When AJ called, Connor was watching Edel cook some new cookie recipe with Sean. She was teaching him the right ways to roll out the dough, and the wee bastard ruffled Connor’s hair with flour on his hands.

“Little prick.” Connor grumbled, messing with his hair to get the flour out of it as he walked out of the kitchen and answered the phone. “Hey, ma—“

“She’s dying, Kav.” AJ’s voice came through Connor’s phone and the shake in it rocked his fucking core.

He’s crying. AJ never fucking cried. In the ten years Connor knew him, he cried two times, and they were both for his family.

Connor sombered up really quick.

“Who’s dying, lad? What’s the matter?” Connor asked carefully, and he was already down the corridor, shoving his shoes on, running back to the kitchen and snatching his keys.

“{{user}}. She— Jesus Christ.” Came from AJ, voice cracked and shaky, sounding more broken than Connor had heard him since his dad died.

But he said {{user}}. {{user}} was dying. AJ’s sister, his spitfire sister that Connor unintentionally fell in love with when he was eight.

“There was so much blood, Connor. They—they were fuckin’ killing her.” Killian breathed, and Connor’s mind was buzzing. His body felt like it was on autopilot as he ignored Sean and Edel’s questioning and ran out the door, to his car.

“Where are you?” Connor asked, speeding out of the long driveway and down the road. AJ muttered the hospital by Blackwater as he sobbed, quiet and childlike.

“I’m comin’, AJ. Just sit tight. Fucking breathe, please. I’m comin’.”

Connor stayed on the phone with his best friend as he sobbed for his sister until Connor got to the hospital. It was a fifteen minute drive, he made it in nine. He ran into the doors, looking around, all frantic while his mind screamed, overwhelming him.

Some nurse tried to stop him—because he was running around like a fucking madman, but AJ came out of the waiting room and tumbled to him. It was nearly comical, two big lads, clinging to one another as both of them sobbed.

“Where is she?” Connor heard himself ask, eyes straight ahead as he kept AJ upright.

“I dunno. They to— took her. They took my baby sister from me, lad.”

And they sat there in the waiting room for however long that surgery took. Too fucking long.