Chapter Text
Paige is dead asleep when something wakes her.
Not the half-dozing, thinking-to-much, restless sleep.
The true, real, earned sleep.
The deep kind that drops straight through the mattress and settles in her bones, earned after thirteen hours in the air layered on top of double practices layered on top of the unspoken pressure of wearing USA across her chest.
The kind that finally kills jet lag instead of just wrestling it into submission
So when the sound comes, it feels a little like someone yanking her backward by the collar.
Sharp and disorienting and unfair.
Paige blinks blearily up at a ceiling that doesn’t look right for a beat too long, her body heavy in places it shouldn’t be, buzzing in others as her brain scrambles uselessly for context.
Hotel.
Madrid.
Team USA.
The echo of Sue’s voice from that afternoon floats up uninvited, crisp and exacting even in her half-asleep haze. Tight rotations. Quicker reads. Communicate earlier.
Right.
Paige exhales through her nose and squeezes her eyes shut, tries to force herself back under before her brain fully boots up.
She’s exhausted, bone-deep exhausted, and practice is in a handful of hours.
Consciousness is something she doesn’t want right now.
But the room won’t let her have it.
It’s too quiet.
The kind of quiet that presses in on her ears, that makes her too aware of every breath, every shift of fabric, every hum of the air conditioner fighting a losing battle against the late-summer heat.
Still, it’s nothing that should have woken her.
Fucking jet lag...
She rolls onto her side, buries her face into her pillow. The cotton smells faintly of detergent and hotel-grade fabric softener, clean in a way that never quite feels real and she focuses on it, on the rhythm of her breathing, lets her body start to loosen again.
She’s almost there.
Almost sleep again.
Then-
“...no.”
It’s faint. Barely there.
So faint her brain tries to write if off as part of a dream, some leftover noise bleeding through the cracks of sleep, but the room is too damn quiet for that.
“No…”
Clearer this time.
Not loud, but urgent. Like the word is being pulled out of someone rather than spoken.
Paige frowns against her pillow, irritation prickling at the edge of her foggy awareness.
She waits, half-hoping that if she ignores it, it’ll dissolve back into sleep where it belongs.
It doesn’t.
Someone is talking.
The thought lands slow and sour.
Are you kidding me?
Camp has already wrung her dry. Her legs ache, her shoulders are shot, her brain feels like it’s been sanded down to essentials. The idea of losing sleep because her roommate decided to take a late-night call sends a sharp flash of annoyance through her chest.
She shifts, turning her head just enough to crack one eye open, already bracing herself to roll over and snap something she’ll regret-
But the room is dark.
Still dark.
The curtains are pulled tight against the city glow. The lights are off. The air reeks of detergent and recycled hotel air. And across the room Paige can still make out the other bed, the familiar outline of Caitlin sprawled diagonally across it. On her stomach, one arm flung over the pillow like she’s trying to anchor herself, dark hair splayed messily across the sheets.
It’s nothing like the tight, controlled version of her Paige sees on the court.
There’s no phone glow.
No rustle of movement.
Just the steady hum of the air conditioner cranking, oblivious.
Which means not a call, but-
Oh my God…
Sleep talking.
Great.
Of course.
Paige rolls onto her back with a quiet groan, weighing whether it’ll take more effort to dig for her AirPods or just pull the covers over her head.
She doesn’t want to deal with this.
She doesn’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with this.
They didn’t choose to be roommates. Team logistics did that. Two guards, same age, same level, same weight of expectation. It made sense on paper.
In reality, it’s been… strange.
Not bad. Just strange.
Caitlin is loud in public, all sharp humor and sarcasm and competitive edge, which is what Paige expected. In private, she’s quieter. Withdrawn. She spends more time staring at her phone than actually using it. She goes to bed late and wakes up earlier than she needs to, already dressed, already braced.
Paige notices these things
She’s just never known what to do with them.
She closes her eyes again, jaw tightening.
Ignore it.
She’ll stop.
The room holds its breath.
Then-
“No…stop-”
Paige’s eyes snap open.
