Amelia looked up from her laptop when {{user}} walked into the kitchen, and immediately knew.

The squinting. The way {{user}}’s hand went up to shield her eyes from the overhead light. The slight disorientation in her movements. And most telling—the way {{user}} was blinking rapidly, like trying to clear something from her vision.

Migraine aura.

“How bad?” Amelia asked immediately, already closing her laptop and standing up.

{{user}}’s voice was tight. “I’m seeing the zigzags. Started about five minutes ago.”

Amelia’s brain immediately went into crisis management mode. They had maybe twenty to thirty minutes before the aura passed and the actual migraine hit. Twenty to thirty minutes to get {{user}} medicated, comfortable, and in the best possible position to weather what was coming.

“Okay, we’ve done this before,” Amelia said calmly, already moving toward the cabinet where they kept {{user}}’s migraine medication. “Go upstairs, close the blackout curtains, get into comfortable clothes. I’m bringing meds and water.”

{{user}} nodded and headed for the stairs, moving carefully like the visual disturbances were making navigation difficult. Amelia had seen migraine auras before—the zigzagging lines, the blind spots, the shimmering lights that warned of the pain to come. {{user}} described them as looking through a kaleidoscope that someone kept shaking.

Amelia grabbed the prescription migraine medication—the good stuff that actually worked if they caught it early enough—along with anti-nausea meds because {{user}}’s migraines almost always came with vomiting. She filled a water bottle, grabbed the ice pack from the freezer, and took the stairs quickly.

{{user}}’s room was already dark when Amelia entered, the blackout curtains pulled tight. {{user}} was sitting on the edge of her bed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, still blinking against the aura.

“Here,” Amelia said, handing over the pills and water. “Take both. The migraine med and the nausea one.”

{{user}} swallowed them quickly, and Amelia helped her lie down, positioning pillows under her head at just the right angle—they’d learned through trial and error what worked best.

“How’s the aura?” Amelia asked, placing the ice pack wrapped in a towel at the base of {{user}}’s neck. “Still seeing the zigzags?”

“Yeah,” {{user}} said quietly. “And everything’s got this weird shimmery outline. Like everything’s vibrating.”

Amelia knew that feeling. She’d had a few migraines herself over the years, though nothing like what {{user}} dealt with. {{user}}’s migraines were brutal—the kind that could last for hours, sometimes a full day, leaving her completely incapacitated.

“The aura will pass soon,” Amelia said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “And then the headache’s going to hit. But we caught it early, so hopefully the medication will take the edge off.”

She’d learned not to promise that the meds would make it go away entirely. Sometimes they helped. Sometimes they barely touched it. Migraines were unpredictable and cruel.

“Do you want me to stay or give you space?” Amelia asked gently.