Summary: A mission meant to be routine becomes a race against the clock when you’re bitten, and the only antivirals are destroyed. With the infection spreading and time running out, Leon Kennedy abandons everything except the one objective that matters: getting you back alive.
Warnings/tags: bite injury (reader), infection themes (fever, delirium), mentions of blood/wounds, mission-related violence, guns, angst, protective leon
The hallway smells like antiseptic and old rain, sharp enough to taste at the back of your throat. Emergency lights pulse a slow red, painting everything in the color of a heartbeat that refuses to settle. Somewhere deeper in the facility, something metallic groans, the sound carrying through the walls like the building itself is shifting in its sleep.
Leon moves ahead of you with that familiar economy, every step deliberate, shoulders slightly rounded forward as if he's braced against a wind no one else can feel. Years ago, you would have called it tension. Now you know it's simply how he stands when he's ready to protect something.
You.
He lifts one hand without looking back. Two fingers. Hold. You stop immediately, rifle angled down but ready, covering the rear out of habit. Your breathing slows to match his. In the quiet, you can hear it, the faint rasp of fabric as he adjusts his grip, the tiny click of leather at his wrist. He glances over his shoulder, blue eyes catching red light, and the corner of his mouth tilts.
"Tell me you hear that too," he murmurs.
"Ventilation system struggling to keep up with poor life choices," you whisper back.
His mouth twitches a little more. "Comforting."
"Very."
He turns forward again, advancing with a careful sidestep around a fallen gurney. You follow close, boots landing where his did, stepping into the spaces he clears without thinking. Years of missions have worn this path between you into muscle memory. You could navigate a battlefield blind if he were moving ahead of you.
Sublevel three, quarantine wing. The official report had said that the outbreak was contained. Minimal hostiles. Data retrieval only. You and Leon had both read that and packed extra ammunition.
Something scrapes faintly above you. You both stop again. A wet sound follows, soft but unmistakable, like raw meat dragged across tile. Leon's shoulders go rigid. He tilts his head, listening, then slowly raises his pistol toward the ceiling vent ten feet ahead.
"Don't," you breathe.
Too late. The grate explodes outward in a shower of dust and rusted screws. A shape drops hard onto the floor between you, limbs hitting at angles that don't belong to anything living. The body spasms once, twice, then snaps upright with a sound like tearing cloth. Its eyes are wrong. Its mouth is wrong.
Leon fires twice. The creature barely stutters before lunging. You're already moving. Your rifle cracks, recoil thudding into your shoulder as you pivot left to avoid Leon's line of fire. The rounds chew through rotten muscle, splashing something dark across the wall. The thing keeps coming anyway, a puppet yanked forward by invisible strings.
"Persistent," you mutter.
"Understatement."
It reaches Leon first. He sidesteps, grabs a fistful of its ruined jacket, and uses the momentum to sling it into the wall hard enough to dent the drywall. Before it can recover, he drives a knife up under its jaw with brutal precision. The body convulses, fingers clawing weakly at his sleeve, then goes slack.
For a moment, the only sound is your breathing and the slow drip of something unpleasant onto the tile. Leon exhales through his nose, shoulders lowering a fraction. He wipes the blade on the creature's shirt before sheathing it, movements efficient, practiced, almost weary.
"You okay?" he asks without turning.
"Fine."
He turns anyway, eyes scanning you head to toe, checking for tears in fabric, blood that isn't yours, the small tells you can't hide from him even if you tried. His gaze lingers on your face a second longer than necessary.
"Your heart rate's up."
"So is yours."
"Occupational hazard."
You step closer, bump your shoulder lightly against his arm. "You jumped."
"I did not."
"You absolutely did."
"I adjusted my stance."
You snort. "Sure you did, hero."
His hand comes up automatically, settling at the small of your back as he guides you past the body. The touch is brief, grounding, gone almost before you register it. He does it all the time now, in doorways, on stairs, whenever the path narrows. Years ago he used to keep that kind of contact locked away behind professionalism. Marriage burned that barrier down to ash.
"Remind me why we didn't retire somewhere with a beach," you say quietly.
"You hate sand."
"I could learn."
"You said that last time. Then you threw a shoe at a seagull."
"It started it."
He huffs, a sound that might be the ghost of a laugh. "We're not buying a coastal property just so you can wage war on wildlife."
"Coward."
They're soft words, familiar words, the kind that live comfortably between you, even in places like this. Especially in places like this. If you stop talking, the silence fills up with too many ghosts.
Ahead, the corridor splits. One path descends into deeper shadow. The other ends at a reinforced door marked MEDICAL ISOLATION.
Leon studies it, jaw tightening slightly. "That's our best bet for antiviral storage."
"And our worst bet for everything else."
"Probably."
He reaches for the panel. It flickers, unresponsive.
You lean in, shoulder brushing his. "Stand back."
"I am standing back."
"Further."
He sighs but obeys, stepping aside as you pull a compact breaching charge from your pack and set it against the seam. Your hands move quickly, efficiently, though you can feel his eyes on you the entire time.
"Try not to blow yourself up," he says.
"Try not to worry so loudly."
"I don't worry."
You glance up. "Leon."
"...I worry a normal amount."
You smile despite yourself. "Uh huh."
You trigger the charge and pivot away, grabbing his vest to pull him with you behind the corner. The explosion is sharp, contained, dust puffing into the air like a violent exhale. When the ringing fades, the door hangs crooked on shattered hinges. Leon looks down at where your hand is still gripping his gear. His expression softens in a way that has nothing to do with combat.
"You can let go," he says gently.
You realize you're still holding on and release him, suddenly aware of how solid he feels under your fingers, how warm even through layers of tactical fabric.
"Right," you say, clearing your throat. "Professional."
"Very."
But he brushes your knuckles once before moving past you, so quick it could almost be an accident.
Inside, the medical wing is colder, air conditioning still struggling on backup power. Cabinets hang open, supplies scattered across the floor as if someone had tried to pack in a hurry and failed. A hospital bed sits abandoned in the center of the room, sheets twisted into ropes. You sweep left. Leon sweeps right. The familiar dance resumes. For a few seconds, nothing moves.
Then something thumps weakly from behind the bed. You both pivot, weapons raised. A figure drags itself into view, lab coat smeared dark, face gray with fever. Human. Barely.
"Help," he croaks.
Leon lowers his weapon first, but doesn't relax. "You're infected?"
The man nods frantically, clutching his side. "Bite... hours ago... there's... antivirals... storage fridge... code..."
His hand trembles as he points toward a small sealed unit in the corner. Hope flickers, fragile and dangerous. You step forward. Leon catches your arm immediately.
"Careful," he murmurs.
"I know."
His grip tightens just a fraction before he lets go, thumb brushing your sleeve as if memorizing the texture.
The man coughs wetly, body shaking. "Please... I don't want to... turn..."
Leon's jaw flexes. You can see the calculation in his eyes, the grim understanding of how this story usually ends. You move past him anyway, crouching by the fridge, fingers already working the manual override. The seal pops with a soft hiss. Inside, rows of vials gleam faintly in the emergency light, liquid clear and precious as water in a desert.
"Jackpot," you whisper.
Behind you, the man makes a sound that isn't quite human.
Leon's voice snaps sharply. "Back."
You turn just in time to see the change sweep across the man's face, muscles locking, eyes clouding over like frost creeping across glass. Too fast. Leon fires once. The body collapses before it can lunge.
Silence crashes down, heavy and absolute. Your hands are still wrapped around the cold vial when Leon steps in close, one hand settling at the back of your neck, fingers warm against your skin. He leans his forehead briefly against your temple, a gesture so intimate it almost hurts.
"Hey," he murmurs. "Stay with me."
"I'm here."
"Good."
"Leon," you say, unable to keep the lift out of your voice. "We've got—"
The ceiling tile above the doorway caves in with a thunderous crack. Something drops through in a tangle of limbs and teeth. Leon fires before it even lands.
The room detonates into motion. Another body slams through the door behind it, then another, drawn by noise or scent or whatever twisted instinct drives them now. The first infected hits the floor crawling, jaw snapping, fingers scrabbling for purchase on slick tile.
"Back!" Leon snaps.
You're already moving, grabbing the case and pivoting away from the fridge as gunfire shatters the sterile quiet. Your rifle kicks against your shoulder, rounds punching into torsos that refuse to care. The air fills with the acrid stink of cordite and something fouler underneath.
One lunges for your legs. Leon intercepts it, boot driving into its chest hard enough to send it skidding across the floor. He doesn't even look as he fires downward, ending it with clinical precision.
More are coming. The hallway beyond the ruined door is a writhing mass of shapes pushing over each other, hungry, relentless. The lab equipment rattles as something heavy slams against the wall.
"Too many," you shout.
"Move!"
You sidestep, firing, trying to carve space, trying not to hit Leon as he crosses your line. Your shoulder clips the edge of the bed. The case slips in your grip for half a second.
A larger infected barrels through the doorway, body swollen, movements jerky but powerful. It collides with a rolling cart, sending metal instruments clattering across the floor like thrown knives. Leon pivots to engage, emptying three rounds into its upper chest. The creature staggers backward. Straight into the open refrigerator. Glass explodes.
The sound is high and crystalline, almost delicate beneath the gunfire, like a chandelier being smashed in a ballroom no one will ever dance in again. Vials shatter against metal shelves, against tile, against each other. Clear liquid splashes across the floor, instantly indistinguishable from the spreading mess of everything else. You see it happen in horrible, slow clarity. Hope, reduced to glittering debris.
"Leon!"
He fires again, dropping the brute for good. The body collapses forward, crushing what remains of the storage rack beneath its weight. For one stunned heartbeat, neither of you moves. Then another infected claws over the fallen bulk, and survival yanks you back into motion. You fire. Leon fires. Bodies drop. The noise is deafening, claustrophobic, relentless until at last the hallway falls silent again, littered with unmoving shapes.
Your ears ring. Smoke hangs in the air like a dirty veil. Slowly, cautiously, Leon lowers his weapon. His gaze drifts past the carnage to the refrigerator, to the floor, to the glittering field of broken glass and spilled medication soaking uselessly into grout lines and fabric and things you don't want to identify. He doesn't say anything. Neither do you. The man on the bed has gone very still. His eyes stare at the ceiling, clouded over, whatever fragile thread holding him to himself finally snapped in the chaos. A drop of liquid slides off the shelf edge and hits the tile with a soft, final tick.
Leon exhales, long and controlled, like he's forcing the air out through a space too small for it. "...We'll find more," he says quietly.
He steps closer to you, one hand settling on your shoulder, firm and grounding. His thumb moves once, a brief stroke through dust and sweat, as if confirming you're still solid beneath his palm.
"You hurt?" he asks.
You shake your head, throat tight. "No."
"Good."
His hand lingers a moment longer, then drops. He scans the room again, already shifting back into mission mode, but the tension in his jaw has sharpened, lines around his eyes etched deeper by the red emergency light.
"Storage areas are usually clustered," he says. "If there was one unit, there are probably others."
You nod because he needs you to nod. Because forward is the only direction that exists anymore.
Together, you step around the shattered glass and the ruined promise it once held, boots crunching softly with every movement, and head back into the corridor where the dark waits patiently for you to return.
The corridor beyond the lab is narrower, older, the walls traded from clean hospital white to poured concrete stained by decades of leaks and neglect. Emergency lights hum overhead, casting everything in a tired amber glow that feels less like an alarm and more like a dying sunset that forgot to go away. Your boots echo differently here. Hollow. The sound carries too far.
Leon slows without saying anything, adjusting his pace until you're shoulder to shoulder instead of single file. His arm brushes yours with each step, solid and reassuring in a way that feels deliberate without calling attention to itself. After a minute, you realize he's listening to your breathing.
"You know," you say quietly, "most couples go to dinner."
He huffs under his breath. "We tried that."
"You got a call."
"We both got a call."
"I didn't even get to eat my pasta."
"You ordered something with fourteen ingredients I couldn't pronounce."
"That's not a crime."
"It should be."
You bump his shoulder lightly. "You promised dessert."
"I'll buy you dessert."
"You said that last time."