The words aren’t loud. Barely more than a whisper. But there’s something in them that gnaws through her irritation and lands sharp and heavy in her chest.
Nightmare?
Her heart rate ticks up, slow at first, like it’s trying to decide whether this is worth panicking over. People say weird things when they’re asleep. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t have to mean anything.
Camp stress, pressure, travel, jet lag.
All are pretty valid reasons.
She’s had her own share of nightmares, heart racing for no reason she could name.
But something about this feels… different.
Caitlin makes another sound. Sharper. Strained.
“Please-”
Paige stares at the ceiling, willing for the word to fade.
For Caitlin to roll over, sigh, settle, prove this is nothing. Just a bad dream passing through.
But Caitlin doesn’t move.
Her body stays rigid in that sprawled, diagonal position, fingers curled into the pillow like she’s holding on to something that isn’t there, and the word please is still hanging in the air, soft and wrecked, like it was pulled straight out of someone’s chest.
Paige’s irritation burns away, replaced by something heavier.
Unease, maybe. Or responsibility.
She didn’t ask for this, but it’s here anyway, sitting between them in the dark.
And nope.
Nope, Paige can’t just listen to this.
Waking Caitlin up is the responsible thing to do, the teammate thing to do, the human thing to do.
She swallows.
“Hey,” she says quietly, her voice already sounding too loud in the stillness, “Caitlin.”
Nothing.
Caitlin’s breathing stays shallow, uneven, like it’s catching on something.
Paige pushes herself up onto one elbow, the mattress dipping slightly beneath her weight.
The movement feels too loud, too intrusive, but Caitlin still doesn’t react.
“Cait,” she tries again, a little firmer this time. “You’re okay.”
She doesn’t know why she says that. It’s instinct, maybe. Or a habit. Something she’s said to herself in locker rooms and on training tables and in the quiet seconds before tipoff when everything feels like it might crack if she presses too hard. Something meant to anchor.
Caitlin doesn’t anchor.
Her face tightens instead, muscles drawing inward like she’s bracing. Her breathing catches, skips, loses rhythm entirely, like her body’s forgotten the sequence.
Then her shoulders jerk.
It’s small, barely more than a flinch, but it’s enough to make Paige’s pulse jump.
Caitlin’s head turns just slightly, cheek pressing harder into the pillow, brow creasing further. Her mouth moves and a sound slips out of her that Paige can’t quite categorize-
It isn’t a word at first.
It’s a sound.
Raw. Broken. Strangled.
Dragged up from somewhere deep and dark and unwilling to let go.
“G-get,” Caitlin gasps.
Paige’s breath catches.
“Get off me.”
The words fall apart as they leave her, jagged and uneven, stripped of anything resembling sleep.
There’s no confusion in them. No dream-softness.
They are fractured.
They are pleading.
Paige’s mind stutters on impact, the room tilting as something cold and heavy drops behind her ribs.
That’s not just a bad dream.
Caitlin’s breathing spirals faster, shallower, chest hitching like it doesn’t know how to work anymore. Her fingers curl into the pillow, knuckles bleaching white, clutching like it’s the only thing anchoring her to the bed.
Paige’s mouth goes dry.
Fuck.
She sits up fully, her mattress creaking under the shift of her weight, a sharp, traitorous sound in whatever this is.
“Hey,” Paige says firmer, panic bleeding into the edges despite her effort to keep it steady. “You’re okay. You’re just dreaming.”
Caitlin’s breathing stutters again. Short, uneven, like she’s running out of room in her lungs.
No,” Caitlin whispers hoarsely. “No, no-”
Her voice is breaking now, words tumbling over each other, fragmented.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
Nothing.
Damn it.
Paige swings her legs over the side of the bed, the carpet is cold against her bare feet, grounding in a way that snaps the last of the sleep fog loose as she crosses the small strip of space between the beds.
Up close, under the sliver of moonlight, Caitlin looks younger.
Stripped of the sharp edges she wears so deliberately, the sarcasm and the swagