Andy

Iōdēs, Vermithor! Dive, Vermithor!

Jace! Jace!

Vermithor sōvēs! Vermithor, fly!

THE RED KEEP, KING'S LANDING. YEAR 130 AC — FORENOON

The chamber stank of hot wax and old parchment. Light came slanting through the narrow window to lay pale bars across the writing table, and there Alicent Hightower pressed her signet into the cooling black of the seal. Helaena stood beside her and watched the green wax pucker and set, her fingers worrying at the edge of one sleeve. When she spoke her voice was soft, and it was certain.

"You are frightened." She did not make a question of it. She had read it already, in the tightness of her mother's jaw.

Before the Queen Dowager could answer, the door flew wide with a crack of timber upon stone. A servant spilled into the room half-doubled and gasping, his tunic gone dark with sweat at the collar. Both women startled. Alicent's hand jerked, and a smear of wax streaked across the corner of the letter.

"My Lady!" the man wheezed. One palm braced hard against the doorframe.

"What is it?" Alicent demanded. Her brows lifted in equal measure of alarm and displeasure, that she should be so rudely disturbed.

"They have taken one of the Blacks. King Aemond is with her. He has carried her to his own chambers." The words came tumbling between labored breaths, each of them a struggle to seize air enough to speak.

Helaena's gaze went to her mother, bewilderment softening her face. "Her?" she echoed.

"Into his chambers?" Alicent's brow knit. Mother and daughter traded a single wary glance, then turned back to the man crumpling in the doorway.

"The rider of Vermithor, My Lady."

Both women's eyes went wide in the same breath, understanding bloomed cold and immediate. One last look passed from one to the other, and then they were moving, brushing past the servant in such haste that the letter to Lord Ormund — bidding him halt his ride to King's Landing — lay forgotten upon the table.

By the time they came to the far corridor they found Grand Maester Orwyle drawing the chamber door shut with a slow and careful hand. He caught sight of them, inclined his head in silent deference, and went on his way without a word. The two women slipped within, and what greeted them stole the breath from Alicent's throat.

The young king sat upon the edge of the bed, his lean frame reclined at ease, one hand moving in slow and tender circles across your brow. You lay unmoving beneath his touch. Your face was slack with deep unknowing, and you showed no least intent of waking. The messenger, then, had not spun lies to earn his keep. Alicent felt the horror climb in her chest, and Helaena's hand flew to her own mouth.

"Some men of the Triarchy found her in the waters," Aemond said. His voice was pitched scarce above a whisper, that he might not wake you.

"Is she alright?" Helaena stepped toward the bedside, drawn by concern, but her mother's arm shot across her waist and pressed her still.

"A few small hurts, save the one to her left shoulder." Aemond traced the linen bandage there with a gentleness that seemed near to reverent, and you stirred, wincing faintly at the pressure. "An arrow pierced her clean through, though the maester swears it shall knit well enough in time. Orwyle has given her a generous draught of the milk of the poppy, to blunt the worst of it."

Helaena, unconvinced, sought her mother's eyes. Alicent held her daughter's gaze and gave the smallest nod, tipping her head toward the door. Helaena hesitated, her fingers curling, and then she withdrew and pulled the heavy door closed behind her with plain reluctance.

"And her dragon?" Alicent asked, once they were alone.

"I am told the beast escaped." Aemond let out his breath, his single violet eye never once leaving your face. "She has always prized every soul above her own life, that one. It matters little. I need not fly to Harrenhal now. Rhaenyra has lost one of her greatest riders and her largest dragon, and with the Hightower host soon to join us, the advantage falls to us."

"No." Alicent's voice went hard. "That is not near enough. Rhaenyra commands more dragons than we do."

"And yet we hold two of the largest beasts ever to weather a war beside our forebears," Aemond answered, in no haste at all. "Her dragons are untried and half-grown, save only our uncle Daemon's mount."

Alicent crossed her arms. Her voice thinned with disbelief. "And what makes you believe she would ever raise her arms for the Greens? Her own sister names herself heir to the Iron Throne, and there she lies, broken and unfit to lift so much as a spoon."

"She can lift a good deal more than that. Whatever frailness others read in her, she has ever carried an iron will beneath it." Aemond's mouth curved as he studied the slow rise and fall of your breathing. "She will heal. And when she wakes and heals, she shall stand beside me as my queen."

"Queen?" The word left Alicent as though it had scalded her tongue.

"I mean to wed her, mother."

"Have you lost every scrap of sense the gods gave you?" Alicent hissed, stepping nearer, her hands atremble with the fury she fought to keep behind her teeth. "Have you forgotten your crimes against her kin? The very hour she opens her eyes, she will slit your throat, or beg to have hers opened, before ever she bends the knee to a Green."

"Then we shall furnish her a reason to stand with us."

"A reason?" Alicent laughed, low and brittle. "And what reason could we hold that might bend a heart so wounded as hers?"

Aemond turned to face his mother. A slow smile spread across his sharp features, cold and certain and terrible to behold.

"They have taken Viserys as well."

The breath went out of Alicent entire. She stood stricken and speechless, her lips parting around words that would not come, her fingers pressing white against the fabric of her green skirts.

"Summon the council, Mother. Our plans have shifted beneath our feet, and for once the change favors us." Aemond turned back to you, and his voice dropped once more to that private hush. "The gods have chosen their side, and it is ours."

Alicent's footsteps receded down the corridor, and when the silence had swallowed them whole, Aemond took up his slow caress across your face once more, and sank down into the old memory.

You had been older than him by no more than a handful of summers, and yet in his boyhood you had been the whole of his refuge. He remembered the days when his mother and father turned their faces toward Aegon and left him standing in the cold margins of their notice. You alone had gathered him close and made him feel as though he mattered. You who had never once laughed to see him stand dragonless among kin who sneered. You who had knelt before him after the loss of his eye, and held his hand while the maesters cleaned the ruined socket, and told him he was handsome still, that one day he would rise and astonish every soul who had ever reckoned him small. That good things came to those who waited.

You had never truly grasped how much you had meant to him, how many times you had soothed and shielded and tended him and asked nothing in return. Now, he thought, the debt would come round.

When the realm had split into Black and Green, your choice had broken something in his chest that had never mended. He had lain awake through whole nights weighing whether he ought to set aside his brother's claim and follow you instead. He had written to you throughout the war, and not once had you answered. Of course you had not. Not after what he had done to Luke. His spies had carried back word of your grief, and it had gutted him to hear it. He had never meant to wound you. He had never wanted your pain. He let his eye trace every line of your sleeping face, drinking down all the years he had been denied, filling himself with the plain fact of your presence at the last.

AEMOND'S CHAMBER, RED KEEP. A FEW NIGHTS PAST —FORENOON

Somewhere in the drowning space between the poppy's dark and the waking world, you felt something coarse and warm pressed with unhurried tenderness against your lips.

When the blackness began to thin and drift apart, the shape of a chamber rose slowly about you. Walls washed in low golden light. The smell of candles and the faint iron tang of your own healing wound.

Your eyes swam across the dim room and caught upon a figure rising hesitantly from the shadows in the far corner. Your pulse quickened, and memory came surging back in jagged pieces. Viserys taken. Jacaerys diving too near the ramparts to reach him. Vermax torn from the sky by bolts.

You pushed to sit upright, straining to put distance between yourself and the shape drawing near, when a bright lance of pain shot up from your left shoulder into the base of your skull. A hiss slid through your teeth, and you fell back against the pillows.

"You mustn't move," the figure said quickly. "The maesters warned that you must lie still."

The voice, to your flooding relief, belonged to a woman. A voice sweet and warm, and so familiar that you had not known how long you had ached to hear it.

"Helaena?" Your own voice came out cracked and trembling.

"Y/N." Your half sister moved from the shadow into the reaching sunlight, her silver-gold hair taking up the pale glow as she hurried to your side. She braced her hands beneath your good arm and eased you upright, and only when you had steadied did the two of you fold into one another, holding on with a desperate strength.

"Oh, how I have missed you," Helaena breathed into your good shoulder.

"And I you, sister." She pressed her cheek nearer, and you flinched despite yourself, the movement jarring the arrow wound.

"Sorry." She drew back at once, and you gave her a thin and weary smile.

"Do not fret over it." You let your gaze travel the strange room. "Where am I?"

"In King's Landing. Within the Red Keep."

"I remember so little of what happened."

"They say you dismounted your dragon mid air to chase after Jacaerys in the waters." Helaena's hands settled over yours.

You gripped her fingers, your eyes stinging as the memory clawed its way back to the surface.

"Is he alive?" you pressed, searching her gentle face, and the low bow of her head told you all you dreaded before her mouth ever moved.

"I do not know."

"And Vermax?"

She shook her head slowly. "I was told only that Vermithor took to the air and fled, and that you were taken. Aemond had you brought here, to his own chambers, to mend."

"Of course he did." His letters rose again in your mind, one after another, each more desperate than the last, declaring a devotion you had never been able to return. Custom held that Valyrian blood must wed Valyrian blood, and yet after your mother's death you had passed your girlhood in the keeping of Alicent and her father Otto Hightower, raised beneath the Faith and all its teachings, and somewhere across those years you had turned away from the old ways of your forebears. You could summon within yourself no longing for your half brother that answered the ferocity of his own.

Choosing to set the grim matters aside a moment, you wiped your eyes with the back of your wrist and folded Helaena's soft hands in yours once more. She had grown so much in your absence, and the knowing that you had left her behind pained every corner of your heart. You had been an elder sister to her since she was small, and you had never forgotten the sight of her weeping the day you fled the capital.

"And you? Are you well? Your children. I heard you had been blessed with children."

"Jaehaera. She thrives, thank the gods." Helaena's voice faltered. "But my son —"

"I was told. I am so terribly sorry."

"That is no fault of yours," she said quietly. "You need not carry it."

"Helaena, I —" But before you could pour out how terribly you had yearned to look on her again, the chamber door was shouldered open without so much as a knock, and an armored guard filled the frame.

"We were ordered to bring the captive before the council."

"You will not take her." Helaena rose at once and set herself before you, planting her body between you and the intruder. "She must rest. The maesters have said as much."

"Lord Ormund Hightower has come within the hour, and the small council is summoned. They will decide the fate of the traitor. These are the King's own orders."

"She is no traitor." Helaena lifted her chin, though you marked the faint quiver running through her shoulders. "She is my sister, she is wounded, and she requires rest. I am the Queen —"

You watched her hold herself tall against her own nature, straining to be the strongest thing in the room for your sake, and it moved you so deeply that your throat closed about the sight. You slid your hand into hers, then braced your uninjured arm against the mattress and pushed yourself upright. Helaena spun at once to catch and steady you.

"Helaena. It is alright. I shall go."

"Are you certain?" she asked, the worry drawing tight across her brow.

"You have grown so well, and I am prouder of you than I have words to say. But I must go." You tucked a loose strand of silver-gold hair back from her eyes and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, and she returned it with a mournful smile. As your fingers slipped from hers, the guard closed the iron manacles about your wrists.

"You mustn't —" she began.

"Helaena. I will be fine." You held her gaze until she gave a small, unwilling nod and let your hands go at the last, and she stood there watching, grief carved plain across her face, as the guards turned you toward the door and led you out into the corridor beyond.

