□ summary: A hangover, a pair of gloves, and an unfortunate encounter in the corridors of Winterfell. Somewhere between awkward apologies and shared laughter, titles are forgotten.
□ word count: 3.1k
□ tropes: slow burn, he fell first and harder, hurt-comfort, No use of y/n, no physical description of reader, reader is a badass and can fight, reader and valarr are adults.
□ warnings: afab reader, slight misogny, mentions of death, cursing, reader has a direwolf, no beta read.
□ a/n: i hope you enjoy the chapter. Thank you for reading. We might have an early chapter update on tuesday because i have already written it and it only needs polishing. :)
Chapter 5
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The first thing you felt as you tried to open your eyes was the pounding in your head. The second was someone knocking on your door.
You groaned and pulled the furs over your head, burying your face deeper into the pillow. One hand came up to press against your temple, as if that might somehow stop the throbbing.
"My lady, please open the door. It's-" Meera's voice drifted through the wood.
"Begone. I need sleep," you called back miserably, burying your face in the pillow as the knocking only intensified.
You let out a groan. But before you could muster another complaint, a familiar voice boomed through the door.
"If you do not open this door this instant, not only will you be grounded for a moon, but I shall forbid you from leaving this castle for a week."
You were out of bed before she finished speaking. The room spun slightly as your feet hit the floor. The ale had been a mistake, the throbbing in your head intensying with each passing moment.
You practically lunged for the door and yanked it open.
"Mother. Good morrow." You said attempting a smile. Though it felt more like a grimace.
From the corner of your eye, you noticed Meera and Layla standing behind your mother. Both women looked as though they wished to be anywhere else.
Your mother pushed past you without a word, and the door shut firmly behind her.
You swallowed as her gaze settled on you. If looks could kill, Winterfell would be preparing your funeral.
"I was about to wake up, I swea-"
"Where were you last night?"
The question cut straight through your excuse, and you straightened slightly.
"I was here. In my chambers. Where else would I be?"
Your mother's eyebrow arched as she let out a huff of breath. "So you went to sleep in commoner's clothes and a ragged cloak?"
Your eyes widened as looked down, and found yourself still dressed in yesterday's clothes. Probably too tired and drunk to change out of them last night. You mentally cursed yourself.
"Mother, I can expla-"
"DO YOU TAKE ME FOR A FOOL?"
You physically winced. The volume alone nearly split your skull. And outside the door, the entire corridor could probably hear every word.
"Sneaking out in the middle of the night," your mother continued, "and to a tavern of all places!"
"I didn't go to a tav-"
"I can smell the ale from where I stand." She said as her glare sharpened, and you wished the floor would swallow you whole.
"Have you lost your mind?" she demanded. "Did you truly think I would not know?"
"Mother, please just listen-"
"No." The single word struck harder than any shout. Ever could. Her voice sharp, practically dripping anger. "Not today."
She stepped closer.
"A Stark lady sneaking out in the middle of the night. Do you have any idea what the consequences would have been if someone saw you? The damage it would bring not only to your honour, but to the honour of this family?"
You remained where you stood. Your jaw clenched and eyes fixed stubbornly on the floor.
"The Old Gods help me." Your mother's hand dragged across her face. "Did you even stop to think what the royals would make of this?"
"I do not care for their opinions."
The words left your mouth before you could stop them.
"What?"
"I said I do not care for their opinions."
Your mother's laugh held no amusement as a bitter smile touched her lips.
"Of course you don't. You have never cared much for anyone's opinion apart from your own."
The words stung more than they should. Not because they were true, but because part of you feared they might be.
"But have you considered Berena?" your mother continued. "Or Alyssane?"
You opened your mouth, but immediately snapped it shut as your mother raised a hand in warning.
"You do not wish to marry. Fine,' her voice trembled slightly. "So be it."
You hated hearing that disappointment, hated it more because you knew she tried so hard to hide it.
"But do not ruin your sisters' chances because of your actions. The talks with the Targaryens are going well," your mother said. "And if the Old Gods are willing, Berena may soon be betrothed to the heir to the heir."
And then her eyes met yours.
"Do you understand what your actions could cost us? What they could cost Berena?"
You wanted to argue. Wanted to tell her that your actions does not matter, that Berena deserved better than being bartered away for politics.
But the words died before they reached your tongue. Because tears had begun gathering in your mother's eyes, and suddenly the argument no longer felt worth having.
"I have bent to your wishes your entire life," she said, her voice softening. "Not because I wished to. Because your father asked me to."
Your chest tightened at that, your hands formed a fist as you dig your nails in your palms.
"I am your mother." A shaky breath escaped her. "I could never wish harm upon you."
For the first time since entering the room, her anger seemed to crack.
"I know you wish for the freedoms William enjoys." Her words were a whisper now, as she looked away briefly, "But I cannot give them to you. Not because I do not wish to."
And when she looked back, there was nothing but fear in her eyes.
"But because I am afraid. You may be a warrior."
Her voice broke.
"But you are not immortal."
Your throat tightened, and then she spoke the words you dreaded most.
"I have already lost one child... I do not wish to lose another."
You closed your eyes, and for a moment, you were no longer standing in your chambers. You were staring at snow stained red and lifeless grey eyes of Donner.
"If I discover you sneaking out again," your mother said quietly, "it will not end as easily as it is ending today."
You could only nod. Your mother stood there for another moment, before her expression hardened once more.
"Get dressed." She said as she moved toward the door. "I expect you at breakfast."
She left, leaving you standing in the middle of the room. The headache still lingered and the smell of ale still clung to your clothes.
But neither felt nearly as unbearable as the ache now sitting in your chest. An emotion clawed its way up your throat that you could not name, as your hands started shaking beside you.
You sat at the breakfast table and rubbed your temple for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. After your mother had left your chambers, you had decided not to test her patience any further. You had dressed as quickly as possible, endured Meera's knowing looks, and made your way toward the Great Hall before your mother could send someone to drag you there herself.
The hall was already bustling with life. Servants moved between tables carrying platters piled high with bread and eggs.
Normally, you would have found comfort in the familiar chaos. Today it only made your head hurt worse.
You and William occupied the far end of the Stark table, tucked away from most of the guests. Your mother had suggested it after one look at your face.
So you would not make a fool of yourself before the royal family. You had accepted almost immediately.
Now you sat staring at your breakfast, the lemon cake on your plate remained untouched as you pushed it around with your fork.
"If you do not wish to eat it," William said beside you, "pass me your lemon cake."
You turned your head slowly toward him. Your brother was happily devouring his third helping of eggs as if he had not spent half the previous night drinking enough ale to drown a horse. You narrowed your eyes.
"You are insufferable."
"Yet handsome."
You sighed and shoved the plate toward him.
"Here. Take it."
William accepted the offering immediately and added it beside his own untouched slice, though you doubt it would remain untouched for long.
The headache lingering behind your eyes had thoroughly ruined your appetite.
"Is it because your prince is not here?" William asked casually.
Your brows furrowed, "What?"
"I said," William repeated, far too innocently, "is it because the handsome Prince Valarr is not here?"
Your eyes widened, and you immediately looked toward the royal table.
The prince's chair sat empty. Not that you had noticed.
William's grin widened. Gods curse him.
"Hold your tongue, brother."
"Well," William continued, completely ignoring you, "I was not the one who spent nearly the entire night talking to him."
You glared.
"And I am certainly not the one who glanced at his empty chair the moment i entered the Hall."
"I did not do that."
"You did."
"No."
"Yes."
"I never thought I would see that expression on your face."
The back of your neck began to burn. You did not know what expression he meant, nor did you particularly wish to.
"He was merely the only company available," you muttered, leaning closer so nobody else could hear.
To which William only hummed. The sort of hum that meant he believed absolutely none of what you had just said.
"Uh-huh."
You resisted the urge to throw your fork at him.
"Is that why you gave him your gloves?"
"What?"
William froze and then a slow grin spread across his face. The kind of grin that usually preceded disaster.
"Oh."
Your stomach dropped.
"Oh, this is wonderful."
"William."
"You do not remember."
A horrible realization settled in your chest. You remembered drinking, music and laughter. After that? You do not remember a thing.
"William."
His grin somehow widened further.
"When we were sneaking back into the castle," he said, barely containing his amusement, "you noticed his hands were freezing. And you practically shoved your gloves into the poor prince's chest and told him he would lose his fingers if he kept standing around like an idiot."
You stared at him as horror slowly crept across your face, burning the tups of ears red. And William burst into laughter.
The moment breakfast ended, you were out of your chair and moving through the castle.
Where?
You did not know. You simply needed to get away before William found another opportunity to torment you. The corridors of Winterfell blurred around you as you walked. Servants passed carrying baskets of laundry while guards exchanged greetings near the staircases. Usually, you would have paid attention to your surroundings.
Today your thoughts were elsewhere. You had given Prince Valarr your gloves while drunk. Though it might not be a big deal, but the way William had suggested it, you had practically forced the prince to take it.
You could only hope he had forgotten about it. Or better yet, that he had been too drunk himself to remember.
The Old Gods, however, seemed determined to mock you, because the moment you rounded the corner, your shoulder collided with something solid.
Strong hands immediately settled on your shoulders, steadying you before you could stumble backwards.
"I apologize. Are you-"
You recognized the voice before you even looked up, and your stomach dropped. Slowly, your gaze lifted, and Prince Valarr's mismatched eyes stared back at you.
One blue eye. One brown.
Both slightly widened as if he had not expected to run into you either.
Prince Valarr stood before you, looking far more put together than any man had the right to this early in the morning. His brown hair had been neatly combed back, the pale streak running through it shining beneath the sunlight, as some its unruly strands falling on his forehead. He was dressed in a dark doublet embroidered with silver, he looked every bit the prince Alyssane liked to sing about.
For a brief moment, neither of you spoke. Then you both took a step back at the exact same time.
"Oh."
"Oh."
The words left your mouths together, and heat immediately crawled up your neck. Valarr cleared his throat first, his own ears were beginning to turn red.
"My lady," he greeted.
"My prince."
A painful silence followed right after as you tried to even your breathing. Hands cluchting the pommel of your sword out of habit.
Valarr looked away first, his gaze dropping toward something in his hands.
When you looked down to see for yourself, your stomach lurched, it was your gloves. The familiar leather pair rested neatly folded between his fingers.
"I wished to return these."
He held them out towards you as you stared at them. Then at him, and then back at the gloves. The embarrassment returned with twice the force and you accepted them immediately. Your fingers slightly brushed his, and you felt your breath hitching.
"Thank you."
Valarr nodded, the silence somehow became worse. And you swallowed a nervous lump in your throat before opening your mouth.
"My prince, about last night-"
"There is no need."
Valarr offered you a small smile, though you can clearly see it was a nervous one. he sort of smile that looked as though he had rehearsed it several times before finding the courage to use it.
"You were only trying to help me." His fingers tightened briefly around the fur lining of his cloak. "And i was rather cold."
A huff of laughter escaped you despite yourself, "I was talking about dragging you with me."
You looked at him, and Valarr looked away immediately afterwards, a faint flush creeping across his pale skin, "Oh, its alright. I did not mind. I think it was a nice distraction. I appreciated it."
Something in your chest loosened. The awkward knot that had been there all morning easing slightly.
"Then I suppose I shall not apologize."
"I suppose not."
The corner of his lips twitched upward. And before you could stop yourself, the question escaped your mouth.
"Why were you not at breakfast?"
The words hung between you, and you wished for the old gods to take your life right there.
Why had you asked that?
Heat flooded your face immediately, and Valarr looked just as surprised as you felt. His eyes blinking at a rapid pace.
Then a reluctant smile pulled at his lips.
"I had a hangover."
You stared at him. The young prince looked almost offended by his own confession. A laugh escaped you before you could stop it and Valarr laughed alongside you.
Valarr laughed alongside you.
It was a quiet sound, warm enough to chase away the chill lingering in the corridor. His mismatched eyes brightened, crinkling at the corners, and a small dimple appeared on his right cheek.
You had never noticed it before, and you found yourself staring before the realization struck.
Heat crawled up your neck and you quickly looked away, your gaze dropping to the stone floor before the prince could catch you looking.
"Makes sense," you said immediately.
The smile on his face widened slightly as he nodded in return. Then Valarr tilted his head slightly.
"And where were you rushing off to in such a hurry?"
Your brows furrowed when you answered.
"I was merely walking."
"Hmmm"
"What?"
You narrowed your eyes, when you see the prince trying not to laugh.
"My prince."
Valarr's lips twitched, "You are not planning to sneak out of the castle again in the middle of the day, are you?"
A startled laugh escaped you. The sound echoed softly through the corridor as you shook your head and scratched the back of your neck.
"Only on special occasions."
Valarr let out a quiet laugh.
"A relief."
"Why?"
"Because if you were sneaking off again, I fear I might become an accomplice." Valarr's lips twitched upward. "And this time, I cannot even claim it was accidental."
That earned another laugh from you. And for the first time since you had collided with him, the tension between you finally began to disappear.
At least a little.
Though the way Valarr's gaze lingered on your smile suggested he might have forgotten where he was for a moment.
And the sudden flush that returned to his face suggested he had realized it too. You smiled and took a small step backwards.
"I should take my leave now, my prince."
Valarr nodded almost immediately. "Of course."
You turned to leave but stopped in your tracks.
"Valarr." He said from behind you.
Your brows furrowed as you looked back over your shoulder. The prince looked almost surprised by his own interruption.
He stood there, one hand still resting awkwardly against the folds of his cloak.
"You can call me Valarr."
The words came out more hesitant than you expected. A faint flush crept across his face almost immediately.
"If you are comfortable with it, of course," he added quickly. "I only thought that...well..." He cleared his throat befkre continuing.
And you couldnt help but admire how adorable he looked.
"Since we have shared ale, we are friends. And friends generally do not address one another by titles...but of course, im not forcing you or anything, it was merely a suggestio-"
"Only if you call me by my name, my prince."
The words left your mouth before you could stop them. You did not know why you had said them. Perhaps it was because calling him Valarr felt unfair if he continued calling you "my lady."
Oe perhaps it was because something inside you wanted to hear your name on his lips. Whatever the reason, it was too late to take it back now.
A flicker of surprise crossed Valarr's face. Then he quickly recovered and gave a small nod.
"Very well."
The silence stretched between you two. Both of you waiting for the other to speak. But then he said your name. So softly as if he was murmuring a prayer.
As though testing it, turning it over carefully and seeing how it sounded.
Your name had never sounded particularly special before. Yet hearing it spoken in his voice made something strange twist in your chest.
Valarr seemed equally affected, and a faint smile pulled at the corner of his lips. As if he had decided he liked the sound of it.
You had been called by your name your entire life. So why did it suddenly feel different? You quickly looked away before he could notice the warmth spreading across your face.
"Well," you cleared your throat, "if you will excuse me..."
You offered him a small bow.
"Valarr."
The smile that appeared on his face then was small, entirely too pleased. And that only made the heat in your cheeks worsen.
You turned on your heel immediately and retreated down the corridor before he could notice the tips of your ears turning red.
Behind you, Valarr remained standing exactly where you had left him as watched you disappear around the corner.
And if he repeated your name quietly to himself once you were gone-
Summary (implied spoilers for The Score): you stop on a dark highway for a stranger you have never met. He wakes up days later not knowing your name. What follows is a love story that starts with blood-stained scrubs, a neck brace, and the single worst pickup line ever delivered in an ICU. Aka … the fix-it fic where Beau lives
Warnings: descriptions of a car accident and critical injuries
The night stretches cold and endless along Route 2, the kind of February darkness that settles into your bones. You’re driving on autopilot, your mind still churning through pharmacokinetics and drug interactions, when the world explodes into motion ahead of you.
Metal screeches. Glass shatters. A black SUV careens off the road, spinning once, twice, before slamming into a massive oak with a sound that punches through the quiet night.
Your foot hits the brake before your brain catches up. Your car fishtails slightly on the slick road before coming to a stop thirty feet from the wreckage. For exactly three seconds, you sit there, hands still gripping the steering wheel, heart hammering against your ribs.
Then you’re moving.
You grab your phone, your emergency kit from the trunk — thank god for your mother’s paranoia — and run toward the smoking vehicle. The smell hits you first: gasoline, burnt rubber, something metallic that might be blood.
“Hello?” Your voice comes out steadier than you feel. “Can anyone hear me?”
A groan from the driver’s side. You circle around, your boots crunching on broken glass and scattered debris. The driver’s door hangs open at an odd angle. A man in his fifties sits slumped against the steering wheel, a gash above his eyebrow bleeding sluggishly.
“Sir? Sir, can you hear me?”
His eyes flutter open. Blue eyes. Dazed but focusing. “I—what happened? Where’s-” His head jerks toward the passenger side, and pure terror floods his face. “Beau! BEAU!”
He tries to unbuckle his seatbelt, but you put a hand on his shoulder. “Sir, please don’t move. You might be injured-”
“My son!” He shoves your hand away, stronger than he looks. “My son is in the passenger seat!”
Ice floods your veins. You circle to the other side of the vehicle, and that’s when you see him.
The passenger door is crumpled inward, the metal twisted like paper. The window is completely gone. And in the seat, surrounded by a spider web of cracks in what’s left of the windshield, is a young man about your age.
There’s so much blood.
“Oh god,” you whisper. Then louder, forcing yourself into action: “I’m calling 911 right now!”
Your fingers shake as you dial, but your voice comes out clear when the operator answers.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Motor vehicle collision, Route 2 westbound, approximately two miles past the Lexington exit. Two victims. Driver appears stable with minor head trauma, but passenger has severe injuries-” You’re moving as you talk, assessing with your eyes what you can’t yet touch. “Possible cervical spine injury, significant hemorrhaging from upper extremity, penetrating chest trauma. We need paramedics and ALS immediately.”
“Ma’am, are you a medical professional?”
“Second-year medical student. I have BLS and Stop the Bleed certification.”
“Paramedics are en route. ETA eight minutes. Can you provide care until they arrive?”
“Yes.” You set the phone down, speaker on, and force yourself to breathe. Eight minutes. You can do eight minutes.
You turn back to the passenger. The father is now standing beside you, swaying slightly.
“Sir, I need you to sit down-”
“That’s my son.” His voice breaks. “Please, you have to help him. Please.”
“I will. But I need you to sit down before you fall down. Can you do that for me?”
He nods shakily and lowers himself to the ground, never taking his eyes off his son.
You lean into the destroyed passenger compartment, and your medical training wars with your human instinct to panic. The young man — Beau, his father called him — is unconscious. His head lolls at an angle that makes your stomach drop. Not a natural angle. Not even close.
“Okay,” you mutter to yourself. “Okay, think. C-spine precautions. Don’t move him unless he’s in immediate danger.”
But he is in immediate danger. You can see it in the way his neck bends, the way his head threatens to fall further forward. If his cervical spine isn’t already severed, any more movement could do it.
You look around frantically. The car is stable. No fire. But you need to stabilize his neck now.
Your emergency kit. You dump it on the ground, hands moving fast, grabbing the rolled-up fleece blanket your mom insisted you carry. You carefully roll it into a tight cylinder and maneuver it around Beau’s neck, trying to provide support without moving him any more than absolutely necessary.
“Talk to me,” you call to the father. “What’s his name? Full name?”
“Beau. Beau Maxwell.” The man’s voice is thin with shock. “He’s twenty-two. He’s healthy, no medical conditions, no allergies. He’s—god, he’s the quarterback. He has a game next week. He has-”
“Okay, Mr. Maxwell, that’s good, that’s helpful.” You’re assessing as he talks. The makeshift cervical collar is in place. Now the bleeding. “I need you to keep talking to me. Tell me what happened.”
“A deer. There was a deer in the road, and I swerved, and-” His voice cracks again. “I felt the ice. I felt us sliding. I couldn’t stop it.”
You’re barely listening now, all your attention on Beau’s arm. There’s a shard of glass — thick, wickedly sharp — embedded in his right bicep. Blood pulses around it in rhythmic spurts. Arterial. Brachial artery, most likely.
“Fuck,” you breathe. “Dispatch, update — patient has arterial hemorrhage from upper extremity. I’m applying a tourniquet now.”
Your coat. You’re already shaking from the cold, but you strip off your heavy winter coat without hesitation. You need fabric, need pressure, need to stop the bleeding before he loses any more blood.
The glass shard is still embedded. Leave it or take it out? You run through your training in microseconds. In the field, with no surgical backup, no way to clamp the artery — leave it. But you need pressure above and below.
You wrap your coat around his upper arm, using the sleeves to tie it as tight as you can manage. Your fingers are already going numb, but you pull harder, watching the rhythmic spurting slow to a steady seep. Not perfect, but better.
You’re about to check his other injuries when you see it: a thick branch, maybe three inches in diameter, has punched through the windshield and embedded itself in Beau’s chest. Just left of center. Through the sternum, or maybe just missing it. Either way, it’s deep.
Your hands hover over it, trembling. Every instinct screams at you to pull it out, but you know that branch is the only thing preventing him from bleeding out right now. If it’s hit any major vessels, removing it without a surgical team standing by would kill him.
“Please,” Mr. Maxwell says from behind you. “Please tell me he’s going to be okay.”
You don’t answer. You can’t. Instead, you lean back slightly, taking in Beau’s face for the first time.
Even like this — pale, covered in blood, unconscious — he’s striking. Dark hair matted against his forehead, strong jaw, features that would be more at home on a movie screen than a car wreck. There’s a cut above his eyebrow, minor compared to everything else, and his lips are slightly parted, each breath shallow and labored.
You find yourself reaching out, your fingers — cold and blood-stained — brushing against his cheek.
“Hey,” you whisper. “Beau. I know you can’t hear me, but I need you to hold on, okay? Help is coming. Just hold on.”
His skin is cooling rapidly in the February air. You grab the emergency blanket from your kit with your free hand and drape it over as much of him as you can without disturbing the branch or the makeshift collar.
“Six minutes out,” the dispatcher says through your phone speaker.
Six minutes. Six minutes for his brain to be without adequate oxygen if his breathing gets any worse. Six minutes for that branch to shift. Six minutes for his neck to-
No. You push the thoughts away.
“Mr. Maxwell, is anyone else hurt? Was anyone else in the car?”
“No. Just us. We were coming back from dinner. In the city. His grandmother’s birthday.” The man is crying now, quietly. “I told him I’d drive so he could relax. Have a few drinks. I told him-”
“This wasn’t your fault,” you say firmly. “The deer, the ice — this wasn’t your fault.”
You check Beau’s pulse again. Thready. Too fast. Shock, almost certainly. Blood loss, head trauma, possible internal injuries — the list spirals in your mind.
“His pupils,” Mr. Maxwell says suddenly. “Shouldn’t you check his pupils?”
You should. You know you should. But part of you is terrified of what you’ll find. Unequal pupils would mean increased intracranial pressure, brain herniation, things you cannot fix on the side of a dark highway.
Still, you pull out your phone flashlight and gently lift one of Beau’s eyelids.
Blue. His eyes are the same startling blue as his father’s, even closed like this. You shine the light across. The pupil constricts. Sluggish, but it constricts. You check the other side. The same.
“Equal and reactive,” you report to dispatch, relief flooding through you. “Sluggish but responsive.”
“Paramedics are three minutes out,” the dispatcher responds.
Three minutes. You can see lights in the distance now, hear the wail of sirens cutting through the night.
You check the tourniquet again — still holding. Check his breathing — still shallow but present. Your hand finds its way back to his face, and you realize you’re talking to him, a steady stream of words you’ll never remember later.
“They’re almost here. You’re doing great. Just keep breathing, okay? Keep breathing.”
Behind you, Mr. Maxwell is on his own phone now, his voice breaking as he talks to someone. His wife, probably. Telling her something no parent should ever have to say.
The ambulance screams to a stop, and suddenly there are people everywhere. Paramedics in dark blue, moving with practiced efficiency.
“We’ve got him, ma’am. We’ve got him.”
But you don’t move. Not until one of them — a woman with kind eyes and gray-streaked hair — gently touches your shoulder.
“You did good,” she says. “Really good. But we need you to step back now so we can work.”
You stumble backward, and Mr. Maxwell is there, catching your elbow.
“What do we have?” the lead paramedic asks.
Your voice comes out steadier than you feel. “Twenty-two-year-old male, restrained passenger in head-on collision with tree. Patient found unconscious, significant cervical spine angulation — I’ve placed a soft collar for support. Penetrating trauma to chest, large foreign object still in situ. Arterial hemorrhage from right upper extremity, tourniquet applied. Pupils equal and reactive but sluggish. Respirations shallow, approximately 20 per minute. Pulse thready at approximately 120. Obvious signs of shock.”
The paramedic’s eyebrows raise slightly. “You a doctor?”
“Med student. Second year.”
“Well, med student, you probably saved his life.” She’s already moving, her team swarming around Beau with practiced precision. C-collar. Backboard. IV access. They work with a choreography born of countless traumas.
You watch as they carefully extract him from the vehicle, maintaining spinal precautions, keeping the branch stable. Watch as they load him onto the stretcher. Watch as they cut away his blood-soaked shirt, revealing more of the damage underneath.
“We’re taking him to Mass General,” one of the paramedics calls out. “Trauma one.”
“I’m riding with him,” Mr. Maxwell says, but he’s swaying again, and now that the adrenaline is fading, you can see he’s not as okay as he first appeared.
“Sir, you need to be evaluated too,” another paramedic says, approaching with a second gurney. “We’ll take you both.”
“But-”
“We’ve got him, sir. We’ve got your son.”
You watch as they load Mr. Maxwell into a second ambulance. Watch as both vehicles pull away, sirens wailing, lights painting the dark road in red and blue.
Then it’s just you, standing on the side of Route 2 in just your scrubs and thin long-sleeve shirt, shivering violently as the adrenaline finally crashes. A police officer is talking to you — when did the police arrive? — asking questions you answer automatically.
Your coat is gone. Still wrapped around Beau Maxwell’s arm, probably being cut off by the trauma team right now. Your emergency kit is scattered across the asphalt. Your hands are stained rusty brown with blood.
“Miss?” The officer touches your shoulder. “Miss, are you okay? Do you need medical attention?”
“I’m fine,” you hear yourself say. “I’m fine.”
But you’re not fine. You’re shaking so hard your teeth chatter. Your mind keeps replaying the angle of Beau’s neck, the branch in his chest, the feel of his cooling skin under your fingers.
The officer wraps a shock blanket around your shoulders and guides you to sit in your car, heater blasting. He’s still asking questions — your name, your address, what you saw. You answer them all, but part of you is still on that roadside, watching Beau’s chest rise and fall in shallow, struggling breaths.
“You’re a hero, you know,” the officer says after he’s finished taking your statement. “That young man — you probably saved his life.”
You nod numbly. All you can think is but what if it wasn’t enough?
The officer helps you collect your scattered supplies, guides you through the process of leaving the scene. Your car is fine. You’re fine. Everything is fine.
Except it’s not.
As you drive home, your hands won’t stop shaking on the wheel. You keep seeing Beau’s face, keep feeling the cold of his skin, keep hearing Mr. Maxwell’s broken voice. That’s my son. Please, you have to help him.
You make it to your apartment building, into your unit, into your bathroom before you finally break down. You sit on the cold tile floor, still in your blood-stained scrubs, and sob.
Because you’ve spent two years studying medicine, learning about trauma and emergency care, practicing on mannequins and in simulations. But nothing prepared you for the reality of holding someone’s life in your hands while their blood soaks into your coat and their father begs you to save them.
Nothing prepared you for looking into the face of a dying stranger and desperately, irrationally, needing him to survive.
You cry until you have no tears left, until the shaking finally subsides, until you can breathe without feeling like your chest is caving in. You peel off your ruined scrubs, scrub the blood from your hands, and sit on your couch in the dark.
Then you pull up Google on your phone, your hands steadier now, and type in a name. Beau Maxwell.
The results flood your screen. Articles about football, highlight reels, statistics. Briar University’s star quarterback. Twenty-two years old. Junior year. Dark hair, blue eyes, a smile that could sell toothpaste. Projected first-round NFL draft pick.
You scroll through image after image of him — in uniform, in interviews, at press conferences. Healthy. Whole. So full of life it seems impossible that just an hour ago you were watching him bleed out on a dark highway.
You close your phone and lean your head back against the couch, staring at your ceiling in the darkness.
“Please,” you whisper to no one, to everyone, to whatever forces govern life and death. “Please let him be okay.”
Outside your window, Boston sleeps on, unaware. Somewhere across the city, in Mass General’s trauma bay, a team of surgeons fights to save the life of a quarterback you’ve never met but will never forget.
All you can do is wait.
And hope.
And pray that your desperate, fumbling first aid was enough to give him a chance.
***
The weight room smells like sweat and rubber, the familiar clang of metal on metal providing a rhythm Dean has known since he was twelve. It’s barely seven in the morning, but he’s already on his third set of deadlifts, Garrett spotting him while Logan and Tucker argue about last night’s game on the bench press across the room.
“I’m just saying,” Tucker calls over, “if you’d passed to me in the third period instead of trying to be a hero-”
“If I’d passed to you, you would’ve whiffed it like you did in the second,” Logan fires back.
“Fuck off, I was screened-”
“You were too busy checking out that blonde in the third row-”
Dean tunes them out, focusing on his form. Up. Hold. Down. Controlled. His phone sits on the bench beside his water bottle, face down. It buzzes once — probably his mom checking if he’s coming home this weekend — but he ignores it.
He’s pulling the bar up for his fourth rep when the phone starts ringing. Properly ringing, not just buzzing. The specific ringtone that means it’s someone from his favorites list.
“Dude, your phone,” Garrett says.
Dean sets the bar down carefully and picks up the phone, expecting to see his mom’s contact photo. Instead, it’s Coach Jensen.
At seven in the morning.
On a Saturday.
“That’s weird,” Dean mutters, answering. “Coach? Everything okay?”
There’s a pause. Too long. Dean’s stomach does something uncomfortable.
“Di Laurentis.” Coach Jensen’s voice is careful in a way Dean has never heard before. Careful like he’s handling glass. “Where are you right now?”
“Weight room. With the guys. What’s going on?”
Another pause. Dean can hear something in the background — voices, maybe a TV.
“Is Garrett there? Logan? Tucker?”
“Yeah, they’re all here. Coach, what-”
“I need you to sit down, son.”
The weight room goes very quiet. Dean realizes his teammates have stopped talking and are now watching him. He doesn’t sit down.
“What happened?”
Coach Jensen takes a breath. Dean can hear it through the phone. “I got a call this morning from Coach Deluca. He called because he knows a lot of our guys are friends with players on his team.”
Dean’s hand tightens on the phone. “Okay?”
“It’s about Beau Maxwell.”
The world tilts slightly. “What about him?”
“There was an accident last night. A car accident. Dean, he’s-” Coach Jensen’s voice catches. “He’s in critical condition at Mass General. His father was driving them back from dinner in the city, and they hit ice, crashed into a tree. His dad’s okay, but Beau-”
Dean doesn’t hear the rest. The phone slips from his hand, clattering against the concrete floor. The sound echoes, distant and wrong, like it’s coming from underwater.
Beau.
Critical condition.
The words don’t make sense. They can’t make sense. Because Dean just saw Beau yesterday. They grabbed lunch between classes, argued about whether the Packers or the Patriots were going to make it to the playoffs, made plans to hit up a party tonight. Beau was fine. Beau was fine.
“Dean?” Garrett’s hand is on his shoulder. “Dean, what’s wrong?”
Dean opens his mouth but nothing comes out. His knees feel strange, like they might not hold him. The weight room spins slightly, or maybe he’s spinning, he can’t tell.
“Shit, he’s going down-” That’s Logan, suddenly on his other side, propping him up.
Tucker grabs the phone from the floor. Dean watches him lift it to his ear, watches his face go pale as he listens to whatever Coach Jensen is saying.
“Oh fuck,” Tucker whispers. “Oh fuck, oh fuck-”
“What?” Garrett demands. “What happened?”
“It’s Beau.” Tucker’s voice sounds hollow. “He’s—there was a car accident. He’s in critical condition.”
The words hit the room like a physical force. Garrett’s hand tightens on Dean’s shoulder. Logan makes a sound like he’s been punched.
Dean still can’t breathe right. Can’t think right. Critical condition. That means bad. That means really bad. That means-
No. No, he’s not going there.
“We need to go,” Dean hears himself say. His voice sounds far away. “We need to go to the hospital.”
“Dean, maybe we should-” Garrett starts.
“Now.” Dean pulls away from his friends, stumbling slightly. His legs feel like water. “We’re going now.”
“Okay,” Logan says quickly. “Okay, yeah. My car’s out front. Let’s go.”
Dean doesn’t remember the walk to the parking lot. Doesn’t remember climbing into Logan’s beat-up pickup. One minute he’s in the weight room, and the next he’s in the back seat, Tucker beside him, watching the familiar streets of Boston blur past the window.
Garrett is in the passenger seat, on his phone. “Yeah, Wellsy, it’s—yeah, it’s really bad. We’re going to Mass General now. Can you—yeah. Thanks, baby.”
The city passes in a haze. Dean stares out the window without seeing anything. His mind keeps trying to process the information and failing. Beau. Car accident. Critical condition.
They’re brothers. Not by blood, but by choice, which Dean has always thought means more.
Beau is the guy who stayed up with Dean all night when his grandfather died, never saying much, just being there. The guy who taught Dean how to throw a spiral when some girl Dean was into invited him to throw a football around. The guy who knows Dean’s coffee order and brings him one without being asked when he’s had a rough day.
Beau is his brother.
And Dean doesn’t know what he’ll do if-
No. Stop. Don’t think it.
“We’re here,” Logan announces, pulling into the hospital parking garage with slightly too much speed.
They practically fall out of the truck, running for the entrance. The hospital is massive, gleaming glass and steel, and Dean has no idea where to go.
“Trauma wing,” Tucker pants, pulling out his phone. “Coach sent me directions. This way.”