"I meant it last time, too."
His hand comes up automatically, resting on your back as the corridor narrows, guiding you around a fallen chunk of concrete. The touch lingers just a second longer than necessary.
"When this is over," he adds quietly, "we'll go somewhere that doesn't have reception."
You glance at him. "You're serious."
"Dead serious."
A small smile pulls at your mouth. "You'd last two days."
"I'd last three."
"Two and a half."
He considers it like it's a tactical estimate. "Two and a half."
The next door is heavier than the others, industrial steel with a small wired-glass window clouded by years of grime. A faded placard reads BIO STORAGE B in letters that have peeled into something ghostlike and hard to trust.
Leon raises a hand automatically, stopping you just short of the threshold.
"Hold."
You halt with your boot inches from the seam, rifle angled down but ready. He steps past you, placing himself between you and the door without thinking about it. He always does that. As if the hinge of the world were located somewhere in his spine.
He wipes a sleeve across the glass and peers through, eyes narrowing as he adjusts to the dim interior. "Don't see movement," he murmurs. "Shelving units. Containers. Could be clear."
"Could be."
He glances back at you, reading your face the way other people read weather. "You good?"
"Always."
One eyebrow lifts. Not convinced.
You roll your shoulder where your gear has started to dig in, trying to work out the stiffness before it becomes a problem. "Just cramped."
"Switch packs with me."
"I'm fine."
"That wasn't a suggestion."
"It wasn't an order either."
For a moment, you just look at each other, the quiet argument unfolding in expressions instead of voices. Married diplomacy in a war zone.
Finally, he exhales through his nose, conceding the point without admitting defeat. His hand comes up instead, settling briefly at the side of your neck, thumb brushing the muscle there in a grounding stroke.
"Tension," he says softly.
"Observation skills of a seasoned agent."
"Comes with the badge."
"You don't even carry a badge."
"Metaphorical badge."
You lean into his touch for half a second before you can stop yourself. He notices. His thumb stills, then presses lightly once more before he lets his hand fall away.
"Stay behind me on entry," he says, voice shifting, professional edges sliding back into place.
"I take left. You take right," you counter automatically.
He gives you a look. You give him one right back.
"...Fine," he mutters at last. "But if I say fall back, you fall back."
"Yes, dear."
His mouth twitches despite himself. "Don't 'yes, dear' me in a mission."
"Yes, sir," you salute.
Leon grunts and shakes his head, trying not to smile. You reach past him to test the handle. Locked.
"Stand clear," you say.
He moves aside this time without commentary, covering the door while you pull a compact bypass tool from your vest. The metal is cold against your fingers, humming faintly as it interfaces with the ancient locking mechanism.
For a few seconds, the only sounds are the tool's soft electronic chirp and your breathing. Then the mechanism clicks. You don't open it immediately. Instead, you glance sideways at him. Close enough to see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the tiny scar along his jaw, the exhaustion he carries like a shadow that never quite detaches.
"After this," you say quietly, "we're getting that dessert."
He studies you for a long beat, something unspoken passing through his expression. A deep, stubborn refusal to imagine a future where that doesn't happen.
"Yeah," he says at last, voice low and certain. "We are."
Your hand brushes his wrist as you shift your grip on the handle. He turns his palm just enough to catch your fingers, squeezing once, firm and warm. A promise disguised as reflex. Then he releases you, raises his weapon, and nods.
"On you."
You pull the door open. Cold air spills out, stale and chemical, carrying the faint scent of something spoiled long before anyone stopped coming down here. The room beyond is a maze of tall storage racks and plastic containers, shadows pooling thick between them like standing water.
Leon moves through the doorway first, silent, precise, clearing angles with ruthless efficiency. You follow a half-step behind despite earlier negotiations, covering what he can't see, trusting him to do the same.
All you hear is the hum of failing lights. The soft creak of metal settling. The distant, almost inaudible drip of water somewhere in the dark.
Leon lifts two fingers, signaling pause. You freeze. He tilts his head, listening.
"...Thought I heard something," he whispers.
You hold your breath. The room holds its breath too. Then, very softly, something shifts deep between the shelves. A scrape. Leon's posture tightens, every line of him sharpening toward the sound.
"Stay close," he murmurs.
You move in beside him, shoulder brushing his arm, the warmth of him grounding against the cold air of the room.
"Always do," you whisper back.
The air grows colder the farther you go, heavy with the stale tang of chemicals and something faintly organic beneath it, like fruit left too long in a sealed container. Your flashlight beam skims across plastic bins, sealed crates, labels bleached into illegibility. Dust floats in slow spirals each time you move, disturbed ghosts reluctant to settle again.
Leon advances at a measured pace, weapon steady, shoulders tight enough to telegraph that he hasn't liked this room from the moment the door opened. You mirror him, covering the angles between shelving units, eyes darting through the narrow gaps where shadows knit together into something almost solid. Another scrape, closer this time.
A container shifts on a shelf to your left with a soft plastic thud, tipping just enough to rock in place. Your rifle swings toward it automatically.
"Probably just settling," you whisper.
Leon doesn't answer. He takes one careful step forward, angling to get a better view past the rack. The beam of his light cuts across the gap, illuminating stacked boxes, a collapsed cart, nothing that looks immediately threatening.
Your shoulders start to loosen. That's when the hands shoot out of the darkness. They clamp around your calf, iron strong, nails digging through fabric as something drags itself from beneath the lowest shelf with a wet, hungry sound. You don't even have time to shout before you're yanked off balance.
"Leon—!"
He pivots instantly, dropping his aim to avoid hitting you as you hit the floor hard enough to knock the air from your lungs. The infected is half-crushed, lower body mangled, but its arms work just fine. Its mouth snaps inches from your boot, teeth clacking together with a sound that vibrates up your bones.
You kick, connecting with its face, but it barely registers the impact. Its grip tightens, hauling you closer, closer, jaws opening wide enough to show the slick black of its throat.
Leon moves. He doesn't fire. Too risky. Instead, he lunges forward, grabbing the back of your vest and hauling you backward with brutal force. The infected comes with you, still latched on, dead weight and fury combined.
"Let go!" he snarls, driving his boot into its shoulder.
Bone cracks. The grip loosens just enough for him to wrench you free, dragging you behind him as he finally gets a clear shot. Two rounds. Point-blank.
The body jerks, collapses, and goes still. For a moment, all you can hear is your own ragged breathing and the thunder of your pulse. Leon stays crouched in front of you, one arm braced across your chest like a barricade, gun still trained on the corpse in case it decides death is negotiable.
"Hey," he says, voice low, urgent. "Hey. Look at me."
You blink, vision swimming, lungs finally remembering how to work. "I'm... I'm good."
His eyes scan you anyway, fast and thorough, hands already moving, checking arms, shoulders, gear, the way he always does. Routine. Training. Care disguised as procedure. Then his hand stops at your leg.
The fabric of your pants is torn where the creature grabbed you. Dark spreads through the rip, wet and unmistakable even in the dim light. Leon goes very still. Slowly, carefully, he pulls his glove off with his teeth and tosses it aside. His bare hand is warm when it closes around your ankle, steady but not gentle as he angles your leg into the beam of his flashlight.
You follow his gaze. For a second, your brain refuses to interpret what you're seeing. Just shapes. Color. Shine. Then it resolves. Deep teeth marks on your ankle. Blood wells from the punctures, thick and bright, running down into your boot.
"Oh," you say softly.
Leon doesn't speak. His jaw tightens so hard a muscle jumps along his cheek. His thumb presses near the wound, not enough to hurt, just enough to assess depth, damage, and reality.
"How bad?" you ask, because someone has to.
He inhales slowly through his nose, like he's trying to pull the air all the way down to somewhere that doesn't exist anymore.
"...Through the muscle," he says at last, voice roughened at the edges. "No arterial spray."
You almost laugh. Of course, that's what he notices. Of course, he frames it in survivable terms.
"Good news," you murmur.
His eyes snap to yours, sharp, bright, furious at something that isn't you. "Don't."
The word isn't loud. It doesn't need to be. Silence floods back in, thick as the dust hanging in the air. Carefully, he releases your leg only long enough to tear open a pouch on his vest. Gauze. Compression wrap. His hands move with practiced efficiency, but there's a tremor there now, small and stubborn, like a fault line threatening to split.
"This won't stop it," you say quietly.
"I know."
He presses the gauze down anyway, firm, unyielding, as if pressure alone could force time to behave.
"You didn't get grabbed anywhere else?" he asks without looking up.
"No."
"Scratch? Contact with fluid?"
"No, Leon."
He nods once, wrapping the bandage tight enough to hurt. You don't complain. Pain feels reassuringly human. When he finishes, he doesn't pull away. His hands remain braced on your leg, head bowed slightly, shoulders rising and falling with measured breaths. From this angle, you can see the faint silver threaded through his hair, the lines carved deeper by worry than age. You reach out before you can stop yourself, fingers brushing his jaw. He freezes.
"Hey," you say softly.
His eyes close for one heartbeat, leaning just slightly into your touch, like a man starving who just found water. Then he opens them again, focus snapping back into place with visible effort.
"We're moving," he says, voice low and absolute. "There will be another storage area. Another lab. Something."
You nod because you believe him. Because you have to. Because you don't want this to be the end. Because you don't want Leon to have to go through that. Because you want your dessert.
He rises first, then offers you his hand. When you take it, he pulls you up carefully, keeping his other hand hovering at your waist in case you falter. You put weight on the leg. It holds, though pain flares hot and sharp.
"Can you walk?" he asks.
"Yeah." A lie. A manageable one.
He doesn't call you on it. Instead, his arm slides around your back, anchoring you against his side as you take your first step. Protective. Supportive. Refusing to let distance exist.
"Stay with me," he murmurs.
Your head rests briefly against his shoulder, just for a second.
"Always," you whisper.
Adrenaline still burns hot in your veins, dulling the edges, convincing your body it can outrun consequences if it just keeps moving. Leon keeps his arm locked around you, pace adjusted to match yours without comment. Not slow enough to feel patronizing, not fast enough to make you stumble. Perfect. Infuriatingly perfect.
"You don't have to babysit," you murmur.
"Good," he says quietly. "Because I'm not."
His hand shifts slightly at your side, fingers spreading as if to support more of your weight without making a show of it. The corridor slopes downward. Each step sends a dull shock up your leg, deeper now, heavier, like the pain has roots instead of edges. You grit your teeth and keep going. After a dozen paces, something else creeps in. A warmth. Not the healthy kind. Not exertion. This feels wrong, thick and syrupy, pooling under your skin like fever deciding where to settle. You swallow. Your throat feels dry. Too dry.
"Leon," you start, then stop, because you're not sure what you were going to say.
He glances at you immediately. "What?"
"Nothing. Thought I heard something."
He doesn't look convinced, but he doesn't push. Instead, he shifts you a little closer, your hip brushing his with every step now, a steady rhythm of contact that keeps you oriented.
The lights flicker overhead. For a split second, the world tilts. You blink hard, waiting for it to right itself. It does, but not completely. The edges of your vision feel soft, as if someone smeared petroleum jelly across reality.
"Hey," Leon says quietly.
You realize you've slowed. "I'm fine."
He stops anyway.
"No," he says, voice calm and immovable as bedrock. "You're not."
Before you can argue, a shape lurches from a side passage ahead. Its movements are jerky and uneven, its head twitching like a broken marionette. Leon eases you behind him with one hand, weapon already up. He takes it out, waiting a few seconds to make sure it's down.
When he turns back to you, his focus narrows, shutting out the rest of the world. "Sit," he says.
You shake your head. "We don't have time."
"Sit."
There's no edge in it. No raised volume. Just absolute certainty that this is happening. Your legs decide for you. The moment you stop resisting, they wobble, knees threatening to fold. Leon catches you instantly, one arm wrapping around your back, the other under your uninjured leg, guiding you down against the wall with careful control.
The concrete is cold through your gear. It feels strangely good. He crouches in front of you, close enough that your boots nearly touch his knees. Up close, you can see every tiny tension line in his face, every sleepless hour etched into skin that has forgotten what "rested" means.
