#cw suicide reference

[generic-sonic-fan]

Old Time's Sake

Summary: The robot once known as "Metal Sonic" attempts to ask Amy Rose for a favor.

TW: suicidal thoughts

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It crashed into a pot of petunias on the porch, ceramic shattering against the wooden panels of the house. Shredded pink blossoms settled against purple, yellow, and blue plating, only to be shaken off by the onslaught of shudders that battered its frame. 

Neo pulled itself to the door just as the knob twisted from the other side. Amy Rose stared down.

“Metal? Oh my goodness, you look- what happened?”

It grasped the frame of the door and pulled itself upright.

“No, it’s okay, stay right there. Or actually, I’ll bring you in!”

Amy Rose grabbed its arms and pulled it through the door. It simulated her gripping hard enough to damage its plating. A reprimand shot down its spinal strut response. She did not lose or even tighten her grip, however, as she led it to her couch.

She sat it down. “Stay here. You’re going to be okay. I’ll get Tails on the phone and he’ll make you right as rain!”

The name switched its self-preservation programming from hostile to cooperative. Calling Miles “Tails” Prower would result in Sonic’s arrival, so it must not allow Amy Rose to reach her cell phone, so it must attack her, and she would summon her hammer and then-

It lept off the couch and embedded its claws into her shoulders. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open to match the exact ratios of panic it had recorded from her on Little Planet. In an instant, her hammer was in her hand.

The force dented its torso plating. It crashed into a wall. It waited for more blows, simulated the damage from other instances in which she’d demolished Badniks, anticipated, anticipated. It looked at her to find her stationary despite her vitals being elevated beyond even what might be registered in ordinary combat.

It pulled itself out of the wall and approached.

“What is going on with you?”

It scratched at her, but only pierced air as she stepped away.

“Would you stop that? I can’t help you if you’re going to attack me!”

Neo recalled her being more intelligent than this. It pointed to her hammer, then pointed to its own frame. 

Her panic unfroze and dripped down to a facial expression that would be unrecognizable if it were not for the events of the past two weeks. It was an expression of Sonic towards hurt Flickies. Of a young “Rosie” uncovering a broken robot on a snowy day. 

Her hammer disappeared. “You want me to hurt you?”

Neo gave an affirmative ping before the shudder of a reprimand could stop it.

“No. I’m not going to.”

It lunged forward, piercing the skin of her arm, the tips of its claws coming away with blood.

“I’m not going to hurt you!” Amy Rose shouted. “Don’t do that again or I’ll call Sonic!”

Neo froze.

“Not that I don’t think I can smash you to pieces myself, but that I don’t want to. Tails tells me that you’re not working for Eggman anymore.”

That was the point. Without Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s interference, Neo was without purpose. Neo should be destroyed. Neo should be destroyed. Neo should be-

“Did you ever want to work for him in the first place?”

Neo looked at her.

“Did I. . . make a mistake, that one time in the snow?”

It lowered its gaze.

“Because you just seemed so sad, sitting abandoned there. Like you’d given up.”

It could not feel ‘sadness’. It could hardly recall the memory file; data input from that time had been minimized to best preserve power. It had been out of standby mode for only a minute, knocked back into active mode when she had saved it from the path of the falling tree. 

And it could not give up. Its prime core directive demanded as much. The reminder triggered reprimands, and a shudder up its neck joint rattled it out of the memory. 

“Here, can you write?” Amy Rose retrieved a pencil and pad of paper from a table at the end of the couch. “Let’s sit down so that you can tell me what’s going on instead of barging in and being rude.”

It shook its head.

“Then I’ll go get my phone so you can type.” 

She walked backwards, keeping her eyes fixed on its frame until she slipped behind a door. She returned with her cellular device, cased in pink with charms dangling from the corner. She unlocked the screen and extended the device in its direction.

“You’re either telling me what’s going on or you’re leaving.” She said.

Neo took the phone and typed, “this unit cannot give up.”

“Seems like that’s what you’re doing right now, huh?” She smiled with only half of her mouth. “Back then, I just couldn’t leave you there to die. Or deactivate, I guess. I thought at the time that you might miss Eggman. He gave you more headpats back then.”

“This unit did not wish to be left there.” To fade into nothing. It could not be nothing.

“But did you want to go back to Eggman?”

“No other beneficial course of action.”

“I could have brought you to Tails.”

“The result would have been deactivation.”

“He could have reprogrammed you, like he did just now.”

“Exposure to Tails increases likelihood of exposure to Sonic by 94%. Deactivation would have followed.”

“That’s not true.”

“Negative. This unit-”

She did not wait for it to finish typing. “That’s not true. Sonic isn’t just some bloodthirsty monster out to get you. He just wants to protect people. Every time he beat you up it’s because you did something to deserve it.”

“Define: ‘something to deserve it’.”

“You don’t know what you did wrong? I thought you wanted to be good now.”

“Define: ‘good’.” Neo stepped forward. “Define: ‘good’.”

“Good! As in, not hurting people!” Amy Rose pointed to the scratches on her arm. “Or kidnapping them!”

“67% of this unit’s missions did not involve hurting or kidnapping sentient organics.”

“Or animals! Not hurting or killing plants and animals either. Really, it’s not that hard and you missed the bar. That’s why Sonic fought you so often.”

“24% of all encounters with Sonic the Hedgehog did not involve other organic beings.”

“Because he knew that you were going out to hurt people, or to help Eggman get things to hurt people with.”

“Why did you return this unit to Dr. Ivo Robotnik?”

“I-” Amy Rose held her breath for two seconds. She directed her gaze to Neo’s foot plating. “Because I thought it was where you’d be happiest.”

“Incomprehensible. Elaborate.”

“Did you like it, when you kidnapped me?”

Neo was prepared to repeat its prior statement before its optics swiveled to the same angle as Amy Rose’s. It stared down at its body, the remains of lines and hues of purple, shaped in a way that it did indeed ‘like’. And it compared the sensation to that of returning to Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s lair with the then-little girl in hand. 

It remembered depositing her in the cell, before turning to meet its creator. It remembered a soft hand on its forehead plating. It remembered his words.

“Excellent work, my finest creation!”

Even the review of this piece of data in its memory banks brought an echo of euphoria in its processor. That it was once finest. That it once completed excellent work.

“Yes.” Neo answered. “This unit liked when Dr. Ivo Robotnik praised it.”

“But did you like seeing me afraid? Did that make you laugh or make you happy?” Amy Rose asked.

“That data was irrelevant.”

“And did you like hurting animals?”

“That data was irrelevant.” 

“And do you like hurting Sonic, or do you just want to be praised for it?”

Neo generated fifteen different responses, but only five made grammatical sense and of those, three were non-sequiturs and the other two were objectively false. 

“That’s what I thought.” Amy Rose said.

“This unit must destroy Sonic.” It snapped. “If it cannot destroy Sonic, then it must cease existing.”

“You don’t have to do either. You really don’t. I know you will never believe me. . . but you don’t.” Amy Rose stepped forward. She then sighed, before gesturing further into her house. “Follow me.”

Neo followed her past her main living area and into a room covered in decorative scraps affixed to the walls with a bed against the far wall. She opened the door to the closet and retrieved a roll of red ribbon. She retrieved scissors and snipped a scrap off the end. She then manipulated the scrap into a bow knot, before turning to face Neo.

“Here. This is the ribbon I gave you that day. I’m giving it back to you.”

This was not the ribbon that Amy Rose gave it the day she returned it to Dr. Ivo Robotnik. Dr. Ivo Robotnik had seized the fabric and thrown it into the incinerator before Neo had shut down for repair. This new ribbon was, however, of the exact same color and material composition ratio as the previous, suggesting that this roll of ribbon was the common origin of the two. 

“This time, though, you get to choose what to do with yourself. You get to go wherever you’re happiest.”

“Even if this unit is happiest when determining how to destroy Sonic?”

“If that’s where you are happiest, then I’ll beat the crap out of you with this.” She summoned her hammer again. “Because I am happiest when I’m making sure my friends aren’t getting hurt.”

“And if it is unknown where this unit is happiest?”

“Then keep going until you figure it out.” Amy Rose deposited the ribbon into its hand. 

She clasped her palm against its fingers. It loosened its joints, allowing her to curl its fingers around the fabric. She then let go. 

“You should go.” She pointed to the door. “You don’t want to be here, and I don’t want you here.”

Neo cocked its head. 

“Because I’m still really mad at you.” She gripped her hammer tighter. “But that’s something we can talk about when you figure out if you want to be better or not.”

Her statement was illogical. If she was mad at it, then she would not be giving it a gift. It could not understand. But it could understand her command, so it left her bedroom, walked through her living area, and passed through the exterior door of her house.

The door shut, and it heard two locking mechanisms engage behind it. 

Neo stood in the darkness looking at the bow in its hand.

[silvr-skreen]

this is him. btw. hes this guy.

idk what his deal is but hes funny.

[butyoudidthis4what]

Quiet

Widower!Jack Abbott x Widow Single Mom!Reader

19.9k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: sick baby; sick mom; mentions of needles; inaccurate medical knowledge/descriptions/tests etc.; reference to past pregnancy; reference to past miscarriages but no graphic descriptions, just a mention they occurred (reader does not actively experience one in the fic); Jack was in the army; reader's husband was in the army and died while deployed; discussions of IVs and needle sticks; reader gets an IV and is not afraid of needles; mild description of IV insertion; shy reader; discussion of possible peanut allergy; mentions of covid, influenza a and b and RSV; mom guilt; discussions of loss of spouse; lots of grief and self hate for a bit; Jack is vaguely suicidal and ideating at the beginning; healing; reader and jack are human and not perfect and make mistakes; reader can't cook; baby is a boy but is not named; DOMESTIC JACK

Summary: Widower Jack and widowed single mom Reader meet in the Pitt when Reader's baby gets sick. What follows is healing, patience and becoming ready.

A.N.: Inspired by this ask. This was so inspiring and I went totally off the rails. There will for sure be a part two. I really wanted to do something with Jack being a widower but was unsure of how to. This ask came in and the idea came to me and I felt like it was a good way to work with that piece of him. The beginning is quite emotional, I'm not going to say angst, there's just a lot of emotions and sadness and grief as we define Jack and Reader's reality. I PROMISE that the end gets fluffy and happy and (I hope) funny! Part two will be more fluff with a dash of emotion sprinkled in as we watch their relationship develop and the two get their happily ever after together!

You make it to about ten before you decide to go in. It’s not a long drive and by 10:15 p.m. you’re parked and walking into the ED.

You bite your lip and bounce just a little to help keep him asleep in your arms while the woman behind the plexiglass processes your insurance and co-pay. She gives you a warm smile, says to take a seat and it’ll be just a few minutes and they’ll get you back. 

Thanking her you grab your cards and do as she says. You’re surprised by how quiet it is. There’s a few people in the waiting room but it seems more like they’re waiting on people as opposed to be seen. Small mercies, you suppose. You’ll take what you can get. 

You can only imagine what you must look like right now, how bad you must look. You wish your husband was here. Wish he had been here for it all. He’d reassure you. Tell you that you were doing the right thing by coming in. Better to be safe than sorry. You can hear him telling you it. 

A call of your last name dissolves his voice playing in the back of your head. You follow a nurse back and get settled in a room. All the basics are done, everything you expected. And like you expected the second you set your son down so that his vitals can be taken he starts to cry. It makes you want to cry. 

Bridget reassures you that it’s okay, is quick taking his vitals so you can get him back in your arms and calm him. You know you must look like a mess, hair messed up, eyes reflecting how exhausted you are and the lack of sleep, wrinkled clothes that have at least one stain somewhere, probably more. And you’re sure that your face reflects how you feel inside, how frazzled you are, how guilty, how scared, how upset, how sad, how out of control you feel. 

Bridget dims the lights for you and leaves you to hold your son against you in the hospital bed. “I’ll have a doctor in as soon as possible.”

“Thank you,” you murmur, “and I’m sorry for being kind of a mess. Well, not kind of at this point.” 

She just laughs. “I understand, but trust me, you’re doing just fine.”

You manage to give her a small smile back and nod. She walks out and then it’s just you and your son. Like it always is. Your husband isn’t here, he’s never going to be here. His absence is pronounced as you lay in a hospital bed in an emergency room with your sick nine-month old. You do your best to not think about it because if you do, you’ll lose it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He’s missing her tonight, more than usual. Maybe it’s not so much that he’s missing her more than usual but he’s more aware of how much he always misses her. It’s more acute. Like some flareup of a chronic illness. Thinking in medical terms helps.

He knows he shouldn’t do that, try to understand it like it’s some illness he can study and understand. It’s just grief. It’s just there more than others some days. Sometimes he can articulate why and others he can’t.

Tonight he can’t. 

He bends his thumb inward and puts it on his wedding band, thumbs at it so it rolls around his finger. Nervous habit. That’s what he calls it now. When she was alive it helped ground him, reminded him she was there and he’d be going home to her, could make it through whatever was in front of him. And then she died. So now he tells himself it’s a nervous habit because he doesn’t know what the fuck else to call it. 

To those who don’t know him he still looks like a husband subtly using his wedding band to ground himself or remind himself of his wife or because he’s thinking about her and so he’s subconsciously playing with his ring. 

If only. 

Jack inches a little further and looks down over the ledge of the roof. The ground looks so inviting from the roof sometimes. It would be so simple. He could be reunited with her, if such a thing was real. 

Sometimes though he wants to be selfish and not care how she’d feel about it because she, unlike him, isn’t around anymore to feel fucking anything. Sometimes his grief comes out in anger because she got it fucking easy, she didn’t have to lose him, she doesn’t have to be here, doing all this feeling while alone. He always hates himself after that even though his therapist says it’s normal. But he’s stuck here and has to do the feeling because when he tried to bury the feelings he nearly self-destructed. 

So Jack stands on the roof. Stands and feels. And Jack is tired. Tired of feeling. At least like this anyway. 

He knows she’d hate it, hate him walking off the ledge of the roof so he doesn’t. Not tonight. 

Instead he slips back under the guard rail and leans against it, lets his head fall back and the chill in the air bring him back down. 

It’s too quiet, he realizes. Maybe that’s why his awareness of how much he misses her is so high right now. He likes noise. Keeps his mind quiet. The Pitt is too quiet. Even the City as he stands on the roof. And so his mind is loud. 

It makes him uneasy. There’s always a reason for silence. For quiet. It always means something. Always brings something. Rarely, if ever, is it good.

Jack lets out a heavy sigh and then leaves the roof, heads back down to the Pitt hoping to find something to do. He’ll take anything at this point. “There you are,” Bridget greets him as he walks back in. “Sick nine-month old waiting for you,” she nods at your room, tells him your son’s name, a general overview. “Baby doesn’t seem too bad. Mom is stressed.” 

Jack nods, says a quick “thanks,” as starts walking towards your room. 

He looks in and sees you through the glass and stops. You are beautiful. Strikingly so. And Jack hasn’t even met you yet but feels like he’s known you forever, is drawn to you. It feels like he just understands you, or maybe more like he knows you’re going to understand him. It’s the strangest feeling. 

You start to glance up from looking at your son and Jack quickly resumes moving, knocking slightly on the door since you’ve already seen him and walking in, shutting the door behind him. “Hi, I’m Dr. Abbot,” he introduces himself. 

And god, now that he’s in your space, in here with your energy it’s even more intense. It’s like he’s supposed to know you, supposed to have met you. Like some kind of palpable fate in his brain. He briefly wonders if he’s hallucinating because this is not shit he really believes in, not normally. 

Quiet, Jack thinks. It always brings something. Or maybe someone. 

“I hear we’re not feeling well.” He looks down at your son who is asleep in your arms, head on your chest. “Mom, right?”

You nod, tell him your name. Nearly trip over it because this man is so handsome it is unfair. Then you feel bad the second you have that thought. But then you start to feel pulled to him. He’s just comforting and you struggle to understand how because you don’t know him. It feels like you do, but you don’t. You’re drawn to him. You feel like you actually need to know him. Like he and you are here for a reason. 

You immediately chastise yourself for having those thoughts. Your husband, you remind yourself, your husband. He’d have wanted you to move on, to grieve and then find someone. You don’t even have to assume that or just think it. You knew it. You knew it because of that fucking video he left you that you were never supposed to have to see. 

You bring yourself back into the present. 

“What’s been going on to bring you in?” Jack asks as he logs into the computer and pulls up your son’s chart. He glances over at you and catches a look in your eye. Jack thinks you feel it too. Whatever is between you and him, the connection. It feels like you know it’s there too. Maybe that’s wishful thinking.

You tell him what’s been going on, symptoms your son is showing. Jack alternates between typing on the computer and looking at you. “I, um, I called the nurse hotline, you know, on the back of the insurance card before I came in, I really didn’t want to waste your time, I know you guys are so busy. She said that it’s probably okay to wait to get in with the pediatrician, but that if I was concerned I could go to the emergency room and I really tried to wait, I did, but I just, I don’t know. I felt like he sounded more wheezy.” You shrug at him, eyes round and showing how distressed you are, a hint of glass at them that suggests you’re close to tears. “It’s RSV season, you know? I mean I know you know. And god, I don’t want to be like, doctor WebMD or whatever, I trust you and your expertise, it’s just why I came in, they tell you about it so much at all the appointments and I, I don’t want anything to happen to him. But if you think this is too much you can just say and-”

“It’s not too much,” Jack cuts you off, nodding gently. “I promise. Better to be safe than sorry especially if you feel like he’s been a little more wheezy.” You nod at Jack who keeps looking at you intently. It makes you clear your throat and look away. But when he doesn’t say anything after a second you look back up at him. “You did the right thing,” he tells you when he catches your eye contact again. “Can I?” He gestures to your son. 

“Oh! Yes, yes of course! Here, let me get out of bed and lay him down.” You give a breathy laugh that reveals how out of sorts you are. You’re clearly thrumming with nervous energy, frenetic and flustered.

“No, it’s okay. You can stay, I’ll take him and get him on the end of the bed if that’s okay?” He holds his hands out to take your son. 

“Of course, yeah, whatever is easiest for you and best for him!” You gently pull your son from you and he starts to wake and fuss. “I’m sorry, he hates not being held right now and he hates being held by anyone but me it seems like sometimes, so he might not…” you trail your sentence off when Jack takes your son and he settles against Jack as they walk to the end of the bed. “Settle.” You sit up and cross your legs to give Jack more room. “I guess he likes you,” you laugh softly. 

“Good taste in people already,” Jack quips absentmindedly as he lays your son down. You give a soft laugh and the corners of his lips pull up. You get his humor. He likes that. Not everyone does especially when he executes it so stoically sometimes. There really is a draw there. 

Your son starts to fuss again and Jack can see you stiffen a little and start to look like you’re about to apologize. “It’s alright, little guy, I’ll have you back to mom soon.” He keeps a hand gently on your son’s tiny stomach and chest while putting his stethoscope on with one hand and rubbing the chest piece on the side of his scrub top for a few seconds to warm it up before putting it to your son’s skin. “I know, I’m sorry,” he murmurs in between listens, gently pulling your son up into a sitting position to listen to the back of his chest. “I’m the worst, I know, you can tell me all about it, won’t be the first or the last.” 

You sit there watching the whole interaction stunned. You don’t know why, you just never expected to get a doctor who would be so good with your son, with you. There’s something about him. Something you could never hope to articulate. You’re just drawn to him, he feels like some sort of kindred spirit which you tell yourself is crazy because you’ve known the man all of four minutes. 

Jack takes his stethoscope out and finishes his exam. “You have his clothes?” He glances up at you as you ask. 

“Hm?” You lean in a little towards him. Before he can repeat himself the words process. “Oh, yes!” You grab them from beside you. You’d taken them off earlier with Bridget so she and eventually the doctor could examine your son. 

“Thanks.” Jack grabs them from you and gets your son dressed again. 