THE SMALL COUNCIL, THE RED KEEP. — AFTERNOON

The guard brought you down the corridor, and the iron at your wrists sang against the stone with every dragging step, the sound doubling and going hollow against the vaults overhead. You had lost the count of days since these halls had been yours, since the smell of them— cold ash and the slow rot of tapestries hung too long untended— had meant home. The tall doors of the council chamber groaned inward, and you were delivered into a room already turned your way, every face lifted, every voice stilled, the whole assembly seated about the long table with the patience of men who had waited an age for the sight of your ruin.

Alicent saw you first. She rose to her feet, the chair legs scraping backward, and she crossed the floor to you with her skirts still settling about her ankles.

"Unchain her, this instant." The command carried a mother's authority, and it suffered no delay. Her hands came to your face, quick and gentle both, cupping your jaw, turning it to the light, hunting for hurt, for fever, for any wound she might yet soothe.

The war had made enemies of the two of you, and still the tenderness had not died out of her. She had kept you as the younger sister the gods had denied her, and after your own mother went into the ground beneath the sept, you had folded yourself into Alicent's shadow and followed her.

"My Queen, you forget yourself." The voice came from behind her shoulder, honeyed and cultured, in no haste at all. "She is our enemy, and you would do well to remember it. She stood among those who bore arms most fiercely against your son's rightful claim."

The man who spoke wore velvet the green of pine boughs, his doublet panelled with supple leather that traced a chest and shoulders. Light brown curls lay ordered against a hard, defined jaw, and he sat his chair with the ease of a man who had never once doubted his welcome, spine straight, chin lifted. At his words the Queen Dowager's hands wavered, and by slow degrees she drew them from your cheeks.

"Step aside, Alicent, and take your seat," Otto Hightower said from the head of the table. "We have matters at hand."

Alicent gave you one downcast, shamed glance and withdrew to her chair, and you were left to look upon the chamber. They sat straight to a man, composed and correct, and near the middle of the assembly, at Otto's very elbow, you found the figure you had spent months refusing to name— the hand behind every letter that had crossed enemy lines to reach you. His single eye had fixed on you the moment you crossed the threshold, and it had not let you go since. Long hair, silver gold, lay combed against the hard planes of his face, and the leather patch sat where it always did, hiding what Luke had gifted him.

Then the absence struck you, and something cold and molten turned over in your belly.

"Where is he?" You lurched a stride forward. "What have you done with Viserys and Jace?" The guards moved to seize you, and one closed his gauntlet on your wounded arm, and a sharp cry came through your teeth as the pain flared white. Aemond marked it— the wince, the buckle of your knees.

"Leave her," he said, and the guards let go at once.

"Where is Aegon? Where are my nephews?"

"Jacaerys was reported slain," Otto answered, unruffled, "at the Battle of the Gullet. Shot down by archers of the Triarchy's ships." He rose as he spoke, his chair shrieking backward across the flags, and started his slow approach.

The horror came into you whole and cold, and your legs gave beneath the weight of it, and you sank to your knees upon the stone. The tears gathered slow at first, brimming, trembling, and then they broke and ran hot down your face. Something in the grief of it turned Alicent's face away entirely, for she could not look upon what her house had made of you. You had never wanted any part of it—not the war, not the fire, none of it. You had been a mild and yielding girl, near kin in temper to her own Helaena, dreaming of nothing but the weightless drift above the clouds on a dragon's back. And Alicent's own hand had forced the choosing on you, cleaving you between the sister of your blood and the sister you had found in her.

The council watched while you buried your face in your palms and wept in a way that split the air of the room. Alicent tore at the tender skin beside her nails and swallowed down the tears crowding her own throat, and even Aemond turned his face aside. As Otto closed the last of the distance, your grief hardened all at once into something with an edge, and your hand shot for the dagger at his belt, and you drew it free with a swiftness that startled even you. You drove him back against the table and set the blade to the pale flesh of his throat. His hair fanned across the polished wood beneath him, and both his palms came up in surrender.

"Where is Aegon?" you demanded.

The whole council seized. Some rose halfway from their seats, caught between sitting and standing; others gained their feet; and the guards held their distance with their hands curled at their sword hilts, every man of them still, lest any motion undo you.

"Where is Aegon? He will answer for what he has done, and you will answer for conspiring against my family and my sister."

"How brazen of you to set steel to a servant of the King" Otto grated.

"Aegon is no king. He is a thief in a crown, and you are the who engineered it."

"My brother has fled." Aemond's voice cut across the chamber for the first time. "I am king now."

"King?" The word tangled in your confusion, but your grip on the dagger did not move.

"Just so. His whereabouts elude us, and his intentions with them." His tone stayed easy, near to conversation.

You turned your eyes back to Otto, his hands still lifted in supplication. "Where is Viserys?" you pressed, and the edge kissed nearer to his pulse.

"Sagon sȳzorys, hāedar." Aemond had gone over to High Valyrian, be calm, sister, the old tongue sealing his words from every unlettered ear at the table. "Zirȳ lív’ethva, se zirȳ issa ünn’hárhmëdā. Mazilībagon ilagon se egros, lo ao would gaomagon zirȳla sīr. Kostan sagon hen gaomagon naejot ao." He lives, and he is unharmed. Set down the blade, if you would keep him so. I can be of use to you.

He rose from his chair by slow degrees, and every eye in the room left you to follow him. "Give me the dagger."

You shook your head at the mention of the nephew you had lost, and the tears gathered again, blurring the chamber to smears of green and torchlight.

"Y/N, kostilus." Please. He put out his hand, palm open and empty between you. "Bisa iksis daor qilōni iksā." This is not who you are.

With a reluctance that dragged at every muscle, you laid the blade into his waiting palm, and the whole terrible weight of the morning came down on you at once. You pitched backwards, and he caught you before you struck the floor, though not before he had set the dagger deliberately upon the table, well beyond your reach. You wept against his chest, and he stroked your hair with a patience that unsettled the watching lords.

Otto drew a long breath once you had freed him, and the Grand Maester rose to his side to look him over for hurt; he waved the man off with a curt nod, took up his dagger again, and returned to his chair. Across the room, Ormund Hightower settled back to watch with something near to boredom, his eyes wandering the walls.

"The council has resolved that you be imprisoned for your crimes," Otto began, smoothing his sleeve as though the last minutes had never come to pass. "Some among us urged the block instead, for your dragon set aflame a great many of our men."

"My crimes?" You lifted your head from Aemond's shoulder. "I sought only to restore the rightful heir to her throne, precisely as my father decreed." Your eyes went about the assembly, and not a lord among them found his tongue. "Do you imagine I wished to burn those people alive? Do you imagine I wished to be sundered between my own blood and the family that reared me? I was given no choice in it. I was made to watch everyone I loved perish. I was made to stand before one of the deadliest warborn dragons yet living and beg it to take me, that I might guard my family in a war I neither began nor wanted. A war that you crafted. I never craved a moment of this, and you know it! You, Lord Otto, and you above all, Alicent! And still it is my crime we speak of?"

The tears cut fresh channels down your cheeks as you spoke. Alicent bowed her head under the weight of her shame, and even Otto Hightower found his practiced eloquence gone from him. Silence threaded through the grief that filled the chamber, and Aemond drew you back against him and held you there.

A moment on, Otto took it up again, his voice gentled to something near to human. "The king has entreated us for your mercy. He would spare your life" he paused "were you to consent to be his queen."

At the words, Alicent watched Ormund, a devout servant of the Seven, shift in his seat and roll his eyes in open revulsion, for the marriage of siblings stood condemned by the holy texts, and he loathed the practice beyond all the many trespasses of the dragonlords he named, in the privacy of his own counsel, incestuous savage foreigners.

"Be my queen, and reign at my side," Aemond murmured against your hair, "exactly as we were always meant to."

You thrust yourself out of his arms, and for the briefest instant the hurt flickered across his one eye.

"I am your sister," you said, sharp with offense. At that, Ormund turned toward you, faintly surprised.

"Mm. I fail to see the obstacle," Aemond answered, laboring to gather his composure again, though the first thread of anger had begun to fray his measured tone.

"It is an abomination before the gods to do such a thing."

Ormund's head came fully round to you now, his eyes tracing your figure on the floor and the true revulsion written across your face.

"We are Valyrians," Aemond returned. "We do not bend the knee to their gods. Aegon the Conqueror united the Seven Kingdoms with his sister-wives at his side, and we shall do no less."

"You killed Luke—"

"Which, as I have told you a hundred times over, was a grievous accident."

"I would be forsaking my sister's claim to the throne."

"A woman has no place upon that throne."

"Then neither have I any place as your wife."

You saw it in his face before he said another word, the moment his patience reached its last measure. Yet he did not loose his temper, for he never let himself such an indulgence before you. He rose to his feet with a deliberate slowness and poise, and the warmth that had earlier filled his eye drained away entirely.

"Then I shall have no recourse but to take Helaena as my queen in your stead, and the council shall determine what becomes of Viserys."

Your eyes flew wide as the full shape of the words settled into you. Here was a snare laid with exquisite care, a threat sheathed in courtesy, and you knew it, and the whole council knew it. He knew you, knew the depth of your love for Helaena, knew how fiercely you guarded the innocent, how tenderly you held your nephew, and he had turned the very gentleness he prized in you into the instrument of your undoing.

"Guards, escort her to the barracks," Aemond said, serene once more.

Alicent came near out of her chair at the words, but your voice arrested her mid-motion, striking her through with shock and guilt in equal measure. Even Ormund leaned forward, wholly taken now

"I will do it."

Aemond turned his head a fraction toward you, and you watched the anger recede from him as a small, near-imperceptible smile of triumph settled on his mouth.

"I will marry you. I will take up arms beside the Greens. But you will spare Viserys. I will trade my own life for his, provided only that you return him safe and unharmed to my sister, and that Helaena remains free."

Alicent picked at her fingers without cease, warring against the guilt and sorrow that clenched about her chest, and Ormund, seated beside her, marked every twitch of it.

"Ñuha jorrāelagon, nyke ao shifang." My love, I knew you would come to understand. Aemond crossed to you, his hand outstretched, and you took it as he drew you to your feet.

"Convey my betrothed to her chambers. She has need of a great deal of rest." With his fingertips he brushed the damp, frayed strands from your cheek, then pressed a kiss to the crown of your head. Your hands curled to tight fists at your sides, and though the gesture escaped Aemond entirely, Ormund did not miss it, and found himself unexpectedly intrigued.

As you were led from the chamber, the council settled anew, and Aemond reclaimed his seat at its head.

"I propose the marriage be held upon the morrow," he announced, and every face at the table turned to him in bewilderment, every face save Ormund's, which wore its disgust behind only the thinnest veil.

"The morrow?" Otto repeated.

"It would be most imprudent to stage wedding festivities while your people bleed upon the field, your grace," Ormund said.

"This is precisely the hour for it. Turn their gaze. Give them the sight of Black and Green joined, and the hope of peace with it."

Ormund scoffed openly.

"We cannot yet be certain she is a trustworthy ally, let alone a queen worth the crowning," the Lord of Hightower returned.