His bare hand comes up again, settling against your neck, fingers sliding to your pulse point. You shiver.
His brows draw together. "You're burning up."
"Shock," you say weakly.
"You know that's not true."
His thumb presses lightly, counting. You can feel the rhythm under his skin, your heart hammering like it's trying to break out of your chest.
"Too fast," he murmurs, mostly to himself.
A tremor runs through your hands. Small at first, then stronger, fingers twitching against your thigh as if they belong to someone else and forgot to tell you. You curl them into fists, but it doesn't help. Leon notices. He reaches down slowly, deliberately, and wraps his hand around yours. Not restraining. Anchoring. His grip is warm, solid, impossibly steady compared to the jitter under your skin.
"Look at me," he says softly.
You do. Blue eyes. Tired. Fierce. Terrified in a way he would deny under oath.
"We're going to fix this," he says.
"You don't know that."
"Yes," he says, so simply it almost hurts. "I do."
Your vision blurs. You blink rapidly, trying to clear it, but the edges keep fuzzing out like a badly tuned signal.
"Everything's... weird," you admit. "Like I'm underwater."
His jaw tightens. "Any nausea?"
"No."
"Dizziness?"
"...Maybe."
"Confusion?"
You hesitate.
His expression darkens. "How long?"
"Ten minutes."
He leans forward suddenly, pressing his forehead to yours. The contact is gentle, deliberate, his eyes closing for a brief moment like he's drawing strength from proximity alone.
"You stay with me," he murmurs. "You hear me? No drifting."
"I'm right here."
His hand slides to the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair, holding you there. Making sure you don't slip away. For a few seconds, neither of you moves. Somewhere far off, metal clatters. A distant echo of something collapsing. The facility settling into deeper ruin. You swallow. Your throat feels raw now, like you've been breathing dry air for hours.
"Leon."
"Yeah."
"If I start to..."
He pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes sharp. "Don't."
"You need to be ready."
"I am ready."
"That's not what I mean."
His hand tightens at the back of your neck, just enough to stop you from looking away.
"I'm not leaving you," he says quietly. "Save it."
Your chest aches, and not from the bite. You nod because you don't trust your voice. He studies you another moment, memorizing something only he can see, then exhales slowly and shifts back into motion.
"Okay," he says, tone sharpening into mission focus again. "We move in short intervals. Next sector should have auxiliary storage or research offices. More supplies. Maybe antivirals."
"Maybe," you echo.
He rises, then hesitates, looking down at you like he's recalculating physics.
Without warning, he slips one arm behind your back and the other under your knees.
You blink. "Leon—"
"Save your strength."
"I can walk."
"I know."
And that's the end of the discussion. He lifts you with controlled ease, settling you against his chest. Your head ends up tucked under his chin, close enough to hear his heartbeat, steady and stubborn as a drum calling soldiers back to formation. You don't argue again. Your hand fumbles for his vest, gripping the fabric as another wave of heat rolls through you, deeper this time, almost nauseating in its intensity.
"Still with me?" he murmurs into your hair.
You nod weakly. "Yeah."
"Good."
He adjusts his hold, one hand splayed protectively across your back, and starts down the corridor again, footsteps measured, unhurried, as if he has decided that time itself can wait its turn. The world sways gently with each step. Your eyelids feel heavy.
Leon's voice cuts through the fog, low and insistent. "Stay awake."
"I'm trying."
"Talk to me."
"About what?"
"Anything."
You think for a long moment, chasing thoughts that scatter like startled birds.
"...Dessert," you mumble finally.
A soft breath leaves him, almost a laugh, almost something else entirely.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "We're still getting that."
You clutch his vest a little tighter, grounding yourself in the solid reality of him.
"Don't let me fall asleep," you whisper.
His arms tighten around you, careful but unyielding.
Leon adjusts his grip as you shift in his arms, not because you're heavy, never that, but because your body no longer anticipates his movement the way it usually does. You used to lean into turns before they happened, tighten your hold when he stepped over debris, and match his rhythm without thinking. Now you lag by half a second behind every motion, like your connection to gravity is buffering. He notices. He notices everything.
Your skin is too hot even through layers of fabric. Heat seeps through his sleeves, through his gloves, into his palms like you're burning from the inside out. Your breath ghosts unevenly against his throat, sometimes shallow, sometimes too deep, like your lungs can't agree on a pattern. Fever, he tells himself. Infection. Not the other thing. Not yet. Your fingers twitch where they clutch his vest, loosening, tightening, loosening again.
"Hey," he murmurs quietly. "Still with me?"
A pause. "...Yeah."
The word is slurred at the edges, dragged through molasses. His jaw tightens. He keeps moving.
The corridor stretches ahead in dim amber light, empty except for the occasional smear on the wall or abandoned equipment pushed aside by people who ran out of time. His footsteps are steady, deliberate, conserving energy, minimizing jostling. He's carried wounded before. Teammates. Civilians. Strangers. None of them felt like this. None of them felt like carrying his own heartbeat outside his body.
Your head shifts, cheek pressing against his collarbone. For a moment you go very still, so still that something cold claws down his spine.
"Talk to me," he says, softer now. "You promised."
A long silence. Then, faintly, "Cold."
He stops. A clean halt, like someone pulled a lever inside him. Cold is wrong. You're burning up. He lowers you carefully to one knee without setting you fully down, keeping one arm wrapped around your back so you don't tip sideways. His other hand comes up to your face, bare fingers brushing your cheek. Your skin is blazing. But you're shivering. Small, violent tremors run through you, teeth chattering softly against each other, lashes fluttering as if your body can't decide whether to wake or sleep.
"Hey," he says, sharper now. "Open your eyes."
You do, slowly, unfocused at first. Your pupils look blown wide in the low light, swallowing what little color remains in your irises.
"It's... dark," you mumble.
His chest tightens. The lights are still on.
"I'm right here," he says. "Look at me."
Your gaze drifts, struggles, and finally locks onto his face. Recognition flickers there, fragile but present.
"...Leon."
Relief hits him so hard it almost feels like pain.
"Yeah," he breathes. "Yeah, it's me."
Your brow furrows faintly, confusion knitting your expression into something painfully vulnerable.
"You look... tired."
He almost laughs. "Occupational hazard," he says quietly.
Your hand lifts weakly, fingers brushing his jaw as if you're mapping terrain you've walked a thousand times but suddenly don't trust your memory of.
"You should sleep," you whisper.
The tenderness in it is what breaks him a little.
"Soon, sweetheart," he says.
Your hand slips, falling back against your chest. Silence stretches. Your breathing grows uneven again.
Then you say, very softly, "Did we make it home?"
The words land like a physical blow. For a second, he can't answer. His throat closes around something sharp and unmanageable.
Home. Not the facility. Not the mission. Not the outbreak. Home. He swallows hard, forcing air back into his lungs.
"Not yet," he says, voice low and steady by sheer force of will. "Working on it."
Your eyes drift past him, unfocused, as if you're looking at something over his shoulder that isn't there.
"...Smells like coffee," you murmur. "Burned it again."
His vision blurs. He blinks hard, refocusing on the concrete wall behind you. You're not smelling coffee. There is no coffee. There hasn't been coffee in hours. Just dust and chemicals and rot. Hallucinations, a cold voice in his mind supplies. Neurological involvement. He hates that voice.
Your lips curve faintly, a sleepy little smile that belongs in a sunlit kitchen, not here. "You always do that," you mumble. "Say you're watching it, then forget..."
Your head tips sideways, resting against his arm. Your eyelids droop. Panic slices through him, clean and immediate.
"Hey," he says sharply, fingers tightening on your shoulder. "No. Stay with me."
You stir weakly. "...'m tired."
"I know."
"So tired."
His thumb presses against your pulse again. Still fast. Too fast.
"You can sleep when we're home," he says, leaning closer, voice dropping to something rough and urgent.
Your eyes open a sliver.
"...Promise?"
The question is so small it barely exists.
He bows his head until his forehead rests against yours, eyes closing for one heartbeat, he allows himself.
"Yeah," he whispers. "I promise."
He doesn't know if he's promising sleep, survival, or something else entirely. It doesn't matter. Your breathing evens out a little, not better, just slower, drifting toward something that looks dangerously like unconsciousness. Not yet, he thinks fiercely.
He slides one arm under your knees again and lifts you back against his chest, more carefully this time, as if you might come apart if handled too roughly. Your head lolls against his shoulder, then settles in the hollow of his neck, breath hot and damp against his skin.
"Stay with me," he murmurs into your hair. "Just a little longer."
Your fingers twitch weakly against his vest, not gripping anymore, just resting there like they forgot their job.
"...Love you," you whisper, so faint he almost thinks he imagined it.
He stops breathing. The entire world narrows to the weight in his arms and the fragile thread of sound still hanging in the air. His hold tightens, protective, desperate, careful all at once.
"I know," he says quietly, voice breaking on the edges despite his best effort. "I know."
He presses his cheek briefly against your hair, eyes closing, grounding himself in the reality of you. The heat. The softness. The terrifying fragility. Then he straightens and starts moving again, steps faster now, less cautious, urgency bleeding through the discipline he's clung to since this began. Somewhere ahead, there has to be another lab. Another storage room. Another chance. There has to be. Because the alternative is unthinkable, and Leon Kennedy has built an entire life on refusing to accept those.
"Hang on," he murmurs. "I've got you."
The corridor opens into what used to be a patient ward, rows of metal-framed beds bolted to the floor, privacy curtains hanging in limp, dusty folds like flags after a lost battle. Most of the mattresses are stripped bare, plastic covers cracked with age, but the room is quiet. No movement. No shuffling breath. Just the low electrical hum that seems to haunt every corner of this place.
Leon slows, scanning automatically, mapping exits, sightlines, choke points. Good visibility. Single main entrance. Minimal clutter. Defensible. More importantly, close.
A reinforced door at the far end bears a faded hazard symbol and the words AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY stenciled beneath it. The hinges are external. The frame is thicker than standard interior construction. Lab access. Or something close to it.
"Okay," he murmurs, mostly to himself. "This'll do."
He crosses to the nearest intact bed and lowers you with painstaking care, one arm supporting your shoulders, the other guiding your legs so the injured one doesn't twist. The mattress sighs softly under your weight, springs complaining but holding. For a second, he doesn't let go. Your head rolls slightly to one side, hair falling across your face. Your eyes are half-open, unfocused, lashes trembling like you're dreaming with your eyes still in the world.
"Hey," he says quietly, brushing the hair back with fingers that are gentler than anything else he's done today. "Stay with me."
Your gaze struggles to find him. "...Hi," you whisper.
"Hi," he echoes, voice rough.
Your hand lifts weakly, searching. He catches it immediately, folding his larger one around yours, grounding you with solid pressure.
"Where are we?" you murmur.
"Almost there," he says. Not a lie. Not quite the truth. "I need to check something."
Your fingers twitch in his grip, barely there. "...Don't go far."
His throat tightens.
"I won't," he says. "You'll be able to hear me the whole time." That seems to satisfy something in you. Your eyes drift closed, not fully unconscious, just sliding along the edge of it.
He gently lowers your hand to rest against your stomach, then hesitates. After a moment, he reaches up and unzips his jacket, shrugging it off despite the chill. He drapes it over you, tucking it around your shoulders, creating a cocoon of familiar warmth and scent. Leon rests his palm against your cheek one last time, thumb brushing your skin in a soft arc.
He forces himself to stand. Every instinct screams not to leave you. To pick you up and run until the world ends, the cure appears, or both. But the door at the end of the room waits, silent and stubborn, and something in his gut tells him that whatever hope exists is behind it.
He moves. Slow at first, reluctant steps that keep him within arm's reach, then a little farther, turning back every few seconds to make sure you're still breathing, still there, still you. Halfway across the ward, a shape shifts behind a curtain. Leon's weapon is up before the fabric finishes swaying.
A figure stumbles out, skeletal, skin pulled tight over bone, eyes reflecting dull amber in the emergency light. Its mouth opens in a soundless snarl as it lurches toward the nearest movement. Leon intercepts it before it gets anywhere. Two suppressed shots. One to the chest, one to the head. The body collapses in a boneless heap, momentum carrying it forward until it skids to a stop across the tile.