They follow him through automatic doors, past a reception desk, down a hallway that smells like antiseptic and fear. Dean’s heart is pounding so hard he can hear it in his ears. His workout clothes are still damp with sweat. He should have changed. Why didn’t he change?
They round a corner, and Dean sees them.
The waiting room is full of Maxwells.
Beau’s mom, Debbie, sits in one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs, her face buried in her hands. Beau’s dad is standing by the window, a white bandage visible above his eyebrow. Beau’s grandmother is there too, being comforted by what looks like Beau’s aunt. There are others Dean recognizes from family gatherings and football games, all wearing the same expression of shock and grief.
They all look up as four hockey players in workout gear burst into the waiting room.
His moml’s eyes land on Dean, and her face crumbles.
“Dean,” she chokes out, and then she’s standing, crossing the room in three steps, pulling him into her arms.
She’s shaking. Or maybe he’s shaking. He can’t tell anymore.
“I’m so sorry,” she’s saying into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, honey, I know you two—I know-”
That’s what breaks him.
Dean Di Laurentis, who prides himself on being smooth, charming, always in control, shatters. His knees give out, and if Beau’s mom wasn’t holding him up, he’d be on the floor. A sob tears out of his throat, raw and ugly and completely beyond his control.
“I’ve got you,” she whispers, even though she’s the one who should be comforted, even though it’s her son in critical condition. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”
Dean can feel his teammates behind him — Logan’s hand on his back, Garrett’s voice saying something he can’t make out. But mostly he feels the weight of grief trying to crush him, the terror of possibly losing the person who knows him better than anyone.
“What happened?” He manages to gasp out. “Coach said—but he didn’t—what happened?”
Debbie pulls back, her hands still on his shoulders. Her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen. “You should tell them.”
Beau’s dad turns from the window. He looks like he’s aged ten years overnight. The bandage above his eyebrow is stark white against his pale skin.
“We were driving back from dinner,” he says, his voice rough. “In the city. For my mother’s birthday. It was late, almost midnight. I was driving because Beau had a few drinks. We were just—we were talking about the game next week. About his classes. Normal stuff.”
He stops, his jaw working. Beau’s grandmother reaches over and takes his hand.
“There was a deer,” Beau’s dad continues. “It came out of nowhere. I swerved, and the road—there was black ice. I felt the car start to slide, and I couldn’t—I tried to correct, but we just kept sliding. We hit a tree. Driver’s side hit first, then passenger side slammed into it.”
Dean’s stomach churns. He can picture it too clearly.
“I woke up a few seconds later. I was okay, just disoriented. But Beau-” Beau’s father takes a moment to gather himself. “He wasn’t moving. There was blood everywhere. And then this young woman appeared. Out of nowhere. She’d seen the crash and stopped.”
“She called 911,” Beau’s mom picks up the story, her voice steadier than her husband’s. “She was a medical student. She—god, the paramedics said she saved his life. She stabilized his neck, stopped the worst of the bleeding, kept him alive until they could get there.”
“What are his injuries?” Garrett asks quietly. He’s moved to stand beside Dean, solid and steady.
Beau’s dad closes his eyes. “Cervical spine trauma. The paramedics said his neck was bent at an angle that should have killed him. Should have severed his spinal cord. But this girl, she somehow stabilized it. Kept it from snapping completely.”
Dean tastes bile. He swallows hard.
“He also had a penetrating chest wound,” Beau’s dqd continues. “A tree branch went through the windshield and-” He makes a gesture toward his own sternum. “She knew not to pull it out. Knew it was the only thing keeping him from bleeding out.”
“And his arm,” Beau’s mom adds, wiping her eyes. “Severe laceration from broken glass. She used her own coat as a tourniquet.”
The waiting room is silent except for the buzz of fluorescent lights and the distant beep of monitors.
“Is he going to be okay?” Tucker asks. His voice is small, younger than Dean has ever heard it.
“They’ve been in surgery for four hours,” Beau’s mom says. “We don’t know yet. They said-” Her voice wavers. “They said the next few days are critical. That even if he survives the surgery, there could be complications. Infection. Brain damage from oxygen deprivation. Paralysis.”
“No.” The word comes out sharp, definitive. Dean doesn’t realize he’s the one who said it until everyone looks at him. “No, that’s not—Beau’s going to be fine. He has to be fine. He’s-”
He can’t finish the sentence. Can’t articulate what Beau means, what a world without him would look like. Can’t.
“We’re praying, honey,” Beau’s mom says softly. “That’s all we can do right now.”
Dean wants to scream that prayer isn’t enough. That there has to be something, anything, they can do. But he just nods, swallowing against the lump in his throat.
More people arrive over the next hour. Beau’s teammates, guys from the football team who Dean knows from parties and the occasional shared class. They fill the waiting room with whispered conversations and shell-shocked expressions. A few of them break down crying. Most just sit in stunned silence.
Dean ends up in one of the plastic chairs, his head in his hands. Logan sits on one side, Garrett on the other. Tucker paces by the window, unable to sit still.
“He’s going to make it,” Logan says quietly. “You know Beau. Stubborn as hell. He’s not going anywhere.”
Dean wants to believe that. Wants to believe that sheer force of will can overcome arterial bleeding and spinal trauma. But he’s seen enough hockey injuries to know that sometimes will isn’t enough.
“Did you know,” Dean says suddenly, his voice hoarse, “that his first word was ‘ball’? He told me that freshman year. Not ‘mama’ or ‘dada.’ ‘Ball.’ His parents said he was obsessed with any kind of ball from the time he could sit up. They knew he’d be an athlete before he could walk.”
“Yeah?” Garrett’s voice is soft, encouraging.
“And he-” Dean’s throat closes up. He forces himself to continue. “He wants to go pro. Obviously. But after that, he wants to coach. High school kids, specifically. He says college and pro players already have all the resources. He wants to work with kids who might not have anyone believing in them.”
“That sounds like Beau,” Logan says.
“He’s going to do it, too,” Dean insists, looking up. “He’s going to play in the NFL and then coach high school ball and probably turn some underfunded program into a state championship team because that’s what he does. He sees potential in people and brings it out of them.”
“Dean-” Garrett starts.
“I mean it.” Dean’s voice cracks. “That’s who he is. So he can’t—he has to-”
The doors to the surgical wing swing open.
The waiting room falls silent immediately. Every head turns. A surgeon walks out, still in his scrubs, pulling off his surgical cap. He looks tired. So tired.
Beau’s parents are on their feet instantly, crossing to meet him. Dean stands too, his teammates flanking him. His heart pounds so hard he thinks it might break through his ribs.
“Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell,” the surgeon says. His voice is neutral, professional, impossible to read.
“How is he?” Beau’s mom asks in barely a whisper. “How’s my son?”
The surgeon takes a breath. Dean holds his own, feeling like the entire world is balanced on whatever words come next.
“The surgery was successful,” the surgeon says, and the relief that floods the room is almost tangible. “We’ve stabilized the spinal trauma, repaired the vascular damage to his arm, and removed the foreign object from his chest. The object missed his heart by less than two centimeters. Any further to the right, and-”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to.
“But he’s alive?” Beau’s dad asks. “He’s going to live?”
“He’s alive,” the surgeon confirms. “He’s in critical condition, and the next seventy-two hours will be crucial. There’s still risk of infection, of complications from the spinal trauma. But he made it through surgery, which given the extent of his injuries, is remarkable.”
“Can we see him?” Beau’s mom asks.
“He’s being moved to the ICU now. You can see him once he’s settled, but he’ll be sedated. We need to keep him as still as possible to let the spinal repair begin to heal.”
“His spine,” Beau’s dad says. “Will he—is there paralysis?”
The surgeon’s expression is carefully neutral. “We won’t know the full extent of any nerve damage until he wakes up and we can do a thorough neurological assessment. The spinal cord itself wasn’t severed, which is extraordinarily fortunate. Whoever stabilized his neck at the scene saved his life and likely saved him from permanent paralysis.”
“The girl,” Beau’s mom says. “The medical student. Do you know her name? We want to thank her.”
The surgeon shakes his head. “The paramedics didn’t get her information. Just that she was a Good Samaritan who stopped to help.”
“We have to find her,” Beau’s mom says, turning to her husband. “We have to-”
“We will,” Beau’s dad promises. “We will.”
The surgeon continues, “I need to be clear with you. Your son’s injuries were catastrophic. The fact that he’s alive is nothing short of miraculous. But the road ahead is going to be long. Months of recovery, likely. Multiple surgeries. Intensive physical therapy. And there are still no guarantees.”
“But he’s alive,” Beau’s mom repeats, like it’s a prayer. “He’s alive.”
“He’s alive,” the surgeon confirms. “You should be very proud of him. He’s a fighter.”
After the surgeon leaves, the waiting room erupts. Quiet at first — no one wants to celebrate when Beau is still critical — but there’s a shift. From hopeless to hopeful. From grief to cautious relief.
Dean sits down hard, his legs finally giving out completely. He drops his head into his hands, and this time when he cries, it’s different. Still scared, still shaken, but there’s something else mixed in.
Gratitude.
“He made it,” Logan says, his own voice thick. “Holy shit, he actually made it.”
“Seventy-two hours,” Tucker says. “That’s what the doctor said. Three days. He just has to make it three days.”
“He will,” Garrett says firmly. “You heard the doc. Beau’s a fighter.”
Dean lifts his head, scrubbing at his face. His eyes feel swollen, his throat raw. He probably looks like hell. He doesn’t care.
“I need to see him,” he says. “I need to see him.”
“Family only in the ICU, probably,” Logan says gently. “At least at first.”
“I don’t care. I need-” Dean’s voice breaks again. “I need to see him.”
Beau’s mom appears in front of him, crouching down so they’re at eye level. She takes his hands in hers.
“As soon as they let us bring visitors, you’ll be the first,” she promises. “I swear. But right now, I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
“I need you to take care of yourself. Go home, shower, eat something. Because when Beau wakes up — and he will wake up — he’s going to need you strong. Can you do that?”
Dean wants to argue. Wants to plant himself in this waiting room and refuse to move until he can see his brother. But her eyes are pleading, and she’s asking so little when she’s going through so much.
“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay, but you’ll call me? The second anything changes?”
“The absolute second,” she promises. “You’re family, Dean. You know that.”
Family. The word cracks something open in his chest. He pulls Beau’s mom into another hug, holding on tight.
“Thank you,” he says. “For calling me. For letting me know.”
“Oh honey,” she says, pulling back to look at him. “There was never a question. You’re his brother.”
Dean nods, not trusting himself to speak.
His teammates drive him back to campus in silence. The shock is starting to wear off, leaving exhaustion in its wake. Dean’s muscles ache from his workout, which feels like it happened years ago instead of hours.
They end up on the couch, the four of them, not talking. Just being there. At some point, Tucker orders pizza. At another point, Hannah and Allie show up with half the football team, bringing food and offering quiet support.
Dean’s phone buzzes constantly. Texts from teammates, from friends, from people he hasn’t talked to in months, all asking about Beau. He doesn’t answer any of them.
Instead, he pulls up his photos. Finds the album labeled “Best Bro.” Hundreds of pictures spanning three years. Beau throwing a touchdown. Beau at a party, arm slung around Dean’s shoulders. Beau asleep in the library during finals week, drooling on his American History textbook. Beau grinning at the camera, blue eyes bright, completely alive.
“He’s going to be okay,” Dean whispers to the photo. “You’re going to be okay.”
He has to believe it. Because the alternative — a world without Beau’s terrible jokes and unwavering loyalty and ability to light up any room he walks into — is unthinkable.
His phone buzzes again. They’ve settled him in the ICU. He looks peaceful. Still sedated. Doctors say next 12 hours are critical. Will update you in the morning. Try to get some sleep, honey. He needs you rested.
Dean stares at the message for a long time. Tell him I’m here. Tell him his brother is here and waiting for him to wake up.
Dean sets his phone down and leans back against the couch. Around him, his friends have settled into quiet conversation. Someone turned on a movie at some point, something mindless playing on low volume.
But Dean isn’t watching. He’s thinking about a girl he’s never met. A medical student who stopped on a dark highway and saved his brother’s life. Who thought quickly enough to stabilize Beau’s neck, to stop the bleeding, to give him a fighting chance.
Whoever she is, wherever she is, Dean owes her everything.
“We have to find her,” he says suddenly.
Garrett looks over. “Who?”
“The girl. The medical student. She saved him, and she just disappeared. Didn’t even leave her name.”
“Dude, Boston has like five medical schools,” Logan points out. “That’s thousands of students.”
“I don’t care,” Dean says. His voice is stronger now, steadier. “We’ll check every single one if we have to. But we’re going to find her.”
Because whoever she is, she gave Beau a second chance at life.
And Dean is going to make damn sure she knows how much that means.
***
The world comes back in pieces.
First, there’s sound — a steady beeping, rhythmic and insistent. Then sensation — something soft beneath him, something constricting around his neck. Then smell — antiseptic, that particular hospital smell that’s somehow both sterile and cloying at once.
Beau tries to open his eyes, but his eyelids feel like they weigh a thousand pounds.
“-vitals are stable, Mrs. Maxwell. We’re going to start decreasing the sedation now-”
That’s a voice he doesn’t recognize. Professional. Clinical.
“How long until he wakes up?” That voice he knows. Mom. She sounds exhausted.
“It varies. Could be a few hours. His body’s been through significant trauma, so we’re taking it slow.”
Beau wants to tell them he’s right here, that he can hear them, but his mouth won’t cooperate. The darkness pulls him back under.
***
The next time consciousness surfaces, it stays a little longer.
The beeping is still there. But now there are other sounds too — quiet conversation, the rustle of fabric, footsteps in the hallway.
“-told you, you can’t give him solid food yet-” Mom again, but this time she sounds amused.
“I’m not giving it to him. I’m just … having it ready. For when he can.” Dean. That’s definitely Dean.
“You brought Dunkin’ Donuts to a hospital ICU?”
“Munchkins. They’re small. It doesn’t count.”
Despite everything — the pain starting to register in various parts of his body, the confusion, the way his neck feels completely immobilized — Beau almost smiles.
“Beau?” A different voice. Dad. “Beau, can you hear me?”
He tries to respond. Manages something between a grunt and a groan.
“Oh my god.” Mom’s voice cracks. “Oh my god, he’s—get the nurse. Get the nurse!”
Footsteps. Fast.
Beau forces his eyes open. The light is too bright, everything blurry. He blinks, and slowly the world comes into focus.
White ceiling. Fluorescent lights. The edge of what looks like a massive amount of medical equipment.
“Beau?” Mom’s face appears above him, and she’s crying. “Oh, baby. You’re awake. You’re really awake.”
“Hey, Mom.” His voice comes out as barely a rasp, his throat raw and painful.
“Don’t try to move, sweetheart. Your neck—they had to stabilize your neck. You’re in a brace.”
That explains the constricting feeling. Beau tries to turn his head instinctively and immediately regrets it as pain shoots through him.
“Easy, easy.” That’s a new voice — a nurse, he realizes, as a woman in scrubs appears on his other side. “Welcome back, Mr. Maxwell. I’m Theresa. Can you tell me your name?”
“Beau Maxwell.” It hurts to talk, but he manages.
“Good. Do you know where you are?”
“Hospital.” Duh.
“Do you remember what happened?”
Beau tries to think. His memory is … foggy. Disjointed. “Car. We were in a car. Dad was driving.” He looks around, spotting his father standing near the foot of the bed, bandage still visible on his forehead. “Dad. You okay?”
His dad laughs, the sound wet and relieved. “I’m fine, son. I’m fine. You’re the one who-” His voice breaks. “You scared the hell out of us.”
“Language,” Mom chides, but she’s smiling through her tears.
The nurse runs through more questions — what year it is, who the president is, can he feel his fingers and toes. Everything checks out, apparently, because she smiles and says, “Looking good, Mr. Maxwell. The doctor will be by soon to do a full assessment.”
After she leaves, Beau takes stock. He can see Mom and Dad, both looking exhausted and relieved. And there, slouched in a chair by the window, is Dean, holding a Dunkin’ Donuts bag and grinning like an idiot.
“You look like shit,” Beau rasps.
Dean laughs, and it sounds a little hysterical. “Says the guy in the ICU. Welcome back, man.”
“How long was I out?”
“Two and a half days,” Mom says, stroking his hand gently. “They had you heavily sedated while you healed.”
Two and a half days. Beau processes this slowly. “What … what are my injuries?”
His parents exchange a look.
“Son,” Dad starts, “you had—it was pretty bad. Cervical spine trauma. They had to operate. And there was a branch, through your chest-”
“A branch?”
“Missed your heart by less than two inches,” Mom says quietly. “And your arm—there was a lot of glass. They had to repair the artery.”
Beau stares at the ceiling, trying to reconcile this information with the fact that he’s alive and apparently mostly functional. “How am I not dead?”
“Because someone saved you,” Dad says. “There was a woman, a medical student. She saw the crash happen and stopped to help. She stabilized your neck, stopped the bleeding, kept you alive until the paramedics arrived.”
A medical student. Random Good Samaritan. Beau tries to remember, but there’s nothing. Just darkness and then waking up here.
“The surgeon said if she hadn’t stabilized your neck, one more wrong movement and-” Mom can’t finish the sentence.
“We’ve been trying to find her,” Dean interjects, standing up and moving closer to the bed. “To thank her. But she didn’t leave her name, and the hospital doesn’t have her information. Just that she was a medical student who stopped to help.”
“I want to thank her too,” Beau says. His throat is killing him, but this seems important.
“The police have her contact information from the accident report,” Dad says. “We’re working on tracking her down. But for now, you need to focus on healing.”
A doctor arrives shortly after, running through a battery of neurological tests. Can Beau move his fingers? Yes. Toes? Yes. Feel pressure on his arms? Legs? Yes, yes. The doctor looks cautiously optimistic.
“The fact that you have full sensation and motor function is excellent news,” the doctor says. “But you’re not out of the woods yet. The next few weeks are critical. Any wrong movement could jeopardize the spinal repair.”
“So I’m stuck in this neck brace?”
“For at least eight weeks. And then extensive physical therapy.”
Eight weeks. Beau’s season is over. His entire junior year, gone. He closes his eyes against the wave of disappointment.
“Hey.” Dean’s hand lands on his shoulder. “One step at a time, yeah? You’re alive. That’s what matters.”
Beau nods minutely, the brace making even that small movement awkward.
The rest of the day passes in a blur of doctors, nurses, medications, and family. His grandmother comes by and cries all over him. His aunt brings flowers that the nurses say aren’t allowed in ICU but no one has the heart to remove. His uncle brings an embarrassing amount of Packers gear “for morale.”
Dean never leaves. He’s a permanent fixture in the chair by the window, occasionally trying to sneak Beau a munchkin when the nurses aren’t looking, even though Beau still can’t eat solid food.
“Dude, stop,” Beau finally says. “You’re going to get kicked out.”
“Worth it,” Dean says, but he puts the bag away.
It’s late afternoon on the third day post-accident — technically only a few hours since Beau woke up — when there’s a knock on the door.
“If that’s another neurologist, I swear to god-” Beau starts.
“Language,” Mom says automatically, but she’s already turning toward the door. “Come in!”
The door opens, and everyone looks up expecting another doctor or nurse.
Instead, a young woman steps in.
She’s around Beau’s age, maybe a year or two older, wearing jeans and a Harvard hoodie, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She looks nervous, clutching a worn messenger bag and hesitating in the doorway like she might bolt at any second.
“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “I know you probably weren’t expecting visitors, but I—the reception desk said that—I asked how the patient from the accident was doing, and they said the medical student who helped at the scene was on the approved visitor list, so I thought-” She’s rambling, talking faster with each word. “I can leave. I should probably leave. I just wanted to check-”
“Oh my god.” Dad is on his feet. “You’re her. You’re the medical student.”
She nods, looking even more uncertain. “I’m—yes. I was the one who—I saw the accident, and I-”
She doesn’t get any further because Dad crosses the room in three strides and wraps her in a hug.
“Thank you,” he says, his voice thick. “Thank you for saving my son. Thank you, thank you-”
You stand frozen for a second, clearly startled, before awkwardly patting his back. “I—you’re welcome. I just did what anyone would-”
“No.” Mom is there now too, and as soon as Dad releases you, she pulls you into an equally tight embrace. “No, what you did — the surgeon said you saved his life. That if you hadn’t stabilized his neck, he wouldn’t have made it. You saved our boy.”
Beau watches from the bed, unable to turn his head much but able to see enough. The woman — the medical student who saved him — looks completely overwhelmed, her eyes suspiciously bright.
“I’m just glad he’s okay,” you manage. “I’ve been checking the news, looking for updates, but I couldn’t find anything, and I was worried-”
“He’s going to be okay,” Mom assures you, finally releasing you. “Thanks to you.”
Then Dean is there, and he pulls you into a hug that actually lifts you off your feet slightly.
“I don’t know who you are yet,” Dean says, “but you saved my brother’s life, so you’re stuck with me now. Fair warning, I’m a hugger.”
You laugh, the sound slightly watery. “I can tell.”
“What’s your name?” Mom asks, steering you gently toward the bed.
“Y/N Y/L/N,” you say. “I’m a second-year at Harvard Med.”
“Y/N,” Dad repeats. “That’s a beautiful name.”
You smile, still looking nervous, and then your eyes land on Beau.
Beau, who has been staring at you since you walked in.
Because holy shit.
You’re beautiful. Like, devastatingly beautiful. Even in casual clothes with no makeup and looking slightly anxious, you’re the most stunning person Beau has ever seen. There’s something about your eyes, warm and genuine, and the way you move, and-
Is this heaven? Did he actually die and this is some kind of afterlife? Because that would explain a lot.
“Hi,” you say softly, moving to his bedside. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a tree,” Beau rasps, then immediately winces. “Sorry. That was—I’m apparently still working on the whole talking thing.”
You laugh, and the sound does something strange to his chest. “The tree definitely won that round. But I’m so glad to see you awake. When I left the scene, I-” You pause, taking a shaky breath. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it. Your injuries were severe.”
“Apparently you’re the reason I did make it,” Beau says. He wishes he could sit up properly, look at you without the weird angle the neck brace forces. “Thank you. I mean it. Thank you for stopping. For helping.”
“Of course.” You look genuinely confused by the gratitude. “I couldn’t just drive past.”
“Most people would have,” Dean interjects. He’s back in his chair but watching you with open fascination. “Most people would’ve called 911 and kept going.”
“I had training,” you say simply. “And someone needed help. It wasn’t—I mean, I just did what needed to be done.”
“You did a lot more than that,” Dad says. “The surgeon told us you stabilized his neck. That you thought quickly enough to prevent further damage. That you used your own coat to stop the bleeding.”
You duck your head, embarrassed. “I had an emergency kit in my car. My mom’s paranoid about me driving alone at night. The coat was just the closest thing I had.”
“Did you get it back?” Beau asks. “Your coat?”
“Oh.” You blink at him. “No, I—I assume they had to cut it off you. It’s fine, though. It was just a coat.”
“Just a coat that saved my life,” Beau says. “Along with you. So, not really just a coat.”
You smile at him, and Beau’s heart does something complicated in his chest. The monitors beside his bed beep slightly faster, and he desperately hopes no one notices.
“How are you really feeling?” You ask. “Pain levels? Range of motion? Are you experiencing any numbness or tingling?”
“Did you just go into doctor mode?” Dean asks, amused.
“Sorry.” You look sheepish. “Occupational hazard. I’ve been worried about—I mean, cervical spine injuries are serious, and I was so scared I’d made the wrong call at the scene-”
“You made exactly the right call,” Mom assures you. “Every doctor we’ve talked to has said so.”
You nod, but you still look anxious. Beau recognizes the expression — it’s the same one he wears after a bad game, replaying every mistake.
“Hey,” he says, waiting until you look at him. “I’m alive. I can move everything. The doctors say I’m going to make a full recovery. You did good. Better than good. You were amazing.”
You hold his gaze for a moment, and something passes between them. Something Beau can’t name but can definitely feel.
“I’m really glad you’re okay,” you finally say, your voice soft.
“Me too,” Beau replies. “Though I’m pretty sure I have the worst concussion in history because there’s no way someone as beautiful as you is real.”
There’s a beat of silence.
Then Dean bursts out laughing. “Oh my god, did you just use a pickup line while in a neck brace in the ICU?”
“It’s not a pickup line if it’s true,” Beau says, not breaking eye contact with you.
You’re blushing now, a pink tinge spreading across your cheeks. “I think your brain is working just fine,” you manage.
“That’s what I said!” Dean crows. “The boy’s got game even half-dead.”
“Dean,” Mom says warningly, but she’s smiling.
You laugh again, shaking your head. “I should probably go. Let you rest. I just wanted to check—to make sure you were okay.”
“Wait,” Beau says quickly. Too quickly. The movement makes pain shoot through his neck, and he grimaces.
You step closer instinctively, your hand hovering near his shoulder. “Are you okay? Should I get a nurse?”
“No, I’m fine. I just-” Beau takes as deep a breath as the chest wound allows. “Can I get your number? To, uh, keep you updated on my recovery. Since you saved my life and all.”
Dean makes a noise that’s probably supposed to be a cough but sounds suspiciously like a laugh.
You’re definitely blushing now, but you’re smiling too. “Sure. That—yeah. Let me write it down.”
Mom, bless her, immediately produces a pen and paper.
You write quickly, your handwriting surprisingly neat, and hand the paper to Beau. “Text me anytime. I mean it. I want to know how you’re doing.”
“I will,” Beau promises. He wishes he could take the paper himself, but his arm is still heavily bandaged and moving it is a production. Dean takes it for him, setting it on the bedside table with a knowing smirk.
You linger for another moment, looking like you want to say something else. Finally, you speak. “You know, I have to tell you something.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m a Harvard fan,” you say, and there’s a hint of mischief in your eyes now. “Which means I’m technically rooting against Briar. So you need to make a full recovery so we can beat you fair and square next season.”
Beau stares at you. Then he laughs, the sound rough and painful but genuine. “You save my life and then threaten to destroy me on the field?”
“Not a threat,” you say cheerfully. “A promise. We’re coming for that championship.”
“I love her,” Dean announces. “Beau, I love her. Can we keep her?”
“I’m working on it,” Beau mutters, which makes you laugh again.
“Okay, I really do need to go,” you say, backing toward the door. “But it was wonderful to meet you all. And Beau, heal up fast, okay? The rivalry isn’t fun if you’re not playing.”
“Yes ma’am,” Beau says, giving you a slight salute that his injuries allow.
You wave and slip out the door, closing it softly behind you.
The room is silent for exactly three seconds.
“Dude,” Dean says.
“Not now,” Beau replies.
“You just flirted with your guardian angel.”
“Dean-”
“In the ICU. While in a neck brace. While your parents were standing right there.”
“I was perfectly respectful-”
“You told her she was too beautiful to be real!” Dean is grinning like the Cheshire cat. “Your game is unreal, man. I’m actually impressed.”
“You asked for her number,” Mom says, and she sounds amused too. “That was certainly … forward of you, sweetheart.”
“I need to thank her properly,” Beau says defensively. “It’s only right.”
“Uh-huh,” Dean says. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
“She’s a Harvard fan,” Beau continues, ignoring him. “Which means she’s smart but has terrible taste in football teams. Someone needs to educate her.”
“Someone being you?” Dad asks, his lips twitching.
“I mean, I feel like I owe her that much.”
Dean is full-on cackling now. “You’re going to date the girl who saved your life. That’s some romance novel shit right there.”
“I’m not—we just met. I’m just going to text her. To say thank you.”
“Sure,” Dean says, not even trying to hide his grin. “Just thank you. Nothing else.”
“Dean, I swear-”
“Boys,” Mom interrupts, but she’s smiling. “Beau needs to rest.”
“I’m fine,” Beau insists, even though he’s exhausted just from the conversation.
“You nearly died three days ago,” Mom says firmly. “You need rest. Dean, stop riling him up.”
“Yes, Mrs. Maxwell,” Dean says dutifully.
After his parents leave to grab dinner, it’s just Beau and Dean in the room. Dean is back in his chair, finally eating the munchkins he’s been carrying around.
“She was amazing,” Beau says quietly. “Not just—I mean, yeah, she’s gorgeous. But she saved my life, Dean. She stopped on a highway in the middle of the night and saved my life.”
“I know,” Dean says, and all the teasing is gone from his voice now. “I know, man. We owe her everything.”
“I was so close,” Beau continues. His throat is tight. “Dad said my neck … one more movement and that would’ve been it. And she fixed it. Some random medical student who happened to be driving by.”
“Not random,” Dean says. “Right place, right time. Some people would call that fate.”
“You believe in fate?”
“I believe in you,” Dean says simply. “And I believe you’re here for a reason. So yeah, maybe fate had something to do with putting her on that road at that exact moment.”
Beau thinks about you — your nervous smile, the way you brushed off the gratitude like it was nothing, the competitive spark in your eyes when you mentioned Harvard football.
“I think I was saved by an angel,” he says.
“Probably,” Dean agrees.
“And I think I’m in love.”
Dean nearly chokes on his munchkin. “What?”
“I’m in love,” Beau repeats. It sounds insane. It is insane. He just met you twenty minutes ago. But there’s something — a pull, a connection, something he can’t explain.
“Beau, buddy, I say this with love — you’re high as hell on pain meds right now.”
“I’m serious.”
“You just woke up from a medically induced coma like six hours ago.”
“I know what I feel.”
Dean studies him for a long moment. Then he sighs. “Well, shit. You really mean it.”
“I really mean it.”
“You’re going to marry the girl who saved your life, aren’t you?”
“If she’ll have me,” Beau says, completely serious.
Dean shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “This is either the most romantic thing I’ve ever witnessed or the pain meds talking. I’m not sure which.”
“Maybe both,” Beau admits. “But I don’t care. I’m going to thank her properly. And then I’m going to get to know her. And then-”
“Then you’re going to sweep her off her feet and ride off into the sunset?”
“Something like that.”
“She’s a Harvard fan,” Dean points out. “You know that’s going to be a problem.”
“I’ll convert her.”
“She literally told you she is waiting for Harvard to beat you.”
“She’s competitive. I like that.”
Dean laughs, shaking his head. “You’re insane. But okay. I’m here for it. Team Beau and his angel.”
“Her name is Y/N.”
“That doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
Beau doesn’t care. He’s already thinking about what to text you. How to thank you properly. How to convince you that stopping on that highway was the beginning of something, not just an isolated act of heroism.
His body is broken. His season is over. His recovery is going to be long and painful.
But for the first time since waking up, Beau feels hopeful.
Because somewhere out there is a girl who saved his life.
And he’s going to spend his recovery figuring out how to deserve her.
“Dean?” He says.
“Yeah?”
“Help me figure out what to text her.”
Dean grins. “Now we’re talking.”
They spend the next hour crafting the perfect message, with Dean offering increasingly ridiculous suggestions that Beau keeps vetoing. By the time visiting hours end and Dean is forced to leave, they’ve settled on something simple and genuine.
After Dean leaves, Beau stares at the piece of paper with your number, at your neat handwriting, and allows himself to smile.
Three days ago, his life nearly ended on a dark highway.
Today, looking at your number, it feels like it’s just beginning.
***
The physical therapy room smells like sweat and determination, which Beau has decided is just a nicer way of saying it smells like pain.
“Five more, Maxwell,” his PT says in that annoyingly cheerful voice that all physical therapists seem to possess. “You’ve got this.”
Beau grits his teeth and pulls himself up on the bar, his neck muscles screaming in protest. Four months ago, he couldn’t lift his head off the pillow. Three months ago, he couldn’t walk without assistance. Two months ago, he couldn’t turn his head more than thirty degrees.
Now, he’s doing pull-ups.
“One,” he grunts.
“Good. Keep that form.”
“Two.”
“Breathe through it.”
“Three.”
“Two more. You’ve got it.”
“Four.” His arms are shaking.
“Last one. Make it count.”
Beau pulls himself up one final time, holding at the top for a three-count before lowering himself down. His muscles feel like jelly, but he’s grinning.
“Hell yeah!” His PT claps him on the shoulder. “That’s what I’m talking about. Four months ago, you were in a neck brace wondering if you’d ever play again. Look at you now.”
“So I can play?” Beau asks hopefully.
“Nice try. That’s a question for your surgeon and your coach, not me. But I will say, physically you’re progressing faster than anyone expected.”
It’s not a yes, but Beau will take it.
After the session, he checks his phone. Seventeen texts in the group chat with the guys, mostly Dean sending increasingly absurd memes. Three texts from his mom checking in. One from Coach Deluca asking about his PT progress.
And one from you.
Y/N: How was PT? Did he make you cry today?
Beau smiles, typing back quickly.
Beau: Only a little. Mostly manly tears of triumph though.
Y/N: Sure. I believe you. Completely.
Beau: I did five pull-ups.
Y/N: FIVE? Beau, that’s amazing! I’m so proud of you!
Beau: Thanks. Couldn’t have done it without my guardian angel believing in me.
Y/N: Stop calling me that. I’m just a person who happened to be in the right place.
Beau: A person with a hero complex and really good instincts under pressure. AKA an angel.
Y/N: You’re impossible.
Beau: You love it.
There’s a pause.
Y/N: Maybe a little.
Beau’s grin widens. Over the past four months, texting you has become his favorite part of recovery. You check in daily, asking about his PT sessions, his pain levels, his progress. You send him terrible medical jokes. You quiz him on anatomy when you’re studying, claiming he’s helping you prepare for exams when really he’s just learning more about the exact ways his body almost failed him.
You’re funny and smart and competitive and kind, and Beau is more convinced every day that he’s in love with you.
The only problem? You’re still treating him like a patient. A friend, yes, but a friend you saved, which apparently puts him in some kind of off-limits category in your mind.
He’s been trying to change that. Slowly. Carefully.
Not carefully enough, according to Dean, who keeps telling him to “just ask her out already, you coward.”
But Beau wants to do this right. You saved his life. You deserve more than some half-assed attempt at romance from a guy who still can’t turn his head all the way without wincing.