"Lord Ormund speaks sense," Alicent put in. "A wedding at this juncture would be gravely ill-timed, above all with our resources running so thin."

"Perhaps a modest feast instead," Otto added, "a celebration of our present advantage. The Blacks have lost one of their most formidable riders, and their largest dragon has once more vanished from the reckoning. Cause enough for the pouring of wine."

Aemond watched the assembly incline their heads, one after another.

"Mm," he allowed through his lips, and he pushed himself from his chair and strode from the chamber without another word.

Ormund turned a knowing smile upon Otto Hightower, and with that the council drew to its close.

AEMOND'S CHAMBER AND THE GREAT HALL, RED KEEP. — EVENING

The guards brought you to Aemond's chambers, and none who watched thought it strange, for a prince who had wanted you across the long years of the war was not a man to trust a locked door and a stretch of corridor to keep you. They left you at the door and spoke no word, and the oaken door settled into its frame with a low and final groan. When you were alone, with no lord left to defy and no eyes left to mark you, you folded yourself down upon the coverlet, drew your knees close, and wept. The weeping ran its course until it thinned to a shallow breathing, and the breathing gave way to a sleep that took you under.

You woke to hands upon you and voices hushed against your ear. Lady's maids had come while you slept, and they roused you with the carefully. There was to be a banquet, they told you, held to honor your return to the green cause, and Aemond had made it known that he wished you seated among the gathered houses.

They drew a bath scented with rose oil and hot enough to redden the skin, and after they dressed you with the reverence of women handling a thing borrowed and dear. You abhorred it.The gown was Myrish silk the deep color of a forest at dusk, threaded with pale gold at the bodice, and at your throat they hung jewels that took the candlelight and cast it back in broken green. When they led you before the looking glass a stranger looked out at you, for the war had worn you down to boiled leather and riding velvet, to boots scuffed grey with ash and gloves stiffened by rein and buckle, and the highborn lady in the glass was one you had not worn in many seasons.

The feast was no feast at all. However beautiful you sat beneath the great iron chandeliers, however grandly Otto Hightower had named your return to the faith and the cause, you gathered naught for your trouble but appraising stares and the sidelong doubt of lords who had not forgotten which banners you had ridden beneath a fortnight past.

The Great Hall stank of spilled Arbor gold and roasted boar fat, of wax guttering low and the sour press of too many bodies beneath cold stone, and the noise of it beat at you from every side, the chatter and the clatter of trenchers and a lute that struggled to be heard above them. Aemond did not once leave your side. His hand lay at the small of your back, or laced through your fingers, or lifted to press his mouth against your knuckles, and each of these you suffered stiffly, and your unease did not escape the notice of a certain Lord seated further down the board.

"You have changed," you murmured, leaning toward him where the two of you sat at the high table above the murmuring houses.

"I am a man grown now," Aemond said, and lifted your hand again to graze his lips across your fingers, "and one whose heart belongs to you and to no other." You would not give him your eyes.

"You will see Viserys returned to my sister. She has lost two sons and a sister both. She will not survive the loss of a third."

"Of course, my love. You have my word upon it." He bent nearer, his single violet eye dropping to the bare nape of your neck, and set his mouth against the skin there, and you drew back before he could taste it. Your gaze lifted instead and struck upon the Lord of the Hightower himself, who had been watching the pair of you, and chiefly you, with something bright and unhurried and faintly amused behind his face. You dropped your eyes to the rushes on the floor. Aemond felt the small retreat of you and went still, then straightened and took up his composed seat once more, and said naught.

You let your gaze wander the length of the hall and found Helaena among the throng.

"Aemond."

He turned at the sound of his name.

"Might I have your leave to go to Helaena?"

His eye followed the line of yours to his sister, who stood near a tapestried column not far off. He nodded and did not speak, nursing yet the small mortification of your rebuff. As you rose he caught you by the arm and set his lips close against your ear.

"Do not be long."

You pressed a swift kiss to his cheek, and he hummed low in his throat and let you go, though his eye tracked you across the floor even as the lords beside him bent to claim his ear.

He did not mark that Ormund, a goblet of Dornish red cradled in his hand, had also watched you the whole of the evening. Nor did he mark the Lord rising from his place and slipping, unhurried, from the table.

"Helaena." You came to her quickly, and when she saw you her face opened into a smile of such plain warmth that the tightness in your chest loosened for the first time in days.

"I trust you are well, sister," she asked, her voice soft, and you nodded.

The two of you fell into the easy rhythm of women mending stolen years between them, and it was the first true pleasure you had let yourself since your arrival within these walls.

"He has a tenderness for you, you know," Helaena said, her eyes drifting toward her brother across the crowded floor. "He treats no other living soul the way he treats you. Not even Mother. I have never once seen him care for anyone so fiercely."

You looked down. "I find it hard to forgive him what he has done."

"He meant to fly to you. When your grief was deepest he wished to go. Grandsire named it reckless folly and forbade him."

"And yet he did what he did all the same. And more," you said, turning from the wound of it. "He sits upon my sister's throne. Rhaenyra has the truer claim."

"Mayhaps," Helaena offered gently, "you might yet change his mind."

"My Queen. My Princess." A voice unfurled into the space between you, and you both turned to its owner. "I hope I do not intrude upon your evening."

You looked to Helaena, uncertain who the man might be, though you had marked him once, seated at Alicent's side in the council chamber.

"Lord Ormund Hightower," Helaena said, and dipped into a courteous bow, and you did the same.

He was a tall man, broad through the shoulders in a way his fitted doublet of deep green velvet and leather did nothing to hide, and perhaps seven-and-twenty years of age. His eyes were fawn colored, and they held a steadiness that unsettled more than any glare. He wore the fading brown of a man long under an Oldtown sun, and there was an unhurried economy in the way he moved. He turned the whole of those eyes upon you.

"Would you grant me a dance, Princess?" He put out his palm a charming smile in place.

Only then did you hear that the music in the hall had turned, the lute now joined by a soft-throated fiddle to carry a slow measure. You looked to Helaena, and she gave you a small nod, and so you laid your hand into his, larger than yours, and warmer.

"My lord, I fear I cannot give you a proper dance," you confessed as he led you toward the floor. "I was wounded during the—"

"I was told," he broke in smoothly, the smile never leaving his mouth. "It shall not trouble me at all."

You nodded. The injury made an awkward negotiation of your limbs. Both his hands came to rest at your waist, one of yours upon the breadth of his shoulder, and the injured arm settled against his forearm as he swayed you, slow, through the measure. You stole a glance toward Aemond and saw both hands close hard about the arm of his chair, the knuckles gone bone-white beneath the skin, though his face held a perfect stillness. You swallowed, the motion plain at your throat, before a well-pleased Ormund drew back your eyes.

"You are unlike the others," he said.

"My lord?"

"The Targaryens."

"Ah." A rueful smile touched your lips. "When my mother passed, Lord Otto and Qeen Dowager Alicent took me into their keeping. I spent the greater part of my girlhood at her side, kneeling with her at the sept, reciting the Seven-Pointed Star until I knew the verses in my sleep." You lowered your eyes, warmth climbing your cheeks, and the old memories rose sweet and unbidden, and a soft nostalgia settled over your face that Ormund did not miss.

"At one time I dreamed of taking vows as a septa," you said, and lightly laughed at the absurdity.

You looked for him to laugh with you, but when you raised your head he watched you still with that same smile, though something behind his eyes had turned into a shape you could not name. You let the silence take command of the talk. Under the weight of his eyes the heat rose again to your face, and you fought to master it, though he gave you no gesture to ease it. He let several long turns of the measure pass before he spoke again.

"Do you believe them to keep their word?"

You lifted your gaze to his.

"Yes. Aemond has sworn to release Viserys."

"So readily as that?" His brows arched a fraction. "The very folk who spent long years plotting the ruin of your house?"

"What is it you reach toward, My lord?"

"Mayhaps I can assisst you."

You looked at him in confusion, and he held that assured, proprietary smile.

"If you would see your nephew truly kept safe," he went on, "will you take what I offer?"

"And why should a Hightower trouble himself to help me? Am I not the one this whole banquet was set to question?"

"Because I see promise in you. You have your flaws yet, under the proper guidance—" He lifted one hand from your waist and, with two fingers beneath your chin, tilted your face up toward his own. Your heart struck hard against your ribs, and he seemed to feel the very tremor of it, for the smile widened a fraction and he leaned nearer. Your knees gave beneath you, and he caught you before you fell, one strong arm sweeping around your back to draw you flush against the warmth of his chest.

"M-my lor—"

"Lord Ormund." The voice that cut the moment was calm and cold. You turned and found Aemond standing near, his single eye fixed upon the man who held you yet against him. There was violence promised in the look, and Ormund appeared not the least bit cowed by it.

"Your Grace," Ormund said, and laughed, and let you go by degrees, his eyes lingering only long enough to see you had found your feet. Aemond put out a hand toward you, his eye never once leaving the Hightower. You took it swiftly, for the years at his side had taught you every register of him, and you knew the particular quiet that meant he stood one breath from breaking, however smooth the surface.

At the last, with a slow roll of his eye, Aemond turned to you and pressed his lips to the back of your hand. "It has been a long evening. Shall we withdraw to our chambers, beloved?"

"Yes, Your Grace." You nodded, and he drew you back into the shelter of his arm.

" Lord Ormund, If you will excuse me and my betrothed, we mean to retire," Aemond said, and turned to lead you off. But Ormund's voice halted him.

"If I am not mistaken, Your Grace, the two of you have yet to wed."

"I fail to see the purpose of your words."

"It is a sin before the gods to share a chamber before the marriage is made."

"I do not think it falls within any lord's province to concern himself with what his King and his future Queen do behind their own doors." The annoyance ran sharp beneath your half-brother's measured tone.

"Of course. Forgive my presumption." Ormund's voice never changed, light and genial to the last.

Aemond led you away across the hall, and as you went you cast one final glance back toward the Lord of the Hightower, who dipped his head toward you in a slow and deliberate courtesy, that smile fixed flawless upon his mouth, his irises following you the whole of the way to the door.

AEMOND'S CHAMBERS, RED KEEP. — EVENING

The moment the two of you passed beneath the lintel, the distance between you widened without a word spoken, each of you drawing off toward opposite corners to shed the heavy trappings of the feast.

Your fingers worried at the laces along your ribs. You had turned your spine deliberately toward him, yet you felt the weight of his one eye upon the bared line of your shoulders all the same, marking the descent of the cloth, the curve of your back, the pooling of silk at your feet.

Upon the coverlet lay a nightshift of Lyseni silk, a translucent veil of pale fabric in the candlelight. You drew it over your head, and the stuff clung close, offering no modesty, only a shimmering suggestion of the body beneath, too insubstantial for your comfort. It was then that his warmth came up at your back, unbidden and unhurried.

When you turned to face him, Aemond caged your waist within his arms and drew you flush against him, his scarred face bending down until his breath moved against your cheek.

"We are not yet wed, Aemond. This is not right."

"No," he allowed, and there was no repentance in it, the word coming rasp and stripped of his customary poise. "Yet I struggle to restrain myself when you stand within my reach." He tightened his hold until the crest of your breasts pressed to the hard muscle of his chest, and the heat of him bled through the thin silk.