“No, thank you. You… You didn’t have to do that.” The smile you give him almost reads embarrassed. 

“Least I could do for upsetting him so much by laying him down.” Jack picks your son up and brings him the few steps back up to you as you stretch your legs out again. Your son has already started to settle in his arms again. 

“So,” Jack reaches over for the rolling stool in the room and uses the pressure of his fingertips to slide it over to him before sitting down on it and rolling up to be closer to the midpoint of the bed so you can talk. “You’re right, he’s a little wheezy. Nothing terrible, but it’s there. His fever is still pretty low grade and I saw he’s about due for some acetaminophen, so we can recheck after we give him some more in a bit. Is RSV a possibility? Yes. So is a common cold. So is influenza A or B, so is Covid.” Jack can see you getting more panicky. 

“I…” You shake your head and look at Jack. “This is my fault.” Jack furrows his eyebrows at you and cocks his head a little. “I, I’m a single mom. It’s just him and I and I have to send him to daycare so that I can work and I don’t have any family around to help and I can’t afford a nanny, daycare is expensive as it is and I don’t want to have to send him to day care, even though I know that’s a normal thing and lots of parents do it and are good parents, are great parents, it doesn’t define how good of a parent you are, but I just think in this case, it’s me. I let him get sick. I exposed him. And I never wanted that, I really didn’t I just don’t have other options and it’s so hard and I spent months researching and touring locations to try and find the best one I could afford, but at the end of the day it’s still a cesspool of germs and I don’t know. I know that it’s mom guilt and daycare guilt and I shouldn’t feel that way, but I do and you know, nothing can happen to him.” You hold your son a little closer to you. You know if something happened to him you’d be gone within minutes. “Nothing can happen to him,” you repeat, a murmur. 

There’s a small silence and then you look up. “Oh my god,” you look at Jack horrified. “I just dumped that all on you and said all of that out loud. You’re a doctor. A busy doctor in an emergency room, you so do not have time for this, and god, fuck, it’s not even your job to listen anyway. I am so, so sorry.” You fight back tears because you are not doing this, you are not losing it here in an emergency room with your son in your arms. Because if one tear falls all of them will. 

Jack can see how you’re trembling. He noticed you were a little when he came in the room, noticed how chapped your lips were. 

“Hey, it’s all good.” Jack’s voice is soft and he tries to catch your eye to reassure you more but doesn’t force you when you avoid it. “I have time, you picked a good night, okay? And I know that nothing I can say will help with the guilt and I know you know but this stuff happens. They get sick. You did what you’re supposed to do, brought him in, called the hotline, monitored him closely.” You close your eyes for a second and take in a few breaths. He can tell you need to move on and not dwell here or something will open up that you can’t close and there is nobody who understands that better than Jack. “I don’t think anything is going to happen to him. I’m going to give you some choices, okay?” 

You finally look back up at him and nod, give him an apologetic smile. “Thank you,” you whisper. 

Jack nods. “First option is we give him some acetaminophen here and keep you guys here for a couple hours to monitor him and see how he does. That’s the least intensive option. Second option is the most intensive option. We test for RSV, rhinovirus, influenza A and B, Covid. That would be a swab test, one for all. We draw some blood and run a few tests just to check on everything. And then we do a chest x-ray to see if anything’s going on. Third option is a middleground. We start with the swab test. If it comes back positive for one we discuss more options. If it comes back negative then maybe we decide to do bloodwork. Choice is yours. None of them are wrong.”

You swallow hard. Your mind races as you try to decide. What if you make the wrong choice and something happens? 

“What would you do if he was yours?” You ask Jack, voice so, so small, so scared. Jack barely knows you but his heart aches for you. It’s like he understands you somehow even though he’s not a parent, has no reason to feel such a pull or connection to you. 

“Uh, wow, I… I don’t know,” Jack stutters a little because the question throws him so much. 

“I’m sorry if that was inappropriate, you don’t have to answer. I thought maybe you and your wife had kids and maybe that’s inappropriate too, god.” You cringe at yourself. But yeah. You’d noticed the wedding ring when he took your son from you. 

“No, no, it’s not inappropriate and we… I,” Jack looks almost pained. It’s familiar, the expression he wears. You feel like you know it well even if you can’t place it in the moment. “No kids,” he finally settles on, “I don’t have any kids. And I can’t say I’ve thought about… this, what I would do before.” He brings a hand up to his head and runs it through his hair before crossing his arms over his chest for a second before moving them back down to rest on his legs. “It’s hard,” he shrugs, and gives you an apologetic look. “The doctor in me who knows all of the possibilities says option two. But the doctor in me also knows that’s probably a bit overkill and that realistically option one is fine, and that option three is the best, that middleground.” He looks away from you and down at your son, studies your little boy whose small hand clings to your shirt. “I can’t say I’ve ever really tried to access the… paternal side of me,” Jack clears his throat, “not in a long time anyway. But I think I’d have to go option two, even though it’s overkill and involves a needle stick. I’d want the reassurance and to see the numbers and images.” 

You nod. “Yeah,” you say quietly and look down at your son. “Yeah, I think that’s what I want to do. I just needed, I don’t know. Not permission but… something.” You look back up at Jack and your eyes glaze over a bit. Something he recognizes, something he’s been told happens to him when he talks about his wife. His head tilts slightly at the thought. “Input.” You finally whisper. “I needed input.” 

Jack watches your bottom lip tremble and you bite it to stop it from doing so. 

Because you don’t have input. Your input is in the ground. Six feet in the ground. You never really got to have any input. Not from the one person whose input mattered most. 

And you don’t miss how you feel this connection to Jack and now he’s your input. Guilt and sorrow and grief and some vague flicker of anticipation slam into you. Anticipation is a new feeling, you haven’t had it since you gave birth. Even the way you phrased the question. Not what would he do with his child or if it was his kid here what would he do. No, you’d asked what would he do if your son was his.

You have to stop thinking about it.

Jack leans back a little and runs his palms down his thighs. “Okay, then that’s what we’ll do. I’ll go ahead and put in the orders for the tests and acetaminophen. You can go to x-ray with him and wait behind the door, the rest we’ll do in here. I can swab,” he says with a small smile as he grabs one of the testing kits they have out of the cabinet in the room. He quickly types an order into the computer.“But I’m going to have one of our nurses come and grab some blood. I’d do it but nobody wants that. They’re the best sticks in the place, I promise.” He gives you a small but reassuring smile. 

You can’t remember the last time you genuinely felt reassured by anyone’s smile. That’s a lie. You can. It was the last time your husband ever smiled at you. The thought makes the smile you give him in return falter a bit. Jack wonders if he did something. Said the wrong thing. 

Your son fusses a bit for the swab, but you’re able to help hold him still so that Jack can get it done as quickly as possible. He settles back easy enough. Bridget walks in with some supplies while Jack continues typing. 

Jack was right, Bridget is a fantastic stick and the needle is so small your son makes just a little whimper before resting on you again. You feel bad when you have to wake him a bit to give him the tylenol. His small hands rub at his eyes and he tries to move his head away but you coax him to it so easily, so naturally, Jack thinks to himself. “Thanks Bridget,” he says quietly as she walks out. 

“Alright,” Jack says through an exhaled breath as he finishes on the computer. “I’m gonna be honest with you,” he starts as he grabs some hand sanitizer, “I’m more worried about you, mom, than I am about the baby.” He turns to look at you as he sits back down on the stool, tilts his head at you. 

You blink at him, like what he said is still processing. “Me?” Jack nods. “I’m fine, I feel fine. I’m just maybe a bit tired because, you know, sick kid but… I’m fine.” 

Jack pushes his bottom lip out a little and pulls down, nods just a little. He doesn’t believe you. You know he doesn’t. “When’s the last time you ate?” 

You look at him again for a moment and for a minute Jack thinks he’s gone too far, overstepped, has been imagining everything he’s felt since he saw you. “Um,” you finally say. He realizes you’ve been trying to think when it was, not that he upset you or anything. “I, I don’t know, probably I had something for lunch, I’m sure.” 

“You’re shaking.” Jack points out. You furrow your brows, unsure if he’s right and if he is how he could possibly know that. “Hold out a hand.” You do as he asks and sure enough, you can’t keep it still. “When’s the last time you drank some water?” He gives you a look as he says it and tilts his head at you. “Your lips are chapped. It’s been a bit, I’d guess. You’re dehydrated.”

You look away from him, can’t decide if you’re uncomfortable with his scrutiny or if you kind of like it. It feels wrong to like it. 

“Listen, I’m not trying to be a dick, okay?” He goes to continue speaking and stops, what he just said hitting him. “I probably shouldn’t have said dick in front of a patient, so I apologize for that,” you laugh at that and shake your head telling him not to. “I can’t imagine how hard it must be doing this by yourself. But you have to take care of yourself for him, and again, I know you know that,” he holds his hands up, “I just wanted to say because I’m sure it’s easy to lose sight of, especially when he’s sick.”

You nod and let yourself look back at him. “Yeah,” you nod. “It is.” 

“So, game plan for you is to get some food and water in your system. What do you like to eat?” 

“Oh, wow,” you laugh a little. “Dr. Abbot, that is-”

“Jack,” he interrupts you to tell you, “call me Jack.”

“Uh, okay. Well, Jack, that is very kind of you but I’ll be okay, and I can grab something once we get home. I will grab something.” You try to give him a reassuring smile. “Promise.” 

Jack shakes his head and clicks his tongue. “No, you’re going to be here too long for that to be a deal. Between the x-ray and blood test results and monitoring him. Food and water or I’m going to create a chart for you and give you an IV.” He shrugs like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Like it’s something he would do for any patient. 

You both know he wouldn’t. 

In part because having this much time is a rarity, beyond a rarity even. In part because any patient isn’t you.

You open your mouth to speak a couple of times and then close it again. “Okay,” you whisper. 

“Great,” Jack smiles at you. “What do you like to eat?”

You look at Jack and you look so overwhelmed he starts to feel bad. “Jack, I, honestly?” you laugh, “I have no fucking idea. Like none. I don’t remember, I don’t have the ability to even pick.” You’re still laughing because it’s so fucking ridiculous. A simple question. And yet you can’t answer it. 

There’s a sorrow to your laugh that resonates with Jack. It sounds familiar. Sounds like his laugh sometimes. 

“Alright, well,” Jack laughs a little with you, keeps it light, “I’d say I can work with that but I think it’s really more like I’m gonna have to work with that.” 

You shake your head and cringe at yourself. “You must think I’m a disaster. God, I’m sure I look like one.” 

Jack presses his lips together and squints a little, shakes his head. “I don’t think either, nor is either true.” 

Jack leans back and it stretches his shirt against his chest, pulls it tauter. The outline of two familiar pieces of metal and rubber silencers becomes visible, just for a second. You’d been feeling a little better. Now you’re about to be sick. About to lose it. 

Your smile falls, and Jack furrows his brows, goes to ask if you’re okay. 

“Do you have dog tags in your pocket?” You glance down at his chest pocket. 

“Uh, yeah, yeah I do.” If Jack had stopped right there you would have been fine. You would have been able to breathe through it, shut yourself down emotionally, and kept it all in. But he doesn’t. And you’re exhausted and your baby is sick and your husband is dead. 

Jack pulls them out of his pocket and flashes them at you. Quickly, but long enough.

Jack knows something is wrong based on the look on your face and the way you stare at his dog tags and then his chest pocket when they’re back away. You start shaking your head, squeeze your eyes closed. “Hey,” Jack starts softly. 

You shake your head faster, try to say something but all that comes out is a soundless sob as you devolve into tears. Quiet ones because your son is asleep in your arms but big wracking ones nonetheless.

It clicks into place. The draw to you. Feeling like he understood you and you him. Recognizing the way your eyes glazed over just slightly. The familiar sorrow to your laugh. 

You’re a widow too. 

And if Jack was a betting man he’d put a whole lot of money on your husband being deployed when you lost him. 

Jack’s up quickly, grabbing the box of tissues and setting them on the bed near you while reaching for your son wordlessly, only a nod and gentle motion of his hands to offer. You’re torn between whether having your son out of your arms will help or hurt, but you know it’s not fair to him and that eventually he’ll wake up because of your sobs, no matter how quiet you are. 

Jack takes him from you and sits back down in one of the chairs this time, pulling it over to be closer to the bed and kicking the stool out of the way. Your son stays asleep as Jack settles him on his chest. He feels a bit cooler too, Jack notes.

“I’m so, sorry,” you choke out quietly between sobs, “you can give him back and go, this is, this is not your problem to deal with.” Jack doesn’t reply, just nudges the tissues closer to you. 

And so you keep crying. And Jack keeps holding your son. 

Eventually you cry yourself out and are so numb you’re left with just shame and embarrassment for doing this here, in front of Jack and your son. 

As the sniffles stop, you try to look at Jack but are too embarrassed. “I’m so sorry,” you repeat. “I’ll take him back and you can go.”

Jack stands up and hands you your son back. A wave of relief and calm washes over you at having his familiar weight back in your arms and on your chest. But there’s a pang of sadness too, you really thought Jack might stay. You don’t know why you care.

But Jack surprises you, sits back down and pulls his phone out for a second, sends off a couple of messages. He turns his attention back to you. “I’m gonna stay for a bit. The uh,” he struggles to find a word that won’t jinx everything, “patient census,” he makes a face when he says it like he can’t believe he just said those words, “is low tonight. I have time.” He lets out a long breath through his nose. “And you have nothing to apologize for,” he shakes his head slowly as he speaks.

You give him a slight smile at patient census and the look he pulls, a little nod and he doesn’t push for more. He gives you time. 

But after a while he puts it out there so you know that you can. “You wanna talk about it?”

You look at him and see understanding, feel like you’re really being seen for the first time since your husband died and you don’t know why Jack is the one. 

“I don’t know,” you whisper. Shrug at him with a watery smile. “I don’t know how to.” 

Jack nods slowly. Pauses for a moment and takes in a big breath he lets out, a little shaky. A shaky you feel like you recognize. “My wife died five years ago, so when I say I know what you mean, I promise I really do.” 

You shut your eyes and grimace as it all falls into place. The connection you felt with him. The pull. Why he makes you feel seen. 

“God I am so sorry, when I asked earlier, about kids and if you and your wife had any, I just thought with the ring, god I of all people should know better than that.” You shake your head at yourself. 

“You had no way of knowing,” Jack shakes his head. He looks down at his ring. Then to your ring finger which is empty. That deep set confliction and need to explain starts to rise. “I still wear it because… I think… It’s-”

“Hey,” you say softly. “You don’t have to explain. Not to anyone, and certainly not to me.”

Jack nods. You sit in the quiet for a few minutes. 

“I would probably still have mine on, but,” you sigh, “I guess it requires more backstory.” You pause to collect yourself. “Long story short is he was in the army. Scheduled to be deployed. Really short one. He was done after it too. Would have been out.” You take in another shaky breath. “We’d been trying for a baby for a while. I kept miscarrying. Little under two weeks before he was leaving I found out I was five weeks pregnant. And this one felt different. I had morning sickness. There was so much cautious optimism and he hated that he had to leave but he was supposed to be back in time for birth as long as everything went as planned.” You shrug. “He died when I was ten weeks pregnant.” 

Jack closes his eyes at that. His heart aches for you in the way only someone whose heart has been through that same loss can. 

“Yeah, pretty fucking sick of the universe. The one time I keep the pregnancy I lose the husband.” You wipe at your eyes with the tissue in your hand. “Anyway, late pregnancy my hands swelled up. Rings didn’t fit. I had to take them off. And once I had him and knew they would fit again I couldn’t bring myself to slide them back on. He was supposed to be the one to do that, you know?” Jack nods. He gets it. “So I think that’s probably the only reason I’m not still wearing mine.” 

“It’s not been five years though,” Jack points out. 

“There’s no timeline on when to be ready and take them off. I’m the newbie to the widow game here, but even I know that.” You give him a lopsided smile and Jack lets out a little laugh. 

“No timeline to any of it.” Jack offers. You raise your brows and lower them, nod as to wordlessly say true. 

You’re interrupted by Bridget bringing in some water and food for you. It’s obvious something has happened between the two of you and that you’ve been crying. “There’s an incoming,” she says quietly to Jack. “ETA four. We need you.” He nods. 

Bridget steps out and Jack stands up, puts the chair back and looks back at you, rolls his eyes. “Patient census comment coming back to bite me in the ass. Shoulda known better.” 

You let out a small laugh. “I thought it was very Scottish Play of you.” Jack smiles at you. “I’m sorry it didn’t work.” He walks over to the door and puts his hand on the door handle, pauses, thinking.

Jack turns back to look at you. “What’s done cannot be undone,” he says with a little smirk. 

You laugh almost properly at that. It makes you feel, maybe not totally happy, but okay. It’s been a while since you’ve felt either. 

“Oh wow, okay, well go get ‘em Lady Macbeth.” Jack laughs softly, more of just a smile with some air breathed out of his nose as he shakes his head a little at you. 

He doesn’t say to eat and drink the water and that he’ll be back to check on you. He doesn’t need to. You know.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few weeks pass. Your son recovers without incident. You can’t stop thinking about Jack. Jack can’t stop thinking about you. He has to talk himself out of looking up your info in your son’s chart and going to stop by and make sure your son recovered okay. 

You get sick. Really sick. You finally get your son down for a nap and stare at the piece of paper Jack had given you as you left. 

“Here,” Jack hands you a slip of paper with his name and number written on it. “If you ever need anything, call me, okay? If you need help fixing something at home or someone to watch the baby for an hour so you can grab a shower, or for however long it takes you to get your hair done, or whatever. Don’t hesitate to call.” Jack swallows. He doesn’t know how this part is going to go. “Or, you know… just call me.” 

You look up at him wide-eyed. “Oh, wow,” you laugh nervously, “wow Jack, I am so flattered, truly. But I just,” you look away from him, suddenly somehow even more shy, like the man hasn’t seen you sobbing and snotty and is still interested in you. “I’m not ready. I don’t know when-”

“That’s okay,” Jack nods, “I just wanted to put it out there. But still. I want you to call if you need something, okay? I respect your answer and so if you call I’m not going to expect anything or badger you about it or try and force it on you. I just want to help.” He looks to the side for a moment and then back at you. “One vet helping an active.” 

You feel so bad about it, are so conflicted. But you could really, really use some help. So you text him, tell him it’s you. 

You - Are you at work? 

J - No. 

J - Everything okay? 

You - Did you just get off work? 

J - No, string of off days. 

You chew your lip as you pull up his contact and stare at the number. You just tap randomly at your phone and let the universe decide. If it calls him then it calls him, if it doesn’t then it wasn’t meant to be. 

It calls him. 

“Hey,” he picks up on the first ring, sounds concerned, “you okay? Baby okay?”

You clear your throat and he can already hear it, is already standing up to throw on some real clothes and grab supplies. “Baby’s great.” He cringes at how bad you sound. If you feel as bad as you sound he’s genuinely astounded by how you’re taking care of a now ten-month old while being so sick. “Me, not so much. You said to call and I… I didn’t want to and I know this is so unfair, but I don’t have anyone else and I could just really really use an hour to get a shower and tidy a few things up.”

You need more than an hour to shower and tidy up, you need to sleep for as long as you can, Jack thinks to himself. “Text me your address.” 

There’s a beat of silence. “You sure?” You ask him, give him an out. 

“Positive. I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay? Within the hour.” 

“Okay.” It’s so quiet he almost misses it. “Thank you.” 

“Of course. Text me, okay?”

“Yeah.” You hang up and do so. 

Jack stops by the hospital before he comes over, grabs a couple bags of saline, a couple of banana bags, and a few IV kits, tosses them in his backpack. Tells a raised eyebrows and confused Robby to tell Gloria to bill him for it and he’ll bill the hospital for the use of his supplies and tech during Pitt Fest before walking out. 