His phone buzzes again.
Dean: Emergency. Get to the house ASAP.
Beau: What’s wrong?
Dean: Just get here. It’s important.
Beau’s heart kicks up. Dean doesn’t do “emergency” unless something is actually wrong. He grabs his bag and heads out, making the drive back to campus in record time.
He bursts through the door of the house he shares with Dean and half the hockey team, expecting — he doesn’t know what. Fire? Flood? Someone dying?
Instead, he finds Dean standing in the living room surrounded by streamers, balloons, and a banner that reads I LIVED, BITCH.
“Surprise!” Dean spreads his arms wide, grinning. “We’re throwing you a party.”
Beau stares. “You said it was an emergency.”
“It is an emergency. You’ve been back on campus for a week and we haven’t properly celebrated your return from the dead.”
“I wasn’t dead.”
“You were close enough that it counts.” Dean starts hanging more streamers. “Party’s tonight. Eight PM. Everyone’s invited.”
“Everyone?”
“The team. The guys. Some of the football players. Allie and her friends. That kid from your econ class who kept asking about you-”
“Dean-”
“And Y/N.”
Beau freezes. “What?”
Dean’s grin turns shit-eating. “I invited Y/N. She said yes, by the way. She’ll be here around nine.”
“You invited—without asking me-”
“You’ve been texting her for months and haven’t made a move. I’m helping.”
“By ambushing me?”
“By creating the perfect opportunity.” Dean hangs the last streamer and steps back to admire his work. “Come on, man. Party atmosphere, some drinks, you finally see her in person again — it’s romantic.”
“It’s manipulative.”
“It’s efficient.” Dean throws an arm around Beau’s shoulders. “Trust me. This is going to be great.”
***
The party is, objectively, insane.
By nine PM, the house is packed. Music thumps through the speakers. Someone has set up a beer pong table. Tucker is already three drinks in and teaching a group of freshmen the rules of some drinking game that definitely doesn’t have any rules.
Beau is nursing a beer and trying not to look at the door every five seconds.
“Dude, relax,” Logan says, appearing at his elbow. “She’ll be here.”
“I’m relaxed.”
“You look like you’re about to throw up.”
“That’s just my face.”
“That’s not your face. I know your face. This is your ’I’m freaking out’ face.”
Garrett joins them, holding two beers. “Is he doing the thing where he stares at the door?”
“He’s doing the thing,” Logan confirms.
“I hate both of you,” Beau mutters.
“You love us,” Garrett says cheerfully. “And you love Y/N, which is why you’re doing the door-staring thing.”
“I don’t—we’re friends.”
“Right,” Logan says. “Friends who text every day.”
“Friends who have inside jokes,” Garrett adds.
“Friends who he calls his guardian angel-”
“Okay, yes, fine, I like her.” Beau takes a long pull from his beer. “Happy?”
“Ecstatic,” Dean says, materializing out of nowhere. “And you’re going to tell her tonight.”
“I’m not-”
“You are. Because life is short, Beau. You nearly died. You got a second chance. Are you really going to waste it being chicken about asking out the girl who saved you?”
Beau opens his mouth to argue. Then closes it. Because damn it, Dean has a point.
“What if she says no?” He asks quietly.
“Then she says no,” Dean says. “But what if she says yes?”
Before Beau can respond, the front door opens.
And there you are.
You’re wearing jeans and a simple black top, your hair down instead of in the ponytail you usually wear, and Beau forgets how to breathe.
“She’s here,” Logan whispers unnecessarily.
“I can see that,” Beau hisses back.
You spot them and wave, smiling as you make your way through the crowd. Allie intercepts you halfway, pulling you into a hug and saying something that makes you laugh.
“Go talk to her,” Dean says, giving Beau a shove.
“I am talking to her.”
“You’re standing here like a statue. Go.”
Beau takes a breath and crosses the room. You look up as he approaches, and your smile gets wider.
“Hey!” You say, and then you’re hugging him. It’s brief, casual, but Beau’s heart still does something stupid in his chest. “I can’t believe Dean threw you an I Lived, Bitch party.”
“I can,” Beau says. “Subtlety isn’t really his thing.”
“I brought you something.” You dig in your bag and pull out a small wrapped package. “I was going to give it to you later, but here.”
Beau takes it, curious. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”
“Just open it.”
He unwraps it carefully. Inside is a keychain — a small football with the Briar University logo engraved on it and proof that miracles happen on the other side.
Beau stares at it, his throat tight. “Y/N-”
“I know it’s cheesy,” you say quickly. “But I saw it at this little shop near campus and thought of you. Because you are a miracle. You know that, right? The odds of you surviving what you survived, of recovering the way you have-”
“Hey.” Beau sets the keychain carefully on the nearest table and takes your hand. “Thank you. Really. This is—it’s perfect.”
You squeeze his hand, and for a moment, it’s just the two of you in the crowded room.
Then Dean’s voice booms over the music. “EVERYONE! CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION?”
The music cuts off. Everyone turns to look at Dean, who’s standing on the coffee table with a beer raised.
“Oh no,” Beau mutters.
“Oh no,” you echo, but you’re smiling.
“Three months ago,” Dean announces, “my best friend nearly died. Car crash, black ice, the whole dramatic scene. And while I was sitting in a hospital waiting room having a complete breakdown, there was someone else on a dark highway saving his life.”
The crowd is silent, watching.
“Y/N Y/L/N,” Dean continues, finding you in the crowd. “Stand up. Come on, don’t be shy.”
You look mortified. “Dean-”
“Stand up!”
Reluctantly, you stand. The crowd turns to look at you.
“This woman,” Dean says, “stopped on the side of the road in the middle of the night. Could’ve driven past. Could’ve just called 911 and left. But she didn’t. She stopped. She used her medical training to stabilize Beau’s neck, to stop the bleeding, to keep him alive until the paramedics arrived. The surgeon told us that if she hadn’t done what she did, Beau would have died at the scene.”
Beau can see your eyes are shiny. His are probably the same.
“So this party isn’t just about Beau living, though that’s obviously the main event,” Dean continues. “It’s about Y/N. About the fact that there are still people in the world who stop to help strangers. Who run toward danger instead of away from it. Who save lives because it’s the right thing to do.”
He raises his beer higher. “To Y/N. Beau’s guardian angel. The reason we still have our quarterback. The reason I still have my brother.”
“TO Y/N!” The crowd roars.
You’re definitely crying now, wiping at your eyes with your free hand. Beau pulls you into a hug, and you bury your face in his shoulder.
“I hate your best friend,” you mumble into his shirt.
“I know,” Beau says, grinning. “Me too.”
Dean, having successfully made everyone emotional, declares that the situation requires shots. Multiple shots. A truly irresponsible number of shots.
“I don’t think this is medically advisable,” you protest as Dean lines up shot glasses on the kitchen counter.
“You’re not on duty,” Dean says. “And we’re celebrating. Celebrating requires shots.”
“That’s not-”
“Shots! Shots! Shots!” Tucker starts chanting. The crowd joins in.
You look at Beau helplessly. He shrugs. “When in Rome?”
“Rome didn’t have vodka.”
“Rome would’ve had vodka if they’d survived a near-death experience.”
You laugh and grab a shot glass. “Fine. But I’m blaming you when I regret this tomorrow.”
Dean passes out shots to everyone in the kitchen. “To Beau!” He shouts.
“To Beau!” Everyone echoes, and the shots go down.
One shot turns into two. Two turns into three. By shot four, you’re leaning against the counter, cheeks flushed, giggling at something Tucker is saying about his disastrous history midterm.
Beau stays close, not drinking as much because his tolerance is shot after months of not drinking, but enough that he feels warm and loose and brave.
“Having fun?” He asks, appearing at your side.
You beam up at him. “The most fun. Dean is insane. I love him.”
“Don’t tell him that. His ego can’t take it.”
“Too late!” Dean calls from across the room. “I heard! She loves me, Beau!”
“You’re the worst!” Beau calls back.
“You love me too!”
“Debatable!”
You laugh, the sound bright and unrestrained, and Beau wants to bottle it. Wants to keep it forever.
“Come on,” he says, taking your hand. “Let’s get some air.”
He leads you through the crowd, out the back door to the porch. The April night is cool but not cold, the first real hint of spring in the air. The noise from the party is muffled out here, just the bass line thumping through the walls.
“This is nice,” you say, leaning against the railing. “Quieter.”
“Yeah.” Beau stands beside you, close enough that your shoulders brush. “You okay? Dean didn’t overwhelm you too much?”
“Are you kidding? That toast was-” Your voice catches. “That was one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me.”
“You saved my life. You deserve a lot more than a toast.”
“I was just doing what anyone would do.”
“No,” Beau says firmly. “You weren’t. You did something extraordinary. And I will spend the rest of my life being grateful for it.”
You turn to face him, leaning your hip against the railing. “The rest of your life, huh? That’s a long time.”
“Not long enough,” Beau says. His heart is pounding, but whether it’s from the alcohol or your proximity, he can’t tell. Probably both. “Y/N, I-”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been wanting to tell you something. For months, actually.”
You tilt your head, curious. “What is it?”
“I-” He stops. Starts again. “Do you remember what you said to me in the hospital? About Harvard beating Briar fair and square?”
“Of course. And I meant it. You guys are going down next season.”
“See, that’s the thing.” Beau takes a small step closer. “I’ve been thinking about that. About you being a Harvard fan and me playing for Briar. And I realized I don’t care.”
“You don’t care about football?” You sound skeptical.
“I don’t care that we’re rivals. I don’t care that you’re rooting against my team. I don’t care about any of it because-” He takes a breath. “Because I like you. A lot. Like, an embarrassing amount for someone who’s supposed to be playing it cool.”
Your eyes widen slightly. “Beau-”
“I know we’ve been friends,” he continues quickly. “And if that’s all you want, I’ll take it. I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me. But I need you to know that I think about you constantly. I look forward to your texts more than anything else in my day. When I was in PT, struggling through the worst pain I’ve ever experienced, the thought of texting you after kept me going.”
“Really?” Your voice is soft.
“Really.” He reaches up, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. The gesture is gentle, tentative. “You saved my life, Y/N. And then you kept saving it, every day, just by being you. By making me laugh when I wanted to give up. By believing I could recover when I wasn’t sure I could.”
“I always believed in you,” you whisper.
“I know. I felt it. Every text, every terrible medical joke, every time you called me out for pushing too hard or not hard enough — I felt it.”
You’re staring at him now, your eyes bright in the porch light. “I like you too,” you say. “I have for months. But I didn’t—you were recovering, and I didn’t want to take advantage-”
“Take advantage?” Beau laughs. “Y/N, I’ve been trying to figure out how to ask you out since I woke up in that hospital bed and saw you for the first time.”
“You were on a lot of pain meds.”
“Doesn’t make it less true.”
You bite your lip, and Beau tracks the movement. “So what now?”
“Now,” Beau says, stepping even closer, “I’m going to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“Can I kiss you?”
Your breath catches. For a moment, you just stare at him. Then you smile — that brilliant, beautiful smile that he’s dreamed about for months.
“Yes,” you breathe. “God, yes.”
Beau cups your face in his hands, thumbs brushing against your cheeks, and leans in.
The first touch of your lips is electric. Soft and sweet and perfect. You make a small sound and melt into him, your hands coming up to grip his shirt.
Beau kisses you like he’s been wanting to for months, which he has. Kisses you like you’re precious, which you are. Kisses you like he’s afraid you might disappear, which part of him is.
You kiss him back just as intensely, your fingers curling into his hair, pulling him closer.
Someone starts whooping from inside. “YES! FINALLY! GET IT, MAXWELL!”
Beau flips him off behind your back without breaking the kiss, which makes you laugh against his mouth.
“Your friends are watching,” you mumble.
“Don’t care,” Beau says, kissing you again.
“They’re cat-calling.”
“Still don’t care.”
You pull back slightly, just enough to meet his eyes. Your lips are kiss-swollen, your cheeks flushed, and Beau has never seen anything more beautiful.
“This is really happening?” You ask. “We’re really doing this?”
“If you want to,” Beau says. “I mean, I know it’s complicated. The rivalry thing-”
“Is football,” you finish. “Just football. This is more important.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” You smile. “Besides, it’ll make beating you next season even sweeter.”
Beau laughs and kisses you again. “You’re impossible.”
“You love it,” you say, echoing your earlier text.
“I do,” Beau agrees. “I really, really do.”
From inside, Dean is now leading a chant of “KISS! KISS! KISS!” that’s quickly spreading through the party.
“We should probably go back in,” you say, not moving.
“Probably,” Beau agrees, also not moving.
You stay like that for another moment, just looking at each other, before you finally step back and take his hand.
“Come on,” you say. “Before your best friend has an aneurysm.”
You walk back into the party together, hands linked, and the entire room erupts into cheers.
Dean tackles Beau in a hug, nearly knocking you both over. “FINALLY! Do you know how hard it’s been watching you pine for four months?”
“Get off me,” Beau laughs, shoving him away.
“I’m the best wingman ever. Admit it.”
“You’re the worst.”
“But I’m your worst,” Dean says, grinning. Then he turns to you. “Welcome to the family, Y/N. You’re stuck with us now.”
“I can think of worse fates,” you say, smiling.
Logan and Tucker appear, both looking entirely too pleased with themselves.
“So,” Logan says. “Are you guys like, official? Is this a thing?”
Beau looks at you. You look back.
“It’s a thing,” you say.
“It’s definitely a thing,” Beau confirms.
“Well fuck,” Garrett says, joining the group with Hannah. “Because Hannah bet me twenty bucks you’d get together before summer, and I bet after. So thanks for costing me money, Beau.”
“My pleasure,” Beau says dryly.
The party continues late into the night. Beau stays by your side, your fingers laced with his, and for the first time since the accident, everything feels right.
Better than right.
Perfect.
Later, when the crowd has thinned and it’s just the core group sitting around the living room, Dean raises his beer one more time.
“To second chances,” he says.
“To guardian angels,” Tucker adds.
“To love,” Hannah says, making everyone groan.
“To football rivalries,” you contribute, which makes everyone laugh.
“To all of it,” Beau says, looking at you. “To whatever brought you to that highway at that exact moment. To whatever made you stop. To whatever led us here.”
You lean your head on his shoulder. “To fate,” you say softly.
“To fate,” Beau agrees.
And as he sits there, surrounded by his friends, his arm around the girl who saved his life in more ways than one, Beau can’t help but think that Dean was right.
Life is short. Second chances are rare.
And he’s not going to waste a single moment of his.
***
The Briar University athletics facility smells like sweat and ambition at seven AM on a Saturday, which is exactly why Dean loves it. That, and the fact that most people are still asleep, leaving the weight room gloriously empty.
Well, mostly empty.
“Come on, Maxwell, one more set!” Dean calls from his spot on the bench press. “Or are you going to let your girlfriend out-lift you?”
Beau, currently doing bicep curls while watching you on the treadmill, flips him off without looking away from you. “She’s not trying to out-lift me. She’s doing cardio.”
“I can hear you both,” you call from the treadmill, your ponytail swinging as you run. “And I absolutely could out-lift Beau if I wanted to.”
“Oh, fighting words!” Dean sits up, grinning. “Beau, you gonna take that?”
“Yes,” Beau says immediately. “Have you seen her deadlift? It’s terrifying and hot.”
“It’s medical student grip strength,” you explain, not breaking stride. “Years of studying have given me callouses of steel.”
“And here I thought it was just natural perfection,” Beau says.
Dean makes gagging noises. “You two are disgusting. It’s been five months. The honeymoon phase should be over by now.”
“Never,” Beau says cheerfully, setting down his weights and grabbing his water bottle.
Dean watches as Beau wanders over to your treadmill, leans against it, and says something that makes you laugh mid-stride. You nearly trip, smacking his arm, but you’re grinning.
Five months. Nearly half a year since that party. Half a year of watching his best friend fall more in love every single day.
It’s been an adjustment, Dean will admit. Suddenly having to share Beau with someone else, having to accept that he’s no longer the most important person in Beau’s life. But watching Beau now — healthy, happy, whole — Dean can’t begrudge it.
Especially because you’re pretty fucking cool.
You finish your run and hop off the treadmill, breathing hard but not winded. “Okay, what’s next? Weights? Core? Please say core. I need to work off the stress of this week.”
“Just long,” you say, stretching your arms over your head. “Twenty-hour shifts don’t leave a lot of time for self-care. Hence why I’m here at seven AM on my one day off instead of sleeping like a normal person.”
“It’s the endorphins,” Dean says knowingly. “You’re chasing that dopamine high.”
“Exactly,” you agree quickly. “Purely scientific. Nothing to do with-”
“With wanting to see Beau shirtless and sweaty?” Dean finishes, smirking.
You turn red. “I—that’s not—I mean-”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Beau says, already pulling his shirt over his head. “I am pretty great to look at.”
“Your ego is showing,” you mutter, but you’re definitely staring.
Dean laughs. “Okay, lovebirds, let’s actually work out. Beau, you’ve got full medical clearance now, right?”
“As of last week,” Beau confirms, and there’s an edge of excitement in his voice that Dean recognizes. It’s the same excitement that’s been building since the doctors finally, finally said he could return to full contact practice. “Coach wants me back in peak condition before the season starts.”
“Which is three weeks,” Dean adds. “So we’ve got to get you whipped into shape.”
The effect is immediate and bizarre.
Beau and you lock eyes across the weight room. Something passes between you — some kind of silent communication that Dean has seen before but never understood. It’s like you share a brain sometimes, which is both impressive and deeply unsettling.
Then, in perfect unison, you both gasp dramatically.
“Did you just say-” you start.
“Whipped into shape?” Beau finishes.
“Oh no,” Dean says, recognizing the gleam in both your eyes. “No. Whatever you’re thinking-”
But it’s too late.
You sprint to the corner of the gym where someone has left a pile of equipment. You emerge triumphantly holding two jump ropes.
“Where did you even—when did you-” Dean sputters.
“Shhh,” you say, tossing one rope to Beau, who catches it with a grin that can only be described as maniacal. “Let us have this.”
“Have what?” Dean asks, genuinely concerned now.
You and Beau exchange another look. Then you hold up one finger and suddenly you’re both jumping rope and singing.
“I WANT YOU WHIPPED INTO SHAPE!” You belt out, your voice surprisingly strong for someone who just ran three miles.
“WHEN I SAY JUMP, SAY ‘HOW HIGH?’” Beau joins in, jumping rope with enough enthusiasm to be concerning given that he had spinal surgery less than a year ago.
Dean stares. Just stares.
“YOU KNOW YOU’RE DOING IT RIGHT,” you continue, now doing some kind of complicated jump rope move that involves crossing your arms.
“WHEN YOU START TO CRY!” Beau adds, attempting the same move and nearly tripping over the rope.
“IF YOU DON’T LOOK LIKE YOU SHOULD,” you both sing together now, jumping in sync, “YOU’VE GOT TO-”
“WHIP IT, WHIP IT, WHIP IT GOOD!”
You finish with a flourish, both of you breathing hard, jump ropes held high like you’ve just won Olympic gold.
There’s a moment of silence.
Then you and Beau collapse into laughter, dropping the ropes and leaning on each other for support.
“What,” Dean says slowly, “the actual fuck was that?”
“Legally Blonde: The Musical,” you gasp out between giggles. “Brooke Wyndham is an icon.”
“And when you said whipped into shape-”
“We just had to,” you finish together.
Dean continues to stare. “You two are insane.”
“Probably,” Beau agrees, still grinning.
“Definitely,” you add, not looking remotely apologetic.
Dean shakes his head, but he’s smiling now. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or concerned that you both knew all the words.”
“Be impressed,” Beau says. “We also know the choreography to ‘Omigod You Guys.’”
“We do NOT need to see that,” Dean says quickly.
“Your loss,” you say cheerfully. “It’s iconic.”
Beau wraps an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close and pressing a kiss to your temple. You lean into him naturally, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Like you’ve been doing it for years instead of months.
And Dean …
Dean has a moment.
He’s been Beau’s best friend for years. Has seen him date casually, has seen him hook up at parties, has seen him in relationships that lasted a few months before fizzling out. But this thing with you … it’s different.
It’s in the way Beau looks at you, like you hung the moon and stars. It’s in the way you know what he’s thinking before he says it. It’s in the stupid inside jokes and the synchronized musical numbers and the fact that Beau drove to your apartment in Cambridge just to bring you coffee before a tough rotation.
It’s in the way you saved his life, yes, but also in the way you keep saving it, every day, just by existing.
And Dean realizes, standing in a weight room at seven AM on a Saturday, watching his best friend and his girlfriend be ridiculous together, that you’re soulmates.
The thought hits him with unexpected force. He’s never believed in soulmates before — always thought it was romantic nonsense, something people made up to explain compatibility. But looking at you and Beau now, he can’t think of another word for it.
Whatever happened that night last February — the deer, the ice, the crash, the fact that you were on that exact stretch of highway at that exact moment — it wasn’t just coincidence.
It was fate.
It had to be.
Because the odds of everything aligning the way it did? Of you having the exact training needed to save him? Of you stopping when most people wouldn’t? Of Beau surviving injuries that should have killed him?
The odds were astronomical.
And yet here you both are.
“Dean?” Your voice pulls him from his thoughts. “You okay? You look weird.”
“I’m fine,” Dean says. His voice comes out rougher than intended. “Just thinking.”
“Dangerous,” Beau jokes, but he’s looking at Dean with concern now. “Seriously, man, what’s up?”
Dean opens his mouth. Closes it. How does he even put this into words?
“I just-” He stops. Tries again. “You two are it for each other, aren’t you?”
The question hangs in the air.
You and Beau look at each other. Something passes between you again — that silent communication that Dean’s starting to understand is just how you two operate.
“Yeah,” Beau says finally, turning back to Dean. “Yeah, we are.”
“I love him,” you add simply. “Like, scary amount. Forever amount.”
“I’m going to marry her,” Beau says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Probably not today, because I think she’d kill me if I proposed in a gym-”
“I absolutely would,” you confirm.
“-but someday. Definitely someday.”
Dean feels his throat get tight. “Good,” he manages. “That’s good.”
“Are you crying?” You ask, peering at him.
“No,” Dean says. He’s definitely about to cry. “Shut up.”
“Oh my god, you are!” Beau looks delighted. “Dean Di Laurentis, notorious womanizer and emotionally unavailable hockey player, is crying over our relationship!”
“I’m not crying. It’s allergies.”
“That’s not-”
Dean crosses the gym and pulls both of you into a hug, one arm around each of them. “I’m really glad you didn’t die,” he tells Beau.
“Me too, man,” Beau says, returning the hug. “Me too.”
“And I’m really glad you stopped,” Dean says to you. “That night. I’m really glad you stopped and saved him. Because I don’t know what I would’ve done if-” His voice cracks.
You squeeze him tighter. “I’m glad I stopped too.”
“You’re stuck with us now,” Dean continues. “You know that, right?”
“I can live with that,” you say softly.
You stand there for a moment, the three of you, holding onto each other in an empty weight room while early morning sunlight streams through the high windows.
Finally, Beau pulls back, wiping at his eyes. “Okay, enough emotions. We’re supposed to be working out.”
“Right,” you agree, also suspiciously misty-eyed. “Working out. Building strength. Whipping into shape.”
“Don’t,” Dean warns.
“We’ve got to-”
“No-”
“WHIP IT, WHIP IT, WHIP IT GOOD!” You and Beau shout together, dissolving into laughter again.
“I hate you both,” Dean says, but he’s grinning.
“No you don’t,” Beau says, slinging an arm around Dean’s shoulders.
“You love us,” you add, linking your arm through Dean’s other arm.
“Unfortunately,” Dean admits. “Now come on. If you two are done with your Broadway moment, Beau actually does need to get whipped into shape before camp starts.”
“I’m in great shape,” Beau protests.
“You’re in good shape,” you correct. “Great shape requires more work. Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re not my doctor.”
“I could be. Want me to check your reflexes?”
“That sounds like innuendo.”
“It wasn’t, but I like where your head’s at.”
Dean makes a strangled sound. “I did NOT need that mental image.”
“Then stop listening to our conversations,” Beau says reasonably.
“You’re having them three feet away from me!”
“Sounds like a you problem,” you say cheerfully.
The workout continues, but the energy has shifted. There’s something lighter about it now, something that feels like the future rather than the past.
Dean watches as Beau spots you during squats, his hands hovering near your waist, ready to catch you if needed. Watches as you correct Beau’s form on shoulder presses with the clinical precision of someone who knows exactly how bodies work. Watches as you both take a water break and Beau pulls you in for a kiss that’s probably too long for a public gym but that no one’s around to complain about.
And someday — maybe years from now, maybe at that wedding Dean is already planning in his head — he’s going to tell this story.
He’s going to tell everyone about the night Beau almost died. About the medical student who stopped to save him. About the months of recovery and the I Lived, Bitch party and the first kiss and the musical numbers in the gym.
He’s going to tell them about soulmates, about fate, about second chances.
And he’s going to tell them that he knew.
He knew from that moment in the weight room, watching them be ridiculous together, that you were forever.
And Dean allows himself to feel grateful. Grateful for black ice and bad timing and good Samaritans. Grateful for medical training and quick thinking and jump ropes in gyms. Grateful for musicals and inside jokes and the way love can find you in the darkest moments.
13.5k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: car accident that’s DUI related; mildly graphic but within (and lesser than) season one canon level of graphic; blood; broken bones; compound fracture (no real description); internal bleeding and injuries; medically induced coma; severe lung injuries; CPR; coding; being intubated and on a vent; inaccurate medical descriptions and realities; panic attacks; pain killers; lorazepam; extreme grief; extreme anxiety; crying; self-hate; self-blame; regret; compartmentalization; denial; reference to PIV sex; no use of y/n.
Summary: Jack gets a premonition about you at work, but there's no way that feeling can be true, right?
AN: I don't have much to say other than I know this is probably too close to other things I’ve written or at the very least is in my heavily written for, go to genre. It’s just so good I can’t help myself, my brain is wired this way I'm sorry 🫠🥲. I think it’s different enough (idk about good though lmao) and it was asked for and based on this request so!! Might be the last fic I write for this kind of situation/trope unless we're okay with more? Or maybe only for someone other than Jack? I don't know. I promise there is much less angsty hurt/comfort and fluff on the horizon and that I'm still working through requests before I get into new series. So, I hope this is enjoyable and thank you for reading if you decide to! ♥️
Jack is standing at the hub with Robby, Dana and Lena when he first starts feeling it.
He can't explain it, but he gets a premonition, a feeling like something bad is about to happen. Something bad involving you. A cold chill passes through him and he shivers, his stomach sinking even further and heart rate picking up. Something's wrong. Something related to you. He can just feel it.
But that's absurd.
You're fine. You texted him just before he got to work about thirty minutes ago that you were finally leaving the office and heading home. You mentioned it had been a long day and you wanted to slip into a hot bath since him slipping into you wasn't an option given that he was working.
Jack tells himself it's not that odd for you not to have texted him that you made it home, especially with you saying it had been a long day. It just slipped your mind, he's sure.
Still, he sends you a text. A single, simple text to reassure himself.
J - How's your night going sweetheart? Did you end up taking a bath?
He slides his phone into his pocket and tunes back into the conversation somewhat, but Jack really can't shake the fucking feeling. Once they've finished hand off Jack goes to check on a patient. Thirty or so minutes have passed since he sent you a text when he steps out of a patient room and checks his phone. You haven't responded to his message.
That would make sense if you were in the bath, right? Jack tries to get himself to believe it but he can't because it wouldn't really make sense. Normally you have your phone next to the tub somewhere for a podcast or music or whatever. Maybe you didn't hear your phone go off. Or maybe it's still on silent from work.
Jack calls you. The phone rings and rings and rings and rings until it clicks over to your voicemail. He doesn't leave a message, his chest growing a little tighter with worry as he hangs up. He shoots you another text.
J - I know you probably are, but can you just shoot me a text to let me know that you're okay as soon as you can? Thanks baby. I love you
He forces himself into another patient's room. Still nothing from you when he walks out of the room ten minutes later. Jack calls you again. You don't answer. He's nauseous now, trying to tell himself he can't just feel things like that and that it's just anxiety because he misses you.
When he heads back to the hub he's surprised to see Dana and Robby still there.
"Don't ask," Robby sighs as Jack starts to ask why they're both still here.
Before Jack can ignore Robby and ask anyway Lena interrupts the three and lets them know they've got two MVC patients five minutes out courtesy of a drunk driver, one stable enough and one barely holding on who they almost called at the scene before they were able to get a weak pulse back.
"Can you stay?" Jack looks at Robby. He's sure his anxiety and distress must be on his face because Robby looks at him and doesn’t give him any shit about staying, just nods in agreement. "Thanks."
Jack turns and walks out to the ambulance bay. He knows it's a waste of five minutes but he just needs to pace. Pace and keep calling you.
And so he does. Jack walks up and down the ambulance bay alternating holding his phone to his ear and staring at it willing you to call or text him back apologizing and saying you're fine, you accidentally left your phone in the other room, or you let yourself sit on the bed when you got home and fell asleep and your phone was still on silent from work or something, anything.
But his phone never rings. A text never comes through. Jack's anxiety just continues to build and he promises himself if he's still like this after these two traumas he'll beg Robby to cover for him just long enough so that he can run home and check on you and then come back.
"Jack." He's vaguely aware of Robby's voice calling his name behind him as he paces away from the doors. "Jack." Robby calls again.
"Jack!" Robby finally gets his attention when he paces his way back to the doors. "Hey, man, what is going on? Did something happen? You look like you're about to have a panic attack."
"I can't get in touch with her." Jack doesn't give Robby any further specifics. He knows Robby will know who he's talking about.
"Okay," Robby draws the word out. "Do you have a reason to think something happened?"
"No, I… I don't, I just. I don't know," Jack mutters distractedly. "I just feel like something bad has happened… like something's wrong with her. I feel it. Like a premonition."
"Maybe this is just going to be a shit show and that's what you're feeling." Robby nods his head in the direction of the sirens that have just become audible. "Or maybe this is the start of a long night of traumas and you won't get out on time tomorrow and will miss seeing her before she goes to work."
Jack nods slowly. "Yeah, maybe." He tries to force his brain to accept the options but it won't. His thumb hits your photo on his favorites and he calls you again. Still nothing. He's going to be sick, has to walk away from Robby and choke back a couple of dry heaves because the feeling that something is wrong with you has gotten so strong that Robby's right. He's getting panicky.
"You okay, Hon?" Dana asks Jack as she walks by him, resting her hand on his back and rubbing it as she pauses next to him.
"Can I ask you a favor you're going to hate me for?" Jack can barely recognize the sound of his own voice with how strained and raw it is. He feels and watches Dana stiffen at it, can feel Robby's eyes on him.
"I'm not gonna hate you for anything," Dana reassures him with a gentle squeeze to his shoulder. "What do you need?"
Jack takes a deep breath. This is fucking insane. He needs to get a goddamn grip. He shakes his head as he goes to tell Dana to forget it, but that's not even close to what comes out. "Can you just stay for a couple of minutes and keep calling her until she picks up?" Jack holds his phone out to her with your contact brought up. "Your phone, my phone, both. I don't, it doesn't matter. Maybe yours, maybe she doesn't want to talk to me."
"Of course." She takes his phone and steps in front of him to look at him. "Is everything okay Jack?"
"I just," he swallows hard, "it's so stupid but I just have this feeling that something's wrong or happened to her and I can't shake it." As Jack thinks more about it his mind at least supplies something concrete, something that he's now so worried about his breathing picks up. "She said she might take a bath so I don't know. I'm worried she hit her head and fell in and drowned or something."
"You ready, Jack?" Robby calls to him.
"Go," Dana nods. "I'll call and let you know the second I hear from her."
"Thank you," Jack nods. The appearance of the first ambulance clears Jack's mind for now. He has to focus on this, on his patient. He closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath and stretches his neck, forces the compartmentalization he needs right now. When he opens his eyes back up he's in fully focused trauma mode, walls built so high he's not feeling anything other than what he needs to in order to do his job. "First or second rig Robby?" he asks as he walks back over to Robby. "You can pick since you're staying to help with this."
Robby hesitates as the first ambulance pulls in. "Second."
"Got it." Jack pulls his gloves on as he walks up to the back of the ambulance as the doors burst open.
"Unrestrained driver, stable most of the way here, but his pulse started getting thready a couple of minutes ago," the paramedic tells Jack as they unload the gurney and start moving toward the trauma room quickly.
"Fuck," Robby mutters just loud enough for Jack to hear. Jack knows Robby must have decided to bet on them getting the most seriously injured patient here first so he chose second in hopes of getting out quickly.
Robby steps up as the next ambulance arrives. "Restrained driver. If it can be broken or fucked up, assume that it is," the paramedic tells Robby with an eerie seriousness as they get the gurney out. The paramedic runs through vitals as they walk into the Pitt and bad would be an understatement.
"What the fuck happened?" Robby asks as they get into the trauma room. "This is the worst MVC vic I've seen in a long time."
"The drunk driver with Dr. Abbot ran a red going at least 60 in a 25. T-boned her car on the driver's side which made it flip and roll into the other lane where she got hit head on favoring the driver's side by a semi going over the limit but at least not fucking 60." The paramedic pauses while they transfer the patient. "You should see the car. I can't believe we got her back and she's still alive. I thought we'd lose her again on the drive over."
"I fucking hate drunk drivers," Robby swears under his breath as the paramedics leave and the Pitt team takes over.
"That was a nice save," Jack tells the team as surgery wheels the patient out of the trauma room and up to surgery. That was almost not a save at all. Jack wasn't sure they were going to get the guy back once he coded but they had managed to, it hadn't even taken that long to get him stabilized and handed off to surgery, only ten or so minutes. The guy wasn't as injured as he looked despite the code.