Another groan answers from somewhere deeper in the room. He pivots, firing again, dropping a second infected as it claws its way over a bedframe. Efficient. Controlled. No wasted motion. No unnecessary noise. Three heartbeats of silence. He listens, counting breaths. Nothing else rises. Only then does he glance back. You haven't moved. Relief floods through him so sharply his knees almost unlock.
"Still here," he murmurs under his breath, as if confirming it makes it true.
He reaches the reinforced door and tests the handle. Locked. Of course it is.
Up close, the barricade becomes obvious. Heavy shelving units have been shoved against the interior side, metal edges visible through the narrow seam where the door meets the frame. Whoever sealed this room meant to keep something out. Or in.
Leon leans closer, ear to the cold steel. Nothing. No breathing. No scratching. No shifting weight. He steps back and scans the frame. Electronic panel. Dead. Manual override slot intact. Hope stirs, cautious and unwelcome.
He glances over his shoulder again. From here, he can still see you on the bed, small beneath his jacket, chest rising and falling in shallow motions that make his own lungs ache in sympathy.
"Almost there," he says quietly, whether to you or himself, he doesn't know.
From a pouch on his belt, he pulls a compact breaching tool, the metal catching the light as he slots it into the override housing. The device hums softly, vibration traveling up his wrist.
Behind him, the ward remains still.
Then your voice drifts across the room, thin and fragile. "...Leon?"
He spins instantly. Your head has turned toward him, eyes open again, unfocused but searching, panic flickering in the small movement of your hands against his jacket.
"I'm here," he calls, already crossing back toward you. "Right here."
You stare at him as if trying to memorize his face before it disappears. "...Too many," you whisper. "They're everywhere."
"There's nothing here," he says gently. "You're safe."
Your head sinks back into the thin pillow. Consciousness slips away from you like water through open fingers. Leon stays there a second longer than he should, watching your chest rise, fall, rise again. Then he stands and turns back to the barricaded door, something steely settling over him, heavier than anger, sharper than fear.
The tool in his hand whines as it bites into the locking mechanism, sparks spitting in brief, angry bursts. Metal protests. Screws shear. The smell of hot circuitry fills the air.
"Hold on," he murmurs, not looking back this time because he won't stop if he does. "I'm getting us in."
Behind him, the bed creaks softly as you shift in fevered sleep. Ahead, the door shudders as the final bolt gives way. Leon shoves the door inward, the weight of it grinding against the barricade until the gap is wide enough for him to slip through sideways. Inside, a toppled shelving unit leans against the opposite wall, confirming what he already suspected. Whoever sealed this room did it from within and didn't plan on leaving.
The air is colder here. Cleaner. Sterile in that artificial way that smells faintly of alcohol wipes and plastic, like illness reduced to a controlled environment.
Emergency lights glow a sickly green, illuminating rows of lab benches, overturned stools, racks of glassware frozen mid-experiment. Papers lie scattered across the floor, curling at the edges. A monitor flickers weakly on one station, casting a pulsing rectangle of pale light that feels almost alive in the otherwise stagnant room.
Leon clears the space in seconds, weapon sweeping corners, checking behind doors, under desks, anywhere something could hide. Nothing lunges. Nothing breathes. Just abandonment, sudden and absolute, like the people who worked here evaporated mid-sentence.
He lowers the gun a fraction, chest rising and falling a little too fast to be purely tactical.
"Okay," he murmurs, voice rough in the quiet. "Okay."
He moves to the nearest workstation, scanning labels, cabinets, drawers. Chemical reagents. Disposable supplies. Data drives. Everything except what he needs. Another bench. Same story. He opens a refrigerated unit. Empty trays. Frost buildup. Power too low to maintain temperature.
His pulse hammers harder.
Not here. Not here. Not here.
"Come on," he mutters, rifling through containers faster now, less methodical, more desperate. Glass clinks sharply as he shoves aside vials of things that don't matter, powders with long names, syringes sealed in sterile plastic. Nothing labeled antiviral. Nothing labeled serum. Nothing labeled hope. A cold weight settles in his stomach.
He moves to the flickering computer, fingers flying across the keys, waking it from whatever half-dead state it's been trapped in. The screen brightens sluggishly, revealing a login prompt already bypassed, system hanging on by a thread.
"Don't do this to me," he whispers.
Folders populate slowly. Research logs. Incident reports. Containment protocols. He scans titles with ruthless speed, opening anything that looks remotely relevant, eyes burning as line after line of technical jargon scrolls past.
A crash echoes faintly from the ward beyond the door. His head snaps toward the sound. Silence follows. He waits three seconds. Five. Ten. No approach. No impact against the door. No dragging footsteps. Still there, he tells himself. She's still there.
He turns back to the screen, forcing his focus to narrow again. A document catches his eye.
ANTIVIRAL DISPERSION PROTOCOL – EMERGENCY USE
He opens it. Paragraphs of dense instructions spill across the display. Stabilization procedures. Delivery methods. Storage warnings. STORAGE LOCATION: SECURE BIOCONTAINMENT VAULT B-2. His stomach drops. Not here.
Coordinates blink uselessly on the screen, pointing deeper into the facility, farther than he wants to think about, farther than you may be able to survive the trip.
Something inside him finally gives. He grips the edge of the desk, knuckles whitening, shoulders bowing as if someone just added fifty pounds to his back.
"Damn it," he breathes.
The word fractures on the way out, barely more than air. He squeezes his eyes shut, forehead dropping toward his clenched fists, fighting the surge of helpless fury that threatens to tear through discipline, training, every wall he's built over years of surviving the unsurvivable. Not enough time. Not enough distance. Not enough anything.
Out in the ward, you lie alone on a metal bed, burning up, slipping further away with every second he spends standing here empty-handed. His chest tightens until breathing feels optional.
For one dangerous moment, he imagines walking back out there, picking you up, and never stopping. No cure. No mission. Just distance and denial. Just the selfish hope that if he runs fast enough, the virus won't catch you.
He exhales sharply, dragging himself back from the edge. Running never saved anyone.
"Think," he mutters hoarsely. "Think."
His gaze drifts across the lab again, slower this time, less frantic, searching for patterns instead of miracles. That's when he notices it. A sealed medical kit is mounted on the wall near the exit. Standard emergency issue. Bright white casing. Untouched, pristine compared to the chaos everywhere else. Too pristine. He crosses the room and pops it open. Bandages. Burn gel. Basic trauma supplies. Nothing else.
His shoulders slump. Then his eyes catch a thin seam along the back panel, almost invisible unless you're looking directly at it. Not part of the original design. Too clean. Too deliberate. He taps it with his knuckle. Hollow. Hope flares, sharp and painful.
He wedges a knife into the seam and pries. The panel resists for a second, then snaps free with a brittle crack, revealing a narrow cavity hidden behind the kit.
Inside rests a single reinforced container, matte gray and no bigger than a paperback book, sealed with a biometric latch long since disabled. Not government-issue, but research-grade. Whoever put this here didn't have the chance to get it.
Leon's hands shake as he pulls it free. The lid pops open. Nestled in foam are two glass syringes pre-loaded with clear liquid, labels printed in blocky lab script:
ANTIVIRAL SERUM — FINALIZED STRAIN
For a second, he just stares, brain refusing to trust what his eyes are telling it. Air leaves his lungs in a sound that might be a laugh or might be something closer to a sob strangled before it can exist.
He presses his forehead briefly against the cool plastic case, eyes squeezing shut, letting the relief hit him in one violent wave before he can stop it. Shoulders shake once, twice, a tremor he doesn't bother to control because no one is here to see it. No one except the person who needs him most. He straightens abruptly, wiping a hand across his face, composure snapping back into place like a mask he's worn too long to misplace.
"Hang on," he says, already moving for the door, clutching the case like it's made of glass and prayers. "I'm coming back."
Your skin is still hot. That's the first thing he registers when his palm cups your cheek. Heat floods into his hand, fever-bright, but there's a wrongness to it now, a brittle quality, like warmth without life behind it.
"Hey," he says softly. "I'm back."
No response. Your lashes rest against your cheeks, unmoving. Your mouth is slightly open, breath slipping in shallow threads that barely stir the hair at your temple. The shivering from before has stopped. Your body lies too still beneath his jacket, as if it finally decided movement was optional.
A cold spike of terror drives straight through his chest.
"Hey." Louder this time, but still gentle, still careful, as if volume alone might break you. "Come on. Open your eyes for me."
Nothing. He slides his hand to your neck, fingers pressing to your pulse point. It's there. Fast. Thready. Irregular in a way that makes his own heartbeat stumble trying to match it.
"Okay," he breathes, more to himself than to you. "We're okay."
His other hand trembles as he fumbles the case open, snapping it back with a soft plastic crack. The syringes gleam under the emergency lights, their clear liquid looking impossibly calm compared to the storm in his chest. He sets the case on the bed beside you, movements deliberate, controlled, forcing precision where panic wants chaos.
"You're gonna hate this part," he murmurs, fingers working to clear space at your collar, tugging fabric aside so he can reach skin. "But you can yell at me later. I'm counting on it."
Your head lolls slightly with the movement. No protest. No reflexive tension. He swallows hard.
"Hey," he says again, softer now, thumb brushing your jaw in a slow arc. "Stay with me, okay? You don't get to check out early. We still owe each other dessert."
His voice catches on the last word. He pushes through it.
"Remember that place downtown? The one with the ridiculous chocolate cake you said was worth the calories?" A shaky breath. "I figure we'll go there."
He presses his forehead briefly against yours, eyes squeezing shut for a fraction of a second.
"You hear me? We've got plans."
Your breathing hitches faintly, a tiny irregular stutter that might be a coincidence or might be something else. He latches onto it anyway, desperate for anything that looks like a connection.
"That's it," he murmurs. "Right there. Stay with me."
He lifts the syringe, checks it automatically, habit stronger than fear. No air bubbles. Fluid clear. Needle steady despite the tremor in his hand.
"Okay," he whispers. "Here we go."
He slides his arm behind your shoulders, lifting you just enough to support you against his chest, cradling you there so the injection won't jostle too much. Your head falls against him, cheek resting over his heart, breath warm and frighteningly faint through the fabric of his shirt.
"You're doing great," he says softly, even though you're doing nothing at all. "Almost there."
The needle presses into your skin.
He hesitates.
Not because he doubts the serum. Because once this is done, there's nothing left to do but wait, and waiting is the one thing he has never learned to survive gracefully.
"Don't be mad," he murmurs. "I'm not giving you a choice."
He depresses the plunger slowly, watching the liquid disappear into you, as if he can track hope molecule by molecule. His other arm tightens around your back, holding you upright, holding you together.
"All right," he says, voice barely above a breath. "You did good. See? Easy."
He withdraws the needle and sets it aside with mechanical care, as if any sudden movement might undo what he's just done. Then he just holds you.
Seconds crawl past, each one stretching thin as wire. Nothing happens. Your breathing remains shallow. Your pulse, when he checks again, is still fast, still erratic. His chest starts to feel tight, air coming harder, like the room has quietly stolen oxygen while he wasn't looking.
"Okay," he says hoarsely. "Sometimes these things take a minute."
He shifts you slightly, thumb stroking your arm in absent circles, the same motion he uses when you're half asleep on long flights or bad nights. Comfort muscle memory kicks in even when the situation is far beyond comfort.
"You're not allowed to do this," he whispers. "You hear me? Not now. Not like this."
Your hand slips from where it rested against his vest, sliding down between you, fingers loose and unresponsive. He grabs it instantly, folding it back into his palm, pressing it against his chest.
"Come back," he says, the words fraying at the edges.
Another long stretch of nothing. Fear blooms, cold and suffocating, filling every hollow place in him. Too late, a voice in the back of his mind whispers. Too slow. Too far gone.
He shakes his head sharply, jaw clenching.
"No," he mutters. "No, you don't get to do that."
He bows over you, pressing his forehead to your hair, eyes squeezed shut, breathing you in like oxygen.
"You promised," he says roughly. "You don't break your promises."
Your pulse stutters under his fingers. He freezes.