He reached up and unfastened the leather patch and let it fall to the floorboards. The sight of the scar beneath drew your hand upward before you had thought to lift it, and you traced its contours with the lightest touch of your fingers. His eyelid sank shut. He held still under your hand, drinking in the sensation.

"You once loved sapphires," he murmured, low and rough. "You always claimed the stone brought me back to your mind."

"Does it still hurt?" you asked, your voice scarce more than a breath. He shook his head, slow, and you let your hand fall away, and his eye opened once more and fixed upon you.

"I wrote to you," he confessed. He leaned closer, until his brow rested against your own, his fingers drawing idle circles at the small of your back until gooseflesh rose beneath them.

"You stood with the usurpers."

"I stood with my brother."

"You killed Luke."

"I am sorry." The word broke somewhere in his throat. "I am truly and wholly sorry. I never meant it, never wished to wound you. I would have given anything for a different end."

"Aemond." The truth in it undid something you had guarded long, and the whole weight of the years came down upon you at once— the war, the dead, the seasons apart— and he heard the fracture in your voice, the small tremor that betrayed you.

"Shhh." He raised your chin upon the crook of a finger. "You told me once, sister, that all good things come to those who wait." His finger traveled down the curve of your jaw, his gaze following after until it settled upon the parting of your lips. "And I have waited for you a long while."

He closed the space and set his mouth to yours. Your body yielded, whether from weariness, or the hollow grief that had scoured you empty, or the plain truth that surrender asked less of you than defiance while you stood so wholly unmade, stripped of your nephews and held within the walls of your enemies. He hummed against your mouth, well pleased.

Then one hand loosed its hold and dragged down the length of your arm, and both palms coasted low to settle upon the flare of your hips and hold them fast. His warmth came through the thin silk, and he worked his mouth against yours with mounting insistence, until you felt him gone rigid against your belly, and you shoved him back.

"This is wrong, Aemond. I cannot—"

"Shhh, let go, my love." He gentled the words with a maddening tenderness. "Let me care for you. Let me love you." He bent again to take your mouth, harsher now, forcing past the seam of your lips, and when you tried to voice your protest only a thin whimper came free. He groaned at the sound, low and pleased. Your eyes clenched shut, and your hands, useless at your sides, seized the forearms that pinned your hips.

The chamber door swung inward with neither knock nor warning. You tore yourself from Aemond's grasp and met the startled stare of Alicent, who cast her eyes swiftly to the floor as an old shame gathered upon her face.

"Aemond, I must speak with you."

"Speak, then, Mother," he answered, his hands finding your waist again and pulling you back against him, his eye lingering upon you without shame and full of hunger.

"In private."

"I have no wish to lose further hours from my betrothed." He tipped his head toward you.

"Go, Aemond. I will wait.."

You leaned toward him in reluctance and pressed your lips to his, and he returned it at once with a fervor beyond your own, while Alicent, unable to bear the strain plain upon your face, kept her gaze fixed upon the dark windows. When at last he drew back, a contented curve shaped his mouth.

"Mmm. I shall not be long, my love," he murmured.

You gave a small nod. He loosed his hold by slow degrees and went out at his mother's side, granting you one last glance across his shoulder as the door swung shut behind him.

The instant the latch settled, you crossed the room on silent feet and set your ear to the grain of the wood, straining after the fading tread of their steps. You waited through several heartbeats, then began a frantic search of the chamber for a cloak, though nothing of the sort presented itself among the furnishings.

Beyond another door the conversation unfolded. "Why have you summoned me?" Aemond demanded, an edge of vexation in it. "Lord Ormund has put a proposition before me."

Within the chamber, you abandoned your fruitless search the moment you grasped that this was your one chance to seek out Viserys. You slipped through the door and out into the passage, and regret took you almost at once as the cold knifed through the thin silk that clung to you, yet you would not permit yourself to turn back. The thought of your young nephew left alone in some forgotten cell drove you onward against every protest of your shivering flesh.

"What further concession does the man require?" The very name curdled his temper. "He does not trust the presence of a black behind our walls." "She has declared her allegiance before the council and before the assembled houses of the realm," Aemond returned, his eye rolling toward the vaulted ceiling. "Her elder sister is Rhaenyra Targaryen, and Daemon is her uncle besides. The moment they learn she yet lives, they will come down upon King's Landing astride thier new dragons, and we will have no answer to give them." "Vermithor has not been sighted." "And when the beast comes back to its rider, will she hold true to us? We butchered her nephews. We drove her to open war. We cast her people from the walls of their own keep. Do you imagine she will take up our cause with a glad heart? She is soft of temper and mild of manner, aye, but the girl is no fool."

Your eyes swept the corridor in every direction, sharpened by fear to catch the least movement, until the tread of paired footfalls, the chime of armor, and the low rumble of men's voices rang against the stones ahead, a single torch flickering into view at the far end of the hall.

A vexed breath escaped Aemond. "There is word as well that Rhaena was seen in the company of Sheepstealer. Tessarion and Vhagar alone cannot hope to stand against the whole strength of Rhaenyra's dragons, and Lord Ormund has no stomach for a war his own allies will not fully commit to. He requires assurance." "And how does he mean to secure it?"

Panic sent you down an unfamiliar passage, your bare feet slapping against frigid flagstones slick with the damp of the deep foundations. You ran headlong until you struck something firm— not hard enough to bruise, yet solid enough to knock the breath from you and set you down upon your backside. The figure lifted the small lantern he carried, and the wavering flame drew the green-dyed leather and dark velvet of his doublet out of the gloom.

"He wishes to guide her, as he guided my brother Gwayne, who grew to be a knight of great honor and fought without wavering for the Greens. As he shaped Daeron, who would lay down his own life for us without a moment's pause, young as he is." "He wishes to take my betrothed from me." "Only for a season. Let her go with him. He has given his word to make of her a lady worthy of the Greens— dependable, above all suspicion.

An eye considered you from above, arrogant and heavy-lidded, bright with amusement.

"And where might the lady be fleeing at so unseemly an hour, dressed in such" his gaze traveled slow down your figure as he crouched low before you "ungodly coverings."

He swung the lantern idle between two fingers and extended a gloved hand down toward your trembling form.

"He has promised to fashion her into a fit and proper wife."

"Lord Ormund." you whisper.

NEXT>

This didn’t feel like that. This stayed with her, settling somewhere deeper, threading itself under her skin in a way she couldn’t quite shake. Even now, as the ER gradually eased out of the worst of the night, it lingered, quiet but insistent, replaying moments she hadn’t asked to remember.

The department had slowed, but it hadn’t softened. It never really did. Monitors continued their steady rhythm, punctuating the air with mechanical certainty, while nurses moved between bays with practiced efficiency, restocking carts, checking IV lines, updating charts. Conversations carried in low voices. Handoffs, quick clarifications, the occasional attempt at humor that never quite reached anyone’s eyes.

Lucky stood at the nurses’ station, flipping through a chart more out of habit than intention. Her eyes skimmed over lab values and medication notes, but none of it settled in her mind. She was still somewhere else entirely.

Still in that room.

She could see it with uncomfortable clarity—the controlled urgency that had taken over the moment things started going wrong. The shift in energy was always subtle at first. A number dropping slightly faster than expected. A response that didn’t quite match what it should have been. Then the quiet escalation, voices sharpening just enough to signal that something was off.

She remembered drawing up epinephrine, her hands steady even as her thoughts raced ahead of her, calling out orders more quickly, compressions beginning almost seamlessly as the rhythm deteriorated. Someone adjusted the ventilator settings, increasing oxygen, trying to give the kid’s body every possible advantage.

“Charge to 200.”

“Clear.”

The crack of the defibrillator had echoed through the room, followed by that fragile second where everyone looked to the monitor, waiting. Hoping.

The rhythm hadn’t come back the way they needed it to.

Lucky pressed her lips together, closing the chart in her hands a little more firmly than necessary.

They had followed protocol perfectly. Every step had been precise, practiced, automatic in the way that only comes from repetition and training. There hadn’t been hesitation, hadn’t been a missed call or a delayed response.

And still, it hadn’t been enough. What stayed with her wasn’t just the loss.

It was the moment after, the stillness. And the worst part…The mother crying after receiving the news.

Lucky could still picture the way she had stood there, just outside the chaos, watching everything unfold with a kind of fragile certainty. Not panic, not yet. Just belief. The kind that said this would be fixed, because that’s what people like them did.

Lucky had seen that look before.

It never got easier to be the reason it disappeared.

She exhaled slowly, forcing herself to focus on the present, but it didn’t quite take.

Around her, the shift was beginning to transition. Night staff wrapped up loose ends while the first members of the day team filtered in, bringing with them a different kind of energy. Way more rested and more detached from what had happened hours earlier.

That overlap always felt strange, like two different realities brushing against each other without fully connecting.

Lucky adjusted her stance, trying to settle into the rhythm of it, but her attention drifted again before she could stop it.

It landed on Jack.

He stood near one of the workstations, finishing his notes, his posture slightly hunched in a way that suggested more than just physical fatigue. His movements were controlled, efficient, but there was something quieter about him now, something pulled inward.

Lucky had started noticing it over the past few weeks. Not something obvious enough for people to comment on, but it was there if you paid attention. After certain shifts—usually the ones that ended the way this one had—he didn’t stick around. He didn’t decompress with the rest of them, didn’t vent or joke or complain.

He just left.

Like he needed distance before something caught up to him.

She watched as he finished typing, gave a brief handoff to another resident, and stepped away without lingering. No small talk, no pause.

Just gone.

Lucky’s gaze lingered on the space he had occupied, something in her chest tightening in a way she didn’t fully understand.

“…he does that sometimes.” The voice came from her left, casual and quiet, not directed at her.

Lucky stilled without turning.

“Who?” someone asked.

“Jack,” the first voice replied. “After nights like this. He just disappears.”

Lucky’s fingers curled slightly against the counter.

“Where does he go?”

A small pause, then, “Pretty sure he goes up to the roof.”

The roof. 

Lucky processed that slowly, her gaze flicking toward the hallway he had taken.

“I didn’t even know we could go up there.”

“We’re not supposed to,” the voice said with a faint shrug. “But no one really enforces it unless you make it a problem.”

The conversation moved on, but Lucky barely registered it.

The roof.

It made sense, in a way that settled too easily.

She hesitated.

This wasn’t her business. There wasn’t a reason for her to follow him, no expectation that she should. They weren’t anything that required that kind of concern.

And yet—

They weren’t just coworkers anymore either.

Somewhere along the way, that had shifted. It hadn’t been a single moment, nothing obvious or dramatic. Just a gradual change in the way they spoke to each other, the way silences between them felt less like gaps and more like something shared.

Still, this felt like crossing into something more private.

Lucky exhaled, glancing once more toward the hallway.

She could go home. Pretend she hadn’t heard anything. Let the night end the way it was supposed to.

That would be easier.

Instead, she pushed away from the counter and started walking.

[...]

The stairwell door gave way with a quiet creak, the noise of the ER dulling almost instantly behind her. The shift from constant sound to near silence felt abrupt, almost disorienting.

Lucky stepped inside, letting the door fall shut behind her.