As he takes off his gloves and gown and comes out of his full trauma focus Jack realizes the bad feeling he had about something happening to you has dwindled significantly, almost completely gone. There's some part of that fact that seems to give him its own anxiety but he's able to ignore it as he steps through the vestibule between the trauma rooms and into Robby's trauma.
Jack steps a bit closer to the bed and looks at Robby's patient, closest to her right side. He obviously can't say for sure since he doesn't know the woman but Jack would bet a lot of money on her being unrecognizable, her face already swollen and darkly bruised, covered in blood from a scalp laceration and her nose. There's dried blood at the corners of her lips and trailing down telling Jack she was coughing up blood or maybe throwing it up at some point. Maybe both. The remnants of dried blood he can just see in her ET tube confirm at least some was coming from her lungs.
He's only looked at her face and it feels wrong to think about right now but Jack can't help but do so. It's patients like this, accidents like this that make him so fucking glad you don't drive to work.
Jack looks up at the monitor. Not a single number is good.
"Those are good comparatively," Robby tells Jack as he continues to work on the woman, tossing out orders and confirming ones given by Parker and Mel.
"Yeah?" Jack moves his eyes to start to take in the rest of the woman, most of her visible skin covered in some amount of blood. She has a visible deformity to her shoulder and wrist on the right, chest tubes on both sides, her abdomen covered in dark bruises, seatbelt sign already visible.
"She desperately needs the OR but we can't get her stable enough for transport." Robby shakes his head as he glances back up at the monitor to see slipping vitals. "Fuck," he mutters. "It would be easier to tell you what's not wrong," Robby tells Jack before Jack can ask.
His eyes continue to move down the woman and he finds a pelvic binder, they must think she broke or dislocated something there, eyes looping back up to check on this side's chest tube output. Jack catches Bridget's eye. "Set up to auto-transfuse her." He's careful not to step too far into Robby's trauma, knows Robby might have a plan, but looking at the number of discarded blood bags and her vitals, it's obvious they're headed there.
"She was removed from the car barely alive, coded at the scene but they got her back. They nearly called her there," Robby explains.
"What happened?"
"Drunk driver t-boned the driver's side at 60 in a 25. Flipped and rolled the car into the other lane, hit head on by a semi over the limit but not 60," Parker explains. She was there when Robby asked.
Jack cringes and clicks his tongue. "She might not ever stabilize, Robby. She might not make it to the OR." He knows Robby knows, but also knows that sometimes it can be helpful to hear it from someone else.
"I know." Robby's tone is a little clipped so Jack backs off.
"Can I do anything?" Jack walks back up towards the patient's head to walk around to her other side, staying as out of the way as possible while still evaluating the patient like Robby will do with his sometimes, just an extra, fresh set of eyes. Her vitals continue to slip. She'll code soon probably, Jack thinks to himself.
The woman has another obvious deformity to her left tibia and fibula about half way up her calf. It's easy to tell with the compound fracture that both bones are involved. Her ankle on that same leg lays against the bed at an unnatural angle that makes Jack wince. He hopes for her sake she was unconscious for most of this.
"What are you thinking neurologically?" he calls to Robby before Robby can answer his first question.
Robby almost huffs a laugh as he steps up to check her pupils again. "Pupils are equal and reactive. All the telling reflexes are normal, no posturing. Portable x-ray shows T-8 to 12 are broken, 11 and 12 look shattered, but she has normal reflexes there too so it looks like no cord damage, knock on wood for her." Robby turns back to Jack and shakes his head. "It's like she's incredibly lucky but also," he gestures to her, "clearly not. She was damn near DOA. She's a fighter though, I thought we were going to lose her within a couple of minutes."
"Yeah," Jack nods slowly. There's something off here but he can't figure out what. Something they're missing. He focuses as he tries to figure out what it is, standing on the patient's left side now and as close to the wall as he can get to let everyone work. He can still hear everything going on and see them working on her but it doesn't really process fully as he tries to figure out what his feeling is.
It hits him just as Ellis moves and the left hand of the patient comes into Jack's view. You drove to work today because you had to run an errand across the city at lunch. So you drove home tonight. You drove.
Time slows and sound fades as Jack steps closer to the patient, takes in the engagement ring the patient's wearing. Even bloodied it's beautiful and bespoke. And Jack knows it's bespoke. Because he's the one that designed it. Because that's your engagement ring.
Which means Robby's patient, Robby's patient who he just said was damn near DOA, who Jack said might not ever stabilize or make it to the OR, that patient is you.
Maybe it's not. Maybe the ring just looks similar or, or maybe someone stole it from you, or maybe, maybe something, anything to make this not true.
Jack moves down to the end of the bed and looks at the patient's right ankle. There's a slightly jagged scar starting just above the medial malleolus that continues about five inches up her inner calf. It's a scar Jack is intimately familiar with, he must have kissed the length of it at least a hundred times while kissing his way from your ankles up to your inner thighs. It's your scar.
All of the air leaves his lungs in some strangled, choked sound he can't hear that gets everyone's attention.
"Jack?" Robby glances over at him.
The bad feeling he had went away because you're here, you're near him. Not because nothing bad happened to you and not because you were okay. Because you're here.
"Michael." It's raw and broken, unrecognizable and absolutely soaked in pain.
"What?" Robby's eyes flash to him. "Jack? What is it?"
It takes Jack a second because he can't pull his eyes from your scar, can't stop thinking about every time he's kissed it, all the sounds from moans to giggles you'd make for him when he did.
"The ring," Jack finally forces out, slowly looking up at Robby, completely helpless and paralyzed. "Her ring, the ring, look at…" he glances at your left hand. He knows Robby will recognize it, he made Robby look at it a million times as he designed it and once he got it. "It's, it's," Jack's already working his way toward hyperventilation as panic starts to course through him because he was and is pretty sure this patient is going to fucking die and this patient is you, "it's, I…"
Robby furrows his brows and steps to look at the ring closely. "Oh my fucking god," he mumbles, face dropping and blood draining from it. He looks up at whoever is standing closest to him. "Go get Dana. Now."
Everyone in the room is confused as things still just a touch for a second while Robby clearly pulls himself back together. "It's Jack's fiancée. We are not fucking losing her," he almost snaps at everyone. “We are not fucking losing her. This is one of our own, this is family.”
There's a small collective gasp or harsh intake of air and then everyone is moving even faster.
"Michael, I can't," Jack pleads with him, voice strained and full of tears he's fighting for some reason.
Dana walks in looking confused. "What's up?" Dana nods at Robby as her attention turns over to Jack.
"It's her." Robby glances at Jack and it's all she needs to know.
"Oh my god," Dana whispers.
Jack's brain is spinning so fast he's close to physically dizzy and almost can't understand any of the emotions he's feeling. But somewhere through it another realization breaks through that has him doubling over in pain, mental and physical, fighting back the urge to be sick and resting his hands on his knees for a few seconds before he straightens back up.
The drunk driver. He must’ve had the drunk driver.
"Somebody please, please," his voice cracks and breaks over the word heartbreakingly as tears finally start to stream down his face, "tell me I didn't just save the guy who might've killed my fiancée Tell me I didn't just fucking save him!"
Jack looks to Robby who looks back at him and Jack knows from Robby's face. He did. He treated the drunk driver. He treated the man who did this to you. Who very likely killed you.
"No. No. I'm going to fucking kill him." Jack spins, hellbent on getting to that OR and undoing everything he already did.
Dana's right there to stop him with her hands slightly raised. She shakes her head gently at him. "Let's go." She nods over at the vestibule between the trauma rooms and Jack loses his anger for now, the panic and sorrow and devastation finally overwhelming him as he lets Dana lead him toward the doors.
"Please, Michael," Jack pleads, knees buckling a little because he's ready to get on them at his best friend’s feet to beg. "Please, please save her. Please don't let her die, please don't, please-"
"Get him out Dana!" Robby yells.
"Come on Jack, let them work," Dana says softly.
"Please," Jack begs, unable to say anything else. "Please, please please please. I'll do anything, I'll give anything, whatever you want." It's no longer clear who Jack's pleading with, Robby or a god he doesn't believe in.
"Jack." Dana steps in front of him and grabs his upper arms, gently pushes him so that he walks backward into the vestibule.
"I can't, I c-can't Dana," Jack whimpers between heavy breaths. He can't lose you. He can't fucking lose you.
Jack is barely aware of someone bringing in a chair and Dana pushing him down into it, leaving it pointed toward the trauma room so he can see through the window. Or could if the tears still streaming down his face silently weren't so heavy that his vision is so blurred he can't see his legs as he looks down at them.
He starts to rock himself in the chair a little, feels like he's going out of his mind and needs to crawl out of his fucking skin. Jack curls in on himself and digs his hands into the opposite forearms, squeezing so hard it'll bruise and digging his nails into his skin for the pain, hoping in vain it'll ground him even a little bit.
But you're the only thing that could ground him right now. Your voice. Your touch. Your smell. Your taste. Your soft skin under his hand. He can't have that though because you're bleeding out internally on Robby's table, body so likely broken beyond repair.
Jack doesn't have hope. He can't let himself have hope. It's too cruel. The kindest and best thing the world ever did for him, ever gave him, it's about to take away from him.
That's confirmed for him when three words break through Jack's panic enough to have him flying out of the chair and through the doors back into your trauma room. He doesn’t know who said them and it doesn’t fucking matter. "Asystole, start CPR!"
"No no no," Jack nearly screams. The panic he'd been fighting breaks over him completely, vicious and consuming in its intensity. "No please, does, does she need blood?" he chokes out through sobs.
"You can just, j-just hook me up, I'm, I'm O neg, I can donate directly." Jack can feel himself getting lightheaded from his hyperventilated breathing in between his sobs but he doesn't care. Part of him almost wants to pass out because then he won't have to do this, but he also can't stomach the thought of you dying without him holding your hand.
"Just, hook me up, hook me up to her, and and sh-she can have whatever she needs!" Jack sobs. He knows it doesn't work like that, knows that's not an option and he's sure there's something so sad for everyone watching him to see this medical doctor reduced to begging for something like this but he doesn't fucking care. "She can have all of it, all, I don't need, don't need it without her. I don't want it without her." His voice is high pitched and as raw as ever at the end as he watches his best friend give his fiancée CPR, hears him break one of her ribs.
Dana follows Jack just through the doors and grabs his arm, squeezes gently. "Jack, come back and sit down, we don't need you falling, okay?"
"No!" He moves his arm away so it slips from Dana's hand. "She's going to d-die! She's fucking dying! I have to be with her, I have to." Even in this state Jack knows it's a good idea, knows it's what needs to happen, knows there's no good place for him to sit near you in this room while they work on you. Knows that he's hyperventilating now and the lightheadedness taking over is just going to intensify. But it doesn't matter. He can't stop, can't try to control himself. He can only panic about you dying right in front of him and what is he going to do and this can't be real and he needs you.
"I need a PRN lorazepam order for him," Dana calls to the room as she starts walking toward the doors so she can go get it.
Every person in the room who can prescribe it calls out the order and Dana disappears to run and get it. She's quick, comes back through the other trauma room and Jack is so far gone and leaning into the doorframe to keep himself upright when she comes back that he doesn't even fight it when she puts the chair right behind him and pulls him down into it. He has no reaction to Dana cleaning his arm and then sticking him and injecting the lorazepam. He's not even really aware it's happening until it starts forcing him to calm down.
"If we get her back you're taking her up however she is," Robby orders Walsh. Jack hadn't even realized she was here.
"Already my plan, I don't care how weak her pulse is, family's different," she nods at him. "And when. Not if."
Robby holds compressions, everyone's eyes glued to the monitor. "V-fib." Bridget's the first to call it out.
"Fuck yes," Robby mutters. "We can work with that."
Jack watches them shock you three times before they get you back as the meds calm him down at least physically more and more, his sobs reduced to wracking breaths and hiccuped whimpers. He's almost physically numb by the time they're almost running as they wheel you out to get you up and to an OR. But his mind hasn't really shut off much. He's still dying inside.
He forces himself out of the chair and walks into the room, Robby stepping in front of him to block him from leaving and trying to follow you up. "Let them work. Then we can go up, okay?"
"I need to be with her Robby," Jack mumbles, trying to step around Robby.
"Jack, no." Robby steps with Jack and grabs one of his arms without thinking, smearing your blood from the glove Robby hadn't yet removed over Jack's arm.
It works. Not for the reason Robby thought it would. But it gets Jack to stop. It gets Jack to freeze.
Jack brings his opposite hand up and touches it, enough of your blood there to transfer onto the pads of his fingers. The room is silent, or as silent as possible with the Pitt just beyond the doors, as Robby and Dana watch Jack look at the tile floor of the room, watch him fixate on the streaks of your blood and the couple of small pools that had poured from you before they could stop it.
He walks over to one and kneels next to it. It's fresh. Fresh enough that it hasn't started to fully coagulate or dry yet. He leans over it a little and almost scares himself when he watches a drop of something hit it but then he realizes he's crying again and it's one of his tears hitting your blood.
Jack knows it's macabre and unsanitary and probably gross and over-dramatic but he doesn't care, presses his palm of his hand into the small pool of your blood because it's all he's fucking got of you right now. He lifts it up and looks down at his hand, shaking his head and sucking in a strangled breath through his teeth.
"What if this is all I have left of her?" He looks up at Robby and Dana shaking his head, a wave of tears soaking his face as they all finally fall at once. "I have to go. I have to go be with her." Jack is unsteady on his feet as he gets up, Robby and Dana rushing forward to help steady him. "What OR is she?"
"You can't go in Jack," Robby says quietly.
Jack sniffles deeply. "Observation then."
"Don't do that to yourself Jack," Dana whispers.
"I have to be with her. I have to know what's happening so that I can, can go say goodbye before they call it." Jack presses his bloody hand over his heart and holds it there trying to remember how to take a step so that he can start getting to you.
"They will come get you before they call it, I promise." Robby squeezes his best friend's shoulder and cuts Jack off before there can be any arguing. "I spoke with Emery about it. Someone will come."
"Still, I… I should watch, I should, should know what's happening, what she’s going through," Jack mumbles.
"She wouldn't want you to torture yourself by watching and seeing her like that." Dana moves so that she's in Jack's line of sight and can get his eye contact. "She would not want you seeing her like that Jack and I know you know that. She would much rather you be in one of the quiet family rooms up there."
"Maybe if I… Maybe if I go into observation it'll give her something to yell at me about when she wakes up and so, so it'll make her wake up, it'll mean she'll wake up." All of them know that's bullshit but nobody says it. "I just, I want to be on the same floor as her."
Jack's finally able to get himself moving and starts walking toward the doors, Dana and Robby staying next to them and exchanging worried glances. He can feel the eyes of all the Pitt staff on him as he walks to the elevator, Shen long since called in to take care of the night shift. He thinks vaguely that maybe he should be embarrassed, that they have lots of people who don't react to something like this the way he did. But that would require caring and Jack simply doesn't.
He lets Robby and Dana lead him upstairs and into one of the quiet family rooms Dana had said you'd want him in. He knows she's right. He knows he doesn't want his last memories of you to be images of you in surgery. He knows he probably couldn't stomach it.
The three sit in silence for a few minutes, Jack lost in thought as he stares at a spot on the wall across from him. His brain conjures up some of his favorite memories of the two of you just to be a fucking dick and make him remember what he's so sure he's going to lose.
Jack has no idea how long it's been when he stands and starts to pace. His brain is so tired he can't even articulate what he's feeling other than sadness and anger and anxiety and grief. He opens and closes the hand covered in your dried blood. He should rinse it off but he can't, can't bring himself to do more than have the thought that he should. And he's quiet at first. Until he's not.
"They almost called her at the scene," he mutters to himself. He looks up at Robby and Dana as he walks back and forth. "They almost fucking called her at the fucking scene!" It's louder than he wanted but neither Dana nor Robby react.
Jack runs his clean hand through his hair and pulls at it. "And then what do I do? What do I fucking do?" He releases his hair and grinds his jaw so hard that it hurts. "I fucking save the guy that killed her!" Jack stops pacing at one end of the room, chest heaving as he lets it all slam into him again, gives into the panic and lets it take him over because he doesn't fucking care. He deserves to suffer. He bends at the waist and lets himself hang there for a second because it just feels like what he needs to do before he straightens up and looks at Robby and Dana. "I saved him while she's, while she is," he has to force the word out, broken and cracked, "dying in the next room! If I'd have, have…"
"Jack there is nothing you could've done. You know that," Robby says firmly.
"No I don't." Jack almost huffs a laugh as he shakes his head. "No I fucking don't! I could've done so many things! I could've driven her. I, I could've asked her not to go, or to take a different route, or, or… I could've gone to the scene, maybe I could've stabilized her better there. Something! Anything!"
"You had no way of knowing, Hon," Dana tells him. "This shit happens, as awful as it is. We know it happens."
"It's not supposed to happen to her!" Jack snaps, gives back into the urge to hyperventilate as he starts imagining his life without you again. "It's not," he breathes hard but short, "not supposed to happen," another breath, "to her." He continues to hyperventilate. "She," his hyperventilation is even harder and faster than last time, almost like a subconscious attempt to make himself pass out, "she doesn't-"
"Okay, Jack, sit down." Robby walks over to him and grabs his shoulders, directs him toward a chair.
"No, I…" Jack shoves at Robby weakly, "I have to go." Despite his words he slumps into the chair Robby gently pushes him into. "I have to go be with her." He looks up at Robby and shakes his head and it makes everything worse, makes the tunnels invading his vision worse as he starts to shake with the panic. "Need to be."
Dana sits wordlessly in the chair next to Jack and pulls another dose of lorazepam for him, quickly runs an alcohol wipe over his skin and sticks him in his other arm. "Jack breathe," she tells him, takes his hand and puts it on her chest and takes big breaths to show him.
He shakes his head again. "No, I can't." But the lorazepam starts to kick in and forces his breathing to slow. Jack fights it though, he fights the drug hard, tries to keep himself worked up and panicking because he deserves it, he fucking deserves it. It's a losing battle though, the drug easily overpowering him.
"Jack, do you want us to fully sedate you so you can get some sleep?" Robby asks gently.
"No," he mumbles, rubbing his clean hand over his face. "I want my fucking girl. I want to be at home in bed with her." Jack huffs and shakes his head, fights back more tears. "And I need to be awake for when Walsh or whoever comes to get me and take me into that OR. When I have to go figure out how to say goodbye to her." The use of when is deliberate. Because Jack is convinced you're not surviving this and it's going to happen any moment now.
And so Jack returns to sitting and staring at a spot on the wall across from him. He can hear Robby talking to him but he doesn't tune in enough to know what he's saying because as he disassociates this time his brain alternates between his favorite memories of you and playing out imagined scenes of what his life will look like without you in it.
He sees himself having to walk into your shared place alone, having to get into bed without you and just stare at your pillow knowing you'll never be there looking back at him with that small smile again. He watches himself having to pack your clothes away and not being able to do it, sinking to the floor instead and holding one of his favorite shirts of yours to his chest and sobbing into it. He sees himself staring at your shampoo and conditioner every time he's in the shower because he can't bring himself to get rid of it, opens the bottles just to smell them to try and remember how you smelled but it's never the same because they didn't mix with your natural scent.
He watches himself cry silently in bed when he realizes your pillow and the sheets have stopped smelling like you. He sees himself keeping the half eaten pint of your favorite ice cream in the freezer, letting it taunt him every time he opens the door. He sees himself planning a funeral instead of a wedding, having to pick out the outfit you'll be buried in, never being able to cook your favorite dish, never being able to move because he can't live somewhere you haven't been. He watches himself grow old without you, sees the spark and light never return to his eyes.
Time passes. Jack isn't fully aware of it, it's like his brain can't recognize it. It's probably the only reason he hasn't asked for an update yet. He doesn't realize Robby and Dana have been in and out of the room, always leaving one of them with him. Because it's been hours now. He's aware of them asking him if he wants something to eat, trying to get him to have some water at least, does he need to go pee, is he sure he doesn't want them to help him sleep.
"Jack." He barely responds to Robby saying his name, raising his chin just slightly.
"Jack."
Jack had prepared for this. He told himself it was going to happen so that when it did he would be ready. But he was fucking kidding himself because it's happening and he is not fucking ready. His entire world has already been pulled out from under him so Jack doesn't understand how he feels it happening again when Emery says his name.
"No," he whispers, refuses to look up at her and shakes his head. "No."
"Jack-"
"No!" he interrupts her. "No! You go back and fix her! Don't come in here and make me, make, don't ask me to come with you to say goodbye!" Jack stands and takes a few steps but then turns around, unable to face any of them, unable to face reality. “Go fix her, please. Please Emery, please go fix her and save her.”
"I need you to come with me Jack, I need you to trust me. I'm not taking you to the OR to say goodbye. I'm taking you to her-"
"I don't believe you," he shakes his head and cuts her off, "I don't believe you. You, you, you just want me to go with you, you’ll take me there once you have me walking."
"Jack," Robby steps in, puts his hand on Jack's shoulder and squeezes. Jack flinches at it because now he's got Robby comforting him for what he's about to have to go do. "Emery is telling the truth. Let's go to her room."
"Why? So you can tell me she's going to die when we're there?" Jack finally turns and looks between Robby and Emery. "Why don't you tell me right here, tell me what's wrong and what happened and what you did? It hasn't even been that long!"
"It's been over eight hours, Jack," Robby tells him.
"I’m not telling you here because I want to take you to her so that you can be with her as soon as possible. I thought you'd prefer to get to her right away and be next to her when I go through everything with you," Emery explains. "She's stable, Jack. It's still touch and go, yes, but right now she's stable."
Jack stands there for a moment with his chest heaving. He has to be with you regardless, as scared as he is. Even if they're lying and they're going to take him to an OR or take him to see you and tell him you're eventually going to die, he has to be with you.
"Okay," he whispers, starts walking toward Emery and the door. He follows her silently, the tiniest bit of relief washing over him when they walk in the opposite direction of the ORs that's quickly nullified by his anxiety and sheer terror about what he's going to be told, about whether you'll recover.
They step into the elevator and head up to the floor the ICU is on, walk for what feels like forever until Emery turns and opens the door to your room. Jack follows her in, head spinning so much he's surprised he's able to walk and stay upright with how dizzy it makes him.
His heart and mind shatter once again when he takes you in, laying so still in a hospital bed. "Oh," he whimpers, shaking his head as tears start to fall, his face breaking. "My girl." His voice shakes as he walks closer to you, goes to stand next to your bed on your left, takes in all of you, every bruised and cut inch, every tube he knows is sticking out of your body under your gown, your ET tube and your PICC line and your casted wrist in a sling because of your shoulder, what he knows to be an external fixators covered by the blanket keeping your broken leg and ankle together. "My love." He looks up at your vitals and sure enough they're all stable. They're good all things considered, all of them except your pulse ox.
Robby brings a chair up behind Jack. "Why don't you sit next to her, Jack?"
"I, I, I…" Jack trails off shaking his head as he sits, takes your uninjured hand in his clean one so, so carefully.
"Her lungs are the biggest problem right now. The contusions are bad. I'm not going to lie Jack, they're some of the worst I've ever seen. And she has some pretty severe pulmonary edema because of how much fluid we had to give her. We're going to keep her medically induced and on the vent and monitor closely." Emery says ‘we’ even though everyone knows she won't technically be involved, isn't really your doctor anymore because that's just not her job. But they all know she'll be involved anyway, that Robby will too. "Like I said, it's still touch and go, she's having some minor events from time to time but we're able to stabilize her. She's not at all out of the woods but she's stable Jack."
Emery continues, outlining everything they did during surgery for your internal bleeding, all the wounds they found, what they found on scans once they were able to get them. She reports what Ortho did for you, who's taking over your care here in the ICU, that Neuro and Ortho are working together on your spine but it's going to have to wait until you're healed enough to handle being prone for surgery. Jack takes it all in and processes it but it's unconscious in a way because he's fixated on you, staring at you and thinking about you and how much pain you'll be in if and when you wake up.
Eventually Emery finishes, asks Jack if he has any questions. He shakes his head, runs his thumb over your knuckles, clearly spaced out and not entirely there. "Emery." Jack pulls his eyes from you to turn and find her when he realizes she's walking out. "Thank you. And I'm sorry for being a dick. Thank you."
"Of course." She gives him a small smile as she nods once and walks out, leaving Jack, Dana and Robby alone in your room.
"Do you want us to stay?" Robby asks.
"No, I…" Jack turns his head back and lets his eyes find you again, stomach churning as this new reality settles over him. "I think I'd like to be alone with her now."
"Alright. But call if you need anything or anything changes," Dana says as she walks over and squeezes Jack's arm. "We'll be back to check on you both."
"Thank you." He makes himself look over at them. "I'm sorry."
"Nothing to be sorry for, brother. See you soon." Robby gives him a small smile and then walks out with Dana, shuts the door behind them.
Jack is quiet for a moment as he just watches you, studies your swollen and bruised and cut up face. He clicks his tongue behind his teeth, and lets tears fall. "Oh Baby," he sighs lowly, the words shaking. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He sniffles hard. "I should've, I should've done more. I should've driven you and just not slept. I should've… I'm sorry." Jack doesn't know what else to say, just has the overwhelming urge to apologize to you. "I'm so sorry."
He takes in a loud wracked breath as he says it again. "I'm sorry."
Jack stands, keeps your hand in his and leans in and kisses your forehead, the lightest press of his lips against your skin, almost a ghosting more than anything because he's terrified to hurt you, but he just needed to do that. He sits back down and moves the chair closer, looks at you helplessly, as helpless as he feels. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't protect you, I'm sorry I can't fix you, can't make you, make you better. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me." Jack rests his forehead on his arm right below his wrist of the hand holding yours so carefully. "Please come back to me. Please. I'm sorry." He starts to weep in earnest. "I'm so sorry."
Ten days or so pass. Jack's not keeping track of time at this point. That's what he tells himself. He doesn't want to know, prefers to live as unaware as possible of how much time has passed without you. With you in a medically induced coma on a vent. They’d just been able to stop the sedation and take you off the vent. It's a lie though, one designed to make himself feel better. Jack is painfully aware of how much time has passed.
Jack and Robby have been sitting in silence in your room for a few minutes once their general conversation trailed off.
"She's going to wake up Jack."
Jack pushes his lips together and up a touch, shrugs shallowly, doesn’t look over. "You don't know that, Robby."
Robby lets out a deep breath. "True, yeah. But she's only just off sedation and the vent, nobody expected her to wake up immediately. She's a fighter and tenacious and will keep fighting to be with you."
Jack pulls his hand from yours and stands up to pace. "She might hate me if she does."
Robby clicks his tongue. "She's not going to hate you."
"Well guess what Robby, you don't know that either." Jack snaps as he paces. He knows that was shitty of him, knows that Robby is just trying to help in a situation where there's very little to be done. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Robby says softly. "I know you're right Jack, but I really believe I'm right too."
Jack nods in acknowledgment. He doesn't know what to say to that because he still isn't letting himself have hope. Or at least not much of it. "You see her car?"
"I think I saw a photo a few days ago, yeah," Robby nods.
Jack walks over to Robby silently and pulls his phone out, brings up the photos and hands his phone to Robby. "Scroll."
Robby looks at Jack for a moment before taking his phone and looking down at it. "Jesus fucking christ," Robby breathes out as he scrolls through the photos of your car.
"I saved him, Robby." Jack starts pacing again to burn off the anger at himself that boils his blood and makes him want to shatter the window and jump. "I saved the piece of shit that did that," he points at his phone, "I saved the man that did this to her." Jack moves his arm to flourish in the direction of your hospital bed.
"He got released a couple of days ago. Got to just walk the fuck out of here, hardly worse for wear." Jack knows Robby already knows this because they've talked about it at least five times but he still needs to say it all again. "I fucking saved him. And it wasn't fucking easy, it wasn't just treating and stabilizing and getting him off to surgery. It was a fucking save. He was fucking dead and I brought him back to life!" His voice breaks over the last word.
Jack stops pacing and walks back over to the edge of your bed, stands between it and his chair. "How is she ever supposed to forgive me for that if she wakes up? How am I ever supposed to forgive myself?"
"You did your job, Jack. She would never hold that against you or be mad at you for that. We both know she'd be upset if you hadn't treated him." Robby pauses. "And, as for how you forgive yourself, I don't know, honestly. Maybe as she gets better and you see that she's not mad at you for it you'll be able to start forgiving yourself."
Jack shakes his head but doesn't verbally argue. He won't forgive himself. Ever. He knows he won't. Maybe, maybe, if you asked him to he could, or at least could some. "I don't know how to do this, Michael."
Robby doesn't say anything, leaves the silence for Jack to fill.
He carefully settles on the edge of your bed, overly cautious to make sure he isn't pressing against you and potentially causing you pain. "I don't know if it's fair to ask her to fight. Her body is so broken, Michael. It's everything. It's fucking everything. My whole girl." Jack sniffles hard as he tries to keep the tears back. He's so fucking tired of crying. "I'm afraid to touch her most of the time. I swear to god every single inch of her is bruised. And so I don't know if it's fair to ask her to be in all this pain and to fight to come back to me and be exhausted. I know she must be tired." His voice cracks.
Jack brings a hand up to your head and strokes your hair so, so gently, puts no pressure on your head, is almost hovering just above your hair more than anything. "I don't know whether to tell her it's okay to let go. That I know she's tired and in pain and that it's okay for her to rest and let go. Because it's not. Not to me. But I don't want her to suffer and what if she's just exhausted and suffering Michael? What if she's feeling all the pain and unable to do anything about it? What if she's fighting for me, hanging on for me, to be here with me and she's in agony and it’s for no reason because she’s going to die anyway?"
"We would know if she was in pain, her heart rate would be elevated and it's not. It's perfectly normal. And Jack." Robby lets out a breath. "Even if she is exhausted and in pain, even if she's in agony, I know that she would be perfectly okay and even happy with that if it's what's going to get her back to you."
Jack lets out a small sob at that and leans in, presses a delicate kiss to your forehead with trembling lips and then pulls back a little and gives you a trembly smile as tears soak his face and shirt even though you can't see it, talks to you even though he doesn't know if you can hear him. "I love you, Sweetheart. I love you so fucking much."
Another couple of days pass. Jack loses more and more of the small shard of hope he let himself have as they do. He's barely sleeping or eating or drinking. He's only shaved because the facial hair starts to annoy him at a certain length and Robby brought him some stuff from home including a razor.
If someone asked him what he does all day and night he wouldn't know what to say other than he sits by your side, drags the cot they brought him over and lays by your side sometimes. He's always so far in his head and dissociated that time passes without him really realizing it or needing to do something to keep himself entertained.
He hasn't cried since that time with Robby. Maybe he finally settled into a numbness, maybe he ran out of tears. Maybe he doesn't think he deserves the catharsis and that he should have to deal with it all building up inside of him.
Jack scoffs at himself when he hears you say his name just above a whisper. Great, he thinks, now he's adding auditory hallucinations into the mix. But then he swears he feels your hand move in his and his head snaps from the wall he'd been staring at to you. To your eyes. To your beautiful, beautiful eyes that are open and looking at him. "Oh my god," he mumbles.
"Jack," you repeat his name again, just slightly louder. Your throat and mouth feel like sandpaper, have never been dryer.
"Holy shit," Jack breathes. "You, you, you're awake." He laughs in disbelief. "You're awake!" He's on his feet in seconds, looking down at you with glassy eyes. "Hi Sweetheart. Oh, I love you."
Every inch of you hurts. You can tell you're already on pain meds though with the way it's all a dull throbbing ache. And because you look down your body and see all the evidence of injuries, feel the sling, and know that Jack would never let them not have you on strong pain meds.
"Water?" You want to say that you love him too but you're not sure you could get that many words out with how dry your mouth and throat are.
"Of course, yeah." Jack grabs the pitcher your nurse has filled up every day and set on your tray and pours some into the cup next to it. He unwraps and sticks the straw into it as he brings it closer to you. "Small sips, yeah?"
You nod, barely though because as soon as you start to try it fucking hurts. You take a few sips and the relief feels so good you're pretty sure it eclipses the pain for a second. "Thanks," you whisper when you've had enough.
"Better?" Jack asks as he sets the cup back down. "And let me know if you want more."
"Much." You force yourself to say the word at a normal level and make a face at the sound of your own voice. You don't recognize it. Jack laughs softly because it was adorable, because you're adorable and you're awake and you can talk and you recognize him and maybe, just maybe things will be okay. "And I love you too, so much."
He beams at you as you tell him the words he's been dying to hear. "Your voice will get back to normal."
You hum in acknowledgment and are quiet for a few seconds. "Jack, everything hurts."
His smile fades so quickly into a frown that it's like a knife to your heart. You hadn't meant to make him feel bad. It's not his fault. You don't really remember what happened but you remember your car getting hit.
Jack swallows hard. "I know Baby. I'm so sorry," he murmurs. He gently lets go of your hand and reaches behind you and grabs something, brings it down near your hand and rests his nearby. "Do you want a boost of pain meds? Pushing that button gives you one. And if you can't press it just let me know, okay?"
You'd love a boost of pain meds if you're honest. But you'd love time with Jack more because you can tell he's not okay. Can tell he's so, so not okay. He looks gaunt, almost haunted in a way. He looks like he hasn't been eating or sleeping. It makes you realize it might not be the same day or even the day after you got hit. You can worry about that later. "Won't that make me sleepier?"
"Yeah," he nods. "But that's a good thing, you need to rest Sweetheart." Jack smiles at you softly but internally he's starting to lose it. He feels so selfish because he doesn't want you to sleep. He doesn't want you to close your eyes. He wants to keep talking to you, wants that proof that, at least for now, you're okay.
"In a bit, it's not that bad, honestly." You return his smile, though it's smaller than usual. "I wanna talk to you. I, I don't know how to explain it but I feel like I've missed you. Been missing you." You watch the glass return to Jack's eyes, watch the tears accumulate at his lower lash line but refuse to fall. Your smile fades. "Jack, what happened?"
"I missed you too," he murmurs, pausing for a moment because he has no idea what to say. Where to begin or how to explain or how to tell you he saved the guy that came a nanometer away from killing you. He forces himself to just start. "You were t-boned on the driver's by a drunk driver going 60 in a 25. It rolled your car and then you got hit by a semi head on. And I…" It feels wrong and selfish to get this out now instead of telling you more about your injuries but Jack is stuck. He can't move past it without acknowledging it. "I fucking saved him. You were both brought here and I got his ambulance and I fucking saved him. You coded, your heart stopped multiple times, and I, I saved the man who did this to you." A few tears slide down his cheeks the next time he blinks.
"I saved the man who almost killed you. His heart stopped and I brought him back to life." Jack sucks a ragged breath in through his teeth, eyes reflecting a kind of terror as he makes himself hold your eye contact because it's the very fucking least he can do during this. "And if you can never forgive me for that I understand and can go. Because I'll never fucking forgive myself. I'm sorry. I'm really fucking sorry, I’m so sorry."
"Hey," you say gently, inch your fingers as close to his as possible and brush against them so that he'll take your hand back, which he does even though you know he feels like he doesn't deserve it. "You did your job Jack. How could I ever be mad or upset about that or hold it against you? I'm not and I don't, Sweetheart. I'm glad you did your job. I'm proud of you for doing your job." Jack shakes his head at you to tell you that you shouldn't be. "I am. If you need my forgiveness then I forgive you, but know that I don't think I have anything to forgive you for. And I hope one day we can get you to a place where you can forgive yourself."
Jack wants to believe you, and deep down he does, but at surface level he's still terrified that as you go through recovery and are in pain and having to work so hard that you'll come to hate him. Come to be mad about it and upset and resent him. "Maybe, yeah," he whispers. He knows it's not fair to keep the story here, no matter how hard he's struggling. You asked what happened and you deserve to know what happened to you.
Jack's eyes leave yours for the first time since you woke up except for when he was helping you drink and you watch them glaze over a little. "Jack?" He looks back up at you. "Can I have a kiss?"
He lets out a little breath. How could he have gotten so caught up in everything else that he forgot he can kiss you now. That your lips will actually move back against his. "Always." He leans over you carefully and tilts his head, brings his lips to yours in the softest, most achingly sweet and tender and loving kiss. You sigh contentedly into it and so Jack kisses you again. And again and again. He can feel a little piece of him healing with each kiss. "Thank you," he whispers against your lips before pulling away. You raise your eyebrows slightly. "For helping me when I should be the one helping you."
"You are helping me Jack." You can see your reassurance only goes so far but decide to leave it for now, know him well enough to know that it's not the time to push it.
"We um, we didn't know it was you, when you came in. Robby took your ambulance. Even after I came in and looked at your face we didn't know it was you. You were unrecognizable, your face was so swollen and bruised and…" Jack closes his eyes for a second, squeezes them shut hard, trying to get that image out of his mind. You know it.
"Look at me, Sweetheart. Look at me now, Jack." You squeeze his hand lightly.
His eyes slowly flutter back open and flit around your face as Jack lets the image of your face when you first came in fade. "I saw your engagement ring. That's how we realized it was you." Jack starts to tell you all about it then. He knows he should get your nurse and your doctor but he doesn't want to. Doesn't want to share you.
Jack tells you that it's been almost two weeks which is what ends up throwing you the most, not your injuries or Jack saving the guy who hit you, but the loss of time. He promises that he's been here by your side every day, has been sleeping here and showering here, hasn't left your side for a single second. He tells you about the feeling he had, about you coding at the scene and how they almost called you there, how you coded in the trauma room. He explains all of your injuries and what happened during surgery, how your lungs were really bad but have healed well, are still healing, what they think recovery and recovery times are going to look like.
"Well," you breathe a soft laugh once he finishes. Somehow you remember the conversation you and Jack had over text before the accident as you were leaving for work. "Damn. I guess it's going to be a hot minute before I can have you slip inside me or I can slip into a hot bath."
Jack can't help but laugh, it just comes out because it's the most fucking you thing to say in reaction to everything he just told you. He laughs properly for the first time since the morning he spent with you on the day of the accident as you got ready for work, sits back down in the chair and kisses the back of your hand that he's holding as he laughs.
His laughter only lasts so long though. That kind of catharsis triggers another one and Jack slips from laughing properly to sobbing. To sobbing harder than you've ever heard him cry before, harder than he thinks he's ever cried before. Jack lets go completely, every emotion he's been holding onto since he realized it was you in that trauma room pouring out of him through tears and wracked breaths.
He keeps holding your hand, is so careful not to squeeze it tightly, and brings his head down to rest near your thigh where your hands lay intertwined and sobs into the blanket. Jack cries loud and shamelessly, without abandon because it's all his body and mind know how to do right now. That and try to apologize to you as he does so, choking on his words and sobs.
"I'm, I'm, I'm sorry I save-saved him." The words are strained, like he can barely get them out, can barely control his breathing long enough to choke them out. "I'm so-sorry, you, you don't deserve th-this, I, I, I…"
Jack hates this. He fucking hates it and himself for doing this to you, putting you through this when you just woke up. He hates that he's not taking care of you, that you're having to take care of him right now, having to try and calm him down when he should be there for you.
Seeing him like this breaks your heart, is made all the worse by the fact that you can't do anything to comfort him. You can't tell him to get in bed with you or rub his back or kiss him or wipe away his tears because you can't fucking move really. When you pull your hand from his he cries a little harder for a second until he feels your hand in his hair, weaving through his curls to scratch at his scalp how you know calms him.
You start to feel bad yourself because it feels like this is your fault, like Jack is feeling this way because of you. It's obvious how much he's been through, how he's been living here and hasn't been taking care of himself because he's too worried and depressed over you. And that's your fault. If you hadn't driven to work that day, if you had just done that errand another day. Tears start to slide down your face, for the way you start to feel responsible, yes, but also at watching Jack hurt like this, watching him be consumed by it.
"Jack, Sweetheart, you have nothing to apologize for my love." You say it just loud enough for it to be heard over his sobs. "None of this is your fault and I'm not mad at you for doing your job, Baby."
"S-still!" He's crying so hard now that he's shaking and choking, almost gagging and dry heaving at moments because he's so completely unregulated. "I, I'm sorry for not protect-protecting you, and for being like this." The last word is ragged, he chokes on it, starts coughing.
"Okay Jack, shhh," you soothe him, continuing to run your fingers through his hair and scratch at his scalp. "Don't try to talk, Baby, just let it all out and we can talk later, I promise."
You're relieved when Jack seems to follow your advice and lets himself cry without trying to say anything to you. His anger at himself makes it all worse. This isn't how he wants to be spending this time with you. He knows you're going to get really tired here soon, that you probably already are and are fighting it, and will fall back asleep and he doesn't want to waste moments with you. He can't help it though. Jack cries until he physically can't anymore and is just sniffling and taking in wracked hiccuped breaths as he tries to come down.
He moves his face so that one side is pressed against the mattress, the back of his head to you, in part because he grabs a tissue off the tray and in part because he doesn't want you to see him like this. You keep your hand in his hair as you give him a chance to collect himself, let him blow his nose and wipe away his tears and get his breathing back to normal before you speak.
"Jack?"
"Yeah Sweetheart?" He still can't bring himself to turn and look at you. He feels ashamed and he knows he must look like a mess, he can feel how swollen his eyes and lips are, and he knows it's going to hurt you, be hard for you to see and make you sad.
"Can I have a kiss?" Your ask has the desired effect, you can see some of the tension melt off him at the thought of kissing you, can see him perk up if only a little.
Jack sniffles hard one last time and then lifts his head, grabs your hand as you let it fall from his hair and kisses your palm. You have to work to keep the frown off your face when you see him, see how totally and completely destroyed he looks. You hate that you can feel yourself growing even more tired and everything getting more painful because you don't want to fall asleep on him. You can only hope that crying like he did for as long as he did combined with the clear lack of sleep he's had recently will exhaust him and finally let him get some good sleep now.
He furrows his brows when he sees the dried tear stains on your cheeks. "I'm sorry," he whispers, "I didn't mean to make you cry too."
"You didn't," you whisper back. "The situation did."
Jack grabs a tissue and gently wipes away the salty marks left on your skin by your tears. He shrugs. You know he doesn't believe you and that's okay. You didn't expect him to. That's something that's going to take time and healing.
"I love you," Jack murmurs as he leans in and gives you the kiss you asked for, still so gentle with you but letting this one escalate when you run your tongue over his lip. He doesn't let it last very long though, still concerned about your breathing and lungs even though they're looking much better. You manage to pull the smallest laugh from him when you make a little noise of discontent as he pulls away. "Gotta make sure you can breathe, Sweetheart."
You give a slight teasing grumble but know he's right, could feel yourself getting breathless far quicker than normal. Than before the accident.
"I love you too." You tilt your head at him just a little and smile. It's soft and not that big but it's genuine, it meets your eyes and it is the most beautiful sight to Jack, makes his heart skip a couple of beats and some of the heaviness lift. "We're gonna be okay, Jack. I know you can't believe that right now and I understand why and that's perfectly okay, Baby. But we have each other. You have me and I have you. So I know we're gonna get through this and we're gonna be okay."
A year passes. To say your recovery was difficult would be an understatement. You're not sure whether you even consider yourself fully recovered at this point. You suppose you are. You're back to work and can do pretty much everything you could do before the accident, including Jack. You still have a lot of pain at times which irritates you more than anything but you know it could be much, much worse. You're down to only seeing your physical therapist once a month but you still have exercises and stretches you have to do every day.
Psychologically… things were rough for both you and Jack. Maybe even worse than your physical recovery some days. You didn't have much memory of the actual crash itself until you got in a car for the first time after it and it all came flying back. You'd absolutely fucking lost it in the backseat with Jack, panicking harder than you ever have before, beyond grateful that Robby was driving and Jack was there next to you.
Today is the one year anniversary of the accident. You and Jack have been enjoying each other and the peace and quiet that comes with the extremely remote and unbelievably nice lake house he found to rent for a week. It's your second day here. Jack needed to be way the fuck out of the city on the anniversary, needed to be somewhere he didn't have to see or hear a car or an ambulance. You were more than okay with that, felt the same exact way and told him you wanted to spend the actual day wrapped up in him in bed in a little cocoon of safety.
You and Jack are in the obscenely big tub in the master bathroom. It has built in seats and everything and almost feels more like a hot tub they just put inside than a bathtub. Despite the fact that there's two seats you are, of course, resting on top of Jack with your back to his chest.
He's been treating you like glass all day. It's something he still falls into from time to time and you get it, you truly do. You're not at all surprised it popped back up today, nor do you really care. It means that the sex today has been so incredibly soft and slow and loving. You spent a fair amount of the day just cockwarming in bed, laying on your sides tangled together with Jack inside you as you chatted or made out.
The two of you have been in the bath a while now. It's a post sex bath and it's perfect. You're pretty sure you could fall asleep on Jack if you let yourself. You don't though, want to be present in the moment with him. You play with his wedding ring under the water and occasionally he'll move his hand quickly so that he can get his hand on top of yours and play with your wedding and engagement rings.
You haven't been married long, only two-ish months. After what happened you and Jack were talking one day while you were still in the hospital and you both expressed not wanting to wait. The only reason you waited as long as you did was because you didn't want to get married in the hospital and you wanted to be out of all casts and braces so that they weren't in photos.
It was a small, intimate self-uniting ceremony, the two of you surrounded by your closest friends and family. Instead of a big reception you'd rented a party room at a local restaurant for good food and drinks and a little dancing. It was perfect. It was you and Jack.
Jack breathes a little laugh to himself.
"What are you laughing at Dr. Abbot?" you hum.
"I know it's not the first time this has happened since the accident but I couldn't help thinking to myself right now that you got me slipping inside of you and to slip into a hot bath." He turns his head and kisses your temple, laughs again a bit louder this time. "I can't believe that's how you reacted to me telling you everything that happened and all your injuries."
"Yes you can." He can hear the smirk in your voice.
"Yes I can," he's quick to agree, wraps his arms around your torso and pulls you closer to him. "I don't think I realized it at the time but I think subconsciously that was the moment where I realized you were going to be okay because you'd just woken up after this horrific accident and been told all this awful shit that happened to you and that was your response, that incredibly you answer." He kisses your temple again and lets it linger. "It was just so you and I had missed you," he whispers, trying not to get emotional about it. "I had missed you so fucking much."
"I had missed you too, Baby," you murmur. "I love you Jack. More than you'll ever know."
"I love you more, pretty girl," Jack hums.
You shake your head against him. "That is simply not possible."
"It is indeed possible and true." This time you can hear the smirk in his voice.
You lean up off his chest and move off his lap and Jack whines, pulling a chuckle from you. But you don't go far, just turn yourself over and sit back on his lap perpendicular to him with your back against the tub wall so that you can see him. You shake your head but before you can argue Jack presses one of his thumbs to your lips. "Yes."
You press a kiss to the back of his thumb. "No," you murmur against it. You give it another kiss before quickly taking it into your mouth and nibbling at it gently.
Jack gasps in fake surprise. "Don't bite my thumb!" You smirk around his thumb and then release it, give it another quick kiss. "I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one, Sweetheart."
"That's fine," you shrug. "I know I'm right."
Jack rolls his eyes at you affectionately and then wraps his arms around you and pulls you close as you move to get closer to him. Your lips meet in a searing kiss that never quite seems to stop as you start making out. It's sloppy and hot and messy teenager shit almost but that's what makes it so fucking good right now.
It doesn't long for hands to start roaming, for you to get wet and Jack to grow hard again. "Let me take you to bed again. Let me have you again," Jack mumbles against your lips. "Please."
You answer the same way he asked. "Please." You kiss him one more time because his lips are right there and you can't resist. "Please Jack."
Jack nods, looks at you with blown, lust heavy eyes. He gets you out of the tub and both of you dried off, takes you back to bed and finally lets himself kiss every single one of your scars from the accident before he shows you how much he loves you and what you mean to him, the two of you nuzzling noses and breathing against each other’s lips before kissing slowly and swallowing down each other's moans as you climax at nearly the same time.
As you bask in the afterglow together, Jack laying on top of you and you running your hands through his curls and over his shoulders and up and down his back, a thought hits Jack.
"You can say it, you know," he says quietly. "I told you so. You can say it."
"I don't like doing that, it always ends up feeling mean, even when it's teasing." You pause for a couple of seconds. "I also have no idea what I would be saying it about."
"Us being okay and getting through what happened." He can't quite bring himself to say 'the crash' today. "You told me that we were going to be okay and you knew we'd get through it and at the time, I didn't believe you, I couldn't let myself believe you." He lets out a long breath and shrugs. "But you were right."
"Jack," you say softly, "I don't need to say-"
"Please," he cuts you off. "Please say it. I want you to say it. I need you to say it." Jack has no idea why he suddenly needs this now but he does. He knows it's his brain’s way of trying to get himself to accept that when something bad happens and you tell him that you guys will be okay he should believe you. He can believe you in that moment.
Because while Jack hopes that something as bad as the crash never happens again, he knows that some bad things will happen, that there will be hard times because that's life. And you told him you guys would be okay and you were right. So he just needs to hear it as silly and stupid and dumb as that might be or at the very least feel.
"Do you want me to be like… sassy? Or serious?" you ask, trying to infuse some lightness back into the situation for him.
Jack laughs, kisses your chest. He loves you so much he doesn't know what to do with himself half the time. "Surprise me."
You take a moment to consider and then tug on his hair gently so he'll look up at you and he does. "I told you so." You try so hard to say it with sass and a smirk but it doesn't quite hit because you can't keep the brightest smile off your face because you love him and you guys were and are okay and he's your husband and you have the rest of your lives together. Jack adores that smile, loves it so much and finds it so adorable and beautiful he could bite you with how hard the cuteness aggression hits him. But he doesn't, laughs softly instead.
"Yeah," Jack nods, smiles back at you just as brightly and brings his face closer to yours so he can kiss you once he’s finished his sentence, "you did."
I just love exploring the range of ways I think Jack would react to reader being critically injured and I think it would depend so much on who else was there. I think with Robby he knows that he doesn’t have to do it or keep it together, he can lose it because he trusts Robby so implicitly and there’s nobody else he’d rather have treating reader, not even himself. (Not that he doesn’t trust or think the other Pitt doctors are good doctors, just, you know.). But I can also see it a million other ways where it still feels true to him.
Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to read and your support! ♥️ As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments, they mean so much to me!
Want more Jack and the Pitt content? Check out my masterlist here. I also write for Pope from Animal Kingdom!
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Found this fic because of that user who was looking for this fic and damn… This is phenomenal, i was legit BAWLING, and all i could think of while crying was that you stayed true to yourself cause you did this for what?? You made this rollercoaster of emotions and heartbreak for what??? I was legit going through the emotions with Jack damn… You are such an amazing writer it’s insane to me. STELLAR WORKKKKK
I don’t know, guys, but if you new here let me present you this author that absolutely LOVES to make us suffer and give us the best of the best angsts ever. As I was saying, I think she needs help cuz ain’t no way you write multiverse of angst like this and post it with a straight face.
sometimes I actually be gettin so mad at fanfics when they make y/n a desperate son of a 🤬 LIKE BRUH I DONT WNNA BE FUCKIN WORSHIPPING THIS GUYS FUKING BALLS bcs he did the bare fucking minimum??? I am the lady here not you bitch fuck do YOU need worshipping for… eat this puss before I kick you in the nose and fck on your hb (go read my smau 😛) , and don’t get me started on the stories where they make it seem like y/n is a hard steppa standin on BIG FUCKING BUSINESS and then go and make her fold, beg and whine bcs bro grazed her chin and wiggled his little fat fingers in her face. IMA JUMP THROUGH THESE WRITTEN WORDS ON MY SCREEN AND SLAP BOTH OF Y’ALL.
pairing: steve harrington x reader
word count: 12k
summary: five-year-old steve harrington hates the hamptons—until he meets a barefoot girl with a bucketful of shells and becomes stevie. a coming-of-age story about first friendships, pinky promises, and falling in love, one summer at a time.
warnings: 18+ mdni, piv sex, oral (f!receiving), childhood best friends to lovers, oldmoney!steve, coming-of-age, vignette storytelling, first kiss, loverboy baby steeb!, heavy angst, slow burn, canon divergence, his parents are godawful in this one, character study as always, happy ending | playlist | moodboard
Steve Harrington is 5 years old when he decides that the Hamptons are the worst place in the entire world.
He knows this because he’s been here for one whole hour and he already wants to go home.
At least, he thinks it’s been an hour. The numbers on his new watch are shiny and hard to read, and the leather strap feels too heavy on his arm. It keeps sliding down like it’s trying to escape.
Steve kind of hopes it does.
If it slides off completely, down through the cracks in the porch and into the sandy dirt below, then maybe the ocean will take it. The ocean takes lots of things. Shells, seaweed, shiny bits of glass, baby turtles.
Maybe it could take him, too.
Maybe he could float on the blue waves all the way back home.
Not Hawkins—Hawkins is full of grown-ups who bend down too close, their eyelashes like moving spiders as they pinch his cheeks and say, Oh, Catherine, he looks just like Daniel already, doesn’t he?
No. Steve wants to go home to his room. Where all his dinosaurs live. Where his blue night-light makes everything soft and underwater-colored. Where no one tells him Smile, Stephen, or Be polite, Stephen, or For heaven’s sake, Stephen, stop fidgeting.
His new sandals hurt. Bad. The buckle is sharp and keeps poking the soft part of his ankle every time he moves. His shirt itches him everywhere—his neck, his sides, his armpits—and no amount of wriggling seems to help.
He tugs at the collar, trying to make it stop.
His mom’s hand lands on his shoulder.
“Stephen, sweetheart, keep still.”
He tries. He really, really does.
But all around him, the grown-ups are being very loud. They stand in little circles, laughing these big, sharp HA-HA-HA laughs that poke straight into his ears. Every time his dad says something, it’s like someone presses a button and they all explode at once.
Someone tells his mom how tall Steve’s getting. Someone else winks at his dad and keeps saying the word “Princeton,” which Steve thinks might be a kind of car, but it makes his dad laugh loudly and look at Steve with a funny smile.
Another woman bends down and tells him he’s going to “break so many hearts one day.”
Steve frowns.
Why would he do that?
He likes hearts.
Hearts are for loving, not hurting.
He looks past the grown-ups—past the chairs and tables and the flowers that smell too strong—toward the tiny slice of ocean peeking between the dunes. Blue and shiny and very, very far away.
He wants it.
Wants to touch the sand with his bare feet. Wants water he’s allowed to splash in.
Wants a summer that belongs to him instead of everyone else.
His mom squeezes his shoulder again. “Posture, Stephen. Stand up straight.”
He thinks maybe that’s his name now: Posture Stephen.
“I am standing straight,” he mutters.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
He wants to run.
Run until the HA-HA-HA sounds disappear. Run until nobody’s watching him. Run until he hits the water.
So when his mom gets called over by someone waving a fancy glass, and his dad tells another joke that makes everyone explode-laugh again—
Steve sneaks away.
He’s fast and light, like a ninja.
He slips between chairs, tiptoes down the wooden steps, and as soon as the dunes come into view, he runs.
The sand squishes under his feet, and Steve sighs so big his whole chest feels lighter. He breathes in deep, holding as much salty air as his lungs can fit.
The beach is huge. Bigger than his school playground. Bigger than Hawkins, even. Tall grasses wave on the dunes like they’re saying hello, and beyond them is nothing but water—blue and green and silver, stretching all the way to forever.
The ocean roars, but it’s a good sound. A soft whoosh-whoosh-whoosh that fills his ears without hurting them.
On his way toward the water, he finds a stick.
A really good stick. Long and a little pointy on one end.
It could be a cool pirate sword. He’s gonna use it to make the biggest hole in the world.
He plops down, criss-cross-applesauce, and starts digging. Sand sticks to his shorts, but that’s okay. He can say he tripped later.
He stabs the stick into the ground and drags it out.
The sand slides back in.
He digs again.
Slides back in again.
He huffs and tosses the stick away.
“This is dumb,” he mutters. “You’re dumb.” He means the hole. And the stick. And the sandals. And maybe the whole world.
He’s just about to flop onto his back and stare at the sky, because that usually gets someone to notice him—
When a shadow falls over his hole.
“What’re you doing?”
Steve looks up.
It’s a girl. About his age.
You stand there, barefoot, hair wild like you ran through ten windstorms. Sand is smudged on your cheek like face paint. He stares at your toes curling happily in the sand and feels a sharp pinch of jealousy.
You drop a bright plastic bucket beside him. It’s full of shells and rocks and something that moves.
A crab lifts its tiny claws and clicks at him.
Steve jerks back. You don’t.
Instead, you plant your hands on your hips and squint down at him like you’ve known him forever.
“You’re not diggin’ right.” you announce.
He blinks. “…I’m not?”
“Nope.” You point at the hole with your whole arm. “Sand’s too dry. It just falls in. You gotta use wet sand.”
“Oh.” He feels silly for not knowing that. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do.” You plop down beside him. Your knees are dirty, covered in scratches and tiny dots from the sand, but you don’t seem to care. “Wanna see how?”
Nobody ever asks him that.
Nobody ever asks him if he wants to see something.
He nods fast. “Yeah.”
You grin and grab his hand, yanking him up so quickly he stumbles.
“I-I’m Steve,” he blurts as he gets dragged toward the ocean, because he knows he’s supposed to introduce himself to new people.
You tell him your name proudly. Then you tilt your head, thinking.
“Can I call you Stevie?”
“Stevie?”
“Yeah! My mom’s favorite singer’s named Stevie.”
Steve thinks about it.
Nobody’s ever given him a nickname before.
It feels special. Like a secret.
“Okay,” he nods, smiling.
You beam and tug him toward the water. “C’mon, Stevie!”
Stevie.
He likes it.
Loves it.
It feels like the sun just turned on inside his chest.
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 6 years old when summers suddenly mean everything.
The Hamptons stop being itchy shirts and sharp laughs that hurt his ears.
They become you.
Summer means you. It means your laugh, your bucket full of strange treasures, your hair decorated with seashells “because it looks cool.” It means your brave, bossy voice telling him what to do, but always in a fun way.
Every month of the school year, Steve waits.
And every night before bed, he lines his stuffed dinosaurs up by his pillow and tells them stories about the beach. About the girl with the crab bucket and the sand-matted hair the wind couldn’t catch. About how you call him Stevie because it’s the name of your mom’s favorite singer. About how you don’t care when he wiggles, or gets dirty, or says some words wrong.
When his mom asks if he’s excited for the Hamptons, he just shrugs. “I guess.”
But inside, his chest feels all tight and fizzy, like a soda can he’s not supposed to open yet: Coca-Cola, his favorite.
The whole flight to New York, Steve squints at the numbers on his watch, trying to decide if the big hand is halfway or not. He’s still not very good at telling the time, but he knows enough to know the flight feels like forever.
He ends up staring out the little oval window instead, at clouds that look like giant dinosaur eggs. He wonders if you’d think so, too. He’ll ask you when he sees you.
If he sees you.
What if you aren’t there this year? What if you forgot him?
The thought makes his stomach feel all wiggly and twisty. He doesn’t like it.
He hopes you’re there. He hopes you didn’t forget him.
The moment the car turns onto the long, winding road toward the summer house, Steve scoots forward as far as the belt lets him, pressing his face to the window. When he sees the ocean shining in the distance like a giant blue secret, his chest gets so tight he can hardly breathe.
He can’t wait. He can’t.
He barely waits for the car to stop.
“Stephen! Shoes! Your shoes are going to—oh, for heaven’s sake…”
He doesn’t listen. He takes the steps two at a time, sandals smacking hard against the wood.
He’s taller now. A whole two inches and a half, thank you very much.
He’s faster, too. Knows he is. He’s been practicing during recess, racing Tommy H. behind the swings.
He leaps off the last step and skids into the sand—
“STEVIE!”
He spins around so fast the world blurs.
You’re barreling toward him at top speed. Sand spraying behind you, hair flying everywhere. Your bucket bangs against your knee as you run, rattling and clanking and sounding even fuller than last year.
Steve’s face splits into the biggest grin he’s ever had.
You crash into him, arms wrapping tight around his middle, and the force of it nearly knocks him onto his back.
“HI! Stevie, Stevie—you gotta see this shell I found! Wait, hang on—”
You pull back just far enough to dig frantically through your bucket, dumping half of it into the sand. Rocks tumble out. Then a string of green, slimy seaweed. You grab something big and lumpy and shove it up toward his face.
“See?”
Steve blinks.
The shell is huge, bigger than his whole hand. Pale pink and creamy white, spiraled tight at one end and opening wide at the other. The outside is dotted with rounded little spikes that feel rough when he traces his fingers over them, but the inside is smooth and shiny.
“That’s really cool,” he says, because everything you do is cool. “It kind of looks like…” He squints hard, turns it sideways. “…a horn?”
Your eyes light up. “Yeah! Like a unicorn.”
He smiles. “Or a dinosaur.”
“That’s better,” you nod seriously. “Okay now listen!”
Before he can ask what you mean, you press the wide end right against his ear. It’s cold and sandy against his cheek.
“…What’s it do?”
“Just listen.”
He holds very still, not sure what he’s supposed to be listening for.
And then—
Whoosh. Whoosh-whoosh.
His eyes go huge.
“Whoa,” he breathes.
“Cool, right?”
“It’s loud.”
“That’s the ocean.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s stuck in there.”
You drop the shell into his hands and curl his fingers around it. “Keep it.”
He frowns. “But… you found it.”
“It’s okay.” You shrug like it’s obvious. “I’ll find another one. The beach has, like, a million.”
He looks down at the shell again, then back at you. His chest feels funny, all warm and full. It feels good. Really good.
“Hey,” you say suddenly, squinting out toward the water. “Wanna see something even cooler?”
Of course he does.
⚓︎
You drag him everywhere.
To tide pools where little fish zip and hide under wet rocks and the seaweed shimmers in the water. Look, look, a crab!
To a secret hideout between the dunes where the grass grows taller than your heads. This way, Stevie!
To the treasure spot, because every beach has one if you know how to look. You draw an X in the sand with a stick and make a crooked map with squiggly lines and arrows. Quick, Stevie, dig! We have to find the gold before the sea monsters come!
You show him your jar full of hopping sand bugs. One brushes his thumb and he squeaks.
You laugh. He stands up straighter and pretends he wasn’t scared.
You even show him your Very Important rock collection. which is a big deal because you don’t show anyone your rocks—not even your cousins, who are “mean poop-heads who don’t appreciate cool stuff.”
Later, you’re sitting in the sand, sorting shells by color—white pile, pink pile, stripey pile—when you tell him you’re flying back to California when the summer’s over.
“Cal-ee-for-nee-yah,” you say proudly.
Steve blinks. “Why?”
“That’s where my house is.” You shrug. “I stay here with my aunt in the summer.”
“Oh.” He digs his toe into the sand. “So… you’re goin’ away?”
“Just for school.” You glance at him. “I’ll come back. I’ll always come back.”
He looks at you fast, careful, like maybe it’s a trick. “Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
“When?”
“Next summer.”
He thinks about that. A whole year sounds really long, but summers always come back. They have to.
“You promise?”
“Promise,” you nod, sticking out your pinky.
He hooks his around yours immediately, serious as anything. Pinky promises are the strongest kind. Everybody knows that.
“Okay,” he says, finally breathing again. Then his forehead scrunches.
“Where’s… um…” He sticks his tongue out, trying to remember how you said it. “Cal… Cal-uh-for-nee… Cal-uh-for-na?” He shakes his head, mad that he can’t say it right.
You smile. “Yeah! It’s super, super far. You gotta take two planes.”
“Oh.” He nods slowly. Two planes sounds like forever.
You tell him it’s hotter there. That the trees are huge and tall, with giant leaves like green fireworks stuck in the sky.
You tell him the beaches there are bigger. Way bigger.
Steve looks out at the miles of Hamptons shoreline and frowns. “How?”
“They just are,” you insist, tossing a shell onto the striped pile. “And people surf there.”
“What’s that?”
You squint up at the sky. “It’s like… flying. But on water. They stand on boards and go really, really fast.”
Steve blinks, tries to imagine it.
Flying… but on water.
He knows you can’t fly. Birds can. Planes can. People can’t.
And you definitely can’t stand on water. He tried once in the bathtub. You just sink.
His mouth twists.
“That’s not real,” he says, sure of it.
You scrunch your nose, lip jutting out. “It is too!”
You shove him—not hard, just enough that he flops backward into the sand with a surprised oof.
For half a second, his stomach drops. Maybe he did something wrong.
He stares up at you, eyes wide, waiting for your face to go tight like grown-ups’ faces when he messes up.
But you’re laughing.
Bright and easy, like nothing’s wrong at all.
Sand sprays as you jump up and spin away, yelling over your shoulder, “Race you to that big rock!”
And you’re gone before he can say wait up.
The tight feeling in his chest disappears.
He scrambles up, laughing too, chasing after you with everything he’s got. Legs burning, sandals slipping, but he doesn’t care.
It’s perfect.
It’s the best day of his whole life.
Until you fall.
It happens so fast.
One second you’re running ahead of him, laughing, hair flying everywhere.
The next, you stumble over a hard patch in the sand and go down hard.
“Ow!”
Steve skids to a stop so fast he almost falls too. His heart leaps into his throat.
He drops beside you right away. “Are you okay? Are you okay? Oh no, oh no—” His eyes dart all over you, scared and frantic. There’s a smear of red mixed with the sand on your knee. His breath catches.
“Your... your knee,” he whispers.
You sniffle, lip wobbling. “H-hurts.”
It’s the worst word he’s ever heard.
“It’s okay,” he says fast, even though his hands are shaking. He reaches for your arm, then stops, afraid he’ll make it worse if he touches you wrong. “It’s okay. I can fix it. I know how.”
You look up at him, eyes shiny. “…You do?”
He nods hard. “Yeah.”
He doesn’t really know. But his mom fixed his knee once after he fell off his bike. He remembers the cold wipe. The sting. The band-aid after.
“I’m gonna get the band-aid box,” he blurts, pointing up at the house. “I’ll be super fast. I promise.”
“O-okay.”
Before he runs, he leans in and gives you a quick, careful hug around your shoulders, making sure not to touch your knee. It always makes him feel better when you hug him.
“I’ll be fast,” he promises again. “Really fast.”
And then he sprints.
He sprints like he’s never sprinted in his life.
Across the beach, up the steps, through the house, ignoring the sharp call of “Stephen! Shoes!” as he dives into the bathroom.
He drops to his knees and yanks open the cabinet under the sink. He grabs the entire first aid kit, almost the size of his head, and runs back with it rattling in his arms.
You’re still there when he gets back, sitting exactly where he left you.
“I got it!” he pants.
He flips the kit open, hands clumsy, trying to remember how his mom did it. He finds a wipe, tears it open, and gently presses it to your knee—
You hiss and pull back.
“Sorry!” His eyes go wide. “Sorry, sorry! I’ll do it softer.”
He leans down and blows carefully on your knee.
“Better?”
“…Yeah,” you sniff. “A little.”
He nods, relieved. He wipes as fast and gentle as he can, tongue poking out while he concentrates. Then he grabs a band-aid, peeling it open with his teeth because his fingers won’t work right. He sticks it on crooked, pressing the edges down with both thumbs.
“There,” he breathes, nodding to himself. “All done.”
When he looks up, your eyes are huge and your mouth is open like you just saw a unicorn.
“Hey, are you oka—oof!”
All the air is knocked out of him when you lunge forward, both arms wrapping tight around his neck.
A warm, squishy, full-body hug.
“You’re the nicest boy ever,” you mumble into his shoulder.
Steve freezes.
His ears go hot. His whole chest feels too full, like it might pop.
No one’s ever said that to him before.
“Oh... okay,” he whispers, because he can’t think of any other words.
He hugs you back, being careful and gentle.
And inside him, something huge and glowing starts to form.
Something he doesn’t have a name for yet, but he knows he will carry it with him forever.
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 10 years old when he realizes he’ll never forget you.
It’s the end-of-the-summer fireworks festival.
He sprints down the familiar sandy path, sneakers thudding, two glass bottles of Coca-Cola clinking together in his hand. A crinkly bag of potato chips is tucked tight under his arm—salt and vinegar, your favorite, even though they make your mouth pucker and your nose wrinkle.
His heart thumps in that way it always does during the very last week of summer, when everything fun is happening all at once—and also ending.
He knows you’re there, waiting for him.
You always are.
Your spot is exactly where it’s been for five summers now: a small dip between two grassy dunes, hidden from the rest of the beach. The sand curves around it like arms, blocking the wind and the noise from the crowd.
You’re sitting on your blanket, legs crossed, tongue poking out as you carefully tie pieces of sea grass together into a bracelet.
When you see him, your whole face lights up.
“Stevie! You got it!”
“’Course I did,” he grins, holding up the chips. “My mom wouldn’t stop talking to Mrs. Aldridge about… I dunno. Hair stuff? It took forever.”
“That’s ’cause grown-ups love being boring,” you say, scooting over. “Sit, sit! The first one’s gonna happen any second.”
He flops down beside you, and you shuffle closer until your shoulder presses against his.
Closer than last year, he thinks.
Your hand brushes his knee when you reach for the snacks. Steve pretends he doesn’t notice, but he notices like crazy.
The first firework explodes with a loud crack, red sparks bursting across the sky.
You gasp, sharp and happy, and grab his hand without thinking.
Your fingers slide between his.
Steve looks down, startled.
Your palm is warm, a little sweaty. His own hand is rough in spots, scraped from climbing the rope at recess back home and picking at scabs he shouldn’t. Your thumb rests right against it.
You don’t let go.
He definitely does not let go.
“Whoa,” you whisper as the sparks fade. “Did you see that? It looked like a flower.”
“Yeah,” Steve says.
But he’s not looking at the sky at all.
The fireworks flash over your face, turning your eyes all sorts of bright, pretty colors: blue, then gold, then pink. Your nose scrunches when one pops extra bright. Every time a big one crackles, you squeeze his hand tighter.
So he squeezes back.
Carefully at first. Then a little braver.
Green fireworks shoot out like tree branches, spiraling high into the dark, but he only really notices because they shine in your eyes.
You’re brighter.
You’re always brighter.
When the sky goes dark for a second and everything is quiet, you turn to him.
“Hey, Stevie?” you whisper.
“Ye-ah?” His voice cracks halfway through. That’s been happening a lot lately. He clears his throat fast and hopes you didn’t hear it.
You smile at him.
“You’re my best friend.”
His stomach flips, like that time he went on the biggest roller coaster at Indiana Beach and thought he might fly right out of his seat.
He sits up a little straighter, squeezing your hand.
“You’re mine too,” he blurts. “Like—like the most. Outta everyone. In the whole world.”
Your face breaks into the biggest smile yet, and before he can think about it, you lean in and wrap your arms around his neck.
A hug.
It feels familiar. But also different.
Bigger. Like it means more than it used to, even if he doesn’t know why.
He hugs you back right away, pressing his nose into your hair. You smell like sunscreen and grape popsicles and the ocean.
“You’re the best, Stevie,” you whisper into his shoulder. “The best ever.”
That fluttery feeling in his stomach comes back, stronger this time. He swallows, nods even though you can’t see it.
“You too,” he says quietly, squeezing you just a little tighter.
Then, just as you pull back, you press a quick kiss to his cheek.
Barely there.
But it feels like something exploding inside his chest.
His face goes burning hot. He’s really glad it’s dark, because he’s pretty sure his cheeks are as red as the fireworks.
Up above, the finale roars to life: fountains of silver streaking upward, bursting into brilliant gold that lights up the entire beach.
You turn back to watch like nothing happened, scooting closer until your head tips and rests against his shoulder.
Steve freezes.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe.
When he finally has to, he does it slowly, careful not to move an inch. Your fingers curl into his shirt. Your breath is warm against his neck when you let out a small, sleepy sigh.
The fireworks crash and boom overhead, sparkling like giant flowers.
Steve stares at the sky, heart pounding, feeling something change inside him.
Something big.
It’s the first time he understands something he’s never felt before.
Steve Harrington is ten years old when he falls in love with his best friend in the whole world.
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 12 years old when everything gets... weird.
He’s a lot taller now, second tallest out of the boys his class. He’s faster, stronger. His shoulders are broader, his arms a little longer than he expects when he stretches them out. His hair brushes the tops of his ears, and he kind of likes it that way, even though his mom keeps telling him it’s time for a trim.
And his voice... his voice keeps doing that awful, traitorous squeak. Especially when he’s around you.
But none of that really matters.
Because you’re here.
You’re back.
And you’re different, too.
Not in a big, obvious way. You still run like you’ve got rocket boosters strapped to your ankles. You still crouch by tide pools and whisper to crabs like they’re old friends. You still call him Stevie in the exact same way.
But now...
Now you lean on him sometimes when you sit together. You don’t move away when your knees touch. Now your eyes flick to his mouth when he’s talking, and Steve doesn’t really know what that means, but he knows it means something.
The wind is steady and warm today, bending the dune grass in lazy waves. The two of you sit cross-legged in your secret spot, the same hidden hollow you’ve shared since you were five. Piles of shells and weird rocks you swear might be fossils are scattered between you.
You hand him a perfectly round one with swirls. “This one looks like Neptune,” you declare.
Steve nods, even though the only thing he knows about Neptune is that it's blue.
He’s not looking at the rock, anyway.
You’re telling him a story about a crab you swear was as big as a dog. You stretch your arms out to demonstrate the size, ridiculously wide.
“Stevie, I swear,” you insist. “Its claws were this big. Could’ve snipped your big toe off.”
Steve nods along, trying to focus on the part where he should laugh.
But he can’t stop staring.
At the color of your eyes in the sunlight. At the way the breeze lifts strands of your hair and drops them back against your cheek. At the curve of your mouth when you get excited.
He feels weird all the time now. Fluttery and unsteady, like the moment at the top of a roller coaster right before it drops. It happens every time he looks at you, or thinks about you, which is basically always.
He’s thinking about how pretty the sun looks reflecting off your skin, how it catches the little beads of water on your cheek and makes them glint like tiny stars, when suddenly—
You go quiet.
Really quiet.
Steve’s stomach tightens instantly.
You’re never quiet unless you’re asleep or thinking about pulling a prank on him. He stiffens, glancing around for whatever bug or crab you might’ve hidden.
There’s nothing.
You’re just… looking at him.
“Hey, Stevie?” you say softly.
His throat makes a weird clicking noise. “Yeah?”
You scoot closer. Your knee presses against his leg and doesn’t move away.
Your voice drops to a whisper. “I’m gonna do something. Don’t freak out.”
He’s already freaking out. He doesn’t think he’s ever freaked out this much in his entire life.
“O-okay,” he manages.
You nod once, take a tiny breath, lean forward—
And you kiss him.
Right on the mouth.
His first kiss.
Your lips are soft and warm. They press against his for just a second, shorter than a blink, gone before he can react.
You pull back, eyes still closed. Steve is frozen, eyes wide open, mouth puckered.
Your nose crinkles when you open your eyes and see him.
“Stevie,” you giggle. “Close your mouth!”
He snaps it shut so fast his teeth click together.
You completely lose it, laughing as you fall sideways into the sand.
“Oh my god,” you wheeze. “You looked like a fish!”
He groans, mortified, covering his face with both hands as he flops down next to you. “Don’t laugh!”
“I’m sorry!” you say, laughing harder. “I’m not—it’s just—”
He peeks through his fingers, smiling despite himself. He loves the sound of your laugh, even when it’s at his expense.
When your giggles finally soften, you scoot closer on your back until you’re nose to nose, lined up from shoulder to ankle.
Steve turns his head to look at you.
Up close, he can see the little grains of sand stuck to your forehead, the way your lashes cast shadows on your cheeks. His face burns.
“Is…” His voice cracks again, and he swallows. “Is it okay if we… do that again?
Your smile is huge and immediate. “Yeah. I wanna.”
This time, he leans in first.
And this time, he’s ready.
He closes his eyes. Keeps his lips together. Moves slow and careful. His nose bumps your cheek, squishing awkwardly from the angle, and you break into giggles again, turning the kiss wobbly and messy.
When you pull back, you’re both smiling the exact same way.
“Oh my god, your face is so red.”
“It’s—it’s because it’s hot out,” he stammers.
“Nope. It’s you.”
You reach up and ruffle his hair, messing it up completely.
“Hey!” he sputters, batting at your hand.
You climb halfway on top of him, not really tackling, just laughing, squirming, wrestling in that loose, joyful way where nobody’s trying to win, and he'd let you anyway.
You’re both out of breath by the time you flop back onto the sand, laughing so hard it hurts.
Steve throws an arm over his face, smiling wide, everything dizzy and bright.
The wind brushes over him. The sun hums overhead.
After a while, you stretch your pinky toward him.
He feels it tap against his hand and hooks it without even looking.
“Promise we’ll hang out every summer,” you say.
“That’s easy,” he answers immediately. “Promise.”
Then he props himself up on one elbow and looks down at you, suddenly serious.
“Actually, next time, I’m gonna bring something.”
Your eyes go bright. “Like what?”
“It’s a secret.”
You shove him lightly. “What? Tell me!”
“Nope.” He flops back onto the sand, grinning. “You gotta wait.”
You groan dramatically at the sky, pinky still tangled in his.
“I hate you.”
He closes his eyes, smiles at the sun.
“No you don’t.”
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 13 years old when his world stops for the first time.
It happens on a warm June morning, with sunlight slanting through tall windows and the smell of pancakes drifting through the house.
He starts the day happy.
He hums as he packs, can’t help it. He doesn’t even care that his room’s a disaster: swimsuits tossed over the chair, T-shirts half-folded, socks everywhere.
On his desk sits a small shoe box.
He pauses in front of it.
Inside are the things you’ve given him over the years. Precious, timeless treasures.
The spiral shell shaped like a dinosaur horn. The seaweed bracelet, brittle now, faded pale from time. The smooth blue stone you said looked like Neptune.
He picks up each thing carefully, touches it, turns it over in his hand. Then he puts them back exactly how they were and closes the lid.
The box goes into the bottom drawer, where it’s safe.
Then he picks up his gift.
It’s clumsy. Strung together with twine, wrapped messily in torn comic-book pages because he couldn’t find real wrapping paper. The corners are taped crooked, the edges uneven. He’s worked on it for years, adding to it bit by bit every summer, telling himself next year every time.
But this year feels different.
This year, he thinks he can give them to you.
He’s even written his address on the top one—carefully, in his neatest handwriting—so maybe you could write to him in California. You’re smart. You’d know how.
He smooths the edges with nervous fingers.
He’s practiced what he’ll say all week.
Hey, these are for you. Too boring.
You can have these, or whatever. Too nothing.
You mean everything to me. Too much. Way too much.
He settles on a smile instead.
You always say he has a nice one, that he smiles with his whole face, that his eyes squish up “like a happy chipmunk.”
No one else ever says things like that to him. Not the way you do.
He’s halfway through folding a beach towel when his mom’s voice floats up the stairs.
“Stephen? Breakfast.”
“Coming!” he calls, already jogging down barefoot, taking the steps two at a time, giddy.
His mom is in the kitchen, stirring her coffee neatly. His dad sits at the table with the newspaper spread wide.
“Hey, Mom,” Steve says, breathless. “Have you seen my hat? The one with the red stripe? I can’t find it.”
She doesn’t look up.
“Stephen,” she says evenly, “we aren’t going to the Hamptons this summer.”
The world stops.
“...Huh?”
She sets her spoon down. “We’ve decided to do Europe instead.”
For one second, he thinks it’s a joke. He lets out a short, confused laugh and looks at his dad.
His throat goes tight when nobody smiles.
“What?” Steve croaks.
“You’re thirteen now, Stephen,” his dad says, turning the page. “It’s time you saw culture. Real culture.”
“But...” Steve shakes his head, hair falling into his eyes. “But we always go to the Hamptons.”
“This will be good for you,” his mom says, smiling lightly. “Europe will be lovely.”
Lovely.
Like the sound of your laugh.
Like the colors of fireworks in your eyes.
Like the warmth of your hug when you called him the nicest boy ever.
“N-no, but—” His voice cracks. “But I have a friend.”
“You’ll make new ones.”
“You don’t understand,” he says, words tripping over each other, panic rising fast. “I have to—I promised—I told her I’d—”
His dad sighs, newspaper crinkling. “Stop whining.”
Steve flinches.
“I’m not whining,” he whispers.
His mom steps closer and smooths his hair back like he’s still little. “You’ll love Europe, darling. Now eat your breakfast. You can finish packing after.”
Something hot and awful swells in his chest.
He wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to throw the coffee pot at the wall and watch it shatter.
Instead, he tries again.
“Please,” he begs, voice breaking completely now. “Please, Mom. We have to go. She’ll be waiting. I told her I’d come back. Just this year. Please.”
He promises to be good. That he won’t run off to the beach without permission. That he won’t complain during parties. He swears he’ll do more chores, stop arguing, get better grades. He’ll be perfect. He’ll be anything.
Anything.
“Stephen,” his father snaps, voice like a slammed door. “Drop it.”
Something inside Steve drops with it.
Falls.
Cracks.
Shatters.
⚓︎
He runs upstairs, slams his door and locks it. Drags his dresser in front of it with shaking arms. Slides down onto the carpet, breaths coming in sharp, broken pieces.
He doesn’t come out the rest of the day.
That night, he sleeps with your shell clutched in his hand, pressed tight against his ear. The ocean hums inside it. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend he’s there—pretend you’re tugging his hand, pulling him toward the water.
Stevie, look!
He cries until his pillow is soaked.
⚓︎
The Hamptons house stays closed all summer; curtains drawn, doors locked, a whole season going on without him.
On the way to the airport, Steve presses his cheek to the car window and watches the world blur past.
He doesn’t know how to send a letter. He doesn’t know where in California you live.
He can’t call. Can’t write. Can’t find you.
There is no treasure map back.
Just sandcastles washed away by tides and a pinky promise he couldn’t keep.
He pictures you standing in the dunes, bucket in hand, looking over your shoulder.
Waiting.
Maybe you’re mad.
Maybe you’re worried.
Maybe you’re thinking he forgot you.
That thought hurts so badly he has to bite down on his knuckle to keep quiet.
⚓︎
In hotel rooms across Europe, Steve lies awake at night, staring at unfamiliar ceilings.
He tries not to cry.
Some nights, he fails.
But he does it silently, face shoved into a pillow, because boys his age aren’t supposed to do that anymore.
In Florence, he stares at the Arno River and thinks of the ocean. Wonders if you’re there right now, toes buried in the sand, waiting for him to complain that the water’s cold just so you can grab his wrist and drag him in, laughing.
In Paris, he watches fireworks bloom over the Eiffel Tower and feels sick.
Red, gold, and blue explodes across the sky, but all he can see is your eyes. Your hand laced through his, your head heavy and warm on his shoulder.
You’re my best friend.
He cries himself to sleep on expensive hotel sheets, muffling his sobs into Egyptian cotton until it’s dark with salt.
In dreams, he is flying.
The wide blue waters of California stretching endlessly below him, carrying him closer to you.
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 15 years old when he learns how to disappear.
The hallways are packed tight with shouting and shrill laughter. Boys slam into each other on purpose. Everyone pretends they’re bigger, tougher, cooler than they were three months ago.
So Steve pretends, too.
He discovers the power of hairspray, learns how to make his hair work for him.
By October, everybody has an opinion about him. Mostly girls.
“Oh my god, Steve Harrington is so cute.”
“Right? He looks taller than last year.”
“Did you see his hair? Total dream.”
He smiles. He flirts. He jokes. He learns to be charming the way his father is at dinner parties—making people laugh, making them lean in close.
It works.
High school is a costume. And Steve Harrington wears it well.
⚓︎
One afternoon in P.E., Tommy Hagan decides Steve is “my best bud, actually.”
It happens after the 100-meter sprint. Steve wins without really trying, legs strong and fast from years of racing barefoot across sand dunes.
Tommy slaps him on the back hard enough to knock the air out of him.
“Harrington! Jesus, dude, you move.”
Steve grins, even though his shoulder stings.
Harrington. Not Stevie.
Tommy hooks an arm around his neck like they’ve been friends for years. Carol Perkins tells him she likes his hair.
And for the first time since losing you, Steve feels something close to relief.
He’s not alone.
⚓︎
Sophomore year, someone calls him King Steve for the first time.
He laughs, because it sounds stupid.
But the name sticks, like gum on a shoe.
He’s captain of the swim team now. Sixteen years old and he’s already broken the state record for the 200-yard freestyle. His body does what he tells it to, and he likes that. Likes the rush of being good at something, the roar of the crowd every time he touches the wall first.
His parents are almost never home anymore. No more summer trips to Europe, or anywhere. They leave him with a credit card and a spotless house.
Steve makes it his personal mission to ruin that.
He throws the loudest, wildest parties he can, every chance he gets. Music shaking the walls. People jumping on furniture, spilling drinks, diving into the pool with all their clothes on.
Everyone loves the parties.
Everyone loves King Steve.
⚓︎
Steve has a drawer that no one opens.
Not his parents. Not the housekeeper. Not even him, most days.
The wood sticks when it’s pulled, swollen from years of humidity and neglect.
Inside it is a shoe box.
Shells. Rocks. A bracelet that doesn’t fit anymore.
Remains of summers he pretends not to remember.
Most nights, he leaves it alone.
But sometimes—when the house feels too big, when everyone’s gone home and the silence presses in—he opens the drawer.
Lifts the lid.
He doesn’t touch anything.
Just looks.
He wonders if you remember him.
If you still call him Stevie in your head.
If you ever think of those summers: the dunes, the fireworks, the scrape on your knee.
Then he closes the box. Slides it back into the dark.
In the morning, he is Harrington once again.
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 18 years old when the letter finally arrives.
It sits on his desk for three days, unopened.
The envelope is thick, cream-colored and heavy. He knows what it says. He’s known since the phone call, since his coach clapped him on the shoulder and grinned, since the guidance counselor told him he should be so proud of himself.
He isn’t sure if he is.
On the fourth day, he carries it downstairs.
His father takes the packet without ceremony, skims the first page, and scoffs.
“California,” he says flatly.
Steve nods, throat tight. “They’ve got a really strong swim program.”
His father exhales through his nose and sets the packet down like it might stain the table.
“A public university. On the other side of the country.”
“It’s—” Steve clears his throat. “They offered me a scholarship.”
The look he gets says more than words ever could.
“Stephen,” his father says, tone perfectly level, “state schools are for kids who don’t have better options. California is lazy, full of idlers. It’s not the kind of place where you get serious about your future.”
Steve feels a familiar pressure building up in his chest, hand around his ribs, that same old relentless squeeze.
“Real academics are here, on the East Coast," his father continues. “Institutions with standards. History. You don’t see men running this country who went to beach schools.”
“Dad,” Steve says quietly. “I worked for this. I earned it.”
His father doesn’t even look up. “You were recruited. Because you can swim.”
Steve’s fingers curl around the edge of the chair, knuckles whitening beneath the table.
“I’m not paying for you to run off to California,” his father says, voice precise, final. “Just so you can throw parties and chase girls and waste your life on nonsense.”
The room shrinks.
For a moment, Steve is thirteen again.
Bare feet on cold tile, begging for one last summer.
Promising he’ll behave. Promising he’ll try harder. Promising he’ll be whatever they want him to be.
He really thought this time would be different. Thought being older meant they’d finally listen.
Something quiet settles inside him.
“Fine,” he says, pushing his chair back. “I’ll pay for it myself.”
His father lets out a short laugh. “With what money?”
Steve picks up the envelope. Feels its weight.
Possibility, distance, risk.
Hope.
“I’ll figure it out.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer.
He goes upstairs and starts packing that night.
⚓︎
Numbers race furiously through his mind as he clears his room.
The scholarship covers some of the tuition, but not housing. Not books. Not fees.
He’ll start lifeguarding again in the summers. Take early morning shifts during the year, work weekends. Take out loans under his own name.
It won’t be easy.
But it will be his.
⚓︎
He loads his entire world into the BMW.
It doesn’t take long.
For someone who’s grown up with so much, there isn’t much that’s actually his.
Clothes. Swim trophies. His alarm clock. A framed photo from a family vacation he’s too young to remember: his parents smiling, arms around each other. He hesitates, then slides it into a box face-down.
The last thing he opens is the drawer.
It sticks, like it always does.
Inside is the shoe box.
And beneath it, the gift he never got to give you. Built slowly, carefully, over summers that feel like they happened to someone else now.
He tucks them both into his duffel bag, wedged between folded clothes so they won’t shift.
His father doesn’t come outside.
His mother stands at the edge of the driveway, watching him pack the car in silence. When he’s finished, she steps forward and smooths his collar the way she used to when he was little.
Then she presses a folded envelope into his hand.
It’s heavy.
He doesn’t open it. Just nods, gives her the best smile he can manage.
Closes the trunk.
Gets behind the wheel.
Looks west.
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 20 years old when his world stops for a second time.
He likes California.
The weather, the people, the food. He likes the way the air always smells like the ocean here, the way winter barely exists. He never liked the cold anyway.
College is different in ways he didn’t know to expect. He’s found classes that actually interest him, professors who ask questions and wait for real answers.
He has friends now who say they’ll see him tomorrow and mean it. Who sit on the floor with him at two in the morning talking about nothing and everything: music, stupid theories, what they want to do after graduation, whether anyone really knows who they are yet.
He still gets tired sometimes.
Tired of himself. Tired of that old, hollow echo that never fully went away. But that weight isn’t constant anymore. It shifts. Recedes. It loosens its grip when he’s laughing with his roommates, tossing a beach ball across the sand, swimming lap after lap until his muscles burn and his mind goes quiet.
The house is packed tonight.
Last party of the school year. Spilled soda, cheap perfume, summer sweat and warm beer. Music thunders through the walls. Bodies press together, shouting and laughing over the noise.
An older teammate claps him on the back. “Harrington! Hell of a party, man.”
Steve smiles, nods, laughs along.
Can’t shake off that feeling, still. That faint sense of displacement that hums under everything.
He drifts through the crowd, eyes unfocused, letting motion and color wash over him. Someone nearly spills a drink on his shoes. Someone dances too close. It all registers. None of it sticks.
Then, he hears it.
A laugh.
Clear. Bright. A recognition that tightens his chest before his brain can catch up.
Steve turns slowly, frowning, not sure why his body is moving toward the sound.
Near the doorway, head tipped back in laughter, hair catching the light—
There’s a girl.
Not quite a stranger. Not quite someone he knows.
Familiar in the way a dream is: sharp in feeling, slippery in detail. Memories flicker past him, too fast to grab—the curve of a smile, the tilt of a head—dissolving like sand through his fingers.
He stares without meaning to.
You turn.
Your eyes find his.
Your drink freezes halfway to your lips. Confusion flickers across your face, soft and fleeting.
Then recognition.
Disbelief.
“...Stevie?”
Something in his chest detonates.
The hollow feeling he’s been carrying shatters into a thousand fragments of warmth and longing he didn’t know he’d been saving.
You step closer, eyes wide, face lit with a smile he hasn’t seen in years but never truly forgot.
“Oh my god,” you breathe, half-laughing. “It’s you.”
Steve can’t speak.
His throat closes. The world narrows.
He’s thirteen again, standing barefoot on cold tile, begging for a summer that never came.
He’s ten, sunburned and breathless, watching fireworks bloom in your eyes.
He’s six, running barefoot toward the sound of your laughter, sand sticking to his ankles.
He’s five, staring up at a girl with a bucketful of stolen seashells, telling him he’s digging wrong.
He’s a lonely kid on the beach, carving crooked shapes into the sand, waiting for someone to come find him.
And you did.
You always did.
The cup slips from his hand. Beer splashes across the floor, unnoticed.
He whispers your name.
A decade of wanting, released in one sound.
⚓︎
“...Hi.”
“...Hi.”
“How—”
“What—”
He laughs, scrubs a hand through his hair, suddenly nervous in a way he hasn’t felt in years. His palms are damp, heart stumbling over itself.
“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “I just—I can’t believe you’re actually—”
You surge forward and wrap your arms around his neck, tight enough to knock the air from his lungs.
“Oh my god,” you whisper against his ear, voice breaking. “I missed you.”
For a second, Steve just stands there.
Stricken. Breathless. His brain lagging behind what his heart already knows.
Then his arms come up—slowly, instinctively, carefully folding around you. He lowers his head, presses his nose into your shoulder, breathing you in like proof.
He doesn’t say I missed you too.
It wouldn’t be enough. Wouldn’t come close. Wouldn’t touch the years, the distance, everything he’s lost and carried and never learned how to put down. How your memory has lived inside him like a second spine, holding him upright when nothing else did.
Instead, he tightens his grip and whispers:
“I’m sorry.”
You don’t say it’s okay.
But you let out a soft breath and pull him closer, arms firm around his shoulders.
And that, more than words, feels like forgiveness.
⚓︎
The place is called Scoops Ahoy.
Steve hasn’t been inside it in years, but the second he steps through the door, it all comes rushing back.
The headache-bright fluorescents. The aggressively nautical theme: ropes and anchors, boat-shaped displays that never quite made sense. The faint, permanent stickiness of the floor, no matter how often it gets mopped.
He worked here his freshman year, back when he was desperate for cash and all the good jobs were taken by upperclassmen with better timing. It had been fine. Mind-numbing, but fine. The ice cream was decent if you ignored the décor and the way the lighting made everyone look a little sickly.
At this hour, it’s dead.
Completely empty except for the girl working the register—short, sandy-brown hair, half-slouched over the counter as she flips through a comic, clearly counting down the seconds until closing.
But Steve can't bring himself to focus on any of it.
Because you’re here.
You’re actually here, leaning over the glass case, eyes flicking back and forth between flavors like this is the most important decision you’ve made all day. You bite your lip and his eyes follow the movement, unbidden.
He can’t stop staring.
The whole thing feels surreal, like a fever dream his brain stitched together out of old memories and wishful thinking.
Like he might blink and you’ll disappear.
But the details are all the same.
The way you tilt your head when you’re thinking. The faint crease between your eyebrows when you’re overanalyzing something that really shouldn’t matter this much. The way your mouth presses into that familiar line when you can’t decide.
And when you glance back at him, eyes warm and expectant, that exact same light glows there.
You smile. “What’re you getting?”
Steve blinks, realizing he’s been staring for way too long. He clears his throat and forces himself to look down at the ice cream like he hasn’t seen this exact lineup a hundred times before.
“Uh,” he says, squinting thoughtfully. “The salted caramel’s usually pretty good.”
“Ooh.” You nod, completely serious. “Yeah, that does sound good.”
He smiles before he can stop himself.
His eyes flick up to the menu on the wall, scanning for something he half-hopes they got rid of. But no—there it is, in all its over-the-top glory.
The Triple Decker Extravaganza.
“Why don’t we just get the sundae?” he offers. “That way you can pick whatever you want.”
You turn to him, eyes lighting up. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he grins. “Go nuts.”
Your face brightens instantly, and something in his chest goes warm as he watches you lean forward again, picking out flavors, debating them out loud.
Steve just stands there, smiling like an idiot.
When he pulls out his wallet without thinking, you don’t stop him.
“Thanks,” you say softly, glancing at him.
“Don’t mention it.”
He shoots the girl behind the register an apologetic look as he pays, knows this order’s a nightmare. Hot fudge, caramel, whipped cream, cherries. Those stupid little sail-shaped cone pieces that always break in half. He slips an extra ten into the tip jar, and her expression improves instantly.
The sundae arrives in a ridiculous plastic boat, wobbling under the weight of it all.
You laugh, delighted, as Steve carefully carries it over to the counter by the window. You hop up onto a stool, legs swinging as you settle in.
Outside, the street is calm, washed in neon and soft sodium light. The glass reflects both of you faintly, past and present overlapping in double exposure.
Steve sits beside you, close enough that your shoulders almost brush.
You start asking questions the same way you always did, listening like every answer matters.
“What’s your major?”
“Business,” he shrugs, digging his spoon into the ice cream. “But… I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about switching. I like my psych classes way more than econ.”
“Really? What kind of psych?”
“Developmental stuff, mostly. Kids, families. That kind of thing.”
You nod, thoughtful, spoon hovering midair. “You’d be really great with kids.”
He lets out a surprised laugh. “Yeah? I mean... I don’t know.”
“No, I’m serious,” you insist, turning on your stool to face him. “You’ve always been patient. You’re a great listener. You care.”
He blinks, goes quiet. Looks at you for a beat too long before remembering to glance away.
“Thanks… uh, what about you?”
You tell him about your classes, your roommates. The professor who assigns too much reading. The weird smell in your dorm hallway no one can identify. How the ocean never really gets old, even when you see it every day.
“So,” you ask eventually, tilting your head. “How’d you end up picking a school all the way out here?”
Steve stirs the melted ice cream with his spoon, not meeting your eyes.
“I don’t know. I mean, the scholarship helped, but I guess I just wanted somewhere warmer. Closer to the water.”
He doesn’t say how much of it was quiet, impossible hope.
Doesn’t say how a tiny part of him thought maybe, just maybe, he’d find you here.
“You know,” he says after a moment, voice lower, “I should’ve asked for your phone number back then. Or your address. Or... something.” He huffs out a breath. “I don’t know why I didn’t.”
“Hey,” you slide your hand over his, squeezing once. “We’re here now. Right?”
He nods, throat tight. “Yeah.”
You smile and return to the ice cream. He does too.
A new song crackles over the speakers, and you start humming along absentmindedly. It takes him a second to realize what it is.
Edge of Seventeen.
Stevie Nicks.
He meets your eyes.
Feels something click, then.
He’s never really believed in fate.
But if there were ever a reason to try, a reason to hope in a world that so often disappoints, he thinks that reason would be you.
⚓︎
When the ice cream’s gone and the girl behind the counter starts wiping things down a little too pointedly, you hop off the stool.
June nights in Santa Barbara are warm, carrying faint traces of salt from the ocean. You stop beneath the neon glow of the marquee outside, the lights painting your silhouette in soft blues and pinks.
Steve’s heart stutters.
What happens now?
He's dreading the ending; there are years stretched between you now, whole versions of you he’s never met. So much left to ask, to know. To say.
He rubs the back of his neck.
“It’s late,” he says. “I should probably let you go. Maybe I could get your dorm’s phone number? Or we could grab lunch someti—”
You’re smiling when you kiss him.
Up on your toes, fingers clutching the front of his shirt as you pull him down. Your lips taste sweet: strawberry and chocolate, cherry and vanilla. Every flavor, because you couldn’t decide. Because he wanted to share.
The neon hums above you. The world narrows again.
This kiss lasts longer than the last one he shared with you. Long enough for him to cup your cheek, to brush his thumb along your jaw, to realize, distantly, how much better he is at this now.
He knows how to angle his head just right, slant his lips to deepen the press, to pull you closer by the small of your back and have you flush against him.
When you pull back, he chases your lips all the way until you've dropped back onto your heels.
You blink your eyes open, tongue darting over your lip like you’re tasting him, too.
He has to force himself to step back, fight the urge to lean in again.
You both speak at once.
“So—"
“Would you—”
He laughs. “Sorry. You first.”
You laugh too, shaking your head. “I was just gonna ask if you wanted to come back to mine. My roommates are gone for the weekend.”
He stares at you, stunned. Hopes the neon glow is bright enough to wash out the red rushing to his cheeks.
“Yeah,” he manages. “Sure. Yeah. Okay.”
You smile and reach for his hand, threading your fingers through his.
You don’t let go.
He definitely does not let go.
⚓︎
You’re kissing him the moment the door clicks shut.
There’s no pause, no awkward second-guessing—just the soft thud of the door and then you’re there, hands fisted in his shirt, lips warm and insistent against his. It’s messy and eager, teeth knocking, breath tangling, soft laughter trapped between two mouths as he murmurs, We should—we should probably slow down, even as he’s nudging his sneakers off with his heel.
Your apartment is small in the best way, quiet and lived-in. Soft amber lamplight, a throw blanket folded over the couch, lingering scents of citrus and cinnamon. Steve takes it in only in flashes, details flickering at the edges of his vision before your fingers slide back into his hair and the rest of the world drops away.
Clothes come off in a scattered trail to your bedroom.
Your jeans get kicked aside in the hallway. His shirt gets stuck halfway over his head and he has to pull back, laughing breathlessly while you help tug it free, your hands warm against his sides. He keeps his lips pressed to yours as he guides you backward, hands around your waist, bumping his shoulder in the doorframe and grinning like an idiot.
It’s not until you’re straddling him that he really stops.
Until he’s sitting on your bed, your sheets rumpled under his hands, your pillow pressed against his back.
You’re in his lap in nothing but your underwear, knees snug around his hips, solid and warm and real.
Steve looks down.
Feels it hit him all at once.
He hasn’t done this in a while. Hasn’t had a real girlfriend in college, too busy chasing grades, covering rent, picking up shifts whenever he could. A few dates here and there—awkward dinners, polite kisses—nothing that ever stayed.
Nothing that felt like this.
Your hand comes up, soft and sure, brushing along his cheek.
“Hey,” you murmur. “You okay?”
He swallows.
Steve doesn’t know if there is a word for what he’s feeling. Okay feels laughably small for what’s sitting in his chest right now, this swelling mix of affection and disbelief and something like gratitude.
“Yeah,” he starts, instinctively reaching for easy words. Fine. Good. All good.
Then he stops, shakes his head. Why hold back? Why say anything less than the truth?
“God, I just—” He exhales, voice thick, heart full, "I can’t believe I found you.”
Your expression softens, eyes shining as you lean down to kiss him again.
And that, more than words, feels like being found right back.
⚓︎
What happens next is a slow unlearning of loneliness.
A careful dismantling of habits built around absence, years of swallowed affection and muted instincts.
Steve Harrington has learned to hush the restless stirrings of his heart, to press down the parts that ache too loudly, that reach too far, that insist on wanting. He’s gotten good at filling his days with noise, instead. Convinced himself that wanting too much is the same as wanting wrong. That loneliness is a failing, something you earn by expecting more than you’re allowed to have.
He's blamed himself for it for as long as he can remember.
But being with you is like a light dropped straight into the darkest hollow of him, the deepest pit in the sand, a sudden clarity that leaves nowhere to hide. He realizes, with quiet devastation, just how far down the emptiness goes. How much he’s learned to live without.
And now, here, with you, he has to unlearn it.
It happens slowly. In inches. In pauses.
A quiet rediscovery of loving you in this new, intimate way.
He wants to know everything.
He wants to know what makes your breath hitch. What makes your fingers curl into the sheets. What makes you go quiet in that way that tells him he’s doing something right.
He kisses you constantly. Your mouth, your jaw, the soft place beneath your ear, the hollow at your throat—familiar paths he remembers tracing once upon a time, and new ones he maps with reverent patience.
He slides down over your stomach, kissing his way lower, gaze fixed on the heavy flutter of your lashes, the swell of your ribs when you let out a pleasured sigh. He takes your hand and fists it into his hair, hoping you’ll guide him—let him learn you, let him get this right.
And when he buries his face between your thighs for the first time—nose pressing into your mound, breathing you in, tasting you—it feels like coming home.
He’s missed this, being on his knees, giving. It used to be his favorite thing, always loved the way it quieted his mind, narrowed the world down to a single purpose. It made him feel useful, wanted.
But with you, this ritual turns into something else entirely.
He tracks your reactions with obsessive devotion: the furrow of your brow, the slow roll of your hips. The way your mouth falls open when he does something just right, when you want him to stay still, right there, exactly where you need him.
When he kisses his way back up your body, when he lines himself up with shaking hands and presses inside you, it’s face to face.
There’s no other way he could do it. Mouth to mouth. Forehead to forehead. Kissing, kissing, never not kissing; he needs the contact, the anchor, the constant reassurance that this is real.
That you’re here.
He wants to swallow the sounds you’re making, the way you gasp his name, and lock it inside himself. Let it sink deep, press it into bone and marrow. Carry it into that hollow place in his chest and let it bloom, fill him up until there’s no room left for doubt.
He knows he’s not going to last very long. You’re so soft, so wet, so impossibly beautiful, he can already feel the tension gathering low in his gut.
He only fights it long enough to get the words out.
Words that have been there for years. Pressed down, swallowed, buried under caution and embarrassment and the certainty that he always feels too much, too fast. Nobody ever wanted that kind of intensity for very long.
But he’s tired of pretending.
And with you, he doesn’t have to.
He holds your hand against the bed, brings his forehead to yours.
The words cling to his throat, years of longing coiled tight—but this time, he doesn’t force them down.
With his lips brushing yours, he finally lets them go.
“I love you.”
The fear is instinctive. Familiar. A split-second flinch where he waits for the recoil, the moment someone decides it’s too much after all.
But it melts clean away when you answer him without hesitation, arms tightening around his neck as you kiss him back.
“I love you, too.”
And the hollow place in his chest turns into the sun once more.
⚓︎
The rest of the night is spent talking.
Kissing, touching, holding, kissing some more, just because he can.
He starts with the easy things. The dumb things. Stories about bad roommates, the worst job he ever worked, the time he locked himself out of his car in the rain and had to wait two hours for a tow.
Eventually, the jokes thin out. The pauses stretch.
He shifts, breathes in, and starts talking about the things he doesn’t like to think about. The quiet fears he keeps folded away. The weight of expectations, some inherited, some entirely his own. How surreal it feels to wake up as someone his younger self could never have pictured. To realize that the future he imagined so clearly once—simple, linear, inevitable—never actually existed.
He admits, quietly, that sometimes he worries there’s something wrong with him.
That everyone else seems to know how to be casual about life in a way he never has. Like they can want things lightly, hold them loosely, walk away without it costing them anything.
He’s never been built that way.
He feels things fast and deep. And for a long time, he resented it. Resented how much it hurt, how impossible it felt to turn it off.
You don’t interrupt. You just listen, fingers laced through his, thumb brushing slow circles over his knuckles. Every so often, you squeeze his hand, and he squeezes back.
Once the hardest parts are out, his thoughts drift forward.
He talks about wanting a job that matters to people. That helps. Something that lets him look at himself at the end of the day and feel like he showed up right, even if he hasn’t figured out what that’s supposed to look like yet. He wants to believe there’s a place for him in this world where caring isn’t a weakness.
When the conversation lulls into silence, you tilt your head back to look up at him.
“Did you ever learn how to surf?” you ask.
“Hm?”
“Surf. I remember you always wanted to see what that was like. When we were kids.”
He lets out a small smile. “No. I mean, I thought about it, but... just never had the time. Or the balance.”
You hum and settle comfortably against his chest. “Tomorrow.”
He blinks. “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” you repeat. “There’s a part of the beach I want to show you. You have to squeeze between some rocks to get there, but it opens up into this hidden alcove. Could be like our new secret spot.”
Steve smiles into your hair, already imaging it. Doing what he’s always done: throwing himself into the picture, letting it fill him up.
Tomorrow, you’ll take him to the beach.
Down between the rocks, your favorite spot.
You’ll show him where to step and where not to. You’ll rent two surfboards from that tiny shack down the road. You’ll laugh when he wipes out the second he hits the water, sputtering and embarrassed.
You’ll teach him how to stand. How to trust the water.
How to fly, just a little.
Tomorrow, he’ll show you the shoebox.
The one tucked into the bottom drawer of his dresser. The one that followed him through moving days and borrowed apartments. Filled with pieces of you he never let himself leave behind.
Tomorrow, he’ll give you what he couldn’t at the age of thirteen.
A stack of letters, one for every year since the summer he met you. ’72 all the way through ’79.
He always wrote them the night before he left for the Hamptons, lying awake with his heart pounding, thinking about the long stretch of coast waiting for him—and the best friend he’d get to share it with.
He never found the courage to bring them with him when he was younger. But he kept writing anyway. Promising himself that, one day, he’d be brave enough to give them all to you.
He imagines sitting beside you while you read each one out loud. Smiling, shaking your head.
Maybe you’ll tease him, call him cheesy, a hopeless romantic.
He doesn’t think you will, though. He thinks you’ll be gentle. He thinks you’ll love him more for it.
And once that thought takes hold, the future comes rushing in—faster, fuller, harder to stop.
He starts imagining days that stretch far beyond tomorrow, days where he wakes before you and watches the sunlight move across your face. Burnt toast and cheap coffee. Walking you home after class, fingers laced, listening to you talk about your day.
A shared place down by the water. Small, probably. Close enough to the beach that the sand never really leaves. Grocery lists on the fridge. Music playing while you cook together, bumping hips, stealing kisses.
He catches himself, shakes the thoughts loose with a soft, embarrassed breath.
Eight years is a long time to be apart. He knows there’s still so much about you he doesn’t know. True to form, he’s moving too fast, chasing desire before reason can catch up.
But eight years is also nothing.
Nothing measured against a lifetime. Nothing but a detour that still carried him back toward the main path. It only ever led to one place.
You stir softly in half-sleep, nestled beneath his arm, and Steve presses a little closer.
Sleep pulls at him too, heavy and kind.
He surrenders to it, lets it take him, because for now, it’s enough.
For now, he has tomorrow.
⚓︎
In dreams, he is thirteen again.
He is twelve, he is ten, he is six, and he is five.
He is walking down a wide, endless expanse of blue, waves whispering at his feet, the sky stretching forever overhead.
And beside him, hand in hand, is his best friend in the whole world.
June 24th, 1979
Hi!
I know I’m going to see you tomorow but I wanted to write this anyway. Sometimes when I try to say stuff out loud it doesn’t come out right. I know what I meen in my head but it gets all messed up or I forget what I was going to say. Writing it down makes it better.
I wrote you a letter every summer. One for every year. So you won’t forget me and all the fun things we did and the stuff we talked about. I keep all of them in a box, kind of like how you keep all your rocks and shells. Some of the older ones are really bad and there’s a lot of drawings and speling mistakes but maybe you’ll still like them.
I think about you a lot when we’re not together. Like when something funny happens or when I see something you like. Last week I saw a picture of a crab in my science book and I thought about what name you would give it.
I really really like you. You’re funny and nice and you understand me better than anyone else. You listen to me even when I talk too much or can’t say some words right. You make me feel special. I don’t have to pretend to be different or cooler or anything when I’m with you.
Sometimes I wish I lived in Californiya so we could see each other every day. I think about that a lot. Like we could just hang out whenever we wanted. Go to the beach and do surfing and stuff. Maybe one day I could come visit you or you could come visit me.
I’m really excited to see you tomorow. I hope you like this and I hope you don't think it’s dumb. I just want you to know how much you mean to me.
P.S. This is my adress so you can write me back if you want. 1590 willow creek lane, loch nora, hawkins, indiana 46001
P.P.S. I listened to that band you told me about. I really like the song You Make Loving Fun. It makes me think about you. Maybe we can listen to it together when I see you tomorrow?
btw i want to say that the entire tumblr community banding together is what got these changes reversed so i hope u all realise the power of a reblog and start reblogging posts instead of just liking them this is the reblog website so hit that button right now
Apparently, from what I hear people say, in the new Tumblr update, if someone reblogs your post and adds a comment of their own, that reblog is counted as a new post and it belongs to the reblogger. Not you. You, as the OP, do not get the notifications if someone else later reblogs from the person who reblogged your post with their own comment. You can’t see what comments people leave on the reblogs of the post you originally made unless they reblogged directly from you.
If this is actually true, it will just open doors for harassment. And also it takes the credits away from the OPs. Tumblr’s etiquette has always been “reblog don’t repost”. So this new update, if true, contradicts the whole core values of Tumblr as a community.
Respectfully, we don’t want this @staff @support @tumblr @changes please listen to your users.
I’d also like to clarify that this is what I hear from what a lot of people are saying, and it bothers me. But if I got anything wrong, I do apologize.
As game developers continue to argue about the value of generative AI tools, some genAI inventors are trying to claim for copyright on their
"Thaler's lawyers complain that if the Copyright Office's reign of terror continues unchecked, it 'will have irreversibly and negatively impacted AI development and use in the creative industry during critically important years.'"
warning: +18 | mourning | grief | alcohol comsumption | emotional hurt/comfort | fluff | healing | fate vs free will | praise kink | smut | gentle sex | aftercare | grief has already taken his father, do not let it take his soul.
summary: You saw the future. You saw that spring would be the last for the young heir prince, Valarr. On the day they buried the Breakspear, you convinced him to trade his crown for a life with you.
author's note: ever since I saw my boy at his father’s funeral, I felt compelled to comfort him... but I am doomed to love melancholic characters with tragic endings, never meant to actually have them. So I am writing about how we, Valarr’s wives, would comfort him.
cr: gif ᦸ @gameofthronesdaily ٫٫ my cat also accept tiny treats. ٫٫ words count: 13k
The evening in King's Landing was heavy with grief.
The sky hung grey and low over the Great Sept of Baelor, as if the gods themselves had bowed their heads for the death of Baelor Targaryen, the Breakspear. The air smelled of tallow candles, incense, wilted flowers, and the red wine that spilled from the nobles' full cups like blood shed in vain.
You were no noble, no.
Your dress was the kind of faded white belonging to one who washed her clothes in the river and relied on the sun to dry them. The fabric was simple, but it clothed your body as you liked, marking the curve of your breasts and the slenderness of your hips. Your feet were bare, dirtied from the road, and in your hair you had braided a few wildflowers.
In your hand, a cup of wine.
You did not know the name of the man who had served you, nor did you care. You drank slowly, not out of elegance, but because you wanted to taste the farewell on your tongue. The liquid was strong, bitter, burning your throat, as if it were only right that it should hurt. You wanted the last thing you kept of Baelor not to be the smell of death, but the warmth of the wine going down your throat, warm like the smile he had given you the last time you saw him.
You stood there for a few moments, before the body of him who had been the only good man you had ever known.
"Who are you?"
The voice came from behind, deep, suspicious. You turned slowly, balancing the cup with the same skill with which you balanced yourself after a few cups too many.
It was Prince Maekar.
You recognised him by his hard features, by the look that seemed to want to pierce through you, and by the guilt that followed a step behind. He watched you as if you were a mistake, so you inclined your head in a gesture that was not quite a bow.
"Someone who also came to say farewell."
Maekar frowned.
"That is no answer."
"It is the only one I have."
You took a sip of wine, feeling the prince's gaze weigh upon you like a stone. He was not a bad man — so they said — but he was a tired man. And tired men rarely have patience for riddles.
"My brother was buried today," he said, his voice breaking for an instant. "I am in no humour to deal with the likes of you."
You lowered your cup, finally, and looked at him with an honesty that disarmed him.
"Nor am I, my prince. I came from very far to be here. In truth, leaving Flea Bottom without being killed is near enough a miracle."
The name made Maekar raise an eyebrow.
"Flea Bottom?"
"Some years ago, your brother found me in an alley, about to be sold as a slave by merchants who had taken me by force. He did not have to do anything, but he did. He paid for me. Gave me food, a roof, a purpose. Said I deserved more than that. And he deserved more than this."
Your voice trembled now, but you held firm.
"He was the only good man to cross my path in my whole life. The only one who looked at me as if I were a person. So yes, Prince Maekar," you raised your cup, in a silent toast to the air, "I came to say farewell. And there is no force in the world that could have kept me from being here today."
Maekar was silent for a long time. The cold evening wind stirred the flowers in your hair, and when he spoke, his voice came out lower.
"He never told me."
"He did not need anyone to know to do good."
The prince looked away, and you saw, for an instant, the pain he tried to hide behind the armour of a serious man.
"Stay until the end, if you wish," he said, finally. "And then... well, then you decide what to do."
He walked away without waiting for an answer.
You stayed until the end.
The funeral dragged on for hours. Hymns were sung, incense was burned, tears were shed that were not always true. You stayed at the back, leaning against a cold stone column, watching. You did not approach the royal family, did not try to speak to anyone. You merely stayed.
When the last septon fell silent, when the last nobles withdrew to their warmed chambers, when the torches began to crackle lower, you were still there.
The stone floor of the Sept was icy beneath your bare feet, but you no longer felt it. You looked to the place where Baelor's body had lain, and the tears you had held back all day finally came.
"Why did you have to go there?" you whispered, your voice thick. "Why did it have to be you?"
You wiped your face with the back of your hand, sniffling softly. You needed to leave. You needed air.
That was when you saw him.
Outside the Sept, in a secluded corner of the garden, someone sat upon a large stone, covered by the black cloak of House Targaryen. The hood was down, and the dim light of day's end illuminated dark hair — very dark — with a streak of white falling at the side. His eyes were red from weeping, and you did not fail to notice that one was blue and the other, brown.
Valarr.
Baelor's son… the one he had spoken of so often, asking what you saw about the young prince. You had never imagined the meeting would be like this; you had never even imagined you would one day leave Flea Bottom for the sept.
But something inside you — that strange thing that always pulled you where you should not go — made your feet move towards him.
You stumbled a little on the way. The wine still had its effect, and the damp earth of the garden did not help, but you went on, with the flowers in your hair, the white dress staining at the hem, until you stopped beside him.
Valarr lifted his face.
For a moment, he merely looked at you. The mismatched eyes travelled over your face, your dress, the flowers in your hair, your bare feet. There was sadness in them, yes, but also something akin to wonder. As if you were a vision, a strange dream his weariness was conjuring.
"Go away," he said, his voice hoarse.
You tilted your head, a small smile forming at the corner of your mouth.
"No."
He frowned.
"No?"
"No. I would not miss the chance to see someone as prettu as you crying."
The comment caught him off guard. He blinked, and for an instant, the sadness gave way to something confused, almost irritated.
"What are you talking about?"
"You, of course," you said, shrugging, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Today would have been a horrible day if I had not seen you."
Valarr stared at you for a long second. Then, he let out a snort, a sound that could have been laughter or disbelief, you could not tell.
"You are drunk."
"A little, but that does not mean I am wrong."
He looked away, his shoulders tense beneath the cloak.
"You know nothing about me."
"I know more than you think."
You sat on the ground beside his stone, without ceremony, pulling at your dress to keep it from getting dirtier than it already was. You raised the cup — still with a bit of wine — towards him.
"Want some?"
He looked at the cup, then at you.
"Do you always offer wine to princes?"
"Only to those who look like they need a swallow."
This time, he almost smiled. Almost.
Valarr held the cup for a moment, as if it weighed more in his hands than it should. Then, he brought it to his lips and took a long drink. The wine was cheap, of the sort served to the common folk, but he did not seem to mind.
"You were inside," he said, more statement than question. "I saw you. At the back, near the column."
You raised an eyebrow.
"I thought I would go unnoticed. But I was wearing white in a place where everyone dressed in black."
"And I am not blind."
He handed the cup back. His fingers brushed yours for an instant, and you felt a strange warmth where the skin touched, like a spark that dies before you can name it.
"Why did you stay?" he asked. "No nobles stayed until the end, only family… and you."
"I am no noble."
"That I saw."
He did not say it as an insult. He merely stated it, with a disarming honesty.
You shrugged, drawing your knees up towards your chest, hugging your legs.
"He was good to me. That is not paid for with half an hour of mourning. It is paid for by staying until the last moment, even if he does not know. Even if no one sees."
Valarr was silent for a long time. When he spoke, his voice came out lower.
"He was like that. Good. People speak of the prince, the heir, the knight… but no one speaks of that. Of how he was simply good."
"You know," you said. It was not a question.
He looked at you.
"He was my father."
"And you loved him."
"Yes."
The word came out simple, bare, without defences. And in that moment, seeing the way he gripped his cloak tightly, how his chin trembled slightly even as he tried to hide it, you felt something tighten inside you.
"He spoke of you," you said, softly.
Valarr lifted his face.
"He always spoke of me."
"It would be strange if he did not…" you took a sip of wine, moving your hands in gestures. "He said you were too seriou, unlike me, that you lived with your head in books, always learning to be the best, and that you had a good heart. He said that one day I should meet you."
Valarr nodded, absorbing this.
"And why is that?"
"I am not like the noble girls you must have known; I would hate to dress like them too," you said, plucking a flower from beside the stone he sat on and tucking it into his cloak. "But Baelor thought you might trust me more because of it. More than you trusted him."
"Did you see him often? Were you his lover? Half-sister?"
"No! No!… seven hells, Valarr, no!" you scolded him, startling him as if he had asked the most absurd questions. And he had. "I did not see your father as often as I would have liked, but whenever he passed through the city, he found a way to seek me out. He brought food, coins, asked if I was well. He said I reminded him of a sister he never had."
Your voice faltered on the last word. You looked away, blinking rapidly to hold back the tears that threatened to return.
Valarr said nothing, but you felt the movement before you saw his hand reaching out, hesitant, hovering in the air for a moment before landing lightly upon yours.
The touch was timid, almost a request for permission. As if he did not know if he could, if he should, if it was right.
You turned your hand, interlacing your fingers with his.
"What is your name?" he asked, after a long silence.
"No one has asked me that for a long time."
"I am asking."
You smiled, a small, sad smile.
"You may call me whatever you like. Names do not matter much to me."
He frowned, but did not insist.
"Very well. Then… what did you do? Besides receiving visits from my father?"
"Many things, Prince Valarr. I helped the children not go hungry, tended to the sick with herbs I gathered in the fields. Sometimes, when someone was desperate enough, I would look into their future and tell them what I saw."
Valarr looked at you with an expression you could not decipher.
"You have dreams? Like Daeron?"
"No, not dreams. I see things. Pieces. It is not something I control; it happens when I least expect it."
He was silent for a moment. Then, he let out a short, humourless laugh.
"If you could see the future, why did you not warn my father not to go to that damned trial by seven?"
The question hurt more than you expected.
"I did warn him, my prince," you drank again from the wine, trying to hide the thickness in your voice. "I did the best I could, but I cannot control a dragon."
Valarr froze.
"I warned him two years ago, and then again before you all left for Ashford. I faced the royal guards and shouted his name until he came. And when he did, I told him that if he went through with what was right, he would not come home. Not the same way he left."
You felt the knot in your throat tighten.
"I remember how Prince Baelor looked at me, and placed his hand on my shoulder, and said: 'Sometimes, doing what is right costs more than we are willing to pay, but it is still right.' Then he called the guards and had them take me away. He told me not to worry, that everything would be well."
Tears streamed down your face as you smiled in disbelief. Disbelief that you had thought a prince would listen to you; disbelief that you had thought you could change fate.
"Your father knew he was going to die, Valarr. He chose to fight."
The young prince did not move. His hand squeezed yours more tightly, as if you were a support, an anchor in a sea that threatened to sweep him away.
"Why would he do that?" his voice came out rough. "Why would he walk towards death knowing it awaited him?"
"Because he was a good man. Because he thought he could cheat the gods in the trial by seven, where no guard could stand against him. But the gods punish cheats. In their sight, that was not fair."
You wiped your face with your free hand, sniffing.
"And because he knew that if he did not go, another would have to. And he did not want anyone to die in his place. Truth be told, he thought there was no chance he would die. But I warned him."
You were silent again, and perhaps that was for the best. Telling Valarr the truth, knowing the gods would punish him for his fury, or that his own family might change him.
Then, he looked at you, admiring each line of your face, pondering for a moment.
"Did you see my death?"
The question came so low you almost did not hear it. There was fear there, in his eyes, but also a strange courage, like one who would rather know the worst than live in doubt.
"I saw it."
He swallowed hard.
"How?"
"Sickness. You and the king. I do not know what causes it, I do not know when, but I saw flowers… spring. I saw the two of you ill, weak, and Matarys too, then… nothing."
Valarr was silent for a long time. His hand still held yours, but now his fingers trembled slightly.
"How long?" he asked finally. "How long until it happens?"
"I do not know. Visions do not come with dates. But it will be during spring. It could be this one, or the next. It would be hard to know."
He released your hand suddenly, rising in a swift movement. He began to pace back and forth, his steps nervous on the damp earth.
"You must be one of those Pentoshi witches, come to curse my family. I cannot stay here listening to this. You are drunk, I am in mourning, none of this makes sense."
"I am flattered to be called a witch. You are not the first. However, I am quite sure I am not one," you said, clearly. "You should trust me, my prince."
He stopped pacing and turned to you, his eyes brimming with anger and despair.
"And what would you have me do? Flee? Abandon my family, my name, my duty? I am now my grandfather's heir."
"You will not be more than that if you stay in King's Landing, Valarr… you will be a king who never was, just like your father," you answered, rising as well. "If you wish, you may try to change your fate. But I cannot stop you from choosing what you think is right, just as you could not stop your father."
"You are telling me to pretend I am not who I am? To vanish in the night like a coward?"
"Like someone who chose to live."
You took a step towards him, and then another, until you stood face to face. The height difference was great, but you were not intimidated by how much taller he was than you expected. You lifted your face and looked into his eyes.
"I do not know what will kill you, Valarr. I do not know if it is plague, if it is poison, if it is something from within. But I know you have a chance to avoid it if you leave here. If you go far away."
He stared at you for a long moment. The wind blew, stirring the flowers in your hair, and you saw something change in his gaze.
"Why do you care?" he asked, his voice breaking. "You do not even know me."
"I knew your father. And he loved you. That is enough for me."
Valarr looked away, but you saw his chin tremble.
"I cannot simply go," he whispered.
"No one is tying you to the foot of the Iron Throne, my prince."
"And where would I go?"
"Anywhere. We could go together."
The word 'together' hung in the air between you. He looked at you, confused.
"Together? You would come with me?"
"Why not? I am leaving tonight. There is nothing to keep me here, waiting for the same sickness to kill me. The only good man I ever knew in this city is dead now. What is left for me?"
Valarr opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came. He seemed lost, as if the ground were shifting beneath his feet.
"You are asking me to flee with a stranger," he said, finally. "A stranger who saw the future, who knew my father…"
"And who offered you wine," you finished, a small smile appearing. "Do not forget the wine."
He let out a sound that could have been laughter, could have been tears. He ran a hand over his face, weary.
"This is madness."
"I am going to Dorne. Or Winterfell. You have until spring to find me."
You took another step, standing so close you could feel the warmth of his body in the cold evening. You raised your hand and, slowly, touched his face. The skin was damp from recent tears, soft beneath your fingers.
"You are pretty when you cry," you whispered. "But you are more pretty when you smile. I wish I could see that more often, Prince Valarr."
He caught his breath, and for a moment, the world seemed to stop. Then, slowly, he raised his hand and covered yours, which still rested on his cheek. His eyes were fixed on yours, intense, searching for something; perhaps a lie, perhaps confirmation.
"If I go," he said, his voice low, "will it be with you?"
"Yes."
"And if I wish to return one day?"
"You return, when you feel you must. When it is your time to sit the throne."
"And if I never wish to return?"
You smiled, a sweet, sad smile.
"Then we will find a new place to live."
He was silent for a long time, just looking at you. The grey day bathed his face in silver, highlighting the white streak in his dark hair, the eyes of different colours, the mouth slightly open like one who still does not believe what he is about to say.
"What shall I call you?" he asked, finally. "If we are to spend the rest of our lives together, I need a name."
"Choose something to call me. After all, I shall not walk the Seven Kingdoms calling you 'prince'."
He thought for a moment. Then, a small smile — the first you had seen on him — appeared at the corner of his mouth.
"My maid."
You raised your eyebrows, and pushed him hard by the shoulder, heading towards the road.
"If you think I will serve you just because you are a pretty-faced little prince, I had best go to Dorne alone."
"My wife."
You felt the heat rise to your cheeks.
"Your wife?"
"Yes. We do not know what sort of folk, or what sort of men, we shall meet upon the road. And Dorne lies at the other end."
You laughed, disbelieving, and set your hand on your hip, narrowing your eyes.
"Very well, 'husband'."
He walked to you and held your hand more firmly, and this time it was not timid. It was firm, like one who had already made his choice and would not turn back.
You did not know if you could handle Valarr's grief, for it would be only the two of you, and your whole life had been just you and no one else. You were both suffering, but Baelor was his father, and his pain ran deeper. Leaving his life behind would not be easy, and everything would become a whirlwind for him. You feared it might make him ill.
"And if you fall ill?" you asked, suddenly. "Do I bring you back?"
"I cannot fall ill. Or else I would condemn you to die with me," he said, a sad smile on his lips. "We shall need horses. But first, I will fetch what I can."
"Are you sure about this?" you asked, holding his hand. "About wanting to come with me?"
"My choice is the right one, wife. I do not wish to die."
The moon was already high when you heard the hoofbeats of a horse on the dirt road.
You were leaning against a tree, on the outskirts of the city, where you had promised to wait. The night was cold, and you had pulled the white dress over your knees, your feet still bare, the flowers in your hair already wilting. For a moment, you feared he would not come. That reason had won out, that duty had spoken louder.
But then the silhouette emerged from the darkness.
Valarr came riding a magnificent horse — a warhorse, large and dark as the night, with head held high and the steady step of one who knew its worth. He himself now wore simpler clothes, nothing that shouted "prince", but still there was something about him he could not hide: the bearing, the look, the white streak the moon insisted upon lighting.
He stopped before you and dismounted without a word. For a long moment, they merely looked at each other. Then, he extended his hand.
"I came."
You smiled, a small smile, and let him pull you up.
"I know."
He mounted behind you in the saddle, and for an instant there was the awkwardness of strange bodies adjusting, hands that did not know where to rest. But then his arms encircled your waist to reach the reins, and the warmth of his chest against your back warmed something inside you.
"South?" his voice sounded close to your ear.
"South."
He pressed his legs to the horse, and you rode towards where the wind was warmer.
The first night was the hardest.
They stopped at a simple inn by the roadside, the sort that asked no names nor origins, so long as you paid in silver. Valarr arranged for two separate chambers — he insisted on it, with a formality almost funny coming from someone who had just abandoned his own life to flee with a stranger.
"You are my wife now," he said, his eyes looking away. "But that does not mean that… I mean to say, I shall not…"
"Take liberties?" you finished, a smile playing on your lips. "What a gentleman."
He blushed. He actually blushed. A Targaryen prince, heir to the throne, blushing like a boy.
"Sleep well, my wife."
"Sleep well, my husband."
You parted at the door, each to their own side, but you did not sleep well. You woke in the middle of the night to a strange sound coming from the chamber next door. It was muffled, like a groan of pain, or perhaps quiet weeping. You lay still for a moment, listening, your heart tight.
Then, without much thought, you rose.
His chamber door was not locked, and you entered slowly. Valarr was thrashing in the bed, the sheets tangled around his legs, his face contorted in agony. His brow shone with sweat, and he murmured senseless things — scattered words, names.
"Father… father, no… do not go…"
You crossed the chamber and sat on the edge of the bed. You hesitated for an instant, then reached out and touched his face. It was warm. Too warm.
"Valarr," you called, softly. "Valarr, wake up."
He did not wake. He continued to struggle, his eyes moving beneath his lids, his breath short and quick. You passed your hand over his brow, then his neck, searching for signs. Fever. He had a fever.
"No, no, no," you whispered, panic rising. "Not now. It cannot be now."
With trembling hands, you rose and went to the water basin in the corner of the chamber. You wet a cloth and returned to his side, dabbing gently at his face, his chest, trying to lower the fever.
"You will not die," you said, your voice breaking. "You will not die, Valarr. I will not let you abandon me too."
The words came out unthinking, and only afterwards did you realise what you had said. You swallowed the tears and continued passing the cloth.
At some point, between one movement and another, you lay down beside him on the bed. You had not thought about it; it simply happened, your body finding his, your arm draping over his chest, your head finding a place on his shoulder.
And you began to sing. It was an old song, the sort your mother used to sing to you before she died, before Flea Bottom, before everything. A song about the sea, about sailing far away, about finding peace after the storm. You did not know if the words made sense, did not know if he could hear, but you kept singing, softly, while his hand found yours and squeezed — weakly, but squeezed.
"Stay," he murmured, still asleep. "Do not go."
"I will not," you answered, pushing the hair from his brow. "I am here."
When you woke, the morning light was coming through the crack in the window.
The first thing you felt was the warmth. Not Valarr's fever, but the warmth of a living body, breathing, beside you. The second thing you felt were his fingers moving slowly through your hair, parting the strands with a tenderness that made your chest ache.
You lifted your face.
Valarr was awake, his mismatched eyes fixed on you with an expression you could not decipher. The fever had broken — or perhaps it had only been a nightmare, a scare — but he still looked fragile, vulnerable in a way you had not imagined a prince could be.
"You sang to me," he said, his voice hoarse with sleep.
You looked away, feeling the heat rise to your cheeks.
"You had a fever and nightmares. I did not know what else to do. I thought you were falling ill."
"I am not ill."
"I truly hope not."
He was silent for a moment, but his hand kept moving through your hair, and you closed your eyes, letting it happen.
"No one has ever done that for me," he said, so low you almost did not hear. "No one has ever stayed when I asked."
You opened your eyes and looked at him.
"Well, I stayed. But I could have gone."
The smile that appeared on his face was small, fragile, but it was a smile. And in that soft morning light, with his dark hair tousled and the white streak falling across his face, he was exactly what you had said in the sept.
Handsome. Too handsome.
"Your fever broke," you said, changing the subject before the silence grew too heavy. "It was only a scare, I think."
"My nightmares have always been like that," he admitted. "Since I was a child. My mother used to say I would cry in my sleep."
"And you cry awake too."
He laughed, a low, surprised sound, as if he had forgotten how.
"You are terrible."
"You like it."
His gaze met yours, and for a moment the air seemed to leave the room.
"I do," he confessed.
You stayed like that for a while longer, lying in the small inn bed. Then you sat up, pulling at the white dress that had rumpled overnight.
"We need to eat something and be on our way. Dorne does not come closer while we sit here idle."
Valarr watched you rise, and when you turned to leave, he called out:
"Wait."
You stopped.
He rose too, crossed the room in long strides, and stopped before you. For a moment, he seemed to hesitate. Then he raised his hand and touched your face with the same gentleness with which he had run his fingers through your hair.
"Thank you," he said. "For last night. For today. For… everything."
You covered his hand with yours.
"That is what wives are for, is it not?"
He smiled again, and this time the smile lit up his whole face.
The following days were like that.
They rode during the day, stopping at inns or, when there were none, camping by the roadside. Valarr had brought money — more than you had imagined — and food, and even clothes for you. Simple dresses, but of good fabric, and a pair of boots you took time getting used to after so long barefoot.
"How did you know my size?" you asked, when he handed you the boots.
He blushed, that lovely colour rising from his cheeks to his ears.
"I… looked. When you slept, that first night. Your feet were sticking out of the bed, and I…"
"You measured my feet while I slept?"
"It was only a quick look!"
You laughed, a warm laugh that echoed on the empty road, and he joined you, embarrassed but clearly pleased to have got it right.
The nights were harder.
Valarr's grief came in waves. Sometimes he would be quiet for hours, his eyes lost on the horizon. Other times, in the middle of the night, you would wake to the sound of his crying muffled in the pillow of the next chamber. And always — always — you went to him.
You did not ask if you could; you did not wait for him to call you. You merely entered, sat on the bed, and stayed. Sometimes you sang. Sometimes you only held his hand. Sometimes you let him bury his face in your shoulder and cry until he could cry no more. And slowly, between one tear and another, between one smile and another, something was changing.
On the fifth night of travel, you did not sleep in separate chambers.
It had rained all day, and you arrived at an inn soaked through, shivering with cold. There was only one chamber free, with a single bed far too small for two.
"I shall sleep on the floor," Valarr offered at once.
"You will not."
"But…"
"Valarr." You set your hands on your hips, looking at him. "We are to spend the rest of our lives together, according to you. Will you sleep on the floor every single night?"