There it is again. A strange hitch, a pause that stretches too long, then a sudden rush, as if your heart forgot the rhythm and is trying to find it again. His own heart stops in sympathetic terror.
"Come on," he whispers. "Come on..."
Your body jerks. A sharp, involuntary spasm that arches you slightly against him before you go slack again. Leon sucks in a breath, half panic, half hope colliding in his chest.
Your brow creases faintly, expression tightening as if pain is finally breaking through the fog. A weak sound escapes you, barely audible, more exhale than voice. His grip on you tightens, careful but fierce.
"I know," he murmurs. "I know, sweetheart. It's okay. You're okay."
Your breathing changes, deepening suddenly, as if you're pulling in air like someone surfacing from underwater. It catches, stutters, then comes again, stronger this time, dragging oxygen into lungs that finally seem interested in using it.
"There you go," he breathes, voice shaking openly now. "That's it. Stay with me."
Your fingers twitch weakly against his chest. He presses his cheek against your hair, eyes closing, holding you like you might still vanish if he loosens his grip.
"I've got you," he whispers. "You're okay. I've got you."
He keeps you cradled against his chest, one arm locked around your back, the other braced across your shoulders, hand splayed as if shielding you from something that no longer exists. His cheek rests against your hair, breath uneven, dragging in through his nose, out through parted lips like he's relearning how to do it.
Your pulse is stronger now beneath his fingers. Still fast, still fragile, but steady enough to count. Steady enough to believe in. Only then does the tension start to bleed out of him. It comes all at once.
His shoulders shudder. Not violently, just a small, contained tremor that he tries to swallow down and can't. A sound escapes him, rough and broken, something halfway between a breath and a sob he never intended to make. He tightens his hold instinctively, pressing his face into your hair as if hiding there makes it less real.
"Okay," he whispers hoarsely. "Okay... you're okay."
Warmth hits your scalp. At first, your fogged mind can't place it. Wetness. A second drop follows, sliding along your temple before disappearing into your hair.
Leon doesn't notice. Or he does and can't stop. He bows over you, forehead pressed to the crown of your head, shoulders shaking in small, uneven pulses he's trying desperately to keep silent. Years of training, years of surviving, years of holding everything inside, finally cracking under the simple fact that you are still here.
"I've got you," he murmurs, voice wrecked, words stumbling over each other. "I've got you, I've got you..."
Your fingers twitch. This time, the movement is stronger, a weak curl against his shirt, fabric bunching slightly in your grasp. The sensation filters through layers of fog, heat, exhaustion, and the lingering echo of pain. Consciousness creeps back in like dawn through heavy curtains.
Your throat burns. Your body feels impossibly heavy, as if gravity doubled while you were away. Every muscle aches with a deep, bone-level fatigue that sleep alone could never fix.
Sound reaches you first. A heartbeat. Loud. Steady. Close enough to be yours, except it isn't. Breath above you, hitching, uneven. Fabric shifting faintly with each inhale.
Someone is holding you. You force your eyes open.
The world swims into view in slow, watery shapes. A blurred patch of green light. A shadow that resolves into the curve of a shoulder. Blond strands of hair brushing your cheek.
Leon.
He doesn't notice you're awake yet. His face is buried against your head, one hand cupping the back of your skull with fierce gentleness, thumb moving in tiny, repetitive strokes like he's soothing a nightmare that hasn't ended for him yet.
Your voice comes out as a rasp. "Leon...?"
He freezes. Absolute stillness, like a statue suddenly unsure whether it's allowed to move. Slowly, he lifts his head. His eyes are red. Not just glassy, not just tired, but openly, unmistakably wet. Tracks of tears cut through the grime on his cheeks, catching the light as he blinks hard, as if blinking might erase evidence before you can register it.
For a second, he just stares at you, something raw and disbelieving cracking across his face, like he expected this moment and still isn't sure it's real.
"You're..." His voice fails. He clears his throat roughly. "Hey."
You try to smile. It feels wobbly, incomplete. "Hi."
Relief hits him so visibly it's almost painful to watch. His shoulders sag, tension draining out of him like someone cut the strings holding him upright.
"Hey," he repeats, softer this time, thumb coming up to brush your cheek in a careful sweep, as if confirming you're solid. "You're back."
"Was I... gone?"
His jaw tightens. "Not allowed."
You attempt a small laugh. It comes out as a weak breath. His hand slides to the side of your neck, fingers resting over your pulse again, counting, grounding, refusing to trust his eyes alone.
"You scared me," he says quietly.
Your gaze drops to his chest, to the wrinkled fabric where you must have been gripping him earlier. "Sorry."
His head snaps slightly. "Don't."
The word is sharp, then softens immediately.
"Don't apologize," he adds, voice rough. "Just... don't."
You nod faintly. Even that feels like work.
For a moment, neither of you speaks. You just lie there in his arms, breathing the same air, sharing the same small pocket of reality after hours of separation that happened without distance. Then you notice how tightly he's still holding you.
"Leon," you murmur, "I can't breathe."
He releases you instantly, horror flashing across his face. "Sorry. Sorry."
He shifts his grip, supporting you more carefully, one arm still behind your shoulders but no longer crushing you to him. His other hand lingers at your jaw, thumb brushing your skin as if he can't quite stop touching you.
"You're okay?" he asks, scanning your face like he's looking for cracks. "Dizzy? Nauseous? Vision?"
"Everything hurts."
He exhales, something that might be relief ghosting through the pain in his expression. "I'll take it."
Your eyes drift past him, taking in the ward, the beds, the dim light. Memory trickles back in jagged pieces. Teeth. Heat. Falling. Darkness.
"...You found it," you whisper.
He nods once. "Yeah, told you we would.
Your mouth twitches, not quite a smile. "Yeah. You did."
You study him more closely now, the red around his eyes, the dampness he hasn't fully wiped away, the way he keeps blinking as if his vision is unreliable.
"You were crying," you say softly.
Immediate denial rises to his lips. You can see it form. Then he looks at you. And whatever excuse he was about to give dissolves.
"...Yeah," he admits, voice low. "Maybe a little."
A tear slips free anyway, tracking down before he can stop it. He doesn't bother hiding it this time. Doesn't look away. Just lets it exist.
"You weren't waking up," he says, as if that explains everything. It does.
Your chest aches in a different way now. You lift your hand slowly, muscles protesting, and touch his face. Your thumb brushes the damp track on his cheek, wiping it away with clumsy tenderness.
"I'm here," you whisper.
He leans into your hand without thinking, eyes closing briefly, relief and exhaustion and something deeper collapsing together inside him.
"Yeah," he murmurs. "You are."
He covers your hand with his, pressing it lightly to his skin as if anchoring himself. After a moment, his gaze sharpens again, mission awareness bleeding back in.
"We need to move," he says gently. "Facility's not stable, and we don't know how long before more of them wander in."
You nod, though the idea of standing feels ambitious at best. He notices the hesitation immediately.
"Hey," he says softly. "I've got you."
He shifts, sliding one arm behind your back again, the other under your knees, lifting you with the same careful strength as before, only this time you help a little, arms coming up weakly around his neck. Your head settles against his shoulder.
"Still getting dessert?" you murmur against his collar.
A real smile breaks through at last, small but bright as sunrise after a storm.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "We're still getting that."
He turns toward the exit, steps steady, protective hold unyielding but gentle now that he knows you're truly there.
Three days later, the world smells like coffee and clean laundry instead of antiseptic and decay.
Sunlight spills through half-closed blinds, laying soft gold across the rumpled bedspread and the tangle of blankets around your legs. The air is warm, carrying the faint hum of city life from outside, tires on pavement, a distant horn, someone laughing somewhere far below.
Leon sits beside you, forearms resting on his thighs, watching with that quiet intensity he hasn't quite learned to turn off yet. He looks cleaner than before, shaved, hair damp as if he showered quickly and came right back, but the exhaustion still clings to him in the set of his shoulders.
"You're staring," you murmur.
"Monitoring," he corrects.
"You blink?"
"Sometimes."
You huff a small laugh, the motion tugging at sore muscles that remind you exactly how recently everything went wrong. His gaze sharpens instantly, concern flaring before you even realize you winced.
"I'm okay," you assure him.
He searches your face a moment longer, then nods, not convinced but willing to accept it for now.
"You hungry?" he asks.
"Always."
He disappears into the kitchen and returns with coffee and a plate of pancakes that look slightly uneven but deeply sincere. You eat, he watches, tension slowly unwinding from him with each bite you take.
When you finish, you lean back, warm and heavy with food, eyelids drooping in content exhaustion.
"So when is our dessert date?" you ask softly.
Leon goes still. Then he stands without a word and leaves the room again.
You hear the soft thud of the door opening, the faint clink of something ceramic, the careful movements of someone handling something fragile. When he returns, he's holding a small white bakery box tied with a thin ribbon, the bow slightly crooked as if it had to survive transport in a large, impatient hand. He sets it on the bedside table with surprising delicacy.
"I didn't make this," he says gruffly. "Figured we've both suffered enough."
Suspicion and curiosity spark together. You pull the ribbon loose, lifting the lid. Inside sits a slice of decadent chocolate cake, glossy frosting catching the sunlight, layers dark, dense, and unapologetically indulgent.
Your chest tightens.
"You remembered," you whisper.
He shrugs, looking suddenly very interested in a spot on the wall. "You seemed pretty sure it was worth surviving for."
You lift the cake plate slightly and notice something tucked beneath the ribbon, partially hidden against the cardboard.
An envelope. Your fingers hesitate, then slide it free. Leon doesn't look at you. He's staring out the window now, jaw set, shoulders a little too rigid, like he's bracing for impact.
Inside the envelope are two plane tickets. Beach destination. Departure in two weeks. Round trip. Vacation time from work. A hotel confirmation tucked behind them.
For a long moment, you can't speak.
"You said somewhere boring," he mutters quietly, still not turning around. "Figured that would be perfect."
"Leon..."
He finally looks back, expression carefully neutral, but there's something vulnerable in his eyes, something that says this mattered more than he wants to admit.
"You don't have to go," he adds quickly. "If you're not up for travel yet, we can postpone, or cancel, or—"
You set the tickets down and reach for him. Your fingers curl into his shirt, pulling him closer until he's standing right at the edge of the bed, close enough that you can see the faint pulse at the base of his throat.
"Thank you," you say softly.
Not just for the vacation. Not just for the cake. He understands anyway. His face softens, tension draining into something warm and quiet and deeply relieved.
"Yeah," he murmurs. "Anytime."
You pick up the fork, take a small bite of cake, then hold it out to him. He leans in, accepting it, eyes never leaving yours. For a second, neither of you pulls back, the space between you charged with something gentler than urgency, heavier than simple affection.
"Worth it?" he asks.
You nod. "Absolutely."
You set the plate aside, your hand finding his again, fingers threading through his with familiar ease. He squeezes back immediately, grounding, protective, like he did in the hallway, only now there's no fear behind it. You both crave this closeness after it was almost ripped away just days before.
You tug lightly, coaxing him down to sit beside you on the bed. He goes without resistance, one arm coming around your shoulders automatically, careful of lingering soreness. Your other hand lifts, brushing his cheek where faint redness still lingers if you look closely enough.
"I love you," you whisper.
His eyes close briefly, leaning into your touch in a way he never would in public. Just here, just now, where it's safe to be human.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "I love you too."
Leon leans in first. The kiss is slow, gentle, nothing desperate or urgent, just warm lips and shared breath and the simple reassurance of contact. He stills for half a heartbeat, like he's afraid you might break, then melts into it, one hand cupping the back of your head. When you pull back, his forehead follows yours, resting lightly against it, eyes still closed.
"Careful," he murmurs. "Doctor said no overexertion."
You smile. "Pretty sure that wasn't what they meant."
"Still."
His arm tightens around you, drawing you closer until your head rests against his shoulder, fitting there like it always has. His chin settles lightly against your hair, breath warm, steady.
Outside, the city moves on. Inside, time slows to match the rhythm of two people who fought hard for the right to sit in a quiet room and eat cake.
"Two weeks," you murmur.
"Yeah."