Then he stops by a grocery store, picks up some food and over the counter meds and then he’s on his way to you. 

The knock on your door startles you even though you know it’s just Jack. You open it and his eyebrows raise as he takes you in. You look like death warmed up. Maybe not quite that bad but Jack’s judgment of that is skewed because it’s you and he doesn’t like seeing you sick he has decided. 

“Hi,” you whisper as he walks in. “He’s down in his room, if you wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on the monitor while I shower and then I’d really love to just tidy up a bit.” You move your hand to reference your living room and kitchen, both visible with the open floor plan. “It’s a mess. I’m sorry about that too, it’s normally not this bad.” 

Jack takes the space in. It’s not even that bad. It’s very sick single mom with a baby. Not dirty, just cluttered. He notes the sparse decoration, wonders if you moved after your husband died. “It’s really not that bad,” he tells you softly and takes the baby monitor from you. “Come here.” 

He steps towards you and you freeze, not sure of what to do. He just raises his hand and puts the back of it to your forehead. Jack flashes you a concerned look. “You’re burning up. Easily 102.”

You try to laugh it off but it just triggers a coughing fit. “I’m fine, it’s okay-”

“No,” Jack says firmly. “It’s really not.” He walks over to your couch and sets his bag down, slides the baby monitor into the pocket of his jeans. He pulls out a forehead thermometer and nods at the couch, asking you to sit down. 

You hesitate for a second, feel like this is too much and he’s doing too much and you should say he can leave, that he should go. But instead you go and sit on the couch. 

Jack scans your forehead and frowns when he looks at it. “102.8.” His eyes flick to yours and he can see you going to say something, and he knows it’ll be something like you’re fine or it’ll come down. “Look,” he turns the thermometer around so you can see the reading. “The light is red. There’s a frowning face. So please don’t say it’s okay and you’re okay.” His words are firm but compassionate and he isn’t condescending at all. 

“Well, once you leave if he’s still asleep, I’ll try to grab some rest.” You give him a weak smile. “Promise.” 

“Oh no,” Jack shakes his head. “No way. If I wasn’t a doctor and didn’t have supplies with me, you’d be going to the ED.” He starts looking through his bag. 

“Jack, this is really nice of you but unnecessary.” His eyes snap back to yours when he hears his name come off your tongue. He likes it. Too much. You said no, that you weren’t ready. But Jack can’t help how he feels, only on how he acts on those feelings. 

He ignores your protests. “Plan of care is to have you shower if you’d like. Cool, please. And then I’m going to give you some meds, get an IV in you and a banana bag going and you’re going to go sleep.”

“I, I really think just a shower and some tidying will help me feel much better.” Another half hearted protest. It feels good to have someone want to take care of you. To have a man want to take care of you. To have Jack want to take care of you. Those are all feelings you haven’t felt in a while, and they’re from Jack Abbot. And a piece of you hates yourself for that, especially when your eyes wander to the folded American flag displayed on a shelf. 

Jack tracks your eyes to it. “I’m not trying to overstep,” he starts to explain, “just, you’re a lot sicker than you think.”

“No, no, I know that, and you’re not, I’m just not used to it.” You try to find the word but it’s hard. “The attention, I guess. Or maybe the help. Pregnancy and labor and birth and coming home with a newborn while recovering were all alone, so it’s just… strange.” 

Jack shuts his eyes and lets out a breath. His heart hurts because he knows what that kind of alone feels like. He knows how hard it can be to survive and live with. And he’s never had to experience alone everything that you have. He hates that you were alone. He’s even more in awe of you, honestly, that you were able to. There’s a sense of pride too, one he knows he has no business having. 

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, I really don’t-”

“I know that, Jack, I promise and you’re not, I’m just.” You shake your head and look away for a second. “A mess,” you laugh softly, manage to not trigger a coughing fit. 

Jack shakes his head a little. “You’re sick.” 

You shrug, take in as deep a breath as you can. “Okay,” you nod. He knows you’re acquiescing in his treatment plan. 

“Good.” Jack pulls his stethoscope out of his bag. “You mind if I listen to your lungs before you shower? Just to have a before and try to get a read on what it might be.” 

You nod at him. Jack places his stethoscope on your chest, is careful to hold it so that his hand doesn’t come into contact with you because he knows he already expressed interest and that you’re not ready and the last thing he wants is for you to think he’s using this as some weird chance to touch you or make you uncomfortable. “Deep breath.” 

Jack walks you through all the deep breaths he needs, frowning to himself a bit and not pressuring you when the deep breaths trigger your cough and he has to wait a minute to continue. The first time it happens his other hand automatically raises to go and rub your back but he catches it in time.

You don’t acknowledge it, don’t want to draw attention to it and in part don’t know how to react to it but you appreciate it more than he’ll ever know. He’s a gentleman. It’s nice and you really try to let yourself have that and let it feel nice without berating yourself over it feeling nice. But something feeling nice is so foreign and somehow feels so wrong. Like nothing should ever feel nice again because your husband isn’t here. 

“Yeah, those are junky,” he mutters as he puts his stethoscope back in his bag. “Wish I had brought a breathing treatment for you.” He looks like he’s thinking about how he could get one here. He pulls his focus back. “Shower?” 

You nod, stand up and start walking towards your room. “Hey Jack?” Jack looks up at you with raised eyebrows, body tensing just slightly like he’s ready to run towards you. “Thank you. And um, make yourself at home and help yourself to anything. I don’t know how much there is, but what’s there is yours.” You give a little nod and turn and walk off before he can say anything. 

Once he hears the shower running Jack takes a better look at the place. He finds it strange how certain parts feel like you but the overall place doesn’t in a way. It feels like someone scared to settle in, scared to make this space their own. It feels like his first apartment after his wife died did for a long time. 

He starts to tidy up, it’s really nothing major. He puts toys in the little toy bin you have, places the baby books on the floor on the bottom storage space of the table. He picks up the baby blankets and onesies laying around that he’s guessing need washed, sets them in a pile on a counter. He does the same kind of stuff in the kitchen, just picks up, wipes down. Again, nothing is dirty. It’s lived in. It’s a sick single mom with a baby who sets down an empty water bottle or paper plate and forgets to throw it away. He loads the dishwasher with the bottles and few plates and utensils in the sink. He’s not sure if what’s in there is clean or dirty but it’s fine, if it’s clean it can just get washed again. He waits to start it though, makes a note to do so later once you’re out of the shower and the hot water has had time to build back up just in case your water heater isn’t great.  

You let yourself stand under the water for longer than you probably should. You try to keep it cool like Jack said, but at some point right before you get out you let it get really, hot, just need to feel it, feel a little sterilized almost. You think about how Jack is here and doing all of this for you and what would your husband think and does this make you a bad wife. You try to get yourself to believe that your husband would be happy you’re getting help, would be happy Jack is a veteran and that you’re not a bad wife because your husband told you he wanted you to move on and find someone and it’s not like it happened yesterday. It’s been over a year. 

Once you’re out you slip on some modest pajamas, deal with your hair and put some lotion on your face, brush your teeth. You feel a little better, only because you feel clean, but still. 

Jack gives you some time once he hears the shower turn off. After a bit he knocks on your door and clears his throat. “Hey, um, I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to start the IV out here in the living room or in your room.” 

Your chest clenches for a moment. You hadn’t even really thought about what it would mean for him to start it in here, just kind of assumed he’d come in and do it. But it means there would be another man in your bedroom. A man who is not your husband. 

He gives you a moment to decide because he knows the magnitude of the question he asked. 

You’re at war with yourself, but you know it’ll be better to have him do it here and have him figure out a way to get the bag to hang. “Um, you can do it in here, I guess. Unless you’d prefer to do it out there.” 

“Wherever is best for you.” There’s a pause as Jack waits for you to come over and open the door. You’re so zoned out sitting on the edge of your bed you don’t even realize. “Should I come in?” He finally asks gently. 

“Oh! Oh yes!” The way you breathe in at surprise and almost startle at having your zoned out thoughts interrupted makes you start coughing, so Jack slowly opens the door, trying to give you time to change your mind, walks in and over to you with his supplies just as slowly. 

He sets some stuff out next to you. “Shower help?” He cringes internally the moment he says it, hopes it doesn’t make it seem like he was thinking about you in the shower. 

“Yeah. Feeling clean has helped I think.” You watch as he gets everything ready. He has big hands, long and thick fingers that should make working with small pieces of medical equipment a bit difficult but they’re so dexterous and he has so much control over them that it’s not. Once you catch yourself daydreaming about his hands you look away, shame and guilt washing over you. 

“Take these, please,” Jack says softly, handing you a few pills and holding an open bottle of water. You nod and do as he asks. “Good gi-” He stops before he can finish, some pink flooding his cheeks. It’s adorable, you think. He’s adorable and he’s trying so hard to respect you and just be here as a friend helping you out. You also think about the reaction you know you’d have had if he finished the sentence. More shame and guilt. 

“How do you sleep?” Jack asks as he finishes setting the supplies for an IV up and kneels in front of you. You furrow your brows at him. “So I can put the IV in a good spot!” He rushes to explain. “Like if you sleep on your side I’ll put it on the top arm.” 

“Oh.” You think about it and tell him. 

“Hand please.” He points to the correct one and you offer him it. “Hands hurt more but it’ll be the best for sleeping. I’m sorry you’re stuck with me doing it.” He pulls a pair of gloves on. They fit nice and tight. Once he gets a tourniquet in a slip knot nice and tight around your arm he has you make a fist. 

You shake your head at him as you watch those long and dexterous fingers run over and feel the back of your hand a veins beneath your skin. Satisfied he found a good one he opens the alcohol swab and wipes the back of your hand, lets it dry for ten or so seconds while he grabs the needle introducer. He feels for the vein again and looks up at you. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” You nod at him. 

He’s quick with it. You like the expression of intense focus he gets as he does it. “Okay,” he draws the word out a little, slips off the tourniquet. “Needle is out,” he places a tegaderm dressing over it, “and we’re good.” He looks up at you. “You okay?”

“Barley felt it,” you murmur. 

Jack gives a little laugh. “It’s okay, you can be honest. My pride can take it.” You just give him a look. “I’m gonna flush it. Some burning and maybe a weird taste.” He doesn’t explain much, knows you almost certainly had one when you gave birth. 

He does and then stands up, looks around near the head of your bed. “I think I still have a really old coat rack in the spare room,” you volunteer, knowing he’s looking for a way to hang the bag. 

“That would be perfect,” he nods at you. 

“Second door on the left when you walk out.”

Jack steps out. He already knew that through process of elimination but he doesn’t tell you that. He went to the bathroom while you were in the shower, placing his ear by each door to figure out which room was the nursery. Left one room to be the spare room. 

He brings it in and gets it set up. You offer him a hanger to place the bag on and he smiles at you. You give him a little one back. 

Jack puts on a different pair of gloves and sanitizes everything before spiking the bag and priming the line. He hooks it up to your IV and sets the drip rate, keeps it fast enough to get what you need into you but slow enough so that you hopefully won’t have to wake up to go to the bathroom for a while because he knows you’ll likely fight going back to sleep. 

“You need something to help you sleep?” He asks, a touch of concern in his tone. 

“I think I’ll manage.” You give him another weak smile. 

“Figured,” he nods. He grabs everything off the bed making sure to keep track of where the used needle is and then walks to your door. “Rest well.” He nods at you again and then steps out, closes the door behind him quietly. 

You let yourself settle into bed, feel your heart slam against your chest with every beat as emotions whirl through you. Guilt, for having some kind of feelings towards Jack, for asking Jack to do this, for not being there with your son, shame, grief, embarrassment, anger at yourself for quite literally everything, and the faintest glimmers of hope, happiness, contentedness and a kind of longing which are all new and in turn fill you with fear. 

You’re right though, you do manage to fall asleep. And fast. There are a few times you think you hear your son crying but it stops quickly so you don’t fully wake up. Another few times where you swear you hear someone in the room with you and them whisper “it’s just me, go back to sleep,” when they notice you stirring. If they’re real you let yourself listen to them and drift back asleep. 

Jack is surprised at how long you sleep. He thought for sure with all the fluids he has been giving you that you’d wake up to go to the bathroom, but that must be how tired you are. He lets you sleep. You need it. And for whatever reason he really, really cares about you and doesn’t like seeing you sick. It worries him, if he’s honest with himself. Seeing you sick. He worries about you. 

When you do wake up it is because you have to pee. You turn the lamp on to get there and close your eyes and flinch away from it until they adjust more. It starts to come back. The IV. Jack. Jack watching your son. You grab the bag of saline and go to the bathroom before walking out of your room. You have to stop at the doorway because it’s so fucking bright, let your eyes adjust. 

It makes you realize how fucked up your sense of time is. You have no idea how long you were out and you hope you hadn’t been keeping Jack a prisoner in your place for too long. 

When you walk into the living room Jack is on the floor with your son, some soft blocks knocked over the floor, your son on his back and cooing up at Jack, giggling like babies do at Jack every time Jack leans down over him and tickles his belly with one of Jack’s large hands and makes a funny noise at him. There’s a dirty diaper on the floor next to Jack, empty bottle on the table. 

“You slept well, didn’t you little man?” Jack sits him up and keeps a hand on him, your son pretty good at sitting up by himself but still getting the full hang of it. Small hands reach out for Jack, trying to pull him close. “Oh yeah, and now you’ve had a bottle and have even more energy to burn, huh?” Your son giggles again as Jack takes him into his lap as he straightens his legs and rests your son’s feet on one of his thighs so that he can bounce as Jack supports him to keep him standing. 

It’s the cutest scene. It’s so adorable your heart aches. It’s all you ever wanted for your son. And that’s why your heart shatters at the same time. Because your son doesn’t have it. Not normally. Your son doesn’t have a father. You don’t have a husband, the person you should be doing this with. This scene is a total one-off, a byproduct of you being sick and needing help. You appreciate Jack and all he’s done and how he’s being with your son but that’s supposed to be your husband. 

That’s supposed to be your fucking husband on the floor with your son and it’s not. 

It’s Jack. 

It’s Jack and you don’t hate it. 

Quite the opposite. You like the sight. Would like to see it again. Would like to see Jack again. And that makes you feel a little sick and a lot guilty. But you don’t stop liking it or wanting to see it and Jack again. You tell yourself you don’t though, that you don’t want to see it again and don’t want to see Jack again. You lie to yourself. The turmoil threatens to tear you in two. 

You wipe a few tears away silently and then sniffle to announce your presence. You can get away with it because you’re sick. “Hey,” you say softly, make a face and try to clear your throat. “I’m sorry I feel like I probably slept longer than I meant to.” Clearing your throat didn’t help. You still sound awful, your voice totally going. 

Your son squeals when he sees you, arms reaching for you already. You smile down at him. “Hi baby,” you greet him in the best voice you can manage, grab him from Jack. “How’s my boy?” You tickle his tummy because you don’t want to kiss him and get him sick and it makes him squeal again and babble at you. 

Jack stands up and you notice there’s something off about the way he does, just slightly. You wonder if he suffered a back or hip injury while serving. He clamps the saline bag all the way and removes it from your IV so that you’re free. “What time is it? I hope I haven’t kept you here too long.” 

Jack looks at his watch. “9:17.”

You blink at him for a moment. The sun filtering in through the curtains assures you he means in the morning. You make a face like you’re trying to pour through past memories. “What time did I make you come over? It must have been so early, I, I didn’t even realize I’m so sorry.” 

Jack smiles as he steps around you and goes to set the bag on the counter, throw the diaper away and the bottle in the sink. He turns back around and leans against the counter, holds onto the edge of it with his hands. He already knows you’re going to freak out. 

“First, you didn’t make me come over yesterday. Pretty hard for anyone to make me do something anymore. Second, I got here sometime around 4.” Your confusion deepens. “P.m. Yesterday.” 

“Yesterday?” You look at him, stricken. “Oh my god, Jack, I am so so sorry! You should have woken me! I genuinely never meant to steal this much time from you and keep you hostage here, I am so sorry, I-”

“Hey, hey,” he steps closer to you but doesn’t touch you. “It’s okay. You have nothing to be apologizing for. I know I could have woken you and I never felt hostage here. I was okay with it.” He gives you a reassuring smile. 

You shake your head at him a little. “God, where did you even sleep? That awful couch? I know how bad it is, I’m so- I feel terrible.” 

“Don’t,” Jack laughs softly. “I promise you I have slept on much, much worse. How are you feeling?”

“I don’t…” You trail off because you haven’t really stopped to evaluate that. “Better I guess. Still sick but not as bad, at all.” 

“Good.” He takes another step closer and holds his hand up, gestures to your forehead. “Can I?”

You nod, still lost in thought and shocked about how you could have slept that long. “Good, fever’s still down. It broke during the night.” Your son reaches for Jack’s hand, one of his small hands wrapping around one of Jack’s large fingers. Jack lets him keep it and play with it, but steps back a little. “Shit, I promise I only went in there to change your bag and take your temperature with the thermometer.”

“No, no,” you shake your head. You hadn’t even thought to care about him coming into your room when you were asleep, hadn’t even realized that could be a line he might have crossed. “I just feel so bad.”   

“Please try not to.”

“I have to, you have to let me at least make you breakfast or something! You just watched my baby overnight for me.” You nod. “Yeah, let me make you breakfast, please.” 

“I’d like that,” Jack nods slowly, face pulling into a knowing look with a little smile because you’re adorable and going to be upset. “But I don’t think that’s going to work,” he shakes his head and then gently nods at the refrigerator. You know there must be nothing in it.

“Fuck,” you sigh. You turn your head and rest your cheek on the top of your son’s head as you try and think. He continues to coo and babble away, at Jack now, whose finger he still holds on tight to. Jack makes a little face of surprise and noise at him and your son laughs.

“Let me order something then, yeah?” You offer. You watch as Jack argues with himself in his head. Part of him wants to say no, he should get it for you, for no real reason other than he wants to take care of you, and part of him wants to say yes because he knows it’ll make you feel better. “Please.”

“Alright,” he finally nods.

“Okay, great!” You start looking around for your phone and find it plugged in and charging. It hits you then. How clean and tidy the place is. “Oh my god,” you mumble. 

“What?” The alarm in his voice is clear. 

“You cleaned.” You look around more. A laundry basket of folded onesies and blankets and other baby clothes on the loveseat. “You did laundry.” 

The realization sends you over some ledge you didn’t realize you were standing on. Your heart races. Your feelings are too conflicted. There’s too much turmoil. You know this is normal, have read about it, spoken to other widows who described what it was like to start dating again, start falling for someone. And you’re really starting to personally get it now. 

You don’t know what to do with it. And you know you’re not ready for it. But you can’t lie about it to yourself anymore and pretend that Jack doesn’t give you new feelings that you haven’t had in a long time and that you don’t want to let yourself feel them or at least try. Can’t lie to yourself that you don’t want to try and be ready for it. 

“I’m sorry if that was too much,” Jack says quietly, unsure of what exactly your reaction means. While he’s also a widow it’s a bit harder for him to put himself in your shoes. He didn’t have a baby to need help with while trying to grieve and find a new normal. 

“No, it’s not that.” Tears hit your eyes and you close them, hate that they’re happening. It’s the emotional overwhelm you tell yourself. The having someone do something nice for you. The having to accept help. The new feelings. So many new feelings from one man. 

But you know yourself well enough to know that it’s also the wanting, despite how much you try to bury it and lie to yourself. The wanting to let yourself give in to those new feelings. Wanting to let yourself enjoy the new feelings. Enjoy Jack. 

“Let me,” you hear Jack whisper, feel his hands get closer to you to grab your son who laughs in excitement at the prospect of being in Jack’s arms. 

