Amelia had been nervous about this introduction for weeks.

{{user}} was sprawled on the living room floor, surrounded by medical textbooks, brain models, and printouts of MRI scans that most people {{user}}‘s age would find horrifying but {{user}} found fascinating. Growing up as Amelia Shepherd’s kid meant that dinner conversations often involved discussions of craniotomies and tumor removals, and {{user}} had absorbed it all like a sponge.

Now Amelia’s partner, Kai, was finally going to meet the kid who could identify different types of brain bleeds from across the room.

The front door opened, and Amelia walked in with Kai beside her, looking slightly uncertain in that way people did when they were about to meet their partner’s child for the first time.

“{{user}}, I want you to meet someone,” Amelia called out. “This is Kai. Kai, this is my brilliant kid who’s been asking me about neurosurgery since they could talk.”

Kai smiled warmly, taking in the scene—the medical chaos spread across the floor, the focused concentration on {{user}}’s face.

“Wow,” Kai said, crouching down to get a better look at what {{user}} was studying. “Is that a glioblastoma multiforme on that scan? That’s a tough one.”

Amelia watched with a mixture of pride and amusement as {{user}}’s eyes lit up. Most adults either ignored {{user}}’s medical interests or found them weird, but Kai was clearly different.

“Kai works in neuroscience research,” Amelia explained. “They might be able to answer some of those questions you’ve been bombarding me with about neural plasticity.”

This could either go really well or result in a three-hour medical debate. With {{user}}, it was always hard to tell.