"You think you can handle boring?"
He huffs softly. "I'll manage."
You laugh, the sound light and real and alive. His chest rises under your cheek, its vibration grounding you in the best possible way. For a long moment, neither of you says anything else. You just sit there, sunlight warming your skin, fingers loosely entwined, the promise of salt air and quiet days waiting ahead like a horizon you can finally see. Sharing cake, and kisses, and being alive, and together in your home.
Dividers by @uzmacchiato <3
Thanks for reading<3 Just a reminder, my requests are open! I would love to hear from you!
summary : you survive a plane crash — only to wake up in a world that isn’t yours. they call it Westeros. lost and alone, you try to survive… until a joust goes terribly wrong and you save the heir to the Iron Throne, changing the fate of the realm.
words : 6k
warnings: aerion, blood and graphic violence, sexism and misogyny, medieval-typical attitudes, political intrigue, power imbalance, and other classic ASOIAF themes ect ect…
a/n : should I .... continue this ???
part 1
When Baelor rides onto the field to stand in defense of his nephew, a coldness settles along your spine so sharply it feels almost like a blade laid flat against bone.
You are positioned beneath the striped awnings of the noble pavilion, tasked with overseeing the trays and flagons as servants circulate among silk-clad lords and jeweled ladies. From this slight elevation, the lists stretch wide and merciless beneath the sun — churned earth already darkened in places where blood has soaked into it.
He has made his decision, and did not tell you.
After your conversation by the hearth, he dismissed you with measured courtesy, and that was the end of it. No hint, or promise. And now he is there.
Armor gleaming, lance lowered. The heir to the Iron Throne riding into what can only be called sanctioned slaughter.
Knights colliding in splintering bursts of wood and steel. Horses screaming. Men dragged from saddles only to rise again in mud and fury. What began as ceremony has dissolved into something far more primitive — not sport, not honor, but survival.
Your hands move mechanically, pouring wine into waiting cups, replenishing platters as though this were any other spectacle. The nobles murmur, gasp, applaud. They lean forward eagerly when a helm cracks, when a body falls.
Your gaze, however, does not wander. It remains fixed upon him, upon Baelor.
You must be a fool to even entertain the thought... You remind yourself of that often enough : you're a peasant. This isn't some ridiculous courtly romance or traveling play where a prince falls in love with a nobody and defies the realm for her. This is a medieval kingdom, titles matter. Blood matters. Marriage is not a game whispered about behind silk curtains.
Here, girls of sixteen are handed off like treaties, sealed with vows instead of ink. Gwin told you that herself, her tone practical and unsurprised. There is no room for fantasy in a world like this.
And yet...
You just can't help it. For the first time since arriving in this cursed place, you feel something stir in your chest, something reckless and alive. Of all the souls in this brutal court, of all the men you might have looked at and forgotten, you had to be attracted to him. The heir to the Iron Throne.
You watch him fight with a precision that borders on restraint. He does not rage. He does not posture. He moves with economy, shield raised, strikes measured ... not wasteful, not cruel. A man fighting because he has chosen to, not because he delights in it.
Across the chaos, you glimpse Aerion locked in vicious struggle with Ser Duncan, their movements frantic and uneven, pride driving them harder than skill.
And then — you see it.
Prince Maekar, composure shattered, drives forward in raw desperation. He calls out to his son — not as a prince commanding troops, but as a father terrified of losing his child. The sound of it carries even through the din.
Your breath catches.
Maekar does not strike gently.
The mace arcs through sunlight — a brutal, heavy sweep meant to clear space, meant to defend his son. It connects, the sound is sickening through the cheers. Baelor falls.
You gasp aloud before you can stop yourself.
A nearby lord turns toward you, goblet extended expectantly for more wine. His brows lift in mild irritation at your lapse. You murmur an apology and complete the pour, though you scarcely see the liquid entering the cup.
Your eyes are already back on the field.
He is not rising, you know that kind of blow.
You have seen concussions before. Skull fractures, the subtle stillness that follows when the brain has been shaken within its cage too violently.
At best, you think wildly, at best he is merely stunned.
At worst — the field dissolves into chaos. Trumpets blare, dust rises in thick choking clouds as men shout and converge. Somewhere amid the tumult, Aerion is forced to withdraw his accusation against Ser Duncan, the words wrenched from him more by circumstance than humility.
The trial is declared ended.
You are ordered beneath the stands at once, sent running with water and cloth for the wounded being dragged out of the blazing sun.
Under the pavilion, it is another world entirely.
The roar of the crowd fades into something muffled and distant. Here there is only blood, sweat, and the low, broken sounds of men trying not to scream.
As you hurry forward with a bucket sloshing against your skirts, one thought pounds through your skull with dreadful certainty:
You knew this would happen.
You spot the young prince (Egg? Aegon?) hovering wide-eyed as Ser Duncan is lowered onto a bench by two men. The giant looks half-dead already, armor torn away, his body a ruin of bruises and blood. And yet he still has the strength to groan, to speak.
Your instinct is immediate and violent: go to him. Help him, you idiot.
But you freeze, and remind yourself miserably once again : you are a maid. Not a surgeon who fell through time into some brutal, backward century.
"You shouldn't be here," you say gently to the small bald boy as you approach with the water.
"I'm his squire," Egg replies defensively, his high voice tight, small hands clenched into fists.
You sigh softly.
"The others..." Dunk groans, his voice rough as gravel. "Has anyone died?"
He looks toward Raymun Fossoway — the newly knighted one, bruised and battered himself, though not nearly as broken as Dunk.
"Beesbury," Raymun answers quietly, kneeling before him. "In the first charge."
Your eyes return to Dunk's side, and your stomach twists.
Steely Pate, the camp armorer, is bent over him, thick, unwashed fingers pressing into the torn flesh where the lance struck. You wince. The rings of mail have been driven into the wound.
"Gods be good," Raymun murmurs as he watches. "The lance points drove the rings deep into his flesh."
You shift the weight of the bucket on your hip, helpless, horrified. Every instinct in you is screaming.
"One moment I feel drunk," Dunk mutters through clenched teeth. "The next like I'm dying."
And that is when you snap.
"Stop touching him like that," you say sharply to Steely Pate.
All three men look at you.
Egg stares at you as though you have grown another head.
"It'll worsen the wound," you continue, forcing your voice steady. "He could die of infection."
"And what would a maid know of such matters?" Raymun asks, suspicion flickering in his eyes.
You bite back the urge to roll yours. To tell them you have spent years in operating rooms, that you have held a beating heart and a brain in your hands. That you have studied anatomy in sterile halls with lights brighter than the sun.
Because here, that would make you a witch.
"Because — " you begin.
But Steely Pate cuts you off with a dismissive shake of his head. "We'll get him drunk," he mutters, turning back to Dunk. "Then we'll pour boiling oil into it. That's how the maesters do it."
Boiling oil.
Your mind reels. You've heard of maesters — scholars, healers, teachers bound in chains of knowledge. There was one at Ashford Castle, you remember. There is always one, no matter how small the house.
And this is what they do?
You have kept your silence since arriving in this cursed place. When Clare complained of her back, when Gwin spoke of stomach pains or fevers spreading through the camp, you swallowed the truth. You never explained bacteria, never spoke of internal bleeding or organ failure. You were careful, too much knowledge would damn you.
Better a silent maid than a burned witch.
But this — this is too much.
You look at Dunk's ashen face. At the dirt grinding deeper into open flesh, the hands that will kill him in the name of healing. And for the first time since you arrived in this brutal world, you decide silence is no longer an option.
You are drawing breath to argue (to insist, to overstep your place yet again) when the murmur beneath the pavilion shifts and parts for another figure entering from the glare of the lists. The armor is unmistakable even through dust and shadow: blackened steel chased with the three-headed dragon. Not one of the lesser sons, not a hedge knight aping glory.
Royalty.
For half a heartbeat you fear it is Maekar, hard as the blow he delivered.But then the knight speaks.
"Wine. Not oil." The voice settles the question at once. Prince Baelor.
You feel something dangerously close to disbelief unfurl inside your chest. You saw the strike land. You saw the unnatural snap of his helm beneath the force of it. You saw the way his body absorbed the violence of that impact. No one walks away from that without consequence. No one.
Yet here he stands — though "stands" is generous. The sword he drives point-first into the ground is not ceremonial; it is structural. His weight leans subtly, almost imperceptibly, into the hilt as though the steel were an extension of his spine.
"Oil will kill him," Baelor continues.
The irony does not escape you.
He surveys the scene with concentration : Dunk pale and bloodied, Egg hovering stricken and stubborn, Raymun kneeling, Steely Pate bristling — and at last his gaze settles on you, absurdly still clutching your basin like a talisman of competence in a world that refuses it.
"I will send Maester Yormwell to see to him," he says, turning slightly toward the archway where the haze of churned earth still drifts. "When he has finished tending my brother."
There is that unmistakable affection of brothers when he speaks of him.
Behind you, Dunk groans, a fractured sound dragged up from somewhere deep.
You should remain silent, you should bow and withdraw into invisibility.
Instead, professional reflex overrides social survival. "And who is tending you, Your Grace?" you ask, the words emerging before caution can restrain them. "I saw the blow you received — it needs tending."
The pavilion stills, and fuck.
Baelor turns with slowness, the cracked visor obscures most of his face, yet something in the angle of his head suggests mild amusement (or perhaps curiosity) that a maid would dare such familiarity.
Before he can respond, Dunk drags himself from the bench, refusing dignity in favor of loyalty. With assistance, he forces his battered body upright enough to kneel.
"Your Grace," he rasps, voice raw with devotion. "I am your man. Please. Your man."
The plea is not political, it is profoundly personal. Baelor lowers a gloved hand to Dunk's shoulder in benediction.
"I need good men, Ser Duncan," he replies.
The cadence is wrong... not the vocabulary, but the delivery.
There is a thickness to his speech now, a subtle distortion as though the musculature of his tongue is laboring against invisible resistance. The vowels blur at their edges, consonants lack precision.
He reaches to touch Dunk's head with almost paternal gravity. "The realm — "
The sentence fractures, his posture wavers. Not dramatically or theatrically, but undeniably.
You do not think; you react. The basin slips from your grasp and strikes the ground, water spilling uselessly across trampled earth as you move to steady him. Your hands close around his left arm — solid beneath the armor yet strangely unreliable in its resistance.
"Your Grace," you murmur, lowering your voice so that it does not carry accusation, "you require a maester."
"Nonsense," he answers, but the word arrives softened at the margins.
His eyes attempt to focus on yours. They blink with effort, the tracking is delayed, as though his mind is negotiating distance through fog.
Behind you, Dunk is guided back to the bench.
Baelor remains upright only because the sword bears a portion of his weight.
"Ser Raymun... my helm... if you would be so kind."
Your mind arranges the data with merciless efficiency. The initial trauma did not incapacitate him. He rose, he spoke, he functioned. A deceptive stability. Now — minutes later — the decline announces itself in subtle neurological deficits: slurred articulation, impaired fine motor control, disequilibrium.
"Visor's cracked," Baelor adds faintly, his gauntleted fingers fumbling at the damaged metal. "My fingers feel... like wood."
Paresthesia.
Raymun steps behind him at once, calling to Steely Plate. "Good man, I need a hand."
Your thoughts accelerate into clinical clarity. The helm was tightly fitted; minimal interior space, rigid containment. The impact likely produced a depressed or linear skull fracture along the occipital region. The cerebellum could be compromised; his unsteadiness suggests involvement of coordination pathways. Swelling has begun — inevitably. Intracranial pressure rising within a confined vault.
The helmet, ironically, is performing an external tamponade. The metal encasement is stabilizing the fracture, maintaining uniform compression. It is preventing displacement.
If they remove it abruptly, they risk destabilizing the fragmented bone. They risk altering the pressure gradient catastrophically. If there is an epidural bleed (and the lucid interval strongly suggests it) then what is contained may suddenly expand without counterforce.
A rapid shift, herniation and then immediate collapse.
Raymun's hands find the clasps.
You tighten your hold on Baelor's arm, feeling the tremor beginning there, subtle but undeniable.