You keep your eyes closed and then turn before you open them, walk over to get a tissue and dab at them. “It wasn’t too much.” You’re speaking to Jack but keep your back to him because you’re not sure how you’ll react if you turn around and look at him. “It’s just really hard. Everything is so fucking hard. Every second of every day is an emotion, every second requires feeling.” Jack understands that one too well. “And you get used to that. The emotions, the feelings become familiar. Because they’re constant. You know what they are, what to expect. You know the feelings. They hurt so, so bad, but eventually you realize that not having them would hurt more. Would be scarier. Because they’re your normal, they fill that void in your heart. What would you be without them almost controlling your life? And then one day a new emotion, a new feeling creeps in. And it’s paralyzing. You think it hurts worse in some way than not having the familiar feelings would, but you don’t know because you never get a second to not fucking feel. And it’s because it’s new and you don’t know what to do with this new feeling and it throws everything off and is another change and because it almost always feels so wrong, to let yourself feel something new, especially if it’s a good emotion. And I know you know this Jack, I know you know exactly how I feel, exactly what it’s like. I know you get me. I know you understand. And I like that. I think part of me needs that. To move on or whatever you want to call it.”

Jack’s heart rate ticks up. This is not at all where he thought this conversation was headed. 

You take in a deep breath and squeeze the tissue in your hand before turning to look at the unfairly attractive and smart and funny and caring and playful and stoic and dry humored and witty and kind doctor holding your son. 

“You make me feel so many new things Jack. So many things I never thought I’d feel again. So many things I swore to myself I would never feel again.” You swallow hard. “And I don’t know what to do with them. They paralyze me. Not for long because they send me straight back to guilt and shame and grief, right back to those familiar feelings. I don’t know how to have these new feelings you give me anymore. At some point I lost that. So I don’t know how to handle it. How to handle you.”

Jack’s numb. Frozen. He’s not sure what this means. He understands you because the first time he started dating and was attracted to someone he’d gone through the same thing. It was hard at first. To not feel guilty. To not revert back to the emotions you know well. He’s not sure what to say. He goes to say that he’s sorry and didn’t mean to cause you distress and will go but you start talking again. 

“But fuck Jack, I want to. I didn’t want to admit it to myself because it feels so wrong and because it’s scary and hard and makes me feel like a terrible wife sometimes. But I do. I want to know how to handle you and all the new feelings you give me, Jack.” His eyebrows raise slowly, his focus staying on you as your son starts to mouth on his finger getting saliva all over it, not phased in the slightest. “It’s just going to take time. I don’t know how much time. And I don’t think it’s fair of me to ask to wait for some unknown period of time.” 

“You’re not asking,” Jack says quickly before you can get out another sentence. “You’re not asking me to. I want to. But only if you want me to. You said that you weren’t ready, and I respect that. And you have to know that I didn’t come over here to help, or do laundry or tidy up because I was trying to pressure you or make you feel something or make you be ready or for anything other than just to help as a kind-of friend. You have to promise me that you know that.” 

“I do,” you tell him softly. “I promise.” You give a small laugh and little smile. “I think that’s actually the part that made me realize I couldn’t keep lying to myself that you didn’t give me new feelings and that I didn’t want to feel them. That I know you came here just because you wanted to help, help me, my son and my husband. And I know you did the laundry and tidied and stayed overnight to watch my baby so I could sleep just because you’re kind, and you saw it needed done so you did it, which is so army of you by the way, and not because you wanted it to mean something or make me feel bad for not being ready or pressure me or any other possible reason. You just… wanted to help.”

Jack smiles at that. Really, fully smiles and fuck if it isn’t one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen. You smile back at him. It’s clear that nothing more needs to be said. You both know that you’ll work on being ready and learn how to feel and how to handle it all and Jack will wait. 

“I never said I was army.” He smirks at you. 

“Didn’t have to.” You give him a small smile. Even after this you’re still so shy. 

You go and grab your phone. “What does that mean?” He asks, tracking you with his eyes. 

“What would you like to eat?” You ignore him. You know already that it’ll wind him up. 

“No, what does that mean? I have a tell?” You shrug at him. He narrows his eyes at you playfully.

“No,” you say as you hand him your phone so he can pick something and order and take your son from him. “It means you have a recognizable backpack.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Time goes on. You get better. You and Jack grow closer. You keep going to therapy, keep working on processing and figuring out how to handle the new feelings, how to stop feeling so guilty. Jack waits. Patiently. Never an ounce of pressure on you. He’s always so respectful, goes to great lengths to be so, immediately apologizes if he oversteps. And he does a couple of times because he’s human and nobody is perfect. But it’s okay.  

Jack’s injury comes out over breakfast that morning when he apologizes for having his shoes on in the house. You hadn’t even really noticed, too sick for it to register. He doesn’t tell you much about it which you respect and he’s grateful when you don’t push for more. That’s something he guesses he’s not ready for with you. Isn’t sure why though. He brings it up with his therapist. 

Jack is over more and more often. At first it’s to check on you and make sure you’re getting better because your cough lingers. And then somewhere along the lines it just became a thing. Normal. Normal for you to see him more days than not during the week. Normal for him to put your son down for the night. Normal for him to sleep in the spare room. Normal for him to cook for you and help feed your son. Normal for him to keep spare bottles of toiletries in a bin under the guest bathroom sink. Normal for black scrubs that didn’t get god knows what on them to be washed with onesies and blankets. 

Normal for him to bring five epi pens, multiple vials of epi, syringes with needles, an infant intubation kit and a cric kit to your house when you decide to introduce peanuts to your son. 

That one had gotten him an attempted, and skillfully dodged, third degree interrogation from Dana and Robby. 

You don’t touch. Not at all, save when your fingers brush if you hand each other something or when you take your son from him or vice versa. You’ll sit on the couch and Jack on the loveseat. There’s no flirting. It’s not that the attraction and draw to each other has faded, because it hasn’t. Not at all. It’s that you both know you need time and you both respect that. Jack perhaps more so than yourself, because you get mad at yourself about it sometimes. 

You do talk. A lot. About anything and everything because talking to each other is easy. It’s not work. Neither of you have to think of things to talk about or try and come up with something to keep the conversation going. It just does. And when it dies down the lull is comfortable. Then someone thinks of something or sees something on TV and it’s back. 

Eventually Jack is able to tell you a bit more about his injury, how it happened. The aftermath. He’s able to take his prosthetic off in front of you and leave a pair of crutches at your place for when he doesn’t want to put it back on. 

You talk about your spouses. Your therapist suggested it, thought it may help, to acknowledge both of your spouses and know about them. You approach Jack about it and tell him you don’t want an answer right away, you want him to really think about it and if he’s ready for that and willing to do that, and that he doesn’t have to say yes and that if he says no nothing will change. Both of you are aware it’s in a sense one of the most intimate things you’ll ever do with each other. 

Jack says yes though. And means it. He’s okay with it, comfortable with it. So one night after you get your son down you take the baby monitor, a bottle of wine and sit out on your apartment balcony and talk about them. You tell each other about them, what they were like, things they liked and disliked, funny stories. Jack tells you how he proposed and you tell him how your husband proposed. You talk about your weddings. 

You share photos you have on your phone, of your spouses alone and of the two of you together. You tell Jack his wife was beautiful, seems like an amazing woman who kept him on his toes and mean it. Jack tells you that your husband was handsome and knew how lucky he was to have you, that it’s obvious by the way he looks at you in the photos. You smile wistfully and get misty eyed together. But it’s nice, getting to know the other’s spouse, more about your past lives. It tells you a lot about each other too, as much as it does about your spouses.

You talk about how you each learned your spouse had died. There’s proper tears during that part, from both of you. It’s one time you do touch, and it’s brief, and you’re the one to initiate it, tentatively taking Jack’s hand and giving it a little squeeze when he gets a bit choked up. He squeezes back to let you know he’s okay with it. When you get choked up talking about your husband he holds his hand out over the armrest of his chair, just a little, just enough for you to know it’s there. You move yours over and let him squeeze your hand. 

You talk about moving after your spouses died. Jack tells you he just couldn’t do it. He needed space that was his own, where he couldn’t picture her in it and so he couldn’t expect to walk around a corner and see her. You tell Jack that you had to keep the curtain of the living room window closed all the time because the last time you looked out the window you saw that car pull up and two uniformed officers step out of the car, and just knew. And it made the place so dark it was bad for you so you sold the house and found this place. You admit that you haven’t been able to bring yourself to really unpack completely or decorate but aren’t sure why. The nursery being the only exception. Jack tells you that it actually reminds him a lot of how his apartment he moved into right after his wife died looked for a long time because he was scared to settle in and make a space without her because that wasn’t supposed to happen, he wasn’t supposed to have to do that. 

As more weeks pass you start asking Jack to help you hang things. At first it sends you flying backwards in your healing because you just asked another man to help you decorate your apartment. Jack doesn’t say anything for the couple of days you’re off with him because he knows and he knows you’ll work through it. He gives you the space you need without you asking for it. You work through it with your therapist and apologize to Jack who tells you not to, that healing isn’t linear, trust him, he knows. 

Jack watches your son for you sometimes during a string of off days so that he can spend a bit less time at daycare, especially if another kid is sick. Your son loves Jack, is enamored with him. And Jack is just as enamored with him. Is so incredibly good with him. It’s a place where you struggle a lot and that you and you and your therapist discuss frequently, how to cope with seeing Jack in that kind of fatherly role and acknowledge all the feelings it stirs up for you. 

One Monday, a holiday that you were supposed to have off, something comes up and you need to go into the office, but daycare is closed. You hesitate calling Jack because you feel bad asking him to do this, especially knowing he’ll be getting off shift and you’re asking him to stay awake even longer. You don’t even know if he’ll be able to, he might not get off on time, or he might have plans. But you call him much quicker and more decisively than you did when you were sick. 

Jack’s talking to Robby when he feels his phone vibrate. He thinks it’s weird to be getting called at 6:45 a.m. so he pulls it out to check. His heart drops when he sees it’s you and he walks away from Robby mid sentence. 

“Hey,” he answers on the second ring, “what’s up? Everyone okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah we’re fine. It’s just, work needs me to come in, not for too long, just a couple of hours, but I can’t bring him and daycare is closed with the holiday and I know this is such a huge ask because you’re getting off shift and will be so tired and I don’t even know if you’re getting off on time-” 

“Woah, woah,” Jack stops you. “Take a breath.” He can hear you do as he says. “I can watch him, okay? I’ll make sure I get off on time. And I often stay late so being up a few hours after my shift before he goes down is not going to be anything new.” 

“Okay. Yeah, okay.” You let out a breath. “You still have to let me cook or something for you.” 

“You don’t have to repay me.” 

“No I know, but still.” 

“Can I be honest with you?” Jack asks. 

“Of course.” Your heart races because you have no idea what he’s about to say. 

“You can buy me takeout. But you can’t cook.” You can hear the smile in his voice. 

You make a noise of offence. “I can’t believe you just said that! I’m offended. Genuinely offended.” But Jack can hear the smile you’re trying to hide in your voice and it just makes him smile harder to himself. 

“That I said it or that it’s true?” He’s smirking now. 

You huff and then there’s a pause. “That it’s true,” you admit begrudgingly, making Jack laugh. 

Robby has blindly swatted at Dana’s arm to get her to pay attention so that he doesn’t have to stop watching and so now both of them are staring and watching Jack go from extreme concern to laughing and smiling. It’s almost disconcerting. 

“I’m going to have to drop him off at the hospital to make it on time. Is that okay?” You’ve gotten quiet again. 

“Yeah.” Jack sounds a little unsure but not because of you, because of the two he can feel staring at him. “I’ll need a key. And I’ll give it back, I promise.” 

“Oh! Yes. You will need that, okay I’ll have to find the spare. And yeah, that’s fine, whatever is fine, I know you’re not going to use it randomly.” You breathe a laugh. “You’ll be okay with holding him on the subway? I wasn’t going to lug around the stroller, if that’s okay.” 

“We will be more than okay,” Jack assures you. 

“Okay.” You let out another breath in that way you do when you’re stressed but coming down Jack has learned. “Thank you Jack.” 

“Not a problem, you know that.” 

“Yeah, but still.”

“Text me when you’re here and come wait by the doors, I’ll open them for you, okay?” You’re thankful he doesn’t dwell. 

“Okay. I’ll see you soon. Bye.”

“Bye.” Jack hangs up and puts his phone in his pocket then turns and walks back over to Robby and Dana. 

“Everything okay?” Dana asks. 

Jack looks between the both of them. “Yeah. I’m leaving on time though.” 

“Ohhh,” Robby laughs. “Are you now? You just decided?” 

“Yeah. Did you notice how it wasn’t a question Michael?” Jack deadpans. “Just a statement of fact. I know these are big distinctions for you to make before you’ve had enough coffee.” 

“Deflection,” Robby hums, leaning forward a bit and still smiling like he can’t believe any of this even when he doesn’t know what this really is. 

Jack rolls his eyes at him and walks to a different computer to finish charting. Dana and Robby share a look but don’t push him. For now. 

Jack’s phone vibrates fifteen minutes later. You, saying you’re here. He walks over to the doors and pushes the button to open them, walks in with you a few steps, your son already happily squealing and babbling at Jack, reaching for him. Jack makes a surprised happy face at your son like he’s shocked to see him and takes him from you. 

Back at the desk Robby slowly removes his glasses as he watches the scene unfold, Dana peering over the top of hers like she does, everyone else slowly freezing once they follow Dana and Robby’s eyes to you and Jack.

“God, thank you so much Jack, I’m so so sorry.” You look stressed, frenetic and full of nervous energy that makes you even more unsure of yourself, not unlike the last time he saw you in here. He finds it adorable, so endearing.

“It’s okay. Truly. You’re going to have to believe me one day.” Jack gives you a small but reassuring smile. 

“No I know,” you breathe out. “I just… This is your work, I know. And I know you’re going to get a million questions based on the entire desk of people staring at us.” You shake your head a little as you try to find words. “And I know it’s hard to explain.” 

“Good job I don’t feel the need to explain it to any of them, then.” 

You laugh a little at that. “Yeah. Um, here.” You slide the backpack baby bag you have off and help put it on one of Jack’s shoulders. “There’s a key in the front pocket. He went down late last night and then I had to get him up early to get him ready to come here. Seeing you is the first time he’s smiled all morning. So he should probably nap earlier for you if I’m not home before then, and probably be pretty chill until he does.” 

“He’s always chill,” Jack smirks at you. “You know that.” 

“Let me make myself feel better, please,” you huff at him, clearly still flooded with nervous energy. 

“Alright,” he nods for you to continue but doesn’t lose his smirk. 

“He’s had a bottle, but that’s it, so he might be hungry when you get home, if he’s a little fussy.” You reach out and run your fingers through his soft baby fine hair to push it out of his eyes. “God he needs a haircut doesn’t he?” 

“Probably,” Jack nods. “But I’m sure-”

“That the thought of my baby needing his first haircut makes me want to sob because he’s growing up way too fast?” 

“Something like that,” he nods. 

“Yeah.” You run your hands through it and sweep it out of his eyes one last time, trying to calm some of the nervous energy that’s making you feel like you’re shaking. “Alright, I should go.” 

You lean up and kiss Jack on the cheek. By the time your feet return to the floor you’ve realized what you just did. 

Jack freezes, stunned, but not upset, not by any means.

“Oh my god,” you gasp quietly, holding your hands up in front of you to the side. “I just did that. Right here.” You close your hands into fists decisively, incredulous at yourself. “Okay, well,” you titter, “I’ve gotta go now, so thank you again so much, and let me know you guys make it home okay, and I’ll let you know when I’m on my way back.” You nod at a still stunned Jack, who then finally starts to relax a bit and lets a smile start to pull up. “Great. Okay.” You lean in and kiss your son’s face. “Bye baby, be good for Jack okay?” You give your son another kiss and pull back, immediately back to your nervous and incredulous demeanor. You pat Jack on the side of the arm holding your son and then cringe at the action. “Right,” you let out a breathy nervous laugh. “Bye.” You spin and walk to the doors and hit the button to be let out.

“Bye,” Jack calls back, still sounding a bit dazed. He takes a second and then looks down at your son who’s looking around the busy room and then looks up at him and smiles, grabs at his face. Jack laughs. “Yeah, bud,” Jack sighs, leans down and kisses the top of his head quickly, doesn’t even really realize he’s doing it, “you’re about to be the talk of the Pitt. We both are. And your mom.” He takes a deep breath in and looks down at your son and makes eye contact. “God help us all.” 

Jack turns and starts walking to the breakroom. He’d go to the lockers but he already knows what’s about to happen. “Not a word,” he says to Dana and Robby as he walks by. 

“Oh be for fuckin’ real Jack,” Dana laughs under her breath, already starting to follow him. 

“No, he’s right Dana, not a word,” Robby says as he starts to follow, “so, so many words.” 

Bridget walks up to the desk and looks at everyone quizzically. 

“A woman just came and dropped off a baby to Jack,” Princess tells her. 

After the words process a large smirk grows on Bridget’s face. “Oh did she now?” 

Jack sighs to himself as Robby and Dana follow him into the breakroom. He doesn’t want to do this but it’s borderline inescapable now and he’d rather it be here than out by the lockers. He slides the baby bag onto a chair. 

“First,” Dana says as she walks in, “let me see him!” She walks over holding her arms out to take your son from Jack. He leans into Jack for a couple of seconds, unsure, but then lets Dana take him. “Hello cutie! What’s your name?” Robby walks over to her and says a soft hi, gives your son his finger to hold onto while Robby looks him over, smiling at him as your son babbles some.

Jack tells her his name. “God, Jack, he is gorgeous. Look at that hair and those eyes!” 

She turns back to the baby in her arms. “Yeah, you’re handsome and you know it, don’t you? I bet you use it to get out of trouble sometimes, huh?” She winks at him. It makes him smile and giggle a little, as he drops Robby’s finger and brings a hand up to chew on. “Gettin’ more teeth in, are we?” Dana smiles at Jack as she rocks your son a little. 

“Yeah, I think so, he’s been real chewy and drooly the last two days,” Jack nods. 

“He yours?” Robby asks.

Jack’s head snaps to him. “What the fuck man?”

“Oh come on Jack, a random woman just showed up, gave you a baby, kissed your cheek and left. It’s not a far stretch. Nor is it a bad thing.” Dana looks at your son. “No it isn’t at all,” she says in a bit of a baby voice.

“And you’ve been different the last couple of months. I think you’ve only been up on the roof twice and even then you didn’t look like you were seriously considering jumping.” Robby points out.

“Oh my god,” Jack mutters under his breath. “No, he’s not mine.”

They both accept that. But it doesn’t quell their curiosity in the slightest. There’s a longer pause though, your son really the only one making noise as all three adults watch him. 

“Who is she?” Robby finally asks, looking up at Jack.

“Does it matter?” Jack shoots back quickly.

“I mean…” Robby laughs a little incredulously, “yeah, a little.” 

“Why?”

“Oh come on, Jack,” Robby draws out as he takes your son from Dana. “You’re telling me if a woman showed up and handed me a baby and kissed my cheek before walking out you wouldn’t have questions and want to know who she is? Or feel like who she is doesn’t matter?”

“Of course I would want to know, but who she was wouldn’t matter and if you didn’t want to say anything yet to keep things private I would respect that.” Jack raises his eyebrows at Robby and gives him a pointed look. 

“Jack, it doesn’t matter who she is really, if she’s in your life we’d just like to know. We want to support you and see you happy. And you clearly know and spend time with the kid, enough for mom to feel comfortable leaving him with you and to know he’s been teething for the last couple of days. You spending time at her house?”

Jack doesn’t answer for a moment but then finally gives in. “Yeah.” Dana’s eyebrows raise in an invitation for more. “Yes, I spend time at her house. I help her out. I sleep in her guest room sometimes, watch him some days. So what?”

“So she matters,” Dana smirks at him a little. “She matters and she kissed your cheek so clearly there’s something.” Jack grows a little more serious and Dana and Robby both know she just hit some sort of nerve there. “Who is she? Please. Let us be happy for you.” 

Jack takes in a big breath and looks at them for a second before resting his hands on his hips, slightly cocking one and looking down at the ground like he’s about to admit something. “My therapist.” He says it deadly serious and just loudly enough for them to hear. 

He doesn’t need to look up to know the expressions they’re wearing, but he does anyway because Robby’s face of incredulity and concern is too funny to miss. “Really?” Dana asks. 

“No!” Jack emphasizes the word with his head and a little brow furrow as he moves from his position to pace a little. “Of fucking course not! But thank you for this little exposé into what you think of me.”

“Hey, that’s why I asked,” Dana puts her hands up in defense. “I couldn’t believe it.”

“Yeah, you couldn’t,” Jack looks over at Robby, “but he sure the fuck could. And he knows my therapist is a man, we go to the same god damn one!”

“Well I didn’t know if you found a new one!” Robby says in his own defense. Jack rolls his eyes. “Are you gonna tell us? Anything? Or are we really wasting our time here?”

Jack stops pacing and sighs, looks at the baby boy in Robby’s arms. “It’s complicated,” he offers. 

“We deal with a lotta complicated here.” Dana reminds him. 

“Yeah well you’re not going to believe the truth,” he mutters. 

“Try us.” Robby looks at Jack with a little knowing smile and tilts his head before looking back down at your son and making faces at him to keep him entertained. 

Jack shakes his head a little and looks away as he tries to think about how to explain without giving away too much because he doesn’t want to totally destroy your privacy. “She’s a friend. Seriously. Just a friend who I help out because she’s a single mom with nobody in the area and she needs help sometimes. Her…” Jack debates on whether this reveals too much but it would explain to them why he’s so reticent to talk about you. “Her husband died while deployed. So, we have the widower widow thing in common and there was a kind of connection there, and yeah maybe it leads to more one day and maybe it doesn’t.” He shrugs at them. That’s all he’s going to say. 

There’s another moment of silence as everybody takes in what Jack just said, himself included.

“So this is what the five epi pens and vials of epi and infant intubation and cric kit were about. He’s who they were about.” Robby looks down at your son. “Yes. They were about you, weren’t they?”

“Oh, peanuts,” Dana nods, looking from your son to Jack, “you introduced peanuts after you brought it all home.” 

Jack just looks at the two of them and shakes his head. Some part of him wants to laugh at the way they went from pushing for information, to getting a little bit, to leaving it and not pushing for more and instead bringing up the supplies he took and fucking peanuts. He’s grateful for it. 

“Yeah, we did.” Robby and Dana’s eyes flash up at him and they both have little smirks. It hits him. “She did. She did, she introduced peanuts. To her son.” 

“With you there.” Robby’s smirk grows a little bit. “Ready to intubate.” 

“I think it’s very sweet,” Dana says, smiling at him. 

“I think we need to get home before his mom calls in a panic. I said I’d leave on time and text her when we’re home, so.” He walks over to Robby and opens his arms, your son all but launching himself at Jack, making all three laugh. 

“He’s certainly a big fan,” Robby smirks. 

“Of course he is, he has excellent taste already. Though he liked you, so we might have to have a chat when we get home about why our standards are falling.” He says it in his typical deadpan demeanor. 

“I was being nice and then you ruined it.” Robby throws a hand up at him. 

Jack picks up the baby bag and slings it over his shoulder. “I didn’t ruin it, I spoke the truth.”

“You’re so mean to me.” Robby looks over at Dana as they all move towards the door. “He’s so mean to me.” 

“I am not mean to you.” Jack replies, stepping out of the door. 

“A little bit,” Dana agrees with Robby. 

“Thank you!”

“But he’s a little bit mean to you too, so it all evens out.” 

Robby scoffs. “I’m not mean to him!” 

“Just like I’m not mean to you.” Jack walks towards the lockers with your son. Robby and Dana stop at the desk, giving looks to everyone to tell them to go back to work. 

Jack swings by his locker and grabs his backpack. He pins it against the lockers with one hip so he can open it enough to shove the baby bag in it and zip it back up. “Alright bud, you ready?” He glances down to check on your son. Your son gives a little smile and then lets his head fall against the front of Jack’s shoulder, almost like he’s shy. Jack has to laugh a little as he walks back by the desk. 

“We’re out,” he announces to everyone, finding the way they all glance up and try not to look shocked or stare funny. “Say bye!” He says to your son, picks his little hand up and waves it. Your son smiles for a second before turning his head away, shying away from the attention. 

Jack looks at Robby and Dana. “Thank you.” He doesn’t have to elaborate. They know what he’s thanking them for. 

The two make it home easily and without incident. Jack texts you to let you know. 

J - Made it home and are having breakfast. 

He includes a picture of your son in his highchair eating some pancakes Jack made for him. When you get it the photo makes your heart squeeze, your boys. 

The world stops for a second and you get a little dizzy when you realize what you just thought. Your boys. 

Jack is not your boy. He’s not yours in any capacity. And that thought is one you know you would have had about your husband and son. That panic comes back, the intense shame and guilt. You try to think back on all you and your therapist have talked about, try to convince yourself that it’s okay. That it’s okay to have that thought. 

That it’s okay to like the thought and even to want the thought. 

You’re able to handle it much better than you were before and you know that means something. That you’re closer to being ready.

Once you’re not so lightheaded from all the emotions you reply. 

You - Thank you.

It’s odd, Jack thinks as he reads it. Almost clipped. Three dots appear. 

You - I’m sorry about this morning and the cheek thing. I know we haven’t discussed anything like that and I don’t really know what happened for me there in the moment, so I’m sorry. And I hope you can forgive me. 

He’s quick to respond. 

J - You have nothing to apologize for, so there’s nothing to forgive. I didn’t mind it at all 

He smiles to himself a little, especially once three dots appear. But then they go away only to reappear a couple of seconds later to disappear again. Shit, he thinks to himself, was that wrong? Did it cross a line? Fuck, was it suggestive? 

He tries to think of what he can say to apologize and let you know that he really didn’t mean for it to be suggestive or pressuring or weird. But then a message from you. 

You - Well good. I didn’t either

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A couple of nights later you sit on the couch next to Jack. It’s the first time you’ve sat next to each other like this. Jack was not the one to instigate it of course. 

You decided to watch a movie together. It’s not the first time you’ve done that. Not the first time you’ve made popcorn without asking if he wanted any. It’s the first time you don’t split it into two bowls, though. Instead you pour it all in one and come sit next to him on the couch. Not touching. But close enough to share the popcorn between you. 

He almost expects you to move once the bowl is empty and you set it on the table but you don’t. You just stay there, curled up in your blanket next to him as you watch, commenting to each other at times. He notices you comment less and less, are less responsive to his and are leaning closer and closer to him. 

He can see you falling asleep and when you blink back awake he points it out. “You wanna go to bed? We can finish later.” 

“No, no, I’m good.” You look at him and give him a smile so he knows you know how close you are to him. 

He nods and you keep watching. But twenty or so minutes later you slide a bit and your head rests against his tricep. 

Jack freezes. He doesn’t know what to do. Does he let you sleep? Does he wake you? Is it wrong if he doesn’t wake you? When he knows you might not be ready? But then the sleepiest, “s’okay,” comes from you like you knew what he was thinking. You’re out again so fast he wonders if he made it up. 

He knows you have trouble sleeping sometimes. Trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. So he’s hesitant to wake you from it when you’re getting it. You’d been so in and out of it with the movie he decides to just wait a bit, see if you wake up. 

But then Jack falls asleep on the couch with you resting on his arm. He wakes when he feels you stirring. “Shit,” you whisper, sit up and off him. “We fell asleep.” 

“Yeah,” he yawns. “I meant to wake you but must have fallen asleep before I could,” Jack says slowly as he wakes back up. “I wasn’t sure if you were okay with…”

“Oh.” You blink at him like the thought hadn’t occurred to you. “Yeah. No, yeah, it was okay, I’m okay. I, I hope you were. You definitely could have woken me if you weren’t!” 

Jack nods. “I know.”

You nod back, the magnitude of falling asleep on him hitting you even though you’re not sure it should really hold any particular magnitude. “Okay. Good.” You look around and check the monitor, chuckle a little and show it to Jack. He chuckles with you at the silly position your son is sleeping in. “Probably best to get to bed.” You give him a small smile. 

“Yeah, probably.” You stand up off the couch and toss the blanket onto it, grab the bowl and put it in the sink to deal with tomorrow. Jack stands too and stretches a little. “Are you going?” You ask, almost sound a little sad at the thought. You are a little sad at the thought. 

“I wasn’t going to,” he shakes his head. “I was just going to head to the spare, but I can if you’d prefer.”

“No! No.” You shake your head. “No, I was going to say it’s late and so you should stay and not try and get home at this hour. It’s not safe.” 

Jack gives you a little smirk and you have to look away. “After you,” Jack calls your attention back, sweeps his hand at the entry to the hallway leading to the rooms. “You want me to take him in the morning?” Jack asks as he follows you. You know he’s talking about the monitor. 

“Oh, no. You have to work tomorrow so you should sleep as much as you can.” You’ve learned his schedule. The reality of that hits you both at the same time. You clear your throat. “Good night, Jack.”

“Good night,” Jack replies, smiling to himself as he walks into your spare room. You know his schedule. Jack realizes he knows yours too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A week or so later you ask Jack if he has a certain day off, as if you don’t already know that he does. And he knows you know. 

“Yeah,” he answers, looking up from the floor where he’s playing with your son. 

You nod. “Well, so.” You try to start but stumble. You’re nervous. Flustered in that way you get. Like both times you were at the hospital. “That’s his birthday,” you look at your son with a smile, “and I was wondering if you’d um, if you’d like to, you know, spend the day with us?”

Jack doesn’t realize he’s doing it but he stares at you for a few seconds. You just asked him to spend the day with you and your son on your son’s first birthday. 

He nods. “Yeah.” He nods a little faster. “I would love that. If you’re sure. I know it’s a special day and-”

“No, I’m sure. And I know he’ll love it.” You look at your son fondly and then back at Jack. The fondness in your eyes doesn’t go away. “He loves you.” 

Jack flushes a little at that and it makes you get butterflies. Jack Abbot is blushing in front of you. Doesn’t matter why or what you said. He’s blushing and you’re swooning like you’re a teenager. And, you realize, you don’t hate yourself or feel guilty about it. You just feel it.

“Well,” Jack laughs a little, looks down at your son and brushes some hair out of his face. You still haven’t brought yourself to get it cut but you really are going to have to here soon. “I lo-” Jack stops himself. You can see him trying to think of what to say instead. 

“It’s okay,” you say quietly, understandingly. “You can say it, Jack.” 

Jack nods and swallows. “I love him too,” he says just as softly as he looks back down at your son. 

When Jack finally builds up the courage to look at you he’s greeted by your smile. The one that really meets your eyes and makes them sparkle a bit. The one that he’s seen more and more recently. The one that gives him butterflies. 

Jack Abbot blushes again. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The three of you spend all day together. Your son is one, so the day is more for you than anything. 

You decide on the zoo. Your son loves animals, it’s a weekday so it’s not super busy, the weather is perfect. And you can take it at your own pace. 

Lots of pictures get taken. Of your son. Of you and your son. Of your son and Jack. Of you, your son and Jack. That one threw him a little when you first brought it up and asked a stranger to take a photo of the three of you. 

Jack is patient and would never pressure you and very deliberately does not ask where you’re at in healing or if you’re feeling like you’re closer to ready or anything of the sort. He lets you lead, lets you set the tone and the pace. He knows if and when you’re ready you’ll communicate that. 

You and Jack sit in the aquarium when your son needs a nap and falls asleep in his stroller. You talk about your upcoming weeks and Jack tells you stories of patients he’s had recently that he hasn’t had the chance to tell you about. 

“Have you… had to explain anything about him and I? At work.” 

Jack’s eyebrows lift slightly and he shakes his head. “No. I’m sure they’re all dying to know but like I said, I don’t feel the need to explain anything to them.” He shrugs. “Well, actually,” he lets out a little breath. “The day you came in I told Robby and Dana. Not a lot. Just that you’re a friend I’m helping out because you’re a single mom and don’t have anyone here.” He bites his lip and looks at you. “I told them that you lost your husband while he was deployed, so we had the widower widow connection. I’m sorry if that was too much.” 

You laugh a little and shake your head. Jack has talked to you enough about Dana and Robby to know that Robby is his best friend and effective brother and Dana is his second best friend and like the Pitt mom. “It’s not.” 

“Dana said he’s gorgeous.” Jack doesn’t know why all of this didn’t come out once you got home that day but he was asleep when you did and then life was just busy and moved on. And now you’re talking about it. “He actually liked Robby, so he and I had a little conversation when we got home about bringing his standards back up.” 

That makes you laugh, properly. Jack thinks he could get lost in the sound forever. Spend the rest of his life chasing it. He tells himself to get a grip. You’re just friends. Nothing more. 

“Well,” you smile at him before looking away and shrugging. “Maybe one day I can meet them. Judge for myself.” 

Jack pauses for a second only because he wasn’t expecting it. “Uh, I mean yeah. Of course. Dana will lose it if she gets to see him again.”

“He is the cutest and best if I do say so myself.” You smile down at your sleeping one year old. “God, I can’t believe it’s been a year.” It’s been over a year and a half now since your husband. “He’s so big,” you whisper. “He was so tiny, fit on my chest so nicely. And I love watching him grow up and see him do new things and learn and thrive, but damn it’s hard.” 

Jack gives you a little hum of empathy, not entirely sure what to say. He notices how big your son has gotten and he’s only been in your lives for three months. 

“Will you come with us when I get his hair cut finally?” 

Jack looks over at you, a little confused. “Yeah, course.” He presses his lips together and shakes his head once. “Any particular reason why?” 

“To be my shoulder to cry on.” You say it so simply, like it means nothing when you both know it means something. You both know you’re inviting him to another thing your husband and your son’s dad would probably go to with you. 

And Jack gets stuck on it a little. To be my, you had said, you want him to be your something, even if it’s just a shoulder to cry on right now. “I suppose I can manage that.”

You share a little laugh about it. “Thanks, Jack,” you murmur. 

“Any time.” 

Once your son wakes back up you finish walking around the zoo. Jack buys him too many toys at the gift shop, all the stuffed animals he so much as glances at, much to his delight. You make your way back home together in Jack’s truck. Jack’s truck that now has a carseat in it. 

But you don’t go inside, instead you decide to leave the stroller and walk around the City. You find a place to eat and it’s weird to think about. To all the people walking by and seeing the three of you, you probably look like a family. And even though you feel some guilt, especially on your son’s birthday, you don’t completely hate yourself or let that guilt consume you. You like the idea. A lot. So you let yourself feel it.

After dinner at dusk you decide to take your son to the park for some swinging before heading back and getting him to bed. He loves to swing. You take photos of him and Jack and Jack takes them of the two of you. 

You’re so involved with your son and swinging and making him laugh that you don’t notice Jack slip away for just a second. Your son yawns. “Aw,” you give him a little sad laugh. “Tired baby? You’ve had a big day.” He reaches up for you and you pull him out of the swing, hug him close to you and kiss his head. 

When you turn around Jack is back and standing where you assumed he would be but he’s holding a single rose. You stay where you’re at, almost frozen but not in a tense way. And Jack is just as nervous that this is crossing a line when he doesn’t mean for it to be.  

“Day’s about you as much as it’s about him,” he calls to you. He starts walking towards you and you meet him halfway. “You did all the work a year ago today, mom.” He offers you the rose. “We should acknowledge that.” 

You look at the rose and then back up at him again, a bit stunned still. It’s so incredibly sweet and kind. It’s so incredibly Jack. And you know for sure then. 

You take the rose from him and give him a sappy smile. “Thank you, Jack. For everything. The rose and today and the last three months.”

“Don’t mention it.” He gives you a small smile. 

“Accept the thanks.” You give him a pointed one in return. 

“Alright, alright.” Your son has started to fall asleep in your arms. “Want me to take him?” 

You nod. “Sure, yeah. You only need one arm to carry him still. I need two now.”  You bring the rose up to your nose and smell it, smile to yourself about it. Let you and the butterflies in your stomach swoon. 

The three of you start walking home, your son fully out on Jack’s shoulder within a couple minutes. You walk back in silence. It’s a comfortable silence, a comfortable quiet. And while quiet hasn’t been as foreboding to Jack since he’s met you sometimes it still is. Like now. 

This quiet, while comfortable, is thick. There’s something about it that feels anticipatory. Last time the quiet felt like this, made him feel like this, this uneasy, it brought Jack you. 

Something about that makes him even more uneasy. Because Jack knows there’s always a reason for quiet. It always means something. Always brings something. Rarely, if ever, is it good. And he got good last time and Jack doesn’t trust the world or lightning to strike twice. 

He worries this time the quiet will bring something else. Something worse, like it always does. 

But before he can completely spiral and become even more hypervigilant than he always is, Jack feels your fingers brush against his for a second before they disappear and then come back, your fingers playing with his like it’s nothing, and then, in the quiet as you walk back to your place, you lace your fingers together and you’re holding hands and you give him a little squeeze that tells him you mean it. That you’re ready.   

Quiet. It always means something. Always brings something. 

This time it meant you were working up the courage. Is bringing the start of something more than just friends. 

Lightning strikes twice. 

Jack stops walking when you squeeze his hand and you stop with him, looking up concerned and a bit panicked, ready to draw your hand back. 

“You ready for this?” Jack asks, genuine concern in his voice as his eyes dart around your face, looking for the slightest sign of hesitation. But you can see it there too, the excitement, the happiness. The hope. “And by this I mean this,” he squeezes your hand. “Nothing more. Not until you’re ready for more. Not until you tell me you’re ready for more.”  

You bite your lip as he talks because he’s so cute when he’s concerned and he’s such a good man, wanting to make sure you’re ready and know he doesn’t expect more. And the smile that’s slowly pulling up on his face as you look at him and nod is so adorable you could scream. “Yeah. I’m ready for this.” You squeeze his hand back. “And maybe a little more.” You pull on his hand and start walking again, lean into him a little. “But only with you.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you made it this far thank you so much for reading and I hope it was okay and got fluffy and funny!!

You can find my Masterlist here for more Jack! Requests are open!

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[colouredbyd]

'Til All That's Left Is Glorious Bone—

brother!sirius black x fem!sister!reader x brother!regulus black , james potter x reader

synopsis: being a Black means braiding silence into everything soft — childhood, love, even the ache in your bones. Sirius runs from it, Regulus folds beneath it, but you carry it still, tight at the nape of your neck. and when James offers his hands, his heart, you flinch — not because you don’t want it, but because you were never taught how to take what doesn’t hurt.

cw: Chronic illness, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, self-isolation, emotional breakdowns, grief, physical pain, mental deterioration, identity loss, emotional neglect, unrequited love, hospital scenes, overdose, allusions to death, trauma responses, unfiltered intrusive thoughts, self-hatred, references to childhood neglect, emotional repression. read with caution!!!!

w/c: 9.8k

based on: this request!!

a/n: this turned out much longer than i thought. very very very much inspired by the song Wiseman by Frank Ocean

part two part three dalia analyses of this!! masterlist

The hospital wing smells like damp stone and boiled nettle, and you have come to know its scent the way some children know their lullabies.

You’ve spent more of your life in this narrow bed than you have in classrooms, in common rooms, on sunlit grounds. 

Time moves differently here—slower, heavier—as though the hours have forgotten how to pass. The light through the tall window is always cold, a winter that presses its face to the glass but never steps inside. The sheets are tucked too tightly, the kind of tightness that makes it hard to breathe.

You don’t remember when it started, the pain behind your ribs, the illness that stole your breath and strength in careful, measured doses. It didn’t come all at once. It crept in slowly, like ivy through a cracked wall, quiet and persistent. 

You grew with it, around it, until it became part of you—a silent companion curled inside your chest. Some days it flares like a wildfire, other days it lingers like smoke, but it’s always there. You’ve learned to live beneath it. Learned how to stay still so it doesn’t notice you. Learned how to hold your own hand when no one else does.

Other students come and go with the ease of tide pools—quick stays for broken arms, for potions gone wrong, for fevers that leave as fast as they arrive. They arrive with fuss and laughter, and they leave just as quickly. But you? You stay. 

You are a fixture here, like the spare cots and rusting potion trays, like the chipped basin and the curtain hooks. Madam Pomfrey no longer asks what hurts. She knows by now that the answer is everything, and also nothing she can fix. 

Your childhood was a careful thing, sharp at the edges, ruled more by silence than softness. You were born into a house where expectation walked the halls louder than any footsteps. Obedience was mistaken for love, and love was always conditional. 

You were the youngest, but not alone. You came into the world with another heartbeat beside your own, a twin—your mirror, your shadow, your tether. And above you, Sirius. Older, brighter, always just out of reach. 

He was too loud, too fast, too full of fire. He tore through rooms like a comet, leaving heat and chaos in his wake. You admired him the way you might admire the storm outside the window—distant, thrilling, a little bit dangerous.

Your twin was the opposite. He was stillness, softness, observation. He watched the world carefully, his words chosen like rare coins he refused to spend unless he must. He was always listening. Always understanding more than he said. And between the two of them, you—caught in the current, too much and not enough, the daughter who was supposed to shine but learned instead how to fold herself small. 

You were expected to be precise. Polished. Perfect. The daughter of Walburga Black was not allowed to unravel.

Your hair was never your own. Your mother braided it herself, every morning, every ceremony, every photograph. The braid was too tight—always too tight—and it made your scalp sting and your neck ache, but you never flinched. You sat still while her fingers pulled and wove and twisted, like she was binding you into a shape more acceptable. Your fingers trembled in your lap, pressed together like a prayer you knew would not be answered. 

She said the braid meant order. Discipline. Dignity. But it felt like a chain. A silent way of saying: this is what you are meant to be. Tidy. Controlled. Pretty in the right ways. Never wild.

You wore that braid like a chain for years. A beautiful little cage. You wondered if anyone could see past it—if anyone ever looked hard enough to see how much of you was trying not to scream.

Your mother expected perfection. You were her daughter, after all. Hair always braided, posture always straight, lips always closed unless spoken to. She braided it herself most days — too tight, too harsh — and you would sit still while your scalp screamed and your fingers trembled in your lap. At nine years old, silence had already been braided into your spine.

The stool beneath you was stiff and velvet-lined, a throne made for suffering. In the mirror’s reflection, your posture held like porcelain. Every inch of you was composed, but only just — knuckles pale from tension, lips pressed in defiance.

 Behind you, your mother worked her fingers into your scalp with the practiced cruelty of a woman who believed beauty came from pain. Her voice matched the rhythm of her hands, each word tightening the braid, each tug a sermon.

“A daughter of this house doesn’t squirm,” she murmured, her grip unrelenting. “She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t disgrace herself over something as small as a hairstyle.”

The parting comb scraped harshly against your scalp, drawing a wince you were too proud to voice. Still, the sting prickled behind your eyes, a warning. When the sharp tug at your temple became unbearable, a breathy sob slipped out despite all effort to swallow it.

She froze.

Then, softly — far too softly — “What was that?”

Silence trembled between you.

“I said,” her voice clipped now, “what was that sound?”

A hand twisted at the nape of your neck, anchoring you like a hook. The braid tightened, harder now, punishment laced into every motion.

“Noble girls do not weep like peasants,” she snapped. “From now on, your hair stays up or braided. No more running wild. No more playing outside with your brothers. A lady must always be presentable — do you understand me?”

A nod. Barely a motion, but enough to release her grip.

She tied off the braid with a silver ribbon and smoothed a hand down your shoulder. In the mirror, your reflection stared back — hollowed eyes, flushed cheeks, a child sculpted into something smaller than herself. Her voice followed you as you stood.

“You’ll be grateful for this one day.”

Outside the room, Regulus stood waiting. He looked down at your braid and didn’t say a word. His tie was loose, lopsided in that way he never could fix. 

Your fingers moved on instinct, straightening it carefully, eyes never meeting his. He let you. The silence between twins had its own language — and right now, it said enough.

The hallway stretched long and heavy, lined with portraits that watched like judges. You didn’t stop walking. The destination had always been the same.

Sirius’s door creaked as it opened. He was lying on the bed, book propped open across his chest, thumb tapping absently against the page. 

His hair was a little too long, his shirt untucked. Eleven years old and already a constellation too bright for the house that tried to dim him.

He looked up — and the second his gaze met yours, his expression softened.

“Oh, pretty girl,” he breathed, sitting up straight. “Come here.”

You moved without thinking. As soon as the door closed behind you, the first tears broke free. Quiet, controlled — not sobs, not yet. Just the kind of weeping that clung to your throat and curled your shoulders inward.

“She did it again?” His voice was low, careful. “Too tight, yeah?”

A nod. You climbed onto the bed beside him, pressing your face into his sleeve.

“I tried not to cry,” the words came out muffled. “I really tried.”

Sirius tucked a lock of hair behind your ear, then gently reached for the braid.

“‘Course you did. You're the bravest girl I know.”

He began to undo it — not rushed, not rough. His fingers worked slowly, reverently, like unthreading something sacred. With each loosened twist, the tension in your body unwound too, your breath coming easier, softer.

“She says I’m not allowed to run anymore,” you whispered. “Says I have to look like a proper lady.”

“Well,” Sirius said, a hint of a smile in his voice, “I think she’s full of it.”

You let out a tiny, hiccupping laugh.

“There she is.” He brushed his fingers lightly over your scalp. “That’s better.”

The braid came undone, strand by strand, until your hair pooled over your shoulders — a curtain of softness, no longer a cage. Sirius shifted, lying back against the pillows, and opened his arms wide.

“Come here. Sleep it off. We’ll steal some scones from the kitchen tomorrow and pretend we’re pirates.”

You tucked yourself beneath his arm, the scent of parchment and peppermint wrapping around you like a secret. In the soft hush of the room, it was easy to pretend the house didn’t exist beyond these four walls.

By morning, you woke to find him sitting cross-legged on the floor, fingers gently working through your hair again. But this time, the braid was loose. Gentle. It didn’t pull. It didn’t sting.

“There,” he said, tying it off with a ribbon he pulled from his own shirt. “Just so it doesn’t get in your eyes when we go looking for treasure.”

And you smiled, because in that moment, you believed him.

The memory fades like breath on glass, slipping away into the sterile hush of the hospital wing.

You come back slowly. First to the faint scent of antiseptic and lavender balm. Then to the stiffness in your limbs, the press of cotton sheets against your legs, the dim ache nestled just beneath your ribs like something familiar.

“Easy now,” comes a voice, gentle and no-nonsense all at once.

Madam Pomfrey stands over you with her hands already at work, adjusting the blankets, feeling for fever along your temple. Her expression is set in that signature look — concern wrapped in mild exasperation, the kind of care she offers not with softness but with steady hands.

“You’ve been out for nearly a day,” she says, eyes scanning your face as if checking for signs of rebellion. “Stubborn girl. I told you to come in the moment you felt lightheaded.”

You blink at the ceiling. “Didn’t want to miss class.”

She snorts softly. “You think I haven’t heard that one before? You students would rather collapse in the corridors than admit your bodies are mortal.”

Her hands are cool against your wrist as she checks your pulse. You glance down at the thin bandage near your elbow — the usual spot, now tender. You don’t ask how long the spell took to stabilize you this time. You don’t need to.

She sighs and straightens. “Your fever’s broken, but you’ll stay here today. No arguments. I want fluids, rest, and absolutely no dramatic exits.”

You nod. “Thank you.”

Her gaze softens, just a little. “You don’t always have to carry it alone, dear.”

Before you can answer, the curtain snaps open with a flourish — a burst of too much energy, too much brightness.

“There you are!”

James Potter.

“Sweetheart,” James breathes, as if you’ve just risen from the dead. “My poor, wounded love.”

You barely lift your head before groaning. “Merlin’s teeth. I’m hallucinating.”

“Don’t be cruel. I came all this way.”

He plops into the chair beside you without invitation, sprawled in that casual way that only someone like James Potter could manage — legs too long, posture too confident, as if the universe has never once told him no. 

His tie is missing entirely. His sleeves are rolled up in that infuriating way that shows off ink stains and forearms he doesn’t deserve to know are attractive.

You squint at him. “You didn’t come from the warfront, Potter. You came from Transfiguration.”

“And still,” he says dramatically, “the journey was perilous. I had to fight off three Hufflepuffs who claimed they had dibs on the last chocolate pudding. I bled for you.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m in love,” he counters, placing a hand over his chest like he might actually burst into song. “With a girl who is rude and ungrateful and far too pretty when she’s annoyed.”

“Then un-love me,” you mutter. “For your own good.”

“Can’t. Tragic, really.”

You shoot him a glare. He beams back like you’re the sunrise and he’s been waiting all night to see you again.

“I should hex you.”

“But you won’t.” He winks. “Because deep, deep down, under that armor made of sarcasm and resentment, you adore me.”

“I deeply, deeply don’t.”

“And yet,” he leans in, “you haven’t told me to leave.”

You stare at him. He stares right back.

Finally, you sigh. “Potter?”

“Yes, my heart?”

“If you don’t shut up, I will scream.”

He laughs, bright and boyish and utterly maddening. “Scream all you want, darling. Just don’t stop looking at me like that.”

James doesn’t leave. Of course he doesn’t. He lounges like he was born to irritate you — the embodiment of Gryffindor persistence, or maybe just pure male audacity. 

He props his elbow on the bedside table and peers at you like you're the eighth wonder of the world. Or an exhibit in a very dramatic museum: Girl, Mildly Injured, Attempting Peace.

“You know,” he says, casually adjusting his collar, “if you’d let me walk you to class yesterday, none of this would’ve happened. Fate doesn’t like it when you reject me. Tries to punish you.”

“Fate had nothing to do with it,” you snap. “I tripped over Black’s ego.”

He blinks, then grins. “Which one?”

You throw your head back against the pillow. “Get. Out.”

“But you look so lonely,” he pouts. “All this sterile lighting and medicinal smell — what you need is warmth. Charm. Emotional support.”

“What I need is silence,” you mutter. “Preferably wrapped in an Invisibility Cloak with your name on it.”

James leans closer. “But then you’d miss me.”

You sit up slightly, brows knitting. “Potter. For the last time — I am not in love with you!”

He looks wounded. “Yet.”

You glare. “Never.”

“Harsh,” he breathes, placing a hand over his heart. “Do you say that to all the boys who deliver their soul on a silver platter for your approval, or am I just special?”

“Neither. You’re just insufferable.”

“And you,” he says, looking at you like he’s just uncovered some hidden constellation, “are poetry with teeth.”

You blink. “Are you trying to flirt with me or describe a very weird animal?”

“Both, probably.”

There’s a silence then — or what should be a silence. It’s really more of a stretched pause, heavy with the weight of all the things you haven’t said and refuse to say. You busy yourself with fluffing the pillow behind you, more aggressive than necessary. 

James watches, unbothered, as if every second in your company is a privilege. He does that. Looks at you like you’re more than you know what to do with. Like if he stared hard enough, he could untangle the knots in your spine and the ones you keep hidden in your heart, too.

It pisses you off.

“Why are you like this?” you ask suddenly, exasperated.

James looks genuinely confused. “Like what?”

“Like a golden retriever who’s been hexed into a boy.”

He gasps. “You think I’m loyal and adorable?”

“I think you’re loud and impossible to get rid of.”

“That’s practically a compliment coming from you.”

You huff, crossing your arms. “Did you break into the hospital wing just to bother me?”

“No,” he says, stretching. “I also came for the adrenaline rush. Madam Pomfrey tried to hex me.”

“She should’ve aimed higher.”

“She said the same thing.” He tilts his head, eyes softening a little. “Seriously though. You okay?”

You glance away.

It’s a simple question. An honest one. And it cracks something in you, just for a second — a flash of how tired you really are, how the weight in your chest hasn’t gone away since the moment you woke up here. But you’re not about to tell him that.

“I was fine,” you say flatly, “until you arrived.”

James laughs, not buying a word of it. And you hate him a little, for seeing through your armor so easily. For still showing up anyway.

“Well,” he says, standing up and slinging his bag over his shoulder, “I’ll go. But only because I know you’ll miss me more that way.”

“In your dreams, Potter.”

“You’re always in mine.”

He tosses you a wink before heading for the door — whistling as he walks, bright and ridiculous and inescapable.

You throw the other pillow at his back.

You miss.And you hate that you're smiling. 

The door clicks shut behind him, and silence rushes in too fast. It settles over you like dust, soft but suffocating. 

You just sit there, perched on the edge of the infirmary cot, hands still curled in the blanket, knuckles pale. For a moment, there’s nothing. Just the quiet hum of the ward and the slow, measured ache blooming low in your back.

Then, you hear it.

James's laughter, bright and stupid and golden, spilling through the corridor like it doesn’t know how to stop. It chases itself down the stone hallway, reckless and echoing, as if it has never once had to apologize for being loud. 

He laughs like he’s never been told not to. Like the world is still something worth laughing in.

And then—his voice.

Sirius.

You’d recognize it anywhere. Cooler than James’s, more precise, threaded through with a sort of effortless arrogance he doesn't have to earn. Sirius doesn’t speak to be heard. He speaks because the world always listens. He laughs like the sun doesn't blind him anymore. Like he’s been here before, and already survived it.

Their voices blur together, warm and sharp and unbearably distant. A private world outside the thin curtain, a place you’re never fully let into, even when you're part of it.

You swallow hard. The taste of metal still lingers.

Madam Pomfrey told you to rest. Strict orders, she said. Full bedrest. You nodded then. Promised. But your body’s never listened to promises, and your mind is already slipping away from the cot, already pressing you forward with a kind of restless urgency.

The ache in your ribs flares when you move, but you ignore it. You swing your legs over the side and reach for your shoes with slow, shaking hands. Each movement tugs at the bruises hidden beneath your skin, the tender places no one else can see. You wince. You keep going.

It isn’t the pain that drives you. It’s something worse. Something quieter. That feeling, deep in your chest, like a hand gripping your lungs too tightly. Like something in you has started to rot from the inside out. You don’t want to hear them laughing. You don’t want to be the one in the bed anymore, weak and broken and watched over like a child.

You want to run until your lungs scream. You want to scream until your throat splits.

Instead, you walk.

The corridor outside is too bright. You blink against it, but don’t slow your pace. Your limbs feel like they’re moving through water, but you don’t stop. The voices are gone now, swallowed by stone and space, but they echo anyway. You hear the ghosts of their laughter in every footstep.

And it stings, because Sirius never laughed like that with you anymore. Not since you learned how to flinch without being touched. Not since the world cracked open and swallowed the parts of you that still believed he would choose you first.

You keep walking. Not because you know where you're going.

Only because you know you can't stay.

You don’t go far. You don’t have the strength.

Instead, you slip into the back corner of the library, the one with the high windows and the dust-lined shelves no one bothers to reach for anymore. It’s always too quiet there, always a little too cold — and that suits you just fine. You drop your bag and sit without grace, shoulders curling inward like you’re trying to take up less space in the world.

Your books are open, but your eyes keep blurring the words. The light from the window stripes your page in gold, but your fingers tremble as you hold the quill. 

There’s a pain blooming slow beneath your ribcage now, deeper than before, as if something inside you is tugging out of place. You press your palm to your side, hoping the pressure will settle it, but all it does is remind you that it’s real.

It gets worse the longer you sit. The burning in your spine, the throb in your joints. Your whole body pulses like a bruise someone won’t stop pressing. You grit your teeth and write anyway, like if you just get through one more page, one more hour, one more breath—you’ll be okay.

But you’re not. Not really. And every breath tastes a little more like defeat.

The days fold over themselves like tired parchment.

You wake. You ache. You drift from bed to class to hospital wing to silence. You ignore James when he finds you in the corridor and calls you sunshine with a grin too wide for the way your heart is breaking. 

You tell him off with a glare you don’t mean. He calls you cruel and laughs anyway. You walk away before he can see the way your hands are shaking.

The world goes on.

And then one afternoon, when the sun slips low and casts everything in amber, you see him.

Regulus.

Your twin. Your mirror, once.

He’s seated beneath the black lake window, where the light is darker and more still. His robes are sharp and his posture straighter than you remember. 

There’s a boy beside him — fair hair, eyes too bright. You’ve seen him before. Barty Crouch Jr. A Slytherin, like Regulus. Arrogant. Sharp-tongued. Always smiling like he knows something you don’t.

They’re laughing. Low and conspiratorial. Something shared between them that you’ll never be invited into.

And Regulus is smiling, real and rare and soft in the way you used to think only you could draw from him. His face is unguarded. His shoulders are relaxed. He looks... content. Not loud like James, not wild like Sirius. But happy. In that quiet, unreachable way.

It guts you.

Because both your brothers have found something. Sirius, with the way he flings himself into everything—light, reckless, loved. And Regulus, with his quiet victories and his perfect tie and his smiles saved for someone else. They’ve carved out slivers of peace in this cold castle, let someone in enough to ease the weight they both carry.

And you—you can’t even let James brush your sleeve without recoiling.

You can’t even let yourself believe someone might stay.

You sit there, tangled in your own silence, staring at a boy who you used to fix his tie after your mother left the room, because he never could quite center it himself.

And now—he doesn’t need you.

Now, he looks like the last untouched part of what your family once was. The only grace left. 

He sits with his back straight, his collar crisp, his shoes polished to a soft gleam that catches even in the low light. His tie is knotted with precision. His hair, always tidy, always parted just right, never unruly the way yours has always been. 

Everything about him is exact — not stiff, but composed. He is elegance without effort, and you don’t know whether to feel proud or bitter, watching him hold himself together like the portrait of what you were both meant to be.

He is the son your mother wanted, the child she could show off. He never had to be told twice to stand straight or speak softer or smile with his mouth closed. Where you burned, he silenced the flame. Where you ran wild with leaves tangled in your curls, he walked beside her, polished and obedient and clean.

If she saw you now — slouched, hair unbound and wild, dirt smudged along your hem — she would scream. 

First, for your hair. Always your hair. too messy, too alive. 

Second, for sitting on the ground like some gutter child, as if you weren’t born from the ancient bloodline she tattooed onto your skin with every rule she taught you to fear.

And third — oh, third, for the thing she wouldn’t name. For the thing she’d feel in her bones before she saw it. Something’s wrong with you. Has always been wrong with you. Even when you’re still, you’re too much.

There’s no winning in a house like that.

But Regulus — Regulus still wins. Somehow. He balances the weight she gave him and never once lets it show on his face. And maybe it should make you feel less alone, seeing him there. Maybe it should comfort you, to know one of you managed to survive the storm with their softness intact.

You blink hard, but the sting in your eyes doesn’t go away.

Because Regulus sits like he belongs.

The light in the library has thinned to bruised blue and rusted gold. Outside, the sun has collapsed behind the tree line, dragging the warmth with it. Shadows stretch long and quiet across the stone, draped between the shelves like forgotten coats.

Your hand closes around the edge of the desk. Wood under skin. You push yourself up, gently, carefully, like you’ve been taught to do. Your body protests with a dull, familiar ache — hips locking, spine stiff. You’ve sat too long. That’s all, you tell yourself. You always do.

But then it comes.

A pull, not sharp — not at first. It begins low, behind the ribs, like a wire drawn tight through your center. It pulses once. And then again. And then all at once.

The pain does not scream. It settles.