For a moment, she just stood there.

The air was cooler, still, carrying none of the urgency she had just left behind. Her hand rested briefly against the metal railing as she looked up at the stairs ahead of her.

She could still turn back.

That thought lingered longer than she expected.

Then she let out a quiet breath and followed the stairs to the roof.

[...]

The rooftop door resisted before opening, and when it did, the cool morning air hit her immediately, sharper and cleaner than anything inside the hospital.

Lucky stepped out slowly.

The city stretched out below, distant and softened by height, while the sky above shifted in subtle gradients, the first signs of sunrise beginning to break through the dark.

It felt removed from everything.

Like stepping outside the weight of the night, if only for a moment.

And then she saw him.

Jack stood near the railing, his back partially turned, hands resting loosely against the metal. He wasn’t doing anything in particular, just standing there, his posture slightly more relaxed than it had been downstairs.

Lucky paused, suddenly aware of how this might look and of how private this felt.

She almost turned back.

“You’re not very subtle.”

His voice reached her before she could move.

Lucky blinked, a small, surprised smile pulling at her lips. “I wasn’t trying to be.”

He turned slightly at that, glancing over his shoulder. The shift in his expression when he recognized her was subtle but unmistakable, something softening at the edges.

That was enough for her to step forward.

“I didn’t even know this place existed,” she admitted, moving to stand beside him. “Feels like I’m breaking a rule just by being here.”

“You are,” he said lightly.

“Good,” she replied. “Makes it worth it.”

A quiet breath left him, closer to a laugh than anything else.

Lucky rested her hands against the railing, the cold metal grounding her as she looked out over the city. For a moment, neither of them spoke, but the silence didn’t feel uncomfortable.

It felt… steady.

“Do you come up here often?” she asked after a while.

“Only when I need to,” he said.

She tilted her head slightly. “After nights like this?”

A small pause.

“Yeah.”

Lucky nodded, understanding settling in without needing further explanation.

“I usually drive,” she said after a moment. “No music, no destination. Just keep going until my brain slows down enough to stop replaying everything.”

Jack glanced at her. “Does it help?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “Sometimes it just makes me more tired.”

That earned a faint smile from him, brief but real.

Lucky hesitated before speaking again, her voice softer this time. “I keep thinking about that kid.”

She felt the shift in him immediately.

“The way everything changed so quickly,” she continued. “We had a rhythm, and then suddenly it was just… trying to keep up.”

Jack didn’t interrupt.

“I was drawing meds, double-checking doses, trying to stay ahead of what was being called out,” she said. “It felt controlled, like we still had time.”

Her grip tightened slightly on the railing.

“And then we didn’t.”

The words settled between them.

“The mom,” Lucky added quietly. “I can’t stop thinking about her.”

Jack’s jaw tightened slightly, his gaze fixed somewhere in the distance.

“You did everything right,” he said after a moment.

Lucky turned her head, studying him

“You don’t believe that when it’s you,” she said gently.

A faint, almost humorless breath left him. “…no.”

She let that sit for a second before nudging his arm lightly with hers.

“You don’t get to carry all of it,” she murmured.

He didn’t move away.

“I’m working on it,” he said.

“Good,” she replied, a small smile forming. “Because that sounds like a terrible long-term plan.”

That got a real reaction from him. A brief smile that softened his entire expression before fading again.

It was enough.

The air between them felt different after that. Not lighter, exactly, but less heavy in a way that mattered.

Lucky tilted her head back, watching the sky as the first real hints of sunlight began to stretch across it.

“I get it now,” she said.

“Get what?”

“Why you come up here.” She glanced at him. “It feels like everything finally slows down enough to breathe.”

Jack followed her gaze upward, his expression quieter now.

“Yeah,” he said.

Lucky studied him for a moment, noticing the way his shoulders had relaxed, the way the tension in his posture had eased just slightly.

She liked this version of him.

Not because the weight was gone, but because he wasn’t carrying it alone.

“Guess I’m stealing your spot,” she added lightly. “Hope you don’t mind.”

He looked at her for a second, something thoughtful passing through his expression.

“I don’t.”

The simplicity of it lingered.

Lucky felt something shift in her chest, subtle but undeniable, and leaned a little more into the railing, her shoulder brushing his briefly.

Neither of them pulled away.

[...]

The rooftop door opened quietly behind them.

Robby stepped out, rolling the stiffness from his shoulders as he prepared himself for the start of his shift. The hospital already weighed on him, even before he had fully stepped into it.

He exhaled, lifting his gaze—

And froze.

Lucky. His sister.

Standing beside Jack.

Closer than he had ever seen her stand to anyone at work.

There was something in the way they occupied the same space—something quiet, unspoken—that immediately caught his attention.

Robby didn’t move. Didn’t interrupt.

His gaze lingered on Lucky first, protective instinct settling in before he could stop it, then shifted to Jack, assessing without meaning to.

Understanding came slowly, but firmly.

Not something fully formed. Not yet.

But enough.

Without a word, he stepped back.

The door closed softly behind him.

And on the rooftop, Lucky and Jack remained, unaware of the moment that had just passed. Or of how, without either of them realizing it, something between them had already begun to change.

[...]

At first, Robby tried to ignore it. Who cares if you wanted to flirt with a Quantico suit who looks like he hasn’t smiled in years and has a decent hairlike for his age and doesn’t have crows feet etched around his eyes? Certainly not Robby. But the gossip flourished shortly after Santos overheard the pretty blonde FBI agent whispering to the lanky one with a boyband haircut, “I don’t know the last time I’ve seen Hotch smile.” To which the boyband-haircut FBI agent responded, “Or loosened his shoulders.”

You carefully padded the area around Agent Hotchner’s wound with fresh sterile gauze after tying your last suture, clearing any remnants of blood. “So what does SSA stand for? Super special agent? Secret special agent agent?” You continued light conversation, just for another minute to talk with your tall, dark, and handsome patient.

Hotch chuckled, his eyelids fluttering instinctively when the gauze got too close. Fuck, his eyelashes were pretty, too. “Supervisory special agent.” He replied.

You grinned and pulled out dressing for the stitches. “Oh, that sounds very important.” You hummed.

You knew the man in front of you was an FBI profiler, that if he really didn’t want to play along with your flirty conversation, then he would end it there. But to a man who sold his soul to his job, you were a comfortable break of sunshine through the clouds.

Hotch smiled, not enough for you to call it one, but enough that his nosy team outside had their jaws dropping. Amhad approached them innocently with a pen and notepad, like he was about to interrogate them. “So, what do you think the likelihood of them getting drinks would be?” He asked, like this was definitely not going to influence his wager.

The agent who had already introduced himself as Derek, after Princess conveniently needed something from the top shelf of the supply closet (Jesse was literally standing right next to her), leaned against the high counter of the desk hub. “Honestly? It might happen once we finish up this case.” He admitted.

Amhad scribbled something down on his notepad and nodded. “Does he usually do stuff like that?” He added, hoping to pull more info for his betting board.

Derek laughed, catching the attention of a few nurses and the rest of his team. “‘Stuff like that?’ You mean smiling? Talking?” He questioned, crossing his arms. “We have a pretty strict rule of not profiling each other. But right now…” He trailed off, looking back to the exam room. You were glowing while Hotch commended you for your suture work, holding the mirror just low enough to showcase a rare grin from the man. “I’d say he’s got himself a little crush.”

A little crush.

The words rattled in Robby’s ears as he gripped his iPad so tightly that his thumbs nearly shattered through the screen protector. Dana looked up from her computer monitor just in time to catch the vein threatening to burst across his forehead.

“What’s got ya down, boss?” She asked with feigned ignorance, leaning back in her rolling chair.

Robby peered over his glasses, cutting her an aggravated glance. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He grumbled.

Dana smirked and threw her arms behind her to prop up her head. She was too pleased with the situation unraveling in front of her. “Oh yeah? You mean you’re not throwing a hissy fit because someone else is playing with your toys?” She baited.

Robby tossed the iPad on the desk next to her. “She’s not a toy.”

“No? Then why are you treating her like one?” Dana spat back.

That hit him square in the chest. He shook his head, like he was trying to convince himself. “I’m not treating her like-“

Dana took the iPad and stood, ready to walk away from this conversation. “Save your breath, Robby. If the girl wants to flirt with a hot detective and get drinks and, I don’t know, fuck around and move to Quantico, then let her. She’d give you the world, but you’re just using her as a stepping stone to your next seven week itch. Let her be with someone that deserves her.”

Robby stood frozen at the desk hub as Dana headed to the next patient’s room. He knew he didn’t deserve you. He knew this fuckass FBI agent would probably treat you like a princess. He knew that he should still let you down easy tonight.

You came out of the exam room, a giddy smile on your face, that quickly faded when you saw Robby staring at you. “What? What’s wrong?” You asked gently, approaching him slowly.

Robby just smiled, ignoring the ache he felt when your smile vanished just from looking at him, and shook his head. “Nothin’. Thanks for handling that.” He deflected, desperately hoping to see you smile again, but for him this time, not that agent with a sharp jaw that isn’t softening with age and-

“No problem, Doctor Robby.” You fake saluted with the tiniest smile before walking away.

Doctor Robby.

Not Michael.

That dagger sank deep and twisted in his lungs. You were pulling away from him. You were realizing exactly what Robby was trying to protect you from. That he’s no good for you. That he’s only going to drag you down deeper and drown you if he stays.

Robby should be grateful that Agent Hotchner has you checking your hair and straightening your scrub top in the bathroom before returning to his exam room. That would make his plan for tonight flow a lot smoother. But suddenly, the reality of losing you, of giving you up, of handing you to another man, had him sick to his stomach.

He didn’t know how, but Robby was going to win you back. He didn’t have a choice.

[...]

You hadn’t told Michael you were coming back. Not because you didn’t want to see him. Quite the opposite, actually. If you were honest, part of the reason you had chosen this hospital for your first attending position was because of him.

But you knew your brother, and you knew that If you had told him beforehand, he would have turned it into an event. He would’ve rearranged shifts, insisted on picking you up, making sure everything was perfect for your first day and probably announced to half the hospital that his little sister was coming back.

You loved him, really. You just didn’t need the spectacle, so you decided to let him find out the natural way.

Your first night shift was supposed to start in less than an hour when you stepped into a small café across the street from the hospital. The place was busy but calm, with students working on laptops, a couple talking quietly near the window, the soft hum of conversation mixing with the sound of the espresso machine.

You ordered a coffee, leaning against the counter as you waited, your eyes drifting toward the large front window and looking at the hospital entrance across the street. Ambulances came and went, staff walking in and out through the sliding doors.

You felt the familiar pull in your chest, the quiet, almost instinctive tug that always seemed to draw you toward places like this. Hospitals had always felt like gravity to you, no matter how far you went or how much time passed, they had a way of pulling you right back.

Your coffee had just been placed on the counter when you heard it. A chair scraping violently across the floor, then a heavy thud.

You turned and saw a man, maybe in his fifties, that had collapsed beside one of the tables, his cup hitting the ground and shattering.

For half a second the café froze, then the panic started, but you were already moving.

You dropped beside him, quickly checking for responsiveness.

“Sir? Can you hear me?”

Nothing. Two fingers to the neck, no pulse.

You looked up sharply.

“Someone call 911!” you said, your voice firm enough to cut through the rising panic. “Tell them we have a possible cardiac arrest.”

A barista fumbled for the phone behind the counter.

You positioned your hands at the center of his chest and started compressions.

“One, two, three, four…”

The rhythm came automatically, muscle memory built over years of training and long nights in emergency rooms.

Thirty compressions.

Two breaths.

Again.

You barely registered the people gathering around, someone crying softly near the doorway, the barista explaining the situation to the dispatcher. All that mattered was the man under your hands.

By the time the paramedics arrived, sweat was already starting to gather at your hairline.

One of them dropped beside you immediately.

“What happened?”

“Collapsed suddenly,” you said without stopping. “Unresponsive. No pulse when I checked.”

They quickly attached the monitor.

“V-fib,” the paramedic said.

“Charging.”

The shock lifted the man’s body slightly from the floor. Everyone in the café went silent.

The monitor beeped again.

“Still no pulse.”

You didn’t hesitate, you moved back into position and resumed compressions.

Within seconds, the stretcher was wheeled in.

“Let’s move.”

You climbed into the ambulance with them without even thinking about it. 

[...]

Meanwhile, inside the emergency department, the shift change rush was in full swing.

Robby stood near the nurses’ station finishing the last of his charts, one hand resting against the counter as he flipped through a patient file. After a long morning in the ER, the familiar end-of-shift fatigue sat heavy on his shoulders, but his focus remained sharp as he reviewed the final details that still needed to be passed on before he could officially hand the department over.

Beside him, Jack Abbot stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders, trying to shake off the stiffness from hours on the floor. He listened while Robby went over the remaining cases. Patients still waiting on labs, one observation case that might need imaging overnight, and another who would likely be discharged once the last results came back. It was the usual end-of-shift routine: quick, efficient, and built on the unspoken understanding that whatever hadn’t resolved during the day would now become the night team’s responsibility.

“Tell me again why I agreed to cover tomorrow’s shift,” Jack muttered.

“Because apparently that’s what you call a hobby,” Michael replied without looking up.

Jack sighed.

“I need to find a new one.”

Before Robby could respond, the ambulance bay doors burst open.

“Cardiac arrest!”

The stretcher rolled in fast, paramedics moving quickly toward a trauma bay, but something about the scene immediately caught Jack’s attention.

Someone was already on top of the patient and was not a paramedic. 

It was a woman.

She was straddling the patient’s torso, delivering precise, controlled chest compressions while the gurney moved through the hallway, her hair had partially come loose from its tie, and her focus was absolute.

“Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty—”

A nurse stepped forward.

“I’ll take over—”

But before she could—

Robby stepped closer, then stopped dead in his tracks.

His brain took a second to process what he was seeing, because the woman performing CPR looked exactly like—

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”

The woman glanced up briefly and her eyes met his.

And she smiled.

“Hi, Mikey.”

Jack turned to look at him.

“Mikey?”

Michael ignored him completely and pointed at you like he was accusing you of a crime.

“You.”

You kept counting.

“Can this wait?” you asked calmly. “I’m kind of busy.”

Jack blinked, watching the entire exchange like he had just stepped into the middle of a family argument during a medical emergency.

A nurse finally stepped in to take over compressions. You slid off the stretcher, catching your breath as the team continued working on the patient.

Robby was still staring at you in disbelief.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming back.”

You shrugged.

“Surprise?”

“That’s not a surprise!”

Jack looked between the two of you.

“Okay,” he said slowly, “I feel like I missed several important chapters here.”

Michael gestured toward you.

“This is my sister.”

Jack paused.Then looked at you again. Properly this time, taking in the confidence in your posture, the way you had jumped into the situation without hesitation, the faint crease between your brows from concentration.

You gave him a small nod.

“Nice to meet you.”

Jack huffed a quiet laugh.

“You just arrived in an ambulance performing CPR. You know, most people introduce themselves before climbing onto a stretcher and starting chest compressions.”

“I like dramatic entrances.”

Robby groaned.

“I turn my back for one minute and you show up doing chest compressions on my patient.”

You tilted your head.

“Your patient?”

He pointed dramatically toward the trauma bay.

“That’s still technically my shift!”

You leaned slightly closer to him, lowering your voice just enough.

“Good thing I’m here for the night shift, then.”

Michael blinked.

“You’re what?”

Jack laughed, and as his eyes drifted back to you again, something about the moment stuck with him.

The chaos, the confidence, the way you had walked into the hospital like you had always belonged there.

Later, he would realize something else too.

The first time he ever saw you…

He crossed his arms tighter.

“Five minutes.”

“No.”

“Ten.”

You shut the locker door.

“Breakfast after my shift,” you said calmly. “You hate working Wednesdays, so you’re probably off tomorrow anyway. You can wait a few hours.”

Robby studied you for a moment like he was debating whether it was worth arguing.

Eventually he sighed.

“Fine.”

You stepped past him toward the hallway.

“But if you collapse from exhaustion,” he added, following you out, “I’m saying ‘I told you so.’”

“You’ve been saying that since I was a kid.”

“And I’ve been right since you were a kid.”

You smiled briefly as you turned toward the ER floor.

“Breakfast,” you repeated. Then you looked back at him. “And please sleep a little. I love you, but you look like hell.”

He pointed two fingers at you in reluctant agreement, leaned down to kiss your cheek, and headed toward the exit.

[...]

The ER was already moving.

Not chaotic yet . Not the kind of chaos you had grown up hearing about when Robby came home from shifts with stories that sounded more like war zones than hospital work and definitely not the level of madness you’d heard the night shift was famous for, but busy enough.

You had to weave around stretchers, nurses, and residents before even reaching the main desk.

Someone looked up as you approached.

“You must be the new attending.”

You turned.

The woman speaking had the calm authority of someone who clearly ran the department whether the doctors acknowledged it or not.

“I’m Lena,” she said, offering a hand. “Charge nurse.”

You shook it.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Dr. Robinavitch.”

Lena’s eyebrow lifted slightly.

“Oh, you’re Robby’s sister, hm?”

Before you could answer, she handed you a tablet.

“Well,” she said casually, “try not to die.”

You blinked.

“…Encouraging.”

“You’ll fit right in, darling.”

A voice came from behind you.

“So she’s the one Robby warned us about for the last fifteen minutes?”

You turned.

The doctor standing there held a coffee in one hand and had the unmistakable posture of someone who had worked night shifts for far too many years.

“Warned you about?” you repeated.

He tilted his head slightly.

“His words, not mine.”

“What exactly did he say?”

“That you’re competent,” he said.

You waited.

“And?” you asked.

“And that if anyone gives you trouble,” he continued evenly, “we should remember he knows where we live.”

You snorted.

“That sounds like him.”

He extended a hand.

“Jack.”

You shook it.

“YN. Nice to meet you… Officially.”

He studied you for a second, his gaze lingering with open curiosity rather than judgment.

“You know,” he said, “Robby’s mentioned you before. Had a lot of stories about you.”

You groaned and dragged a hand down your face.

“Oh no.”

Jack’s mouth twitched slightly.

“Oh yes.”

“Please tell me he didn’t tell embarrassing stories.”

He considered that for a moment.

“He mostly told stories about you,” Jack said. “Usually when he was complaining about how stubborn you are.”

You sighed.

“That sounds accurate.”

“I just didn’t realize you were the same person.”

You narrowed your eyes.

“And what exactly did you think I was?”

Jack considered it.

“Honestly? Based on the stories, I assumed you were either twelve or a menace.”

“Rude.”

“Hey,” he said mildly. “Those were his descriptions.”

“Well clearly he exaggerated.”

Jack glanced briefly toward the patient board.

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Behind him, someone waved.

“Abbot!”

A doctor leaned against a nearby workstation. The badge on her ID read Dr. Parker Ellis.

She had the alert expression of someone who had already been running around the department for at least an hour.

“You’re hoarding the new person,” she said.

Jack pointed his thumb toward you.

“Robby’s sister.”

Ellis grinned immediately.

“Welcome to nights, little Robby.”

Before you could respond, another doctor walked over carrying a coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. He looked far too relaxed for someone working emergency medicine.

“New face,” he said.

“Robby’s sister,” Jack repeated.

Dr. John Shen nodded thoughtfully.

“That explains the texts.”

You groaned.

Jack pointed at him.

“He hovered near the desk twice.”

“Three times,” Lena corrected from across the room.

You buried your face in your hands.

“Fantastic.”

Jack patted your shoulder sympathetically.

“You get used to it.”

[...]

The first few hours passed faster than you expected because the ER demanded constant motion. Patients came in waves, monitors beeped, someone was always calling for labs, imaging, consults.

Jack kept you with him for most of the shift.

Partly because it made sense.

Partly because he seemed genuinely curious about you.

“You worked urgent care before this?” he asked while updating a chart.

“For a while.”

“And you still chose this?”

You glanced toward the trauma bay where Emery Walsh was currently arguing with a surgical resident who looked about ten seconds away from giving up.

“I might regret that later.”

Jack chuckled quietly.

“You probably will.”

A monitor started beeping from the next room.

Jack moved immediately, stepping in to check the patient’s vitals while speaking over his shoulder like multitasking during mild chaos was completely normal.

“Pressure’s dropping a little,” he said. “Can you check the IV?”

You stepped forward automatically, adjusting the line and checking the flow.

“Line’s fine.”

He nodded.

“Good catch.”

They stabilized the patient quickly, the quiet rhythm of teamwork forming almost instinctively.

Once things settled, the two of you stepped back into the hallway.

For a moment the ER felt strangely calm.

Jack leaned against the wall and folded his arms.

“You’re handling this well.”

“It’s been four hours.”

“Still counts.”

You studied him.

“You’ve been watching me all night.”

He didn’t deny it.

“Occupational hazard.”

“Or Robby asked you to.”

Jack tilted his head, amused.

“By the way,” he said.

“What?”

“I’m supposed to report back to Robby.”

Your eyes narrowed immediately.

“You are not.”

“He didn’t say it out loud,” Jack admitted. “But the look was very clear.”

“And what exactly are you reporting?”

“That you haven’t set anything on fire yet.”

You stared at him.

“…Encouraging.”

Jack shrugged.

“I’m sure he’ll be relieved.”

[...]

By the time the shift finally ended, the sky outside was turning pale.

The kind of tiredness that came after a hospital shift had settled deep in your bones.

Jack walked with you toward the exit.

“First night survived,” he said.

“Barely.”

“You didn’t panic, faint, or run for the exit.”

“Those were options?”

“They’ve happened.”

You laughed quietly.

Outside, the morning air was cold and quiet.

And leaning against a motorcycle across the street was Robby.

Arms crossed.

Watching the hospital entrance like he had been standing there for a while.

You sighed and glanced at Jack.

“See you next shift.”

He smiled slightly.

“Looking forward to it.”

[...]

Robby straightened the moment you crossed the street.

“You look tired.”

“You waited six hours to tell me that?” you said, shaking your head. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Did you eat?”

“Yes.”

“Properly?”

You stared at him.

“Robby.”

“What?”

“I’m a grown adult.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

You sighed dramatically.

“Yes. I ate.”

He nodded, satisfied.

“Good. Hop on.”

You looked at the motorcycle.

“You’re crazy if you think I’m getting on that.”

“What? What’s the problem?” he asked. “I’ll even give you my helmet.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better? You’ll be without one.”

He opened his mouth, but you cut him off.

“You’re not riding this thing without a helmet, right?” you said, raising an eyebrow. “Because if you die because you weren’t wearing one, I’ll kill you. And then I’ll throw your bike in the river.”

Robby looked deeply amused.

“I’m not.”

“Good.”

“Then how are we getting to the diner?”

“Walking.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

You were already heading down the sidewalk.

He followed with a resigned sigh.

“You’re impossible, you know that?”

“Yeah,” you said. “But I’m still your favorite.”

He laughed, because that part was true.

[...]

The diner looked exactly the same.

It was the same place Robby had taken you since you were a teenager, back when he was still a med student trying to impress Dr. Adamson.

You slid into the booth across from him.

Robby leaned back slightly.

“So.”

You narrowed your eyes.

“So.”

“How was it?”

“Tiring.”

“Expected.”

“Fast.”

“Also expected.”

“Your coworkers are interesting.”

“Which ones?”

“Jack is suspicious. And stares a lot.”

Robby smirked.

“He does that.”

“Shen is too calm.”

“He does that too.”

“Walsh scares me.”

“She scares everyone.”

You watched him for a moment.

“You were worried.”

“I’m always worried,” he said. “You’re my baby sister.”

There was a softer look in his eyes now.

“You’re staying?”

“Yes,” you said quietly.

He nodded slowly.

Then, after a moment—

“Good.”

You smiled faintly.

“Did you like my surprise?”

He snorted.

“Loved it. Nice entrance, by the way. Very subtle.”

You laughed.

And in that moment, sitting in the diner with your brother after your first night in the ER, you remembered exactly why you had come back.

That version of her had quietly disappeared somewhere along the way.

Now she stood in the middle of the nurses’ station arguing with Shen like she had been part of the department for years.

“I’m telling you, that’s what he said happened.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow, glancing down at the chart.

“He sprained his ankle doing parkour.”

“In his bathroom,” Shen added.

She looked back up at him, unimpressed.

“You believe that?”

“You weren’t there,” Shen shot back.

Y/N tilted her head slightly.

“I don’t need to be there to know that story’s missing a few steps. He’s fifty-seven.”

Across the station, Ellis didn’t even look up.

“Most likely explanation: gravity.”

Shen let out a long breath.

“You people are deeply unsupportive.”

Jack lowered his eyes back to the chart in his hands.

He told himself he was reading it.

He wasn’t.

Across the station, Y/N seemed to notice the same thing she always noticed — that half the desk had quietly started listening.

She closed the chart with a soft tap.

“Fine,” she said. “Let’s test the theory.”

Shen narrowed his eyes.

“That sounds like a trap.”

“It’s not a trap. It’s science.”

“That’s worse.”

She gestured toward the hallway.

“You recreate the maneuver.”

Shen stared at her.

“You want me to sprain my ankle for research?”

“I want you to demonstrate the physics involved.”

“Absolutely not.”

Jack felt the corner of his mouth twitch before he could stop it.

That was the problem.

Three months ago, he hadn’t noticed her much.

Now it was difficult not to.

It wasn’t just that she was good, although she was. She worked quickly, caught small details most doctors overlooked, somehow managed to keep patients calm even when the ER around them was loud and chaotic and made patients feel like they weren’t just another number in a crowded ER.

It was the way she moved through the department.

Like she belonged there.

Shen finally pointed a finger at her.

“You’re insufferable.”

Y/N shrugged.

“You started it.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

From where he stood leaning against the counter, Jack said quietly,

“She’s right.”

Both of them turned.

Shen looked personally offended.

“You’re taking her side?”

“I’m taking gravity’s side,” Jack said evenly. “And the fact that your patient is fifty-seven with a history of falling in the shower.”

Y/N tried to hide the small smile that appeared on her face.

Shen groaned loudly.

“Unbelievable. Bathroom parkour could be a thing.”

Before the argument could continue, the ambulance doors slammed open down the hall.

The entire station looked up at once.

The paramedic pushing the stretcher looked exhausted.

“Forty-two-year-old female,” the paramedic called as they rolled in. “Found passed out at a food court. Awake, alert now.”

Y/N was already moving.

Jack followed without really deciding to.

[...]

The woman didn’t look like someone in acute distress.

That was the first thing Y/N noticed.

She looked… worn down.

Not just tired — worn, like whatever was happening to her had been happening for a long time, quietly, without ever fully stopping.

“I’ve already done this,” the woman said before Y/N could even introduce herself. Her voice wasn’t sharp, just exhausted. “Three times. Different doctors.”

Y/N didn’t reach for the chart right away.

Instead, she pulled the stool closer and sat down beside the bed, close enough that the conversation didn’t have to be raised over the noise of the ER.

“Then let’s not do it the same way,” she said gently.

The woman let out a short breath, something between a laugh and a sigh.

“That would be new.”

“What’s been happening?” Y/N asked.

Not when did it start.

Not rate your pain from one to ten.

Just that.

The woman hesitated for a second, like she was deciding whether it was worth explaining again.

Then she did.

“It’s everything, I guess,” she said. “I get dizzy a lot. Like… really dizzy. My heart starts racing out of nowhere, I feel like I’m going to pass out. Sometimes I actually do.”

Y/N nodded slightly, encouraging her to continue.

“Headaches. Constant. And I’m always tired,” the woman added. “Like I didn’t sleep at all, even when I did.”

Behind them, quietly, Jack glanced at the monitor.

Vitals were stable.

Nothing alarming.

Nothing that explained that.

“They told me it was anxiety,” the woman said after a moment, looking down at her hands. “Or stress. One of them suggested therapy.”

There was no anger in her voice.

Just resignation.

Y/N rested her forearms lightly on her knees.

“When does it get worse?” she asked.

The woman frowned slightly, thinking.

“I don’t know… it just—”

She stopped.

Y/N didn’t interrupt.

Silence stretched just long enough.

“When I stand up,” the woman said suddenly. “Or if I’ve been standing for a while. Like in the shower, or in line somewhere.” She shook her head. “I thought that was normal.”

Something in Y/N’s expression shifted, just slightly.

Not obvious.

But enough that Jack noticed it immediately.

“And when you sit back down?” Y/N asked.

“It gets better. Not right away, but… yeah.”

Jack pushed himself lightly off the wall.

Now he was paying full attention.

Y/N nodded slowly.

“Has anyone ever checked your heart rate when you go from sitting to standing?”

The woman blinked.

“No.”

Y/N stood up.

“Okay,” she said, calm, focused now. “We’re going to try something.”

Y/N stepped out of the room, jotting something down on the chart.

Jack was right behind her.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

She glanced up at him.

“POTS.”

He studied her for a second.

“It’s a pattern,” she said, already writing. “Dizziness, tachycardia, fatigue, and worse when standing. And three consults where someone heard ‘heart racing’ and stopped there.”

Jack exhaled softly.

He couldn’t argue with that.

“You’re running orthostatics.”

She nodded.

“If her heart rate spikes without a drop in blood pressure, it fits.”

There was a pause.

Then he said, quieter,

“Most people wouldn’t have caught that.”

She didn’t look up.

“Most people unfortunately don’t listen to their patients. They just need someone to believe in them, you know?”

He watched her for a moment.

There was no pride in it, just… certainty.

Jack watched her for a second longer than necessary and for reasons he didn’t particularly want to examine, that stayed with him longer than it should have.

[...]

The ER didn’t slow down while they waited for the results.

They treated a teenager with a dislocated finger, a construction worker with a head laceration, and a man who had convinced himself he was having a heart attack after drinking six energy drinks.

Through all of it, Jack kept noticing the same thing.

Y/N treated every patient like they had time, even when they didn’t.

When the test results finally came back, she was standing at the station reviewing another chart.

Jack set the printout down beside her.

She scanned it quickly.

Then exhaled softly.

“Positive.”

Jack leaned slightly closer to read.

Heart rate climbing sharply when she stood and blood pressure relatively stable.

Y/N went back into the room with the chart in hand and a shy smile on her face.

Jack stayed near the door this time, watching.

“I think we found what’s been causing this,” she said, sitting down again.

The woman looked at her, wary but hopeful.

“Please don’t say anxiety.”

“It’s not anxiety.”

The relief was immediate, visible in the way her shoulders dropped.

“It’s called POTS. Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome,” Y/N continued. “It affects how your body regulates heart rate when you stand up. That’s why you feel dizzy, why your heart races, why you feel like you might pass out.”

The woman stared at her.

“…that’s real?”

“It’s very real,” Y/N said gently. “And it’s often missed, especially when symptoms don’t show up while you’re sitting still in an exam room.”

Silence stretched.

Then the woman let out a breath that sounded like it had been held for weeks.

“I thought I was going crazy.”

“You’re not.”

Another pause.

Then the woman looked at her again, softer now.

“Guess I got lucky tonight.”

Y/N smiled softly.

“Or someone finally listened.”

The woman shook her head.

“No. Pretty sure it’s luck.”

[...]

Back at the station, Ellis was already watching them approach.

“Well?”

Y/N set the chart down with a big smile on her face.

“POTS.”

Ellis leaned forward.

“And you caught that how?”

Y/N shrugged slightly.

“She mentioned it gets worse when she stands.”

Ellis stared at her.

“That’s it?”

Y/N shrugged.

“Sometimes that’s enough.”

Shen cut in immediately,

“I tried listening to my bathroom parkour patient earlier but—”

“Not the same thing, Shen,” she said.

Ellis pointed.

“No. We’re not doing that again.”

Then Lena came to the desk with a big and proud smile on her face saying 

“The patient said she got lucky tonight.”

Shen blinked once.

“Lucky…”

Y/N froze.

“No.”

“Too late,” Ellis said.

“You’re Lucky now.”

Y/N dropped her head into her hands.

“This is not happening.”

[...]

At the end of the shift, Y/N finished her last chart slowly, taking a second longer than necessary before signing off, then leaned back in her chair, rolling the tension out of her shoulders.

A few feet away, Jack was still at the station, one elbow resting against the counter, a half-finished coffee going cold beside him. He looked like he’d been there for hours in the exact same position, steady and unmoved, except for the occasional turn of a page.

She pushed herself up and walked over, stopping just close enough to lean her hip lightly against the edge of the desk.

“You started that nickname.”

He didn’t look up immediately, which already told her he’d heard it before she even said it.

“Did I?” he asked, flipping a page with deliberate calm.

“Yes,” she said, more certain now. “I know you told Lena.”

That made him glance up and close the chart in front of him.

“All I said,” he replied, “was that patients seem to think they’re lucky to have you.”

Y/N crossed her arms, but there wasn’t much heat behind it, more curiosity than accusation.

“And you?”

The question landed between them differently than she intended.

For a second, he didn’t answer. He just looked at her, in a way he usually avoided, like he was trying to line up what he thought with what he was willing to say out loud.

“I think,” he said finally, quieter now, “that you notice things most people don’t bother to look for.”