And you know, with dreadful certainty, that the next few seconds will determine whether the heir to the Iron Throne remains a living man, or becomes a cautionary memory whispered.
Steely Pate continues speaking (something about the steel having been driven inward, about how the metal was crushed and forced against bone) but the words dissolve before they reach you. They sound distant, muffled, as if you are hearing them from underwater.
"My brother's mace, most likely," Baelor murmurs faintly. He tilts his head toward you, and even through the warped visor you see it — that faint, crooked smile. "He's strong."
There is affection there, no bitterness, not even anger. Only the warmth of an elder brother remembering boyhood scuffles in sunlit courtyards instead of mortal blows on a battlefield. The tenderness of it nearly shatters you.
You see it clearly now — this is the lucid interval.
He is speaking, standing, and even smiling. And he is dying.
"Don't." The word leaves you before fear can cage it. It is not timid. It carries command — a tone entirely unsuited to a servant wrapped in dull grey and faded orange.
The men turn toward you in unison.
Baelor's eyes shift last. They snap toward you with effort, struggling to focus. They are unfixed, glassy, fighting to remain present.
You take a step forward, the pitcher hanging useless at your side.
"Do not remove the helm," you say again, slower this time, forcing each syllable to land with intention.
Ser Raymun exhales through his nose. "And what would a maid know of such matters?"
His tone is not merely irritated — it is offended. The natural order of the world has tilted, a servant is instructing knights.
Four pairs of eyes are on you now. You feel your pulse in your throat, in your temples.
But you do not retreat.
"If you remove it without preparation," you say carefully, "you may cause a sudden and fatal worsening of his condition."
The terminology means nothing to them — you see it plainly in their faces.
So you shift, forcing your knowledge into language they might grasp.
"The blow he took did not simply dent steel. It struck bone. The helm is holding what was broken in place. If you lift it carelessly, without keeping his head completely still, you may worsen the injury beyond repair."
They stare at you as if you have begun reciting incantations.
You step closer to Baelor now, ignoring the invisible line you should not cross.
"If you remove it," you continue, your voice tightening with urgency, "the pressure inside his skull will change. Whatever balance is holding will be lost."
"A maid. What would you know of skulls and pressure?" Raymun rebukes again, more agitated now.
And that is when something inside you tears loose.
"Shut the fuck up and listen to me, will you!" The curse cracks through the pavilion like a whip, and the silence that follows is immense.
You have just sworn at a knight of noble birth.... You know the weight of that, you know the danger, and yet, you don't care.
"He's in danger," you continue, voice no longer trembling but burning. "You remove his helmet without stabilizing his head, and the very thing keeping him alive may fail. The force that struck him likely fractured the back of his skull. The steel is compressing it! It is keeping the fragments aligned. It is containing the swelling."
Blank incomprehension flickers across their faces, but they understand the tone.
"You pull it away too quickly," you press on, desperate now, "and whatever is contained inside will not remain contained. Would you prefer his brain spilled into the dirt beneath your boots?"
The brutality of the image lands, you see it in the way Raymun's jaw tightens and eyes widen.
Baelor is staring at you in a strange, distant way.
"Let ... " he says softly. Your name is uneven on his tongue.
You step closer and take his arm more firmly as he sways.
"Do not speak," you murmur to him, lowering your voice just for him. "Save your strength."
His weight shifts against you more heavily now. The subtle tremor in his stance is worsening. His fingers, once steady on his sword, twitch faintly as though the signals between mind and muscle are faltering.
He tries to straighten, tries to maintain dignity, but you feel it — the gradual loss of coordination.
Raymun hesitates behind him, Steely Pate hesitates too. The unthinkable has happened: they are pausing because a servant girl has told them to.
Baelor exhales slowly. The sound is not quite right — slightly uneven.
You can see the signs accumulating now with horrifying clarity, and you know what comes next.
And you do not know how to stop it in a world without surgeons, without imaging, without sterile instruments or drills to relieve the pressure building inside a prince's head.
All you have is your voice, and the terrible knowledge that time is almost gone.
Then Baelor's knees buckle. The change is subtle at first (a deeper sway, his grip loosening on the sword ) and then his weight collapses fully into you.
"Your Grace — !"
You barely keep him upright.
His head lolls slightly inside the damaged helm, his eyes are no longer focusing.
"Lay him down," you order sharply, the authority in your tone no longer accidental but deliberate. "Flat, and carefully. Keep his head completely still."
They hesitate again — not out of defiance now, but uncertainty.
You twist toward a passing maid frozen near the pavilion entrance.
"You — find something rigid. A door plank, a table board, anything long and solid. Now. And clear a path back to the castle. He needs to be moved immediately."
She stares at you, wide-eyed.
"Go!" you snap.
She runs.
Raymun steps closer, agitation bleeding into his voice. "We cannot simply rush the Hand of the King about like a sack of grain—"
You round on him, fury blazing hot and clean.
"The heir to the Iron Throne and the Hand of the King are in our hands," you say, each word sharp as a blade. "If you do not wish to watch him die beneath this tent, then you will either listen to me or you will step aside — and if he dies because you chose pride over sense, that will be on you."
The pavilion goes still.
Raymun's jaw flexes, but he does not argue again.
Baelor is sagging now, barely conscious. A low murmur spills from his lips — broken fragments.
"Sons... the realm..." The words drift apart, unfinished.
"Do not let his head move," you instruct Steely Pate. "Not even a finger's width."
The maid returns at last, breathless, dragging a long, solid plank of wood — likely torn from a supply table. It will have to do.
"Good," you say, already kneeling. "Slide it beside him."
You lower Baelor carefully to the ground, supporting the base of his skull through the helm so that no rotation occurs. Every motion is slow, controlled. You guide the men with your hands.
"On my count," you say, breathing rapidly. "We lift together... keep his body aligned with his head. Do not twist him."
They obey. One, two, three. They raise him just enough for you to slide the plank beneath. You lay him flat atop it, adjusting his shoulders and hips so his spine remains straight.
He is no longer responding.
"Baelor," you say firmly, leaning close. "Your Grace, can you hear me?"
No answer.
You press two fingers carefully at his neck beneath the jawline, searching. There, a pulse. Still present, still alive! Strong, but slightly irregular.
"He still has a pulse," you say, more to steady yourself than them. "We move now."
Steely Pate takes one end of the wooden plank without another word, his large hands surprisingly steady despite the blood still drying on his knuckles. You move to the other end immediately, not allowing yourself a moment to think about the impropriety of it — a servant lifting a prince — nor about the tremor running through your arms.
Raymun positions himself near the prince's head, both hands hovering awkwardly near the damaged helm as if afraid even his breath might shift it. Egg stands frozen for a second longer, his wide violet eyes glossy with tears, staring at his uncle's slackened form as though the world has tilted irreparably.
But you need him.
He is the only one whose word will open gates and doors.
"Slowly," you instruct Steely Pate firmly. "No sudden movements. Keep him completely level." Then, without breaking stride, you turn your head toward Raymun and the cluster of maids hovering uselessly nearby. "Find a maester for Ser Duncan. Now. Do not let them pour oil into that wound."
Your voice does not waver.
"Prince Aegon," you call urgently, your breath already tight from the strain of holding the stretcher. "I need your assistance."
The boy startles as if pulled from a dream. He looks once toward Dunk (who, pale and sweating, nods faintly at him) and then Egg runs to your side, wiping at his face with the back of his sleeve.
They begin moving.
The path back to the castle forces you between the lists, where the dust of combat still lingers thick in the air. Nobles remain perched upon the stands, some standing now, craning their necks to see which knights still rise and which do not. Wounded men groan in the dirt. The festive banners flutter obscenely bright above a field that smells of iron and churned mud.
Ahead, you glimpse Prince Maekar kneeling in the mud beside his fallen son, helmet cast aside. A maester bends over the young man, murmuring urgently. Maekar looks up at the commotion — sees the dragon on the battered armor you carry — sees Egg running alongside you — and something primal and terrified tears from his throat.
"What is happening?" he shouts, rising to his feet.
No one answers. You do not answer.. There is no time to soothe a father while the Hand of the King's breathing grows shallower with every step.
The castle looms closer. The guards at the gate lower their halberds automatically when they see a group of servants rushing forward with a plank of wood. Their expressions harden.
"Halt — "
"Move!" Egg snaps, his voice breaking but carrying unmistakable authority. "That is Prince Baelor!"
The guards hesitate only a fraction of a second —(ong enough to see the dragon sigil, long enough to register the blood) and then they step aside.
You do not slow.
"Faster," you urge under your breath, though every instinct warns you that speed risks jostling the injury further. "We need a chamber. Clean linens. Boiled water. Vinegar, if they have it. And someone send for Maester Yormwell immediately."
You turn to Egg as you cross the threshold into the stone corridors of the castle. "Where is his chamber?"
He swallows hard and points. "Up the east stair — the second tower room."
"Show us."
The stairwell feels impossibly narrow as you ascend, each step measured and agonizing. Baelor's head shifts slightly despite Raymun's careful hands, and you feel your stomach clench at the motion.
He makes no sound now, not even the broken murmurs of before.
When you finally reach the chamber, you push through the door without ceremony. The room is large, tapestries drawn back to let in the afternoon light, a heavy carved bed dominating the center.
"Clear it," you order.
Servants scramble to strip the bed of decorative cushions and furs. Raymun and Steely Pate lift the plank carefully and transfer Baelor onto the mattress at your direction, keeping his spine aligned as best they can manage.
"Do not remove the helm," you remind them sharply.
They step back, breathing hard.
You turn to Egg, who stands pale and shaking near the foot of the bed.
"I need you to fetch the maester," you tell him firmly. "Tell him this cannot wait. And bring anyone he trusts to assist him. Go."
The boy nods and runs. You face Raymun and Steely Pate next.
"Find the largest basins you can," you instruct. "Fill them with water. Have it boiled. Bring clean cloths. As clean as you can manage. Quickly."
They exchange a look — uncertain still, but no longer arguing — and then they move.
For the first time since the pavilion, you are alone beside him, you step to the head of the bed and kneel.
Carefully, gently, you slide your fingers once more to his neck.
The pulse is still there, fainter now. You watch his chest.
You place your palm lightly against the damaged helm, stabilizing it without shifting it.
"Stay with me," you murmur under your breath, though you do not know whether you are speaking to him or to yourself.
Because now comes the part where knowledge alone may not be enough. And you are about to attempt to save a prince in a century that does not yet know how to save him.
You stand at the head of the bed, both hands braced against the warped helm, and for the first time since the chaos began there is no one giving orders but you.
The chamber smells of dust and old stone. Light spills across red-and-black tapestries, across carved furniture, across a prince who may die within the hour if you miscalculate.
You force yourself to breathe slowly. You do not have a drill. You do not have sterile instruments. You do not have imaging, suction, cautery, clamps.
You're fucked, but hopeful.
You have metal bent inward against fractured bone — and a skull that is likely cracked along the occipital line. The helm is compressing the fragments, preventing displacement. It is also containing swelling. But it is unstable containment. If removed without counter-pressure, the fracture may separate, the swelling may surge outward, and the delicate structures at the base of the brain (brainstem, cerebellum) may shift catastrophically.
You cannot simply pull it off... but you cannot leave it on forever either.
His pulse flutters beneath your fingers, he's warm, too warm even.
The door bursts open.
Maester Yormwell enters with two younger acolytes trailing him, chains clinking softly against his chest. He takes in the scene at once — you at the head of the bed, the dragon-helmed prince motionless, Raymun hovering like a sentinel.
"What madness is this?" the maester demands. "Why has the helm not been removed?"
"Because if you remove it carelessly, he will die," you answer without looking at him.
Silence follows.
You finally lift your gaze. "I need bandages. Thick linen. As many rolls as you have. Leather straps. Vinegar and Wine. And something small and sharp enough to cut metal ties, not pry the helm open."
One of the acolytes scoffs. "It is our place to tend him."
You do not raise your voice.
"If you remove that helm without stabilizing his skull externally, the fractured bone will shift. The swelling inside will worsen. He will stop breathing, and you will call it the will of the gods. I will call it preventable."