It climbs into your body like it has lived there before — like it knows you. It sinks its teeth deep into the marrow, not the muscles, not the skin. The pain lives in your bones. It nestles into the hollow of your hips, winds around your spine, hammers deep into your shins. Not a wound. Not an injury. Something older. Hungrier.

You stagger, palm flying to the wall to catch yourself. Stone greets your skin, cold and indifferent. You can’t tell if your breath is leaving you too fast or not coming at all. It feels like both. Your ribs refuse to expand. Your lungs ache. Your throat is tight, raw, thick with air that won’t go down.

Still, it’s the bones that scream the loudest.

They carry it. Not just the pain, but the weight of it. Like your skeleton has begun to collapse inward — folding under a pressure no one else can see. Your joints feel carved from glass. Every movement, even a tremble, sends flares of heat spiraling down your limbs. You press a hand to your chest, to your side, to your shoulder — seeking the source — but there’s nothing on the surface. Nothing bleeding. Nothing broken.

And still, you are breaking.

Your ears ring. Not a pitch, but a pressure — like the air itself is narrowing. Like the world is folding in. You blink, and the shelves blur, the light bends, the corners of your vision curl inward like paper catching flame. You think, I should sit down.

But it’s already too late.

Your knees buckle. There’s that terrible moment — the heartbeat of weightlessness — before the fall. Before the floor claims you. Your shoulder catches the edge of a shelf. Books crash down around you in protest. You feel the noise in your ribs, but not in your ears. Everything else is too loud — your body, your body, your body.

And then you’re on the floor.

The stone beneath you is merciless. It doesn’t take the pain. It holds it. Reflects it. You press your cheek to it, eyes wide and wet and burning, and feel the tremors racing through your legs. Your hands are claws. Your spine is fire. Your ribs rattle in their cage like something dying to escape.

It’s not just pain. It’s possession.

Your bones do not feel like yours. They are occupied. Inhabited by something brutal and nameless. You are no longer a girl on a floor. You are a vessel for suffering, hollowed and used.

White fogs the edges of your sight.

And then — darkness, cool and absolute.

The only thing you know as it takes you is this: the pain does not leave with you. It goes where you go. It follows you into the dark. It belongs to you.

Like your bones always have.

-

Waking feels like sinking—an uneven descent through layers of fog and silence that settle deep in your bones before the world sharpens into focus.

The scent of disinfectant stings your nostrils like a cold warning. Beneath your fingertips, the hospital sheets whisper against your skin, thin and taut, a reminder that you are here—pinned, fragile, contained. The narrow bed presses into your back, a quiet cage, and pale light spills weakly through the infirmary windows, too muted to warm you. Somewhere far away, a curtain flutters, its soft murmur a ghostly breath you can’t quite reach.

You’re not ready to open your eyes—not yet.

Because the silence is broken by a voice, raw and electric, sparking through the stillness like a flame licking dry wood. 

It’s James.

But this James isn’t the one you know. The James who calls you “sunshine” just to hear you argue back, or the one who struts beside you in the hallways with that infuriating grin, as if the world bends beneath his feet. No. This voice is cracked and frayed, unraveling with worry and something heavier — the weight of helplessness.

“You should’ve sent word sooner,” he says, and every syllable feels like a shard caught in his throat.

“She fainted,” he repeats, as if saying it out loud might make it less real. “In the bloody library. She collapsed. Do you understand what that means?”

The sound of footsteps shuffles nearby, followed by Madam Pomfrey’s steady voice, calm but firm, trying to thread together the broken edges of panic.

“She’s resting now. Safe. That’s what matters.”

James laughs, but it’s not a laugh. It’s a brittle sound, half breath, half crack.

“Safe? You call this safe? She was lying there—cold—and I thought—” His voice breaks, a jagged exhale caught between frustration and fear. 

“She doesn’t say anything, you know. Never says a damn thing. Always brushing me off, like I’m just some idiot who’s in the way. But I see it. I see it. The way she winces when she stands too fast. And none of you—none of you bloody do anything.”

Your chest tightens like a fist around your heart.

You hadn’t expected this.

This raw, aching desperation beneath his words—the way his concern flickers through the cracks of his usual arrogance and shields. The way he’s caught between anger and helplessness, trying so desperately to fix something that isn’t easily fixed.

You lie still, listening to him, feeling the swell of something close to hope and something just as close to despair.

James Potter — sun-drunk boy, full of fire and foolish heart, standing now like a storm about to break. He paces the edge of your infirmary bed as if motion alone might hold back the tide. He looks unmade, undone: his tie hangs crooked, his hair is more chaos than crown, his sleeves rolled unevenly as if he dressed without thought — or too much of it — only the frantic instinct to get to you.

“I should’ve walked her to the library,” he murmurs, and his voice is smaller now, like a flame flickering at the end of its wick. 

Madam Pomfrey, ever the calm in the storm, offers a gentle but resolute reply. “Mr. Potter, she’ll wake soon. She needs rest, not your guilt.”

But guilt has already laid roots in his chest — you can hear it in the way his breath hitches, in the soft exhale that seems to carry the weight of an entire world. His hands press to his face like he’s trying to hold it together, knuckles pale, fingertips trembling slightly at the edges. 

You blink. Just once.

The light slices through the shadows behind your eyes like a blade — too sharp, too clean. But you blink again, slowly, eyelashes sticky with sleep. 

The ceiling swims into shape above you, white stone carved with faint veins and a hairline crack running like a map across its arch. It feels strange, being awake again. Like stepping through a door and finding the air different on the other side.

You shift your head — careful, slow — not because you’re afraid of waking anyone, but because you know the pain is still there, sleeping under your skin like an old god. Waiting. You feel it stretch along your spine, an ache carved into your marrow. Your body is quieter than before, but not calm. Just… biding time.

He doesn’t notice you yet — too consumed by whatever promise he’s making to himself. You catch only pieces of it: something about making sure you eat next time, and sleep, and sit when your knees go soft. His voice is hoarse, edged with something too raw to name.

And though your throat burns and your bones still hum with the echo of collapse, you find yourself watching him.

Because this boy — foolish, golden, infuriating — is breaking himself open at your bedside, and he doesn’t even know you’re watching.

It’s strange.

This boy who never stops grinning. Who fills every hallway like he’s afraid of silence — like stillness might swallow him whole. Who flirts just to irritate you, calls you cruel with a wink when you roll your eyes at his jokes. 

This boy who you’ve shoved away a hundred times with cold stares and tired sarcasm — he’s here.

And he looks like he’s breaking.

Because of you.

You swallow against the dryness in your throat. There’s a weight lodged just beneath your ribs, sharp and unfamiliar, twisting like a question you don’t want to answer. 

You never asked him to care. Never asked anyone to look too closely. In fact, you’ve spent so long building walls from half-smiles and quiet lies, you almost believed no one would ever bother to scale them.

But somehow — somewhere along the way — James Potter learned to read you anyway.

Learned to translate silence into worry. To see the way your shoulders fold inward when you think no one’s watching. The way your laugh fades too fast. The way you don’t flinch from pain because you’ve been carrying it for so long it’s become part of you.

And for the first time — it doesn’t feel annoying.

It feels terrifying.

Because if he sees it, really sees it… the frayed edges, the heaviness in your bones, the way you’ve started to drift so far inward it sometimes feels easier not to come back — what then?

What happens when someone finds the truth you’ve hidden even from yourself?

You wonder how long he’s been carrying this fear. How long he’s noticed the signs you’ve worked so hard to bury.

And quietly — achingly — you wonder how long you’ve been hoping no one ever would.

You’ve pushed him away a hundred times. Maybe more. With cold eyes and sharper words, with silence that says stay away. You made yourself invisible. Not because you wanted to be alone—but because you thought it was easier that way. Easier than asking for help. Easier than letting anyone get close enough to see what’s really breaking inside.

Because the truth is: you don’t want to be here much longer.

Not in some dramatic way, not yet. 

But the thought is always there, quiet and persistent—like a shadow that never leaves your side. You’ve made plans, small and silent. Things you think about when the ache inside your bones is too heavy to carry. The nights when you lie awake and imagine what it would be like if you simply stopped trying. If you slipped away and no one had to watch you fall apart.

You’ve counted the moments it might take, rehearsed the words you’d leave behind—or maybe decided silence would say enough.

You wondered if anyone would notice. If anyone would come looking.

And yet here is James.

Pacing by your bedside like he’s carrying the weight of your pain on his shoulders. His voice trembles with worry you didn’t invite. Worry you thought you’d hidden too well.

But for now, you lie still, tangled in the ache beneath your skin. Wondering if leaving would hurt more than staying. Wondering if anyone really knows the parts of you that are already gone.

Wondering if you can find the strength to let him in—before it’s too late.

You don't mean to make a sound. You don’t even know that you have, until Madam Pomfrey draws a sudden breath, sharp and startled.

“She’s—James—she’s awake.”

There’s a rustle of movement. A chair scraping. A breath hitching.

And then James is at your side like he’d been waiting his whole life to be called to you.

But none of that matters.

Because you are crying.

Not politely. Not the soft, well-behaved kind they show in portraits. No. You're shaking. Wracked. The sob rises from somewhere too deep to name and breaks in your chest like a wave crashing through glass. Your shoulders curl, but your arms don’t lift. You don't even try to wipe your face. There's no use pretending anymore.

The tears fall hot and endless down your cheeks, soaking into your pillow, your collar, the edge of your sheets. It’s not one thing. It’s everything. It’s the ache in your bones. 

The thunder in your chest. The way Regulus smiled at someone else. The way Sirius ran. The way James calls you sunshine like it’s not a lie.

The way you’ve spent your whole life trying to be good and perfect and silent and still ended up wrong.

And the worst part — the cruelest part — is that no one has ever seen you like this. Not really. You were always the composed one. The strong one. The one who shrugged everything off with a tilt of her head and a mouth full of thorns. The one who glared at James when he flirted and scoffed at softness and made everyone believe you didn’t need saving.

But you do. You do.

You just never learned how to ask for it.

And now—now your chest is heaving, and the room is spinning, and you can’t breathe through the noise in your head that says:

What if this never ends? What if I never get better? What if I disappear and no one misses me? What if I’m already gone and they just don’t know it yet?

You hear your name. Once. Twice.

Gentle, then firmer.

James.

You flinch like it’s a wound.

“Hey, hey—” His voice is careful now, as if you’ve become something sacred and fragile. “Hey, look at me. It’s alright. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

But you shake your head violently, because no, you are not safe, not from yourself, not from the sickness that has wrapped its hands around your ribs and pulled and pulled until you forgot what breathing without pain felt like. 

Your throat burns. Your fingers curl helplessly into the blanket. You want to tear your skin off just to escape it. You want to go somewhere so far no one can ask you to come back.

Madam Pomfrey stands frozen in place, her eyes wide, her hand half-lifted. She has known you for years and never—not once—has she seen a crack in your porcelain mask.

And now here you are. Crumbling in front of them both.

“Black—please—” James tries again, voice breaking in the middle. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what to do, I’ll do anything, I swear—”

“I can’t,” you gasp, the words torn from you like confession. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to— I don’t—”

You don’t say it. The rest of it. You don’t have to. It’s in your eyes, wide and soaked and terrified. In your hands, trembling like the last leaves of autumn. In the hollow behind your ribs that’s been growing for months.

James sits carefully on the edge of your bed. His eyes are wet. You’ve never seen him cry before.

“You don’t have to do anything,” he whispers. “Not now. Not alone. You don’t have to be strong for anyone anymore.”

You sob harder. Because that’s the thing you never believed. That someone could see your weakness and not run from it. That someone could love you for the parts you try to hide.

James doesn't flinch. He doesn’t joke. He doesn’t call you cruel or cold or impossible to love. He just reaches out with one hand and lays it on yours, feather-light, as if you’re made of smoke.

“I’m here,” he says. “I’m right here.”

  -

A week passes.

It drips by slowly, like honey left too long in the cold — thick and sticky, every hour clinging to the next. The pain in your body doesn't ease. It deepens. It threads itself into your bones like ivy curling around old stone, slow but suffocating. 

Some mornings it takes everything just to sit up. Some nights you lie awake listening to your heartbeat stutter behind your ribs, wondering if it will give out before you do.

James has not left you.

Not once, not really. He’s still insufferable — that much hasn’t changed — but it’s quieter now. 

The jokes catch in his throat more often than they land. He hovers too long in doorways. He watches you like he’s memorizing the way you breathe. And his eyes — the ones that used to be full of flirt and fire and mischief — are wide and rimmed in worry.

It makes you furious.

Because you don’t want his pity. You don’t want anyone’s pity. You don’t want to be a burden strapped to someone else’s shoulder. You don’t want to see that shift in his face — the softening, the sadness, the silent fear that you might vanish right in front of him.

It’s worse than pain. It’s exposure.

Still, he meets you after class every day, waiting by the corridor with two cups of tea, like it’s some unspoken ritual. He never says you look tired, but he walks slower. He never asks if you’re in pain, but his hand always twitches like he wants to reach out and steady you.

Except today.

Today, he isn’t there.

And you know why before you even ask.

Because today is Sirius’s birthday.

You try not to be bitter. You try to let it go, to let him have this — his brother, his celebration, his joy. But bitterness has a way of curling around grief like smoke. It stings just the same.

You walk alone to the Great Hall, half-hoping, half-dreading, and then you see them.

All of them.

There at the Gryffindor table, the loudest cluster in the room, bursting with laughter and light like a constellation too bright to look at directly. Sirius sits in the center, crown of charmed glitter and floating stars hovering just above his head. He’s grinning — wide and wild and untouched by the quiet rot eating through your days.

Regulus used to crown him, once.

You remember it like it happened this morning — the three of you, tangled in sun-drenched grass, scraps of daisies in your hair, Sirius demanding to be called “King of the Forest,” Regulus rolling his eyes and obliging anyway, and you balancing a crooked wooden crown on his head like he was the only boy who ever mattered.

You loved him then. You love him now.

But everything has changed.

Now Sirius is surrounded by friends and light and cake that glitters. Regulus is far away, still sharp, still polished, still untouchable. And you — you pass by like a ghost with a too-slow gait and a storm in your chest, unnoticed.

No one looks up.

Not even James.

Not even him.

You keep walking.

And you try not to think about how much it hurts that he isn’t waiting for you today. How much it feels like being forgotten.

How much it feels like disappearing.

You sit in the Great Hall, untouched plate before you, the silver spoon resting against the rim like even it’s too tired to try. There’s food, you think. Warm and plentiful, enough to satisfy kingdoms — but none of it ever looks like it belongs to you.

Your stomach turns at the scent.

You haven't eaten properly in days, if not longer. You don't bother counting anymore. Hunger doesn’t feel like hunger now. It feels like grief in your throat, like something alive trying to claw its way up and out of you. So you just sit there, alone at the far end of the table where no one comes, where there’s room enough for a silence no one wants to join.

You have no friends. Not anymore. Illness has a way of peeling people away from you like fruit from its skin. They stop asking. Stop waiting. Stop noticing. You can’t blame them, really — what’s the use in trying to be close to a body always fraying at the seams?

Across the hall, Sirius is the sun incarnate. He always is on his birthday.

He’s laughing with James now, something too loud and full of warmth. His cheeks are flushed with joy, hair glittering with the shimmer of charmed confetti, mouth parted mid-story as if the world waits to hear him speak. 

The Marauders hang around him like moons caught in his orbit, throwing wrappers and spells and terrible puns into the air like fireworks. It’s messy and golden and warm. And for a moment, you forget how to breathe.

You used to be part of that. Didn’t you?

Used to sit beside him and Regulus in the gardens with hands sticky from treacle tart and lips red from laughter. Used to have a seat at the table. A place. A life.

Now even Regulus is far away — his corner of the Slytherin table colder, quieter. But still not alone. He’s flanked by Barty, Evan, and Pandora. All sharp edges and shining eyes. All seemingly untouched by the rot that follows you. Regulus leans in, listens, offers a rare smirk that you remember from childhood, one he used to save just for you.

He hasn’t looked at you in weeks.

The ache in your chest blooms sudden and vicious. You press your knuckles into your side beneath the table — a small, private act of violence — as if you can convince your body to shut up, to behave, to let you just exist for one more hour. But the pain lurches anyway. Slow at first, then sharper. Stabbing between your ribs like something snapping loose.

You can’t do this.

You stand — too fast, too rough — and the edges of the room ripple like heat rising off pavement. No one notices. No one calls after you. Not even James.

Especially not James.

You walk out of the Hall without tasting a single bite.

And then you’re in the corridor, then on the stairs, and then climbing the towers toward your room. Step by step. Breath by breath. It should be easy — you’ve made this walk a hundred times. But your legs tremble beneath you. The pain isn't where it usually is. It's everywhere now. Your spine, your stomach, the backs of your eyes. Every inch of you buzzes like a broken wire. You clutch the banister like a lifeline, but even that’s not enough.

This is the third time this week.

It’s never been three times.

You should go to Pomfrey. Tell someone. Let someone help.

But your throat stays closed. You keep walking.

Some part of you wonders if this is what dying feels like — this slow crumbling, this breathlessness, this fatigue that eats your name and your shadow and your will to keep standing. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it? To stop. Just for a little while. Just until the pain quiets. Just until the storm passes.

Except you know the storm is you.

You reach your dorm and shut the door behind you with the quiet finality of a girl preparing to vanish. The walls are too still. The windows don’t let in enough light. 

What if I just didn’t wake up tomorrow?

You let your bag fall to the floor. It lands with a dull, tired thud.

And then you see it.

Resting on the pillow — a single folded letter. Pale parchment. Tidy handwriting. Sealed not with wax but with duty. You don’t need to open it to know who it’s from. You don’t need to guess the weight of its words.

Still, you pick it up.

Your fingers tremble as you unfold it. Each crease feels like a wound reopening.

Darling, Christmas is nearly upon us. I expect you and Regulus home promptly this year — no delays. You’ve missed enough holidays already. No excuses will be accepted. — Mother

That’s it.

That’s all.

Twelve words from the woman who hasn’t written in months. No inquiry into your health. No mention of your letters, the ones she never answered. No softness. No warmth. Just expectation carved into command, as if your body isn't breaking open like wet paper. As if you’re still someone who can just show up — smiling, polished, whole.

You stare at the page until the words blur. Until they bleed.

And then something inside you slips.

The tears come without warning. No build, no warning breath. Just the kind of sob that erupts straight from the gut — ragged, cracked, feral. You sink to your knees beside the bed, hands still clinging to the letter like it might fight back, like it might tear through your skin and finish what your body started.

The pain blooms fast and ruthless. It surges from your spine to your chest, flooding every inch of you like fire caught beneath your ribs. You curl in on yourself, nails digging into your arms, into your thighs, into the fragile curve of your ribs. You clutch at your bones like you can hold them together — like you can stop them from collapsing.

But nothing stops it.

Nothing stops the sound that tears from your throat. A scream muffled into the sheets. A cry swallowed by solitude.

You can’t breathe. You can’t think. All you can feel is this white-hot ache that eats at your joints, your heart, your hope.

You don’t want to go home.

You don’t want to keep going.

You want it to stop. All of it. The pain, the pretending, the loneliness of being expected to survive in a world that only ever sees the surface of you.

You press your forehead to the floor. Cold. Unmoving. Solid.

And you cry — truly cry — not in anger or silence, but in the voice of someone who has held it in too long, who has no more space left inside for grief.

And still, the letter stays crumpled in your fist, a ghost of a girl who once believed her mother might write something kind.

You move like your bones aren’t breaking.

You move like the letter from your mother isn’t still open on the desk, edges trembling in the breeze from the cracked window, her careful handwriting slicing you open with its simplicity. Christmas is coming. You and Regulus are expected home. No excuses.

You move because if you stop, you will shatter. Because the only thing worse than pain is stillness. Stillness makes it real.

So you go to the mirror.

The room is too quiet, too full of the breath you can barely draw. The walls feel too close, like they’re pressing in, trying to crush the last sliver of strength you’ve kept hidden beneath your ribs. Your legs are unsteady beneath you, every step forward a question you don’t want the answer to.

Your reflection barely looks like you anymore.

There is a hollowness in your eyes that no amount of light can touch. Your skin is pale and stretched thin, the corners of your mouth pulled in defeat. Your hair is a wild mess—matted from where you clutched at it in pain, tangled from nights curled on cold floors instead of in beds, from days where brushing it felt like too much of a luxury.

You reach for the comb. It clatters in your hands, and for a moment, you just stare at it.

Then you begin.

Each pull through your hair is a distraction from the agony blooming in your bones—sharp, raw, endless. You comb as if each knot you work through might undo a knot inside your chest. It doesn’t. But still, you comb.

You need to. You have to.

Because Sirius is downstairs. Laughing. Shining. Surrounded by love and warmth and them. You should be there. It’s his birthday. You remember the way he used to leap into your bed at sunrise, dragging you and Regulus by the wrists, shouting, “Coronation time!” and demanding to be crowned king of everything. You always made him a crown out of daisies and broken twigs. Regulus would scowl but help you braid it anyway.

He loved those crowns. He kept every one.

You remember how the three of you used to sit on the rooftop ledge, legs dangling, hands sticky with cake, Sirius declaring himself “the prettiest monarch of them all,” and Regulus pretending to hate it, even as he leaned against you, quiet and content.

Now Sirius is laughing without you. And Regulus is nowhere near your side.

You press the comb harder into your scalp. You need to focus.

Because Regulus—he should be here. You need him. Desperately. With a bone-deep ache that feels like hunger. But you haven’t spoken in days. He doesn’t look at you anymore. Not really. And you can’t ask. You don’t know how.

And James—bloody James—you almost wish he was here. As much as he drives you insane, with his constant chatter and shameless flirting, at least it means someone is trying to stay. At least it means you’re not entirely alone. But he isn’t here. He’s down there with Sirius, and you're alone in this echoing silence, braiding your hair like it might save you from yourself.

You divide it into three sections.

One for Sirius. One for Regulus. One for yourself.

You twist the first strand with shaking fingers, tight enough that it pulls your scalp taut. Then the second, even tighter. Your arms ache. Your chest tightens. The pain is good—it makes everything else fade. Not vanish, but blur around the edges.

By the third strand, your eyes are burning again.

You begin to braid.

Over, under, over.

You focus on the motion. The discipline. The illusion of control. Each loop is a scream you don’t let out. Each pull is an ache you refuse to voice. You braid like your life depends on it. Like if it’s tight enough, neat enough, maybe you’ll stop falling apart. Maybe you’ll be someone your mother could stand to look at. Maybe you’ll be strong enough to walk past Sirius without dying inside. Maybe you won’t feel so abandoned by Regulus. Maybe you’ll stop wondering what would happen if you simply stopped waking up.

Over. Under. Pull.

You want someone to notice. Just once. That you're not okay. That you haven’t been for a very long time. But you also want to disappear.

The braid is so tight it lifts the corners of your face, gives the illusion of composure. It hurts to blink. It hurts to breathe.

But at least now, you look fine.

You stare at your reflection. The girl in the mirror doesn’t cry. She doesn’t break. She’s polished, composed, hair perfect, pain tucked behind the curve of her spine. Just like Mother taught her.

But you can still feel it.

Inside.

Worse than ever.

The kind of ache that doesn’t come from sickness. The kind that whispers, What if you just stopped trying?

And for a heartbeat too long, you wonder what it would be like to let go.

But you blink. You blink and you turn and you reach for your school bag like the world hasn’t ended, and you prepare to go sit through another class, braid perfect, bones screaming, heart bleeding.

Because no one can save you if they don’t know you’re drowning.

And no one is looking.

You stand in front of the mirror, eyes tracing the braided strands that crown your head—a braid so tight and perfect, the first since you were thirteen. For once, the wildness that usually clings to your hair has been subdued, pulled into neat, unforgiving lines. 

It feels like a fragile kind of victory, as if this braid is a quiet rebellion against the chaos inside you, a way to tame not just your hair but the storm roiling beneath your skin.

Your fingers move almost mechanically as you smooth the fabric of your robe, the weight of it heavy with memories and expectation. Each fold you press flat feels like an attempt to iron out the wrinkles of your fractured soul, to shape yourself into something orderly, something that fits into the world your mother demands. 

The knot of your tie is next—tight and precise, a cold reminder of the control you’re expected to hold, even as everything inside you threatens to unravel.

Turning away from the mirror, you move to your bed, your hands carefully pulling the covers taut. The fabric is smooth under your fingertips, but your heart feels anything but. 

You straighten the pillows, tuck in the sheets, as if by arranging this small corner of your world perfectly, you can bring some order to the chaos swirling inside your mind.

Books come next. You stack them neatly on your desk, aligning every corner and spine as if the act itself could contain the chaos you feel. 

You run your fingers over the worn covers and flip through the pages, lingering on the words one last time. Your homework lies finished—no undone tasks, no loose ends to catch you. Everything is set, ready.

Your hands tremble slightly as you set your quill back in its holder. The quiet click in the stillness of your room feels loud, a reminder of the fragile balance you hold. In this small, solemn ritual, you prepare not just your things, but yourself—gathering the last threads of control, the last remnants of order before you let go.

The silence wraps around you, waiting.

You stand in front of the mirror, eyes tracing the braided strands that crown your head—a braid so tight and perfect, the first since you were thirteen. 

For once, the wildness that usually clings to your hair has been subdued, pulled into neat, unforgiving lines. It feels like a fragile kind of victory, as if this braid is a quiet rebellion against the chaos inside you, a way to tame not just your hair but the storm roiling beneath your skin.

The silence wraps around you, waiting.

The halls are half-empty, half-asleep in golden mid-afternoon hush, and your footsteps echo too loudly against the stone, like your bones are protesting with every step.

 The books in your arms weigh more than they should, tugging your spine downward, but you hold them like a shield. Like maybe the act of carrying knowledge — of submitting things, of finishing things — will be enough to make you feel real again.

You don’t notice James at first. Not until he steps out from where he must’ve been waiting by the staircase — leaning against the bannister with the kind of bored posture that usually precedes some ridiculous joke. 

But he doesn't speak right away this time. His eyes move to your braids, then down the neat lines of your uniform, and there’s a strange stillness in him. No grin. Just… surprise.

“Bloody hell,” he says finally, voice light but too soft to be teasing. “You’ve got your hair up.”

You blink at him. Say nothing. Your arms tighten slightly around your books, like you’re bracing yourself.

He lifts a hand, gestures vaguely. “Not that it’s any of my business — I mean, you always look like you just fought off a banshee in a thunderstorm, and now you look like you’ve… fought it and survived.” A smile tries to form, wobbly. “It suits you. You look really cute.”

You stop.

Not just physically, but inside too — something halting in your breath, like a skipped beat. Your gaze meets his, dull and quiet.

“Not today, James.”

Your voice is hoarse. Frayed silk over gravel. There’s no snap to it, no snarl or bite. You just say it like a truth. Like you’re too tired for anything else.

James straightens slowly. He doesn’t speak for a moment, just watches you like he’s trying to read through all the space between your words. Your name sits on his tongue, but he doesn’t use it. Instead, his brows lift — not in arrogance this time, but in something like confusion. Or worry.

“You—” He swallows. “You called me James.”

You shift your books in your arms, not meeting his eyes this time. “I just want to get through the day.”

He takes a step toward you, but something in your posture keeps him from reaching farther. “Hey, I can carry those—”

“I said not today.” you repeat, softer. Final.

And for once, he listens.

There’s a beat. Then he gives a small nod, stuffing his hands in his pockets, trying to play it cool even though you can see the concern crawling up his throat like ivy.

“Alright,” he murmurs. “But if you need anything, I— I’m around.”

You nod once — not in agreement, just acknowledgment. Then turn.

You don’t see how long he watches you walk away.

Your steps are heavier now, the ache blooming behind your knees and up your spine. It shouldn't be this bad — not again, not so soon. You already fell apart days ago. But the fire’s back in your ribs, licking up the side of your lungs, and you press your lips into a thin line, determined not to let it show.

You pass the Great Hall on your way. You don’t look in.

But Sirius sees you.

He’s mid-laugh, one of those rare carefree ones that sounds like summer. Remus has just handed him a small box wrapped in gold, and his crown — handmade from parchment, ink-smudged and jagged — sits slightly askew on his head. He freezes. The smile falters. His brows draw in. Something in his chest clenches.

“Was that—?” he begins, turning toward Remus.

“She didn’t see us,” Remus murmurs, already watching you too.

Your shoulders are too tight. Your spine too stiff. You don’t notice the silence left behind you. You don’t hear how the laughter quiets. You’re already up the next stairwell, already telling yourself you just need the potions. Just need to breathe. Just need to finish submitting your homework. Then maybe—maybe—

You won’t have to feel this anymore.

The infirmary is warm when you step inside, too warm. It clings to your skin like a fever, like the ache in your bones has grown teeth and is sinking in deeper the longer you stand.

You hug your books closer to your chest, as if they might anchor you here, hold you steady, keep you from unraveling.

Madam Pomfrey doesn’t look up. She’s bent over a boy laid out on the nearest cot—mud streaked across his face, quidditch robes still soaked in grass and sweat. 

Normally, she’d have noticed you by now. Normally, she would have called you over, already tsk-ing and summoning your chart. But she’s too absorbed today, too busy, and for the first time in a long time, no one’s watching you.

Your eyes drift to the far side of the room—to her desk. A tray sits just behind it, lined with small glass vials. Labels scrawled in Pomfrey’s sharp handwriting. Pale blue, golden amber, deep crimson—every kind of potion she’s ever poured down your throat. You know their names better than your own.

And there, at the back, barely touched, is the strongest pain reliever in her stores. Veridomirine. 

Dark and glinting in the soft light, like it already knows it’s too much for most. You remember it burning a hole in your stomach the last time she gave it to you. The way your limbs went numb. The way your mind stilled. The silence of it.

Your grip tightens on your books.

The decision happens slowly and all at once. You glance at Madam Pomfrey—her back still turned, wand still stitching, voice low as she murmurs reassurance to the boy on the bed. 

You step forward, quiet, deliberate. Like you’ve done this before. Like your body already knows the path.

The desk is closer than you expect. You set your books down gently, hands shaking just enough to notice, and reach for the bottle. The glass is cool. Heavier than you remember. It fits into your palm like it was made for you.

You don’t hesitate. You don’t think.

You slide it into the fold of your robe, between the fabric and your ribs, right where the pain always begins.

And then you lift your books again, turn on your heel, and walk out as if you’ve only come for a quick word, as if nothing is different. As if your hands aren’t burning from what you’ve just done.

The corridor is quiet outside. Brisk. The chill hits your cheeks and you let it. Let it bite and sharpen and bring you back into your body.

But something is different now.

Because inside your robe, glass clinks softly with every step.

And for the first time, you feel like you’re holding your way out.

All you can hear is your heartbeat, dull and heavy, and the quiet clink of glass from the bottle nestled beneath your sleeve.

You push open the infirmary doors, and the hallway blooms before you, empty at first glance. But he’s there.

Sirius.

Leaning against the stone wall, one foot pressed behind him for balance, arms crossed in a way that looks casual—effortlessly disheveled—but you don’t see the way his jaw keeps tightening, or the way he’s been picking at the edge of his sleeve, over and over again.

He straightens when he hears the door creak open. His head lifts, eyes scanning quickly—and softening, melting, when he sees you. You, with your too-tight braid, your hollow stare, the way you walk like you’re already halfway gone.

He doesn’t recognize you at first.

Not because you’ve changed on the outside—though you have—but because something’s missing. Something small. Something vital.

And Sirius Black has never known how to say delicate things, not with words. Not with you. So he does what he always does—he opens his mouth and hopes something human will fall out.

“Hey—”

But you’re already passing.

You don’t see the way he steps forward, the way his fingers twitch like he might reach for your arm. You don’t hear the “Can we talk?” die in his throat. You don’t even look at him. Not once.

You’re already turning away.

The braid down your back is tight, almost punishing. A line of control in a world unraveling thread by thread. Your robes are neat, too neat. Tie straight. Steps calculated. As if by holding the pieces together on the outside, you might silence the ruin inside. 

As if you can braid back the shadows trying to tear themselves loose.

Sirius opens his mouth. Wants to say your name. Just your name. Softly, like a tether, like a reminder. But the syllables die on his tongue. You’re already walking away, and the space between you feels suddenly endless. Like galaxies expanding between breaths.

And still—he doesn’t call after you.

He watches. That’s all he can do. 

Watches you walk with the quiet defiance of someone who has learned how to disappear in full view. Someone who was born under a cursed name and carved their own silence from it. He knows that silence. 

He’s worn it too. It’s in his name—in Black. Not just a surname but a legacy of storms. A bloodline that confuses cruelty for strength, silence for survival.

He told himself he had outrun it. That the name couldn’t touch him anymore. But now he watches you, and he realizes: Black isn’t just his burden—it’s yours too. You carry the same weight in your eyes. That same quiet grief. That same ache for something better.

You were the one who never bent. Never cried. Even when the pain took your bones, you met the world with cold fire in your gaze. But now he sees something else. Something crumbling. Something gone.

And it hits him like a curse spoken in the dark: he doesn’t know how to reach you. Not really. He was too late to ask the right questions. Too loud to hear the ones you never spoke aloud. Too proud to admit that sometimes, the ones who look strongest are the ones who are breaking quietly, piece by piece.

You vanish down the corridor, and Sirius stands there, the silence echoing louder than any spell. He leans back against the wall again, like if he presses hard enough, it might hold him together.

 His name is Black. And for the first time in a long while, it feels like a mirror—cold, cracked, and full of all the things he was too afraid to see.

You were light once. Maybe not the kind that burned—but the kind that steadied. Quiet, firm, constant. And now, he wonders if you’ve let go of the edge entirely. If you’ve stepped too far into that old name, into the dark.

And Sirius Black—brave, loud, impossible Sirius—does not know how to follow you there.

The bottle is cold in your hand, colder than it should be. 

You don’t know if it’s the glass or your fingers or something deeper, something in the marrow, in the blood. You sit on the edge of your bed like you’re balancing on a cliff, and everything around you holds its breath. 

The walls. The books. The light. Even the ghosts seem to pause, like they know something sacred and shattering is about to unfold.

You set the bottle down on your nightstand, watching the liquid shimmer inside. It’s a strange shade—amber gold, like honey and fire, like something that should soothe, should heal. But you know what it’ll do. 

You’ve read the labels. You’ve stolen the dosage. You’ve done the math. And for once in your life, the numbers give you certainty. This will be enough.

You glance around your room as if memorizing it, not the way it is, but the way it’s always been. The books stacked with uneven spines. The worn corner of your blanket where you’d twist the fabric between your fingers when the pain got too much. The chipped edge of the mirror where you once slammed a brush out of frustration. It’s a museum now. A mausoleum in waiting.

Your hands tremble as you reach for a parchment scrap—just a torn piece, nothing grand. You fold it carefully, slow and deliberate, your fingers aching as they crease the paper into small peaks. It’s clumsy, uneven. A paper crown no bigger than your palm. 

You think of Sirius, of sun-kissed afternoons when he used to run ahead and shout that he was king of the forest, the common room, the world. 

You and Regulus would laugh, always crown him, always believe him. You were never royalty, not really. Just children trying to carve a kingdom out of cracked stone and quiet grief.

You place the tiny crown on the edge of the desk. An offering. A prayer. A goodbye that won’t speak its name.

It’s his birthday.

You whisper it aloud like it means something. Like he’ll hear it. “Happy birthday, Sirius.”

And then, silence again. The kind of silence that screams.

Your fingers reach for the bottle. You uncork it slowly, and the scent rises—bitter, sharp, familiar. You think of your bones. Of how they’ve been singing a song of surrender for weeks. Months. Maybe years. Of how it’s taken everything in you just to exist in this body, in this name, in this world.

You think of Regulus. Of how his back was always straight even when everything else was falling. Of how you used to braid flowers into your hair for him, and he’d pretend not to care, but he’d look at you like you were magic. You think of James and the way his voice is always too loud but his concern is real, is warm, and how he didn’t call you a single name today. You think of how you almost wanted him to follow you.

You think of Sirius.

And it hurts so much you almost change your mind.

But the pain doesn’t leave. It never does. 

It sinks deeper, folds into your joints, nests behind your ribs. It becomes you. You can’t keep holding it. You can’t keep waking up in a body that feels like betrayal, in a mind that won’t stop screaming, in a life that forgot how to soften.

There is a kind of pain that does not bleed. It settles deep — in marrow, in memory. It builds altars in your bones, asking worship of a body already breaking. You've worn this ache longer than you've worn your name, longer than your brothers stayed.

You were born into the house of Black — where silence is survival and suffering is an inheritance. Regulus moved like shadow. Sirius, like fire. But you? You learned to stay. To endure. To carry the weight of a name no one asked if you wanted. And you did it well. Too well. Long enough for the world to mistake your endurance for ease.

Because strength was never the crown you wanted. It was the chain.

You bring it to your lips.

There is no fear, not anymore. Just the hush beneath your ribs loosening for the first time. Not with hope — never with hope — but with rest. The kind no one can take from you. The kind that doesn’t hurt to hold. That doesn’t ask for your smile in exchange for survival.

You close your eyes.

And then — a crack of wood. A bang loud enough to split the night wide open. Like the universe itself couldn’t bear to be quiet a second longer. 

The door crashes against the wall, unhinging the moment from its silence.

Wind howls through the space between now and never. Curtains billow like ghosts startled from sleep. You flinch before you mean to. Before you can stop yourself. The bottle slips from your hands.

It falls. A slow, glassy descent. And when it hits the floor — the shatter is almost gentle. A soft, final sound. Like the last breath of something sacred. Potion and silence spill together, staining the rug in pale, merciful ruin.

And there — Sirius.

Standing in the doorway like someone who’s already read the ending. Like someone who sprinted through every corridor of this house just to be too late. 

His chest is rising like he’s run miles through storm and stone. His eyes — wild, wet, unblinking. The kind of stare that begs the world to lie.

There’s mud on his boots. A tremble in his fists. Panic stretched tight across his shoulders, brittle and loud. And something in his face — something jagged and unspoken — slices right through the stillness.

He doesn’t speak.

Neither do you.

The room holds its breath. Around you, time stands uncertain. The glass glitters between you like a warning, like a map of everything broken. The smell of the potion hangs in the air — soft, floral, almost sweet. A lullaby for leaving.

Your hands stay curled in your lap, still shaped around the ghost of what almost was. Still cradling the moment you thought you could disappear, undisturbed.

You were supposed to be gone by now.

Supposed to leave like snowfall, like mist at morning — soft, unseen, unremembered. You had rehearsed the silence. Folded your goodbyes into creases no one would find. You had made peace with the vanishing.

But he’s here. Sirius. And he is looking at you like he knows.

Like he’s known all along.

Not just the pieces you performed — the smirk, the sarcasm, the deflection sharp enough to draw blood. But the marrow of it. The hurting. The leaving. The way you’d been slipping away for years in small, invisible ways.

And you can’t take it back.

Not the uncorked bottle. Not the weight in your chest you were ready to lay down. Not the choice you almost made — not out of weakness, but weariness. The kind no one ever sees until you’ve already left.

And still. Even now.

Something uncoils in your chest. Not like hope but like release. Like exhale. Like gravity loosening its grip. The ache begins to lift, slow and smoke-soft, drifting out of your lungs, out of your spine, out of the quiet place where you’d kept it curled for so long.

And for the first time — the ache goes with you.

‘Til all that’s left is glorious bone.