He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.
"When you speak like that, it seems so simple."
"Because it is simple."
And simple it was.
That night, you lay side by side in the small bed, bodies touching because there was no room not to touch. You felt his warmth at your back, his breath in your hair, and for the first time in days, the silence between you was not difficult.
"May I ask you something?" his voice sounded in the dark.
"Yes."
"Why did you go to the sept?"
The question was simple, but you felt its weight.
"I told you. Your father…"
"No. I know that. But why did you stay? After everyone had left. After it was over. Why were you still there?"
You thought for a moment.
"Because when someone goes, a void remains. And I wanted to fill that void with my presence, even if he could no longer feel it. Even if no one saw, I needed him to know, somehow, that he was not alone in death. Just as he was not alone in life."
The silence that followed was long. Then, you felt his arms wrap around you from behind, pulling you close.
"You are the kindest person I have ever known," he whispered near your ear. "After my father."
The tears came warm and silent. You did not wipe them away; you only let them fall as his hands held yours.
"We shall be alright," you said, more to yourself than to him. "We shall."
"We shall," he confirmed. "because we have each other."
The next morning, the sun rose golden over the road.
You woke with the warmth of his body still wrapped around yours, and for a moment you merely lay there, feeling. His chest rising and falling against your back. His arm heavy on your waist. The calm breathing of one who slept in peace.
And for the first time since leaving King's Landing, you felt that perhaps, just perhaps, everything might turn out well.
The road to Dorne was long, and winter insisted on showing its teeth through the trees. You had discovered, in the first days of travel, that Valarr Targaryen did not know how to light a fire.
"How can a man of twenty seven years not know how to light a fire?" you asked, incredulous, watching him rub two stones together with the determination of one who expected the fire to appear by miracle.
"I was a prince," he answered, his shoulders tense with shame. "I had people for that."
"And now?"
He lifted his face, the white streak smudged with ash, his mismatched eyes flashing.
"Now I have you."
You laughed, a pleasant sound you were growing used to hearing from yourself, and knelt beside him. With the patience of one who had taught Flea Bottom children to survive, you covered his hands with yours.
"It is not strength, it is skill. You strike the stone like this, at an angle, letting the spark fall on the dry straw. Then you blow slowly, as if you were seducing the fire."
He looked at you sideways, a small smile forming.
"Seducing the fire?"
"Fire is like a woman, Valarr. It needs patience, gentleness, and at the right moment, a warm breath."
His laughter echoed in the clearing, and you felt your chest warm in a way you were beginning to know well.
Two weeks on the road and Valarr was still, undeniably, a prince.
He rode as if born on a horse's back, yes, and had an impressive aim with the bow they bought in the first village. But he also tried to pay with gold coins at inns where no one had seen gold for generations, greeted people with the formality of one raised to rule, and looked at chickens as if they were mythical creatures.
"It will peck you if you keep staring," you warned, one afternoon when you stopped to rest at a farm.
Valarr stepped back, alarmed.
"Peck?"
"Yes. They do that. They have beaks. They peck. Did your books teach you nothing?"
"My books did not speak of chickens."
You held back your laughter and reached out your hand to him.
"Come. I shall introduce you."
And so you spent the afternoon teaching a Targaryen prince how to milk a goat (disaster), how to recognise edible herbs (he mistook parsley for a poisonous plant and you only noticed in time because the horse refused to eat it), and how to walk barefoot.
"This is disgusting," he said, when you made him remove his boots on a dirt path.
"Your feet need to feel the ground, Valarr. To know if it is warm or cold, if there is stone or sand. How will you rule a people if you do not know what they feel?"
He looked at you with a strange expression, as if you had said something far deeper than it seemed.
"You think much on these things," he observed, as his feet sank into the soft earth.
"I lived long with little. One learns."
He did not answer, but that day, he walked barefoot all the way to camp.
The river appeared at dusk, when the sun was already beginning to set behind the mountains.
It was a beautiful place, hidden among trees, with crystal water and a small waterfall forming a natural pool. You stopped the horse and sighed.
"I need a bath."
Valarr dismounted behind you, looking at the river with an expression you could not identify.
"Is it deep?"
"I do not know, but it does not matter. It has been days since we found an inn with hot water, and I smell worse than the horse."
He laughed, but there was something different in the laugh. You did not think much on it, too busy removing the new boots he had given you, your toes eager to feel the cold water.
It was when you began to lift your dress that you noticed. Valarr had his back turned. Completely turned, his shoulders tense, staring fixedly at the trees on the other side of the river as if expecting them to do something interesting.
"Valarr?"
"Hm?"
"What are you doing?"
"Keeping watch."
"For what?"
He did not turn, and his voice came out a little higher than usual.
"To make sure no one appears. You are going to bathe, are you not? So, I am keeping watch."
You smiled a smile he could not see.
"And if someone does appear?"
"I shall send them away."
"And if it is a band of armed merchants?"
He turned his head slightly, just enough for you to see his profile, his jaw set tight.
"I have a sword."
"And if they have bows?"
"I…" he hesitated. "I won the joust at Ashford. I can handle myself."
The laugh escaped before you could hold it.
"Valarr Targaryen, you are the most endearing thing I have ever met."
He muttered something you did not understand, but his shoulders relaxed a little.
The river was cold, but good.
The water washed away days of road, of dust, of sweat. You dipped your head, feeling your hair loosen from the wilted flowers that still stubbornly clung, and for a moment you simply floated, looking at the darkening sky.
When you emerged, Valarr was still there. With his back turned, yes, but now sitting on a stone by the riverbank, his sword in his lap, his eyes fixed on the forest. His posture was that of a guard, of a protector, and something in that made your chest tighten in a good way.
"You may turn," you called. "I am decent now."
He turned slowly, as if afraid of what he might see, and when his eyes met yours — your wet hair dripping water, your damp dress clinging to your body, your weary smile — something changed in his face.
"What?" you asked, tilting your head.
"Nothing." He looked away too quickly. "Only… you seem happy."
"Clean water does that to a person."
He did not answer, but when you left the river and sat beside him on the stone, you felt his body relax towards you, as if by instinct.
That night, you camped near the river.
Valarr lit the fire alone for the first time. It took nearly an hour, and he cursed in High Valyrian on at least three separate occasions, but when the flame finally appeared, the smile on his face shone brighter than the fire.
"I did it!" he exclaimed, turning to you like a child who had just received a gift.
"My husband is a man of many talents," you teased, but you were smiling.
He sat beside you, close enough that your arms touched. The night was cold, and the warmth of the fire was not enough, but the warmth of his body… that was.
"Teach me more things," he asked, after a while.
"What sort of things?"
"Things of… common folk. Things I ought to know."
You thought for a moment.
"Tomorrow I shall teach you to fish without a rod. With your hands."
His eyes widened.
"Fish? With my hands?"
"It is easier than it seems. And harder than it seems too, but if you manage it, you shall never go hungry again."
"I have never gone hungry."
"I know, but now you might. So learn."
He was quiet for a moment, processing.
"You treat me as if I were your equal," he said, softly.
"Because you are."
"I am a prince."
"Were. Now you are only Valarr. My Valarr."
He swallowed hard.
"Your Valarr?"
"My husband, are you not? So. Mine."
You felt his gaze on your face, burning, and when you turned to face him, he was closer than you expected.
"May I ask you something?" his voice came out hoarse.
"Yes."
"Do you… do you feel it too?"
"Feel what?"
He hesitated. His hand found yours in the dark, fingers interlacing.
"This strange thing in my chest when you smile. This tightness when you move away. This fear that one day you will wake and decide it was a mistake to come with me."
"Valarr…"
"I know it seems madness. We have known each other but a few weeks. Yet when I am with you, the grief hurts less. When you sing, I can sleep. When you laugh, I forget my father died. And that is…" his voice faltered. "That is frightening. Because if you leave, I do not know what would be left of me."
You did not answer with words. You only released his hand, raised your arm, and pulled his face to yours.
The kiss was slow.
There was no hurry, no desperation. It was merely the most natural thing in the world, as if you had done it a thousand times before. His lips were soft, a little tremulous, and the taste held a hint of salt — tears you had not seen him shed.
When you parted, his forehead rested against yours.
"I shall not leave," you whispered. "Not while you want me to stay."
Days later, Valarr caught his first fish with his bare hands.
It took three tries, and he fell in the river twice, and you laughed so hard your belly ached. But when he emerged with the silver fish thrashing between his fingers, his victory cry startled the birds in the entire forest.
"LOOK! LOOK WHAT I DID!"
"I am looking, Valarr!"
"I AM THE KING OF FISH!"
"You are ridiculous, that is what you are!"
He came out of the river soaking wet, his dark hair plastered to his face, the white streak like a wet feather. The fish still thrashed, and he held it away from his body, clearly unsure what to do now that he had succeeded.
"And… and now?" he asked.
"Now we kill it, clean it, and eat it."
The look of horror on his face was so pure you almost felt sorry for him.
"Kill it?"
"Valarr, it is a fish."
"I know it is a fish, but… kill it?"
You rose, went to him, and took the fish with a firm hand. In a swift, precise movement, you killed it with a stone, and began cleaning it right there, with the knife he had given you.
He watched it all with an expression of fascination and horror mingled.
"Where did you learn to do that?"
"Flea Bottom. We had no cooks."
"And you never… never felt sickened by it?"
"I did. At first. But hunger teaches you to overcome disgust."
He was silent for a long time, watching you work. Then, without a word, he sat beside you on the river sand and extended his hand.
"Teach me."
You looked at him.
"Are you sure?"
"If we are to spend the rest of our lives together, I must learn this too. I cannot leave everything to you."
The smile that appeared on your face was so wide it hurt.
That afternoon, Valarr Targaryen, heir to the Iron Throne, learned to clean a fish. He got his hands covered in blood and entrails, made faces of disgust at several moments, and in the end, when the fish was ready to be roasted, he looked at you with such genuine pride that your heart nearly stopped.
"Did I do it right?"
"Perfectly."
His smile was worth more than all the gold in King's Landing.
That night, the fish was the best you had eaten in weeks.
And afterwards, lying under the stars, with the warmth of the fire warming your feet and his body warming your back, you thought that perhaps, just perhaps, the gods had got one thing right in life.
"Valarr?"
"Hm?"
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For coming."
His arm tightened around your waist.
"Thank you for giving me a reason to come."
You smiled in the dark and closed your eyes.
For the first time in many years, you did not dream of the future.
The Dornish frontier was three days away when the storm caught them.
It had been building on the horizon since afternoon, dark clouds swallowing the blue sky, and you had smelled the rain in the air long before the first drop fell. Valarr smelled it too, his mismatched eyes narrowing as he assessed the land around them.
"We need to find shelter."
"There," you pointed to a rock formation further ahead, a rise of stone that looked as though the winds had carved it. "There should be a cave."
It was not quite a cave. More a cleft in the rock, deep enough for two bodies to shelter, wide enough to spread their cloaks upon the ground. But when the rain came down, thick and violent as only southern storms can be, that hole in the stone seemed the finest place in all the world.
The horse stood beneath a nearby overhang, grumbling but safe. The two of you squeezed into the cleft, soaked, breathless, laughing like children who had just escaped a scolding.
"We are soaked through," Valarr said, frustrated.
"We are."
"And no dry wood for a fire."
"No."
"And it will rain the whole night."
"Likely."
He looked at you.
"And you are laughing."
"Because it is funny."
"What is?"
"Us. Fleeing a storm into a hole in the rock, soaked, no fire, no hot food, and yet…" you gestured, searching for words. "Yet it is better than any night I spent in Flea Bottom."
His look changed. That look you were beginning to know, deeper, more intense.
"Did you have many bad nights?" he asked softly.
"Some."
"Tell me."
You hesitated, but there, in the dark of the cleft, with the rain falling outside and the warmth of his body so near, the words came easier.
"Hungry nights. Cold nights. Nights when drunken men tried to force their way into where I slept. Nights when I saw things in the future and did not know whether to tell or to keep silent."
He listened in silence, and when you finished, his hand found yours in the dark.
"You will never spend another night like that," he said, as if it were a promise, an oath. "As long as I live, you will never have a life like that again."
"Valarr…"
"I swear it by the old gods and the new. By my father. By my name. You will never be alone again."
Emotion tightened your throat. You blinked quickly, but some tears escaped all the same.
"You are so good," you whispered. "So good, and you do not even see it."
He raised his free hand and wiped your face with his fingers, slowly.
Night fell in earnest, and the rain did not relent.
You spread your cloaks upon the floor of the cleft as best you could, and lay side by side to keep warm. Your bodies came together out of need at first — sharing warmth was a matter of survival — but slowly, need became something else.
You felt his breath in your hair. His hand resting on your waist, light, as if waiting for permission to stay. His legs against yours, and even through the damp clothes, the warmth was nearly unbearable.
"Valarr?"
"Hm?"
"Are you awake?"
"I am."
"I cannot sleep," you confessed.
"Nor I."
"Why?"
He took a long time to answer.
"Because you are too close."
The air caught in your lungs.
"Do you want me to move away?"
"No." The answer came quickly, almost urgent. "I do not."
You turned your body in the darkness, facing him. You could not see much, only the gleam of his eyes, one lighter than the other, reflecting the scant light that entered the cleft.
"What do you want, husband?"
He swallowed. You felt the movement in his body, the tension in his muscles.
"You," he confessed. "I want you in a way that… that I cannot explain."
Your hand found his face in the dark. The skin was warm, soft, and you felt when he closed his eyes beneath your touch.
"Then have me," you whispered.
"Are you certain? Because if it is only because we are here, alone, if it is only because…"
"Valarr." You interrupted, your thumb passing over his lips. "I was certain the moment you appeared in the night with a horse and a note for your uncle. I was certain when you gave up the notion of calling me your maid. I was certain when you caught a fish with your bare hands and shouted that you were the king of fish." A smile trembled in your voice. "I was certain long before today."
He laughed, a low sound, almost a sob, and then the kiss came differently this time.
His hands found your face, your hair, the nape of your neck, pulling you closer as if it were possible to disappear into each other. The damp clothes were in the way, and you both realised at the same moment. His fingers fumbled with the ties of your dress, clumsy, and you laughed against his mouth.
"Let me," you whispered. "Let me take it off."
"No." His voice was firm, even as rough as it was. "Let me do it… let me know you too."
Your heart raced.
"The dress opens at the back. There is a tie."
His fingers found the tie, pulled slowly, and you felt the fabric loosen on your shoulders. He kissed your shoulder when it appeared, bare in the dim light, and the warmth of his mouth on your skin made you tremble.
"You are so beautiful," he murmured against your skin. "So beautiful it hurts."
"You can hardly see me."
"I can feel you. It is better."
The dress slipped away, and you were left in only your smallclothes, thin, damp, nearly transparent. His eyes travelled over your body even in the dark, and you saw the way he caught his breath.
"May I touch you?"
The question was so polite, so Valarr, that you felt your eyes grow wet again.
"Yes."
His hand found your waist first, slowly, as if learning the way. Then it rose, tracing your ribs, the curve of your breast, and when his fingers brushed your skin, you arched your back in an instinctive movement.
"Like this?" he asked, his voice uncertain.
"Yes. Like this. Perfect."
He gained confidence. His mouth found yours again while his hands explored, and you felt each touch as if it were fire, as if he were marking your skin forever. His clothes came off next — you took them off, with more practice, but with the same urgency. He touched you with wonder, with respect, but also with a poorly hidden hunger that made your blood boil.
"Here?" he asked, when his hand brushed the side of your breast.
"Yes."
"And here?"
His fingers slid forward, covering your breast fully, and you arched your back with a low moan.
"Valarr…"
"It is so soft," he murmured, more to himself than to you. "So perfect."
He lowered his head and kissed where his hand had been, his mouth hot and damp on your skin. The kiss became a lick, the lick became a gentle nibble, and you buried your fingers in his hair, pulling.
"More," you begged.
He did not stop.
His mouth travelled down, finding your other breast, while his hand continued to caress the first. His fingers brushed your nipple, and you moaned louder, the sound muffled by the rain outside.
"Like this?" he asked, his lips still on your skin.
"Yes. Gods, yes."
He repeated the movement, learning what made you moan, what made you arch, what made your fingers tighten in his hair. And when he finally brought mouth and hand to both breasts at once, you lost your breath for an instant.
"Valarr," you gasped. "Valarr, I need…"
"Need what?"
"You."
You pulled him on top of you, feeling his weight, his warmth, skin against skin. And then you felt him, hard, hot, pressing against your thigh, and the air left your lungs.
"Do you feel that?" he asked. "What you do to me?"
"I feel it. Because you do the same to me."
He kissed you, deep, and his hand travelled down between your bodies. His fingers found your most sensitive place, and you moaned into his mouth when he began to touch.
"Like this?" he asked against your lips.
"Yes. Slower. Like that."
He learned quickly. His fingers circled, pressed, explored, and you felt the pleasure building low in your belly, hot, urgent.
"Valarr, I am going to…"
He did not stop, and when the pleasure came, you bit his lip to keep from crying out, your body arching against his, your legs tightening around his waist in an instinctive movement. Valarr positioned himself between your legs, and you felt his cock teasing you, sliding, asking without words.
"Do you want it?" he asked anyway. "Are you certain?"
"Valarr, if you ask again, I swear…"
He entered you without ceremony. Slowly, carefully, but without hesitation. You felt every inch, every moment of the delicious invasion, and when he was fully sheathed, you both stopped, gasping, just feeling.
"You are so tight," he murmured, his forehead against yours. "So warm."
"You are so big," you answered, and he laughed, a trembling sound.
"Is that good?"
"It is perfect."
He moved.
At first, the movements were slow, deep, drawing soft moans from you both. He looked into your eyes as he moved, as if he needed to see your reaction, as if every expression on your face were a map to his pleasure.
"Like this?" he would ask, and you would answer with moans, with squeezes, with your nails digging into his back.
The rhythm quickened, and the cleft in the stone filled with the sounds of you, bodies meeting, breathless gasps, muffled groans. The rain outside competed in volume, but it lost.
"You are so handsome," you whispered, running your hand over his face, his lips, his eyes. "My handsome prince."
"Yours," he answered, his voice breaking. "Only yours."
He changed the angle, and suddenly the pleasure grew more intense, deeper. You moaned louder, and he seemed to understand, repeating the movement once, twice, three times. One of his hands found your clit, touching in rhythm with his thrusts, and the pleasure that had already been good became almost unbearable. You felt your release approaching like a wave, growing, about to break.
"I am going to come," you warned, your voice high. "I am going to come, Valarr, I am going to…"
"Come. Come with me."
He buried his face in your neck, his movements growing more ragged, more urgent, and when you finally shattered, he followed a second later, a muffled groan into your skin, his whole body trembling.
You stayed like that for a long time. His hand still touched your face, his fingers tracing your jaw as if you were the most precious thing in the world.
Then he turned you onto your back in a swift movement.
You felt the cold air of the cleft on your bare back for a second before the warmth of his body covered you completely. His weight pressed you against the ground, and you moaned, your fingers digging into the earth and the cloaks beneath you.
"You do not know," his voice sounded near your ear, warm. "What you do to me."
"I did not know," you managed to say, your voice failing as his hands gripped your hips.
"You did know. You did. You saw me weeping and decided you would have me. And I let you. I let you because I could not say no to you even if I tried."
The truth in his words warmed something deep in your chest. You turned your head, trying to reach his mouth, and he let you, but it was a different kiss, crooked, desperate, more teeth than lip.
"I want you again," he confessed against your mouth.
"Then have me."
He did not wait.
This time, there was no care, no slowness. There was only the urgency of two bodies that had spent too long wanting each other in silence. He entered you in one movement, and the moan you both let out mingled in the damp air of the cleft.
He began to move, and there was nothing merciful in the rhythm. It was pure hunger, need, as if he were trying to make up for all the nights you had slept side by side without touching, all the river baths he had watched with his back turned, all the moments he had wanted and not had.
His hand buried itself in your hair, pulling your head back, arching your spine at an angle that made you moan louder.
"You are mine," he said, his voice breaking. "My wife. Mine. And no one will take you from me. Not the gods. Not the sickness. Not the bloody future."
"I am yours," you confirmed, the words coming out broken by moans. "I am. Always."
His rhythm quickened, lost composure, and you felt when he began to tremble. But before he could finish, he stopped.
"No," he growled. "Not like this. I want to see you."
He turned you again, now facing him, and when his eyes met yours in the half-dark, you saw everything. The desire, yes, but also the fear, the hope, the immense and terrifying love that had grown too quickly between you.
"Look at me," he asked, his voice lower now. "Look at me while we do this. I want to see you."
His legs fitted between yours, and when he entered again, slower this time, deeper, you did not look away. You stayed like that, gazing at each other in the dark, while your bodies moved in a rhythm that was yours, only yours.
His hands held your face as if you were too precious to exist. His thumbs passed over your cheeks, your lips, while the rest of his body asked for more, asked for everything.
"I love you," he said, and his voice was full of tears. "I love you so much that sometimes it hurts. That sometimes I wake in the night afraid I dreamed you."
"It is no dream," you answered, the words coming out difficult, broken by moans and emotion. "I am here. I am not leaving."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
He kissed you then, and the kiss was everything, despair and hope, hunger and devotion, the beginning and the end of all things. When Valarr's hand descended to stroke your cunt, you felt your skin burn with fire. Desire swelled in your throat as he ran his hand over your neck, through your hair, grabbing a fistful and using it to control you. His touch was possessive and thrilling.
He slid inside once more, and you arched your back, moaning with pleasure as he filled you completely. Your hands found purchase in his hair, anchoring yourself as he sank deeper into your cunt. Flames of pleasure licked at your walls. Ecstasy ran through your veins like milk of the poppy, numbing and delirious, as Valarr slid in and out of you. The hot pressure expanded, and your eyes rolled back, hearing the prince's moans echo your own.
You hissed through your teeth. The heat, like a branding iron burning flesh, intensified as Valarr's face rested on your shoulder and you could hold him tighter. Valarr bit your shoulder, and you dug your nails into his back. Yet, before you could be more cautious with your touches, Valarr became even more merciless and sank even deeper.
Seven Hells, you thought.
Valarr's body was covered in sweat, and each time he went deeper, you felt as if you were being consumed by fire. The sensation of being filled by him was almost superhuman, a mix of pleasure and pain that seemed without end.
Valarr let out small moans as he pressed his forehead to yours. When he saw you part your lips and dig your nails into his skin, he knew you were again close to your peak. He kept a steady rhythm, feeling your release crest and soak him completely with your desire.
"Can you ride a dragon?" he asked, leaning over you and pushing back the hair stuck to your face. You nodded.
Valarr wet his lips, descended to yours and kissed you before lying down beside you. He sat up and reached out his hand for you to come to him. You crawled to him, placed your hands on his collarbones and positioned your legs on either side of the prince's hips, aligning your soaked cunt with the head of his cock.
The position made your toes curl, and the way you sank down and rose repeatedly drew heavy moans from Valarr. He gripped your waist, quickening the movements as he watched you give yourself over to pleasure. He felt your hands tighten on his shoulders and your moans increase when he saw your brows furrow. Valarr held your hips firmly and thrust hard, unable to contain himself.
Your lips met his briefly before you felt the hot spill inside you, running down the walls of your tight core. Valarr smiled, pushing the hair from your face once more, admiring your flushed, exhausted face. You were completely spent, your body light and slow.
You lay down upon Valarr, who stroked the back of your neck, while his other hand slid over your waist, his fingers tracing a gentle, soothing path on your skin. His eyes, still glistening from the recent experience. You stayed like that for a long time, until his breathing calmed, until his body relaxed upon yours. And when you thought he had fallen asleep, his voice sounded again, softly:
"May I ask you something?"
"Yes."
"When you saw the future... did you see me? Us? This?"
You thought for a moment.
"No. I never saw this. But I think it is because the future changes. We changed it. You chose to come, I chose to stay, and now... now everything is new."
He lifted his head.
"There were no more visions?"
"A few," you murmured. "But they were not about us."
The next morning, the sun rose golden over the mountains.
You woke with the warmth of his body still wrapped around yours, and for a moment you just lay there, feeling it. His calm breathing against your back. His heavy arm around your waist. The peace.
"Awake?" his voice came, rough with sleep.
"Awake."
He tightened his embrace, pulling you closer.
"You could pretend you were not."
"Why?"
"Because I want to stay like this forever."
You smiled and turned your head to kiss his chin.
"We have a whole lifetime to stay like this. Get up, my prince."
"I am no longer a prince, as I have told you, my wife," he grumbled, but he was already smiling. "I am only Valarr."
The Dornish frontier was crossed on a morning of open sky, when the sun no longer burned as it did in the lands of the marches, but warmed generously. You felt the difference in the air first, drier, more fragrant, laden with spices and flowers you did not know. Then you saw the landscape change, the greens giving way to shades of red earth and golden stone, the trees becoming sparser, more twisted, more beautiful in their endurance.
Valarr said nothing during the crossing, merely rode at your side, his mismatched eyes fixed on the horizon, and when you finally stopped atop a hill to gaze upon what lay ahead — the first Dornish dwellings, the clay roofs, the olive groves — his hand found yours and squeezed.
The months passed like water through fingers.
You found a small place, far from the great cities, close enough to a village for food and trade, but isolated enough that no one would ask where you came from or why the dark-haired man had a streak of white that stubbornly betrayed his origin.
The house was simple, with whitewashed stone walls, a clay roof, a small garden at the back which you tended with hands that had once merely survived in Flea Bottom. Valarr built a pen for chickens, and this time no one needed to teach him how to handle them. He had learned. There was a stream nearby, where you still bathed on warm days, and he still kept watch, now seated on a stone with a book in hand — one of the few he had brought in his pack — his eyes lifting now and then towards you.
The nights were long and good. The love between you had deepened, transformed, ceased being that urgent flame of the first weeks to become a constant fire, one that warmed without burning. He still had nightmares, sometimes, and would wake calling for his father. But now you were always there, and the warmth of your body was enough for him to fall back asleep.
You had changed too. The visions came more rarely, as if the gods had decided to grant you a respite. When they came, they were small — the harvest that would be good, the neighbour who would have a child, the rain that would arrive earlier than expected. Nothing of deaths, nothing of tragedies. Nothing of sickly springs.
And you both knew, without ever saying it aloud, that perhaps it was because you had fled the path that was laid out.
But it was on an ordinary afternoon that you looked at him and decided. The white streak would always give him away. No matter how he tried to hide, that single strand of silver hair amidst the dark screamed Targaryen to anyone who understood such things. And though you were in Dorne, though the Dornish had their own reasons for not loving dragons, you could not take risks.
You prepared the dye with herbs and clay, as the village women had taught you, and asked him to sit on the bench near the window. He obeyed without question. He no longer questioned when you did such things. He trusted. Your hands dipped into the dark paste and began to work, separating strand by strand, covering the white with the brown that would make him like all other men. He closed his eyes beneath your fingers, letting you do what was needed, and the silence between you was so full of love it almost hurt.
When you finished, you led him to the small mirror you had bought in the village. He looked for a long time. Touched his hair, now all dark, and for a moment you feared he would miss it, that that streak was the last thing connecting him to who he had been.
But then he turned, and the smile on his face was so pure, so grateful, that you forgot to breathe.
"Now I am only yours," he said, or you imagined he said, because there was no sound, only the movement of his lips and his eyes shining.
You pulled him into a kiss, and it was answer enough.
The wedding took place at winter's end (which for you in Dorne felt like summer). There was no sept, no maester, no important witnesses, only an old travelling septon passing through the village, two simple rings Valarr had bought from a local smith, and the stars as witnesses.
You wore a new dress, not white, for that was for maidens and you had never been one, but blue like the Dornish sky at dusk. He wore the best clothes he had, simple but clean, his hair now completely dark falling over his eyes. The septon spoke the words, you repeated them, and when it was done, Valarr held your face in both hands and kissed you as if it were the first time.
Afterwards, there was a small feast in the village. The neighbours brought food and wine, played music on instruments you did not know, danced until the moon set. And in the midst of those simple folk who would never know they were celebrating the wedding of a Targaryen prince, you danced with him, and laughed, and felt that finally, after so many years, you had found a home.
Spring came and went. Then came another, and another.
You lived. Simply lived. He planted, you harvested. He mended the roof, you baked bread. He still wept, sometimes, when the memory of his father pressed upon him, and you still sang to him, the same songs as always. At night, love still found you, now calm as a river, now a storm, but always true. The children came, in time. First a boy, with eyes like his father, whom he named Baelor; then a girl, with hair so light you had to dye it from a young age, whom you called Alyssa. And life expanded, filled the small house, brought laughter and tears and worries and joys you had never imagined possible.
And the years passed, and King's Landing grew distant.
The news arrived on an ordinary day, brought by a merchant coming from the city. He spoke of a plague, a terrible sickness that had swept the capital years ago, called the Great Spring Sickness. He spoke of deaths, of mourning, of a king who had wasted away, of princes who had succumbed one after another. He spoke of silence across the whole continent, stricken by that illness which killed men who were strong at dawn and dead by dusk.
You listened with a heavy heart, your fingers finding Valarr's beneath the table. When the merchant left, you sat in silence for a long time. He was the first to break it.
"My grandsire?"
"Dead. They said it was the sickness."
"My brother?"
"Also, my prince."
He did not ask about his uncle Maekar. You knew he feared the answer.
"Aerys," he said, finally. "Daeron's son. He..."
"Lives. But they still search for you, Valarr."
He nodded slowly. His gaze was lost somewhere in the distance, and you knew what he was thinking. It could have been him. He could have been there. He could be dead. But he was not.
"I escaped," he whispered, more to himself than to you.
"We escaped," you corrected, squeezing his hand. "We fled, we changed, we lived."
He turned his face to you, and his eyes were brimming.
"Do you think I should return?" he asked, but his eyes strayed to the children playing with wooden dragons he had learned to carve. "What was your last vision of us?"
The question caught you off guard.
You closed your eyes, searching. It had been so long since the visions had quieted. At first, you thought it was fear, exhaustion. Later, you began to suspect it was peace. That the gods, or fate, or whatever governed such things, had finally left you in peace.
"That we were well here," you murmured, staring fixedly at the table, at the marks in the wood, at his hands still holding yours. "It was the last thing I saw in years."
He did not answer immediately.
He merely sat there, listening to the children playing outside. The boy shouted something about dragons. The girl laughed, that high-pitched little laugh that always made you smile.
"When I was small," he began, "my father used to take me to see the dragons. The skulls, I mean. There were no real dragons left, only the bones. He would put me on his shoulder and point to the largest of them all. He would say: 'That one was Balerion. His fear was so great that enemies fled at the mere sound of his name.'"
He paused.
"I would ask if we would ever have dragons again. He would laugh and say no, that the eggs had turned to stone, that the magic had gone away. But in his eyes... in his eyes I could see that he wished for it. Wished for it greatly."
His voice faltered.
"He wished so much that I might see a real dragon."
You said nothing, only squeezed his hand.
"Now our children play with wooden dragons," he continued. "They do not know what a real dragon is. They do not know what the Iron Throne is. They do not know that their father could have been king."
He finally turned his face to you.
"And I look at them and think: is it selfish? Is it cowardice? To stay here, hidden, while my name is given to some dead man..."
"While you live," you finished.
"While I live," he agreed.
The silence returned, but it was different now. Heavier, fuller with things unsaid.
You could have lied. You could have said yes, that he should return, that the throne awaited him, that his blood demanded it. But you knew Valarr. You knew every part of him, every shadow, every fear. And you knew that, deep down, he was not asking what he should do.
He was asking permission to stay.
"You asked me what my last vision was," you said, finally. "But it was not the last."
He frowned.
"I had one yesterday. While I was dyeing the little one's hair."
"And what did you see?"
You smiled, a small, wet smile.
"I saw her. Many years from now. Old, with wrinkles on her face and grandchildren in her lap. I saw her telling stories to little children, stories about a prince who gave up a throne to live for love, because of a woman who saw the future. I saw the children asking if the story was true, and her laughing and saying: 'Of course it is. He was my father.'"
Valarr caught his breath.
"I saw our son. Grown, strong, with a sword in his hand. Your sword, defending this house, this land, this life we built. I saw him teaching his own children to fish with their hands, just as you taught him."
Your voice faltered, but you continued.
"I saw you. Old, grey-haired, sitting at this same table, with me beside you. I saw your hands holding mine, and I saw that you still looked at me the same way you looked at me that night in the sept. As if I were the most precious thing in the world."
Tears were streaming now, but you did not wipe them away.
"That was the last thing I saw. And it was the most beautiful."
He was still for a long time. Then, slowly, he raised his free hand and wiped your face with his fingers, the same way he had done on that first night, in the shelter of the stone, when the rain fell outside and the world was only the two of you.
"Then we stay," he said.
"We stay," you confirmed.
He pulled you into an embrace, long, tight, and you remained like that for a long time, listening to the children squabble in the yard, feeling the Dornish sun warm your skin, living.
Outside, somewhere far away, Aerys Targaryen sat the throne that could have been his. Counsellors whispered of the lost uncle, of rumours that Prince Valarr yet lived, of the need to find and eliminate any threat to the new king.
But here, in this simple whitewashed house, with the smell of bread in the oven and the sound of children's laughter, the only kingdom that mattered was this one. The kingdom of two bodies that loved each other. Of four hands that built a life. Of children who would never know the weight of a crown.
And when night fell, and the children slept, he drew you close in bed and whispered in the dark:
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For going to the sept that day. For seeing me cry. For giving me wine. For giving me a reason to live."
You smiled in the darkness and nestled your head against his chest.
"Thank you for living, Valarr."
Ი𐑼 . . . - continue on to my…. main masterlist ❜❜
۶ৎ sweethearts I may have written a lot, but I needed to, because every time I remember that Valarr died, it makes me so sad... truly immense. So I needed an alternate ending, one that would comfort me more than I could ever comfort him, lol.