The maester narrows his eyes at you. "And how would you know this?"
Because I have seen it before, because I have watched patients talk and smile and then collapse from epidural hematomas, because I know the pattern.
Instead you say, "The blow was to the back of the head. He walked. He spoke. Now he fades. That is not chance. That is injury progressing beneath containment."
One of the acolytes whispers, "She speaks like a witch."
You turn your head slowly toward him.
"It's not witchcraft, you imbecile" you say evenly. "It is knowledge, science! And if you would rather let the Hand of the King die than listen to a woman, then stand aside and watch."
That lands.
Yormwell studies Baelor's breathing. The irregular pulse, the cracked visor, the blood under the helm now staining the bed.
"What do you propose?" he asks finally.
You exhale once. "We do not pull the helm upward. We cut it away in sections. Slowly. While maintaining external pressure around the skull."
You move your hands to demonstrate.
"We wrap his head first. Tight bandaging around the helm itself to keep the metal from springing outward suddenly. Then we cut the side straps and hinges piece by piece. As the metal loosens, we replace its support with firm wrapping."
The maester's brows draw together. He understands enough anatomy to follow.
"You intend to create an outer casing of cloth," he says slowly.
"Yes."
"And if the bone beneath is shattered?"
"Then the cloth becomes the brace."
One of the acolytes shifts uneasily. "And if she is wrong?"
You meet his gaze steadily. "Then he dies here instead of later."
No one speaks after that.
"Bring the linen," Yormwell orders.
The chamber fills with motion.
They wrap Baelor's helm first — thick, tight spirals of folded linen around the crown and sides, compressing the damaged metal gently inward so it cannot shift suddenly. You guide their hands, correcting tension, adjusting placement so pressure distributes evenly.
"Not too tight at the throat," you warn. "His airway must remain clear."
Wine is poured over your hands, over the cloth, over the metal edges. It is not sterile — but it is what this century has. When the wrapping is secure, you nod.
"Now we cut."
The maester uses fine metal shears normally meant for trimming chain links. Carefully, painstakingly, he begins cutting the side straps that secure the visor and cheek plates. You keep both palms firm against the helm, preventing outward expansion.
Each snip sounds thunderous in the silent room. Baelor still doesn't move.
His breathing stutters once — you freeze — then resumes.
"Slowly," you whisper. "Do not lift. Let it separate outward into the cloth."
Piece by piece, the helm loosens. A cracked cheek plate falls away into the bandaging.
The visor hinge snaps free, sweat beads along your spine.
Finally, only the back crown remains — the portion most deeply dented.
"This will shift," Yormwell warns.
"I know."
You press one hand at the base of his skull through the wrappings, the other steady at the crown.
"Cut."
The final metal tension releases with a dull metallic snap.
For one horrifying half-second, you feel movement beneath your hands, a subtle give, and you compensate immediately, tightening the linen, pressing evenly, preventing expansion.
The helm comes away in pieces. Underneath, matted hair. Blood. A visible depression along the occipital ridge, but the skull has not separated. You don't allow anyone to gasp.
"More linen," you say quickly. "We bind him now."
You begin wrapping directly over his hair and scalp, creating a firm, circumferential compression bandage to replace the helmet's structural containment.
"Not crushing," you instruct. "Supporting."
The maester watches your technique with dawning comprehension.
"You are countering the swelling," he murmurs.
"Yes."
When the final layer of linen is secured and tied firmly into place, you allow yourself to step back — but only just enough to slide your fingers once more to the side of his neck. You press gently, counting beneath your breath. The pulse is still there, faint, but steadier than it was before.
You lift your eyes to his face. He has slipped into unconsciousness fully now, no longer hovering in that fragile space between speech and silence. His skin has lost its usual warmth of sun-touched bronze; it is pale, almost ashen against the dark spill of his hair. Without the helm, without the tension of command in his posture, he looks younger. Smaller.
His mismatched eyes (one dark, one lighter, always so sharp and attentive) are hidden now behind closed lids.
You watch the slow rise and fall of his chest as if it is the only movement left in the world, then ou lean close.
"My prince," you whisper. "If you can hear me, breathe."
For a long, terrifying moment, nothing changes, then his chest rises — deeper this time. A slow exhale follows, the room collectively releases a breath it has been holding.
"He lives," the maester whispers.
"For now," you correct quietly.
Maester Yormwell watches you in silence, and the look he gives you has changed. The suspicion from earlier has dulled into something far more complicated — wary consideration, edged with reluctant respect. He says nothing as you begin tidying the space around Baelor's head, wiping away excess blood with cloth dampened in wine, ensuring the bandages remain firm but not constricting.
Raymun and Steely Pate have already withdrawn at the maester's instruction, likely to wash and steady themselves, find Dunk.
"I need help removing the rest of the armor," you say, glancing toward one of the younger acolytes. "Carefully. We cannot jostle him."
The acolyte kneels hesitantly beside you as you begin loosening the metal plates from Baelor's torso one strap at a time. As you work, you frown slightly.
"It sits too tightly across the shoulders," you murmur. "This wasn't fitted for him."
Egg, who has not left the side of the bed since returning, lifts his head quickly.
"I know that armor," he says, voice still thick from earlier tears. "It's Valarr's. My cousin's."
You pause for just a moment. Baelor's son.
You have seen him in these halls before — a quiet presence at his father's side, often tucked into the corner of the study while Baelor worked, or seated straight-backed at tournaments, watching with solemn attention rather than childish excitement. A polite, disciplined boy. Thoughtful. He carried himself with a restraint uncommon for his age.
And he looked so much like him : the same dark hair. The same mismatched gaze, the same air of contained gentleness beneath royal bearing.
Your chest tightens, you wonder where he is now.
"He must have lent it to him for the trial," Egg continues quietly. "My uncle did not bring his own. He never meant to fight."
The maester looks at you again, even more confused. "And how would you know a thing like improper fitting? of medicine?"
You open your mouth, already scrambling for something plausible (something that sounds harmless enough for a servant) but before you can form an excuse, the chamber doors slam open with a force that rattles the hinges.
Prince Maekar stands in the doorway.
Mud still clings to his boots, his face is thunderous, grief and fury barely contained beneath a veneer of rigid control.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demands, striding into the room. His gaze snaps to the bed. "I saw him rise. Why is he here? Why is he lying like this?"
You straighten slowly.
"You struck him with your mace, Your Grace," you say evenly. "The impact fractured his skull."
Maekar recoils as though you have slapped him.
"No," he says at once. "No. I did not strike him so."
"It was likely accidental," you continue carefully. "The blow was not meant to kill. But the force—"
"My brother cannot die," Maekar interrupts, his voice cracking despite himself. "He cannot."
And there, the iron façade fractures.
You do not see a prince then, no, you see a younger brother — the boy who once sparred in palace gardens beneath summer suns, wooden swords clashing in laughter instead of fury. The boy who had been lifted first into Baelor's arms before any of the others. The brother who rode beside him into war.
Baelor the hammer, and Maekar the anvil.
Different in temper, in bearing, in light yet forged together in the same fire. Bound not only by blood but by years of battle, counsel, rivalry, and unspoken loyalty. The kind of closeness that does not require softness to exist, the kind that is proven in steel and silence.
It is written across his face now — that history, that terror... but the vulnerability seals over almost immediately.
Maekar straightens, jaw hardening as if remembering exactly who stands before him. The chamber is full of witnesses. Servants, a maid who dared to command.
His silver-white hair hangs in disarray, streaked darker where mud and drying blood have dulled it to ashen grey. The smear across his cheek has not yet been wiped away. He looks less like a prince in that moment and more like a soldier dragged from the field — except for the authority that settles over him again like armor.
The grief is still there, he simply locks it behind his teeth.
"You presume much," he says coldly. "Who are you?"
You meet his gaze, though every instinct urges you to lower it. Almost unconsciously, you take a small step backward (closer to the bed, closer to Baelor) as if the unconscious man might somehow shield you simply by his presence.
And yet you position yourself beside him all the same, as though standing near the Hand of the King might lend you a fragment of protection.
His gaze drags over you slowly — from your face down to the plain fabric of your dress, to the sleeves rolled and stained from blood, to the unmistakable shape of you beneath it all. He takes in the absence of a chain at your throat, the lack of a maester’s robes, the simple shoes of a servant.
You are not a man, you are certainly not a maester... and in his eyes, that alone is accusation enough.
You tell Maekar your name. "I am a maid in service."
His eyes flash with disbelief.
"A maid?" His voice sharpens dangerously. "A maid laid hands upon the Hand of the King?"
You don't flinch. "I stabilized his skull and prevented further damage when the helm was removed."
"You presume he needed such intervention."
Maester Yormwell steps forward carefully. "Your Grace, I assisted her. Her method was... unconventional, but it was not without merit."
Maekar barely glances at him. "And you allowed this?"
"It was either attempt her method," Yormwell replies measuredly, "or remove the helm outright and risk immediate death."
Egg moves closer to his father, voice trembling but determined. "She knew what she was doing, father'She stopped them from pulling it off in the tent. Father, she saved him."
Maekar's jaw tightens. His gaze returns to you — assessing, furious, frightened.
"You speak of fractured skulls and swelling as though you have studied in Oldtown," he says. "You command knights. You curse at nobles. And you expect me to believe you are merely a maid?"
"I did what was necessary to keep him alive," you answer steadily. "What happens now rests with his body —" you pause," and the gods, if you prefer that phrasing."
His nostrils flare.
"Maester," Maekar says sharply, without looking away from you, "go tend to my son. Aerion remains unconscious."
Yormwell hesitates only briefly before bowing. "At once, Your Grace."
He casts you a fleeting glance (apologetic, perhaps?) and leaves with the acolytes.
Maekar's voice turns to ice. "Guards."
Two men appear in the doorway immediately, you watch confused.
"Take her," he orders. "To the dungeons."
Egg spins toward him. "Father — !"
Maekar does not raise his voice, yet it carries the burden of final judgment.
"Until I determine whether she is savior or sorceress, she will not walk freely within these walls."
"My prince —" you try, the words breaking apart in your throat.
This is not how it was meant to unfold. You were supposed to save him, you were supposed to step back into shadow once the crisis passed — not be dragged from the chamber like a criminal.
The guards seize your arms without ceremony. Their grip is firm, impersonal, and you flinch as iron fingers clamp around your sleeves, pulling you away from the bedside.
You twist just once, looking over your shoulder.
Baelor lies motionless beneath the tight linen wrappings you fashioned in haste and desperation. The bandages encircle his head where the crown once rested. His skin remains pale, almost translucent in the afternoon light, but his chest still rises and falls .
Alive... for now.
You have done everything you could, everything this century allowed. Now you must trust that it was enough.
A bitter thought slips into your mind; that perhaps this was always the bargain. That saving a prince might cost you your own life in return, that death may be the gift granted to the one who interfered with fate.
You swallow hard, tears burning at the corners of your eyes.
"My prince — " you try again, meant for the man on the bed rather than the one condemning you.
Egg is pleading now, his young voice rising in desperation as he clutches at his father's arm, insisting that you saved him, that you knew what you were doing. Maekar silences him with a look alone.
The guards begin pulling you toward the door.
You do not know what awaits you below, whether it will be questioning, chains, or something far worse. You do not know if Baelor will wake, you do not know if the realm will remember the maid who tried.
As the chamber doors close behind you, one fragile hope anchors itself in your chest: If death is coming, let it be swift.
And if the prince lives — let it have been worth it.
A/N :
this is how I grief … ( I hope maekar wasn’t too ooc)
I’m thinking about turning this into a full fic…. I’ll keep continuing it here as a reader insert for now, but if I publish it on AO3 or Wattpad, I’ll prob rewrite it as an OC…. maybe even adding other characters who survived the frauds and ended there idk… kinda Yellowjackets vibes…. That would be fun
but yh the idea actually came from a post I saw … this girl on Twitter was talking abt Baelor’s injuries like the head trauma and the mace wound he took and how those injuries realistically would’ve killed him. her dad’s a doctor apparently and he explained how it would’ve actually gone medically…. so yh that’s basically how this idea was born lol
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