs.

“Dad!”

Your voice broke as it left you, louder than anything else in the chaos, and he heard it.

Of course he did.

He turned immediately, scanning for the source, and the second his eyes landed on you, everything else around him seemed to fall away.

You were already moving.

Running—if it could even be called that—pushing through the weakness, through the ache in your chest, through whatever was trying to drag you down, because none of it mattered anymore.

He was here.

And that was enough.

He moved toward you just as fast, closing the distance in seconds, and when you finally collided, it was messy and uncoordinated and perfect all at once, your arms wrapping around his neck as he caught you, pulling you tight against him like he wasn’t letting go.

“You’re okay,” you said, the words tumbling out between breaths, between tears you couldn’t stop as they spilled over. “You’re okay.”

He held you tighter at that, one hand pressing firmly against your back as the other came up to steady you, grounding you against him before he finally pulled back just enough to look at you.

“I’m okay,” he said, his voice softer now, steadier than you’d heard it in a long time. His hands came up to your face, brushing your hair back gently as he wiped at your tears with his thumbs. “I’m okay, baby girl.”

That was all it took.

The tears came faster, hotter, and overwhelming as you leaned back into him, your arms wrapping around him again, as if you let go, he might disappear.

But he didn’t.

He felt… different.

Better.

The weight that had been sitting on him, the exhaustion, the darkness in his eyes—it wasn’t there anymore. Or at least not in the same way. There was something else now, something steadier, something that looked a lot like hope.

He held you there for a moment longer, like he was grounding himself in you just as much as you were in him, his hand steady at your back as your breathing slowly began to even out. The chaos around you didn’t stop; sirens still cut through the air, and voices still overlapped, but none of it seemed to reach the space the two of you had carved out in that moment.

When he finally pulled back, it wasn’t far.

Just enough to look at you again.

His hands stayed at your face, thumbs brushing gently beneath your eyes to catch the last of your tears as his gaze searched yours, like he was making sure you were really there, that you were okay, that he hadn’t come back too late.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said again, quieter this time, but no less certain.

You nodded, even though your throat still felt tight, even though the tears hadn’t fully stopped. You believed him.

For the first time in a long time—

You believed him.

His hand dropped slowly from your face then, and for a second you thought he was pulling away again, that the moment was over, but instead he reached for something else. You watched as he slipped his glove off, the movement familiar, practiced, revealing faint marks along his skin that were fading. 

Like they had never been there at all.

From his pocket, he pulled something small, something you recognized immediately even before he turned it in his fingers.

His wedding ring.

The metal caught the light for just a second as he looked down at it, his expression shifting, not breaking, not falling apart, just softening in a way that made your chest ache for a different reason now.

Carefully, he slid it back onto his finger, settling it into place like it had always belonged there, like it had just been waiting for him to come back to it.

“And neither is she,” he said quietly.

You knew exactly what he meant.

Not gone.

Not forgotten.

Not something that would fade with time just because it hurt to hold onto.

You stepped forward again without thinking, wrapping your arms around him one more time, and this time when he held you, it felt different.

“Now how about we get you all fixed up, huh?”

You laughed into his chest, through your tears and suffocated emotions. You weren't holding onto him so he wouldn’t slip away.