She blinked, caught slightly off guard by the direction of it.

“That’s not luck.”

“No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”

There was no irony in his voice, no teasing edge to soften it. If anything, that made it harder to respond to.

She opened her mouth, something halfway formed already, something deflective, probably, but he moved before she could get it out, standing and reaching for his coffee like the moment had already stretched far enough.

She watched him take a few steps away, the conversation unfinished in that specific way he seemed to prefer — not abrupt, just… deliberately incomplete.

Then he stopped.

It was brief, just long enough to press the elevator button, but instead of facing forward again, he turned back.

Not all the way. Just enough.

“Turns out,” he added, like it had occurred to him late, “that’s rarer than luck.”

And there it was again. That slight shift in his expression, something quieter than a smile but close enough to count.

The elevator doors opened. He stepped inside without waiting for a response.

Y/N stayed where she was for a moment, arms still loosely crossed, but with a smile on her face, replaying it whether she wanted to or not the way he’d said it, the way he’d looked at her when he did.

From across the station, Ellis’ voice cut cleanly through the quiet:

“Sleep well, Lucky!”

Y/N exhaled, letting her head tip back for a second before closing her eyes.

There was no fighting it now.

The name had stuck.

This didn’t feel like that. This stayed with her, settling somewhere deeper, threading itself under her skin in a way she couldn’t quite shake. Even now, as the ER gradually eased out of the worst of the night, it lingered, quiet but insistent, replaying moments she hadn’t asked to remember.

The department had slowed, but it hadn’t softened. It never really did. Monitors continued their steady rhythm, punctuating the air with mechanical certainty, while nurses moved between bays with practiced efficiency, restocking carts, checking IV lines, updating charts. Conversations carried in low voices. Handoffs, quick clarifications, the occasional attempt at humor that never quite reached anyone’s eyes.

Lucky stood at the nurses’ station, flipping through a chart more out of habit than intention. Her eyes skimmed over lab values and medication notes, but none of it settled in her mind. She was still somewhere else entirely.

Still in that room.

She could see it with uncomfortable clarity—the controlled urgency that had taken over the moment things started going wrong. The shift in energy was always subtle at first. A number dropping slightly faster than expected. A response that didn’t quite match what it should have been. Then the quiet escalation, voices sharpening just enough to signal that something was off.

She remembered drawing up epinephrine, her hands steady even as her thoughts raced ahead of her, calling out orders more quickly, compressions beginning almost seamlessly as the rhythm deteriorated. Someone adjusted the ventilator settings, increasing oxygen, trying to give the kid’s body every possible advantage.

“Charge to 200.”

“Clear.”

The crack of the defibrillator had echoed through the room, followed by that fragile second where everyone looked to the monitor, waiting. Hoping.

The rhythm hadn’t come back the way they needed it to.

Lucky pressed her lips together, closing the chart in her hands a little more firmly than necessary.

They had followed protocol perfectly. Every step had been precise, practiced, automatic in the way that only comes from repetition and training. There hadn’t been hesitation, hadn’t been a missed call or a delayed response.

And still, it hadn’t been enough. What stayed with her wasn’t just the loss.

It was the moment after, the stillness. And the worst part…The mother crying after receiving the news.

Lucky could still picture the way she had stood there, just outside the chaos, watching everything unfold with a kind of fragile certainty. Not panic, not yet. Just belief. The kind that said this would be fixed, because that’s what people like them did.

Lucky had seen that look before.

It never got easier to be the reason it disappeared.

She exhaled slowly, forcing herself to focus on the present, but it didn’t quite take.

Around her, the shift was beginning to transition. Night staff wrapped up loose ends while the first members of the day team filtered in, bringing with them a different kind of energy. Way more rested and more detached from what had happened hours earlier.

That overlap always felt strange, like two different realities brushing against each other without fully connecting.

Lucky adjusted her stance, trying to settle into the rhythm of it, but her attention drifted again before she could stop it.

It landed on Jack.

He stood near one of the workstations, finishing his notes, his posture slightly hunched in a way that suggested more than just physical fatigue. His movements were controlled, efficient, but there was something quieter about him now, something pulled inward.

Lucky had started noticing it over the past few weeks. Not something obvious enough for people to comment on, but it was there if you paid attention. After certain shifts—usually the ones that ended the way this one had—he didn’t stick around. He didn’t decompress with the rest of them, didn’t vent or joke or complain.

He just left.

Like he needed distance before something caught up to him.

She watched as he finished typing, gave a brief handoff to another resident, and stepped away without lingering. No small talk, no pause.

Just gone.

Lucky’s gaze lingered on the space he had occupied, something in her chest tightening in a way she didn’t fully understand.

“…he does that sometimes.” The voice came from her left, casual and quiet, not directed at her.

Lucky stilled without turning.

“Who?” someone asked.

“Jack,” the first voice replied. “After nights like this. He just disappears.”

Lucky’s fingers curled slightly against the counter.

“Where does he go?”

A small pause, then, “Pretty sure he goes up to the roof.”

The roof. 

Lucky processed that slowly, her gaze flicking toward the hallway he had taken.

“I didn’t even know we could go up there.”

“We’re not supposed to,” the voice said with a faint shrug. “But no one really enforces it unless you make it a problem.”

The conversation moved on, but Lucky barely registered it.

The roof.

It made sense, in a way that settled too easily.

She hesitated.

This wasn’t her business. There wasn’t a reason for her to follow him, no expectation that she should. They weren’t anything that required that kind of concern.

And yet—

They weren’t just coworkers anymore either.

Somewhere along the way, that had shifted. It hadn’t been a single moment, nothing obvious or dramatic. Just a gradual change in the way they spoke to each other, the way silences between them felt less like gaps and more like something shared.

Still, this felt like crossing into something more private.

Lucky exhaled, glancing once more toward the hallway.

She could go home. Pretend she hadn’t heard anything. Let the night end the way it was supposed to.

That would be easier.

Instead, she pushed away from the counter and started walking.

[...]

The stairwell door gave way with a quiet creak, the noise of the ER dulling almost instantly behind her. The shift from constant sound to near silence felt abrupt, almost disorienting.

Lucky stepped inside, letting the door fall shut behind her.

For a moment, she just stood there.

The air was cooler, still, carrying none of the urgency she had just left behind. Her hand rested briefly against the metal railing as she looked up at the stairs ahead of her.

She could still turn back.

That thought lingered longer than she expected.

Then she let out a quiet breath and followed the stairs to the roof.

[...]

The rooftop door resisted before opening, and when it did, the cool morning air hit her immediately, sharper and cleaner than anything inside the hospital.

Lucky stepped out slowly.

The city stretched out below, distant and softened by height, while the sky above shifted in subtle gradients, the first signs of sunrise beginning to break through the dark.

It felt removed from everything.

Like stepping outside the weight of the night, if only for a moment.

And then she saw him.

Jack stood near the railing, his back partially turned, hands resting loosely against the metal. He wasn’t doing anything in particular, just standing there, his posture slightly more relaxed than it had been downstairs.

Lucky paused, suddenly aware of how this might look and of how private this felt.

She almost turned back.

“You’re not very subtle.”

His voice reached her before she could move.

Lucky blinked, a small, surprised smile pulling at her lips. “I wasn’t trying to be.”

He turned slightly at that, glancing over his shoulder. The shift in his expression when he recognized her was subtle but unmistakable, something softening at the edges.

That was enough for her to step forward.

“I didn’t even know this place existed,” she admitted, moving to stand beside him. “Feels like I’m breaking a rule just by being here.”

“You are,” he said lightly.

“Good,” she replied. “Makes it worth it.”

A quiet breath left him, closer to a laugh than anything else.

Lucky rested her hands against the railing, the cold metal grounding her as she looked out over the city. For a moment, neither of them spoke, but the silence didn’t feel uncomfortable.

It felt… steady.

“Do you come up here often?” she asked after a while.

“Only when I need to,” he said.

She tilted her head slightly. “After nights like this?”

A small pause.

“Yeah.”

Lucky nodded, understanding settling in without needing further explanation.

“I usually drive,” she said after a moment. “No music, no destination. Just keep going until my brain slows down enough to stop replaying everything.”

Jack glanced at her. “Does it help?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “Sometimes it just makes me more tired.”

That earned a faint smile from him, brief but real.

Lucky hesitated before speaking again, her voice softer this time. “I keep thinking about that kid.”

She felt the shift in him immediately.

“The way everything changed so quickly,” she continued. “We had a rhythm, and then suddenly it was just… trying to keep up.”

Jack didn’t interrupt.

“I was drawing meds, double-checking doses, trying to stay ahead of what was being called out,” she said. “It felt controlled, like we still had time.”

Her grip tightened slightly on the railing.

“And then we didn’t.”

The words settled between them.

“The mom,” Lucky added quietly. “I can’t stop thinking about her.”

Jack’s jaw tightened slightly, his gaze fixed somewhere in the distance.

“You did everything right,” he said after a moment.

Lucky turned her head, studying him

“You don’t believe that when it’s you,” she said gently.

A faint, almost humorless breath left him. “…no.”

She let that sit for a second before nudging his arm lightly with hers.

“You don’t get to carry all of it,” she murmured.

He didn’t move away.

“I’m working on it,” he said.

“Good,” she replied, a small smile forming. “Because that sounds like a terrible long-term plan.”

That got a real reaction from him. A brief smile that softened his entire expression before fading again.

It was enough.

The air between them felt different after that. Not lighter, exactly, but less heavy in a way that mattered.

Lucky tilted her head back, watching the sky as the first real hints of sunlight began to stretch across it.

“I get it now,” she said.

“Get what?”

“Why you come up here.” She glanced at him. “It feels like everything finally slows down enough to breathe.”

Jack followed her gaze upward, his expression quieter now.

“Yeah,” he said.

Lucky studied him for a moment, noticing the way his shoulders had relaxed, the way the tension in his posture had eased just slightly.

She liked this version of him.

Not because the weight was gone, but because he wasn’t carrying it alone.

“Guess I’m stealing your spot,” she added lightly. “Hope you don’t mind.”

He looked at her for a second, something thoughtful passing through his expression.

“I don’t.”

The simplicity of it lingered.

Lucky felt something shift in her chest, subtle but undeniable, and leaned a little more into the railing, her shoulder brushing his briefly.

Neither of them pulled away.

[...]

The rooftop door opened quietly behind them.

Robby stepped out, rolling the stiffness from his shoulders as he prepared himself for the start of his shift. The hospital already weighed on him, even before he had fully stepped into it.

He exhaled, lifting his gaze—

And froze.

Lucky. His sister.

Standing beside Jack.

Closer than he had ever seen her stand to anyone at work.

There was something in the way they occupied the same space—something quiet, unspoken—that immediately caught his attention.

Robby didn’t move. Didn’t interrupt.

His gaze lingered on Lucky first, protective instinct settling in before he could stop it, then shifted to Jack, assessing without meaning to.

Understanding came slowly, but firmly.

Not something fully formed. Not yet.

But enough.

Without a word, he stepped back.

The door closed softly behind him.

And on the rooftop, Lucky and Jack remained, unaware of the moment that had just passed. Or of how, without either of them realizing it, something between them had already begun to change.

[...]

Ted Lasso

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