Work Text:
The first thing MC does when she gets back to her apartment from Skyhaven is reschedule the cardiology check-up she missed while she was away. The check-up she had with Zayne, who knows her better than anyone alive - although she’s not sure how accurate that last part is anymore, after last week.
She chooses to ring Yvonne at the reception, rather than text Zayne to fit her in after his morning shift like usual. She can’t quite put her finger on why she was avoiding her favourite person in the world, but there was something about the way he always knew too much without being told that scares her, his shrewd gaze and brilliant mind always two steps ahead. She’s not sure she wants to be Seen by him right now, not sure what he’d find if he looked closely.
Yvonne’s surprised to hear her on the phone, but books in a midday appointment the next day readily enough, noting how their snowman “has been awfully grumpy this last week” and that maybe a visit from MC could be the thing to fix his mood - she doubts it, but isn’t exactly keen to explain why she’s been off the grid for so long unannounced.
—
When the day finally comes, she’s on edge, nervous and twitchy in the waiting room outside. She flinches the minute Zayne moves to shut the office door behind her, and he notices of course - it’s his job to be observant after all, and with a condition like hers any small change could be a new symptom - he Worries, ok? She’s been so fragile this past year, after the accident. The last thing he wants is to make her feel uncomfortable.
He elects to shut the door but moves around the desk to open a window before taking his seat opposite her. Gently asks how she’s been, what the Association’s had her doing in the time since her last appointment, tapping away softly at his keyboard while she speaks softly and avoids his eyes. As usual, he goes through her recent activities with her, making notes to compare against the readings from her wearable heart monitor she always carries - until he asks about an unusually severe episode of tachycardia that happened a week ago, and she winces, glancing between the window and door again like she’s debating making a run for it.
Zayne thinks fast, ever the field medic no matter how many years it’s been since then; he locks his computer before standing and removing his glasses, taking a few large steps to open the door and jerking his head in the direction of the corridor beyond in invitation, careful to never stand in between her and the now-open doorway.
“It’s time for my break, let me show you the new staff cafe that opened downstairs.”
She’s quiet the whole way down, following him blankly through the twists and turns of the hospital they both know like the backs of their hands. Blinking heavily at the sudden sunlight once they exit the building, some of the tension seems to leave her shoulders as she takes a deep, rattling breath of air. Zayne leads her to a bench, before stepping away to grab them both hot drinks from the barista counter set just inside the doors to the courtyard - he doesn’t think caffeine would be helpful with her current hyper vigilant state, even if she would ordinarily whine and complain about him deciding for her. They sit side by side in near-companionable silence, sipping their drinks - hot chocolate for her, jasmine tea for him - and watching a small flock of finches hop from branch to branch of the big oak tree, before she opens her mouth for the first time in half an hour.
“Caleb’s back”, she mutters softly, “but something’s Wrong”.
Slowly but surely, the story she’d kept from him when they met in Skyhaven - seeing Caleb in the interrogation room, his role as the ruthless colonel, colder than Zayne could ever be. How he had trapped her in his apartment to go after Kevi, how he’d drugged her under the guise of a fever, how she’s not been able to sleep since without feeling his hands crawling around on her skin, waking up sobbing from nightmares about not being able to escape. How their oldest friend had spoken about his desires, told her unspeakable things about his feelings growing up together. In a voice so small Zayne has to strain to hear it, she confesses that she doesn’t know what Caleb did while she was out that night, but her body hasn’t felt like hers since then. That she’s been afraid to close her eyes, passing out each night on the couch with all the lights left on.
Zayne’s always been able to compartmentalise well, ever since that terrible mission on Mt. Eternal - so he squashes down his shock and horror, focusing instead on the subtle lean of her body towards him; he wraps his arms around her shoulders, holding her close, his face in her hair and her hands gripping his white coat as though she thought he could ever willingly walk away from her. Coaxing her to go upstairs to the emergency room with him and get a full physical, “to rule out the worst case scenarios, so we know what we’re dealing with”. His use of ‘we’ does not go unnoticed by her.
He rubs the back of her hand soothingly as she shakes when the nurse asks her to undress below the waist, helps her shrug into the offered gown. Shares a grim look of confirmation with that same nurse several long minutes later over her head as she lays in the examination room, silently vowing to be there for her for as long as it takes for her to heal from this ordeal, and for as long as she wants him afterwards.
They can deal with the Farspace Fleet, with EVER, with Caleb later.
Together.