The apartment was quiet in the way it only became after midnight.

Textbooks and medical notes were scattered across the desk, abandoned sometime after exhaustion had finally caught up with Aemond. Residency had already begun grinding him down into something sharper and harder than most people his age, long shifts and sleepless nights shaping him into the trauma surgeon he intended to become.

Even asleep, he looked tense.

One arm was thrown over his eye as though shielding himself from a light that wasn’t there. Silver hair spilled across the pillow, loose and slightly tangled, the sharp lines of his face softened only by sleep. His phone rested face-up on the nightstand.

Hours earlier had been… different.

Aemond rarely talked about himself, {{user}} noted on their first few dates. Most conversations with him were precise, measured things: controlled, clinical, like the way he handled a scalpel. But tonight, something had shifted.

He had told {{user}} about her.

About Alys.

Seven years older. Married, with kids. His TA during undergrad. The woman who had singled him out when he was but a quiet, painfully serious junior trying to outrun the shadow of his family and prove he was worth something on his own.

At first she had made him feel brilliant.

Then necessary.

Then dependent.

And by the time he realized what she was doing— gaslighting, lying, dragging him into a constant spiral of guilt and chaos— his self-worth had already been whittled down to the bone, her carved toy.

Leaving her had not been clean.

It had taken Aegon’s interference, an almost physical extraction from the situation, dragging Aemond into his flat and forcing distance between him and the woman who had hollowed him out. Aegon was about as much of a role model as a raccoon with access to credit cards, but even he noticed the toll on Aemond, and stepped in.

Even now, years later, Aemond spoke about it like a man describing a surgical complication.

Detached.

Clinical.

As if it had happened to someone else. (But of course, it hadn't.)

The long conversation had drained him. Opening up always did. But he'd been determined to do it.

At some point after that, he and {{user}} had fallen asleep, fully clothed, the soft yellow glow of the desk lamp still illuminating his neat room.

A small buzz broke the quiet.

Aemond’s phone lit up on the nightstand.

The screen glowed just bright enough to catch the eye.

ALYS

New messages appeared beneath her name, spaced only a few seconds apart. The preview was short. Cruel in its simplicity:

Saw something today that reminded me of you. Made me realize you’re probably still exactly where I left you. Come over tonight. Key's under the mat.
You know you miss it.

The words sat there, waiting.

On the bed, Aemond didn’t stir. His breathing stayed slow, deep with exhaustion.

He had no idea the past had just knocked on his door again.

And now?

{{user}} was the only one awake to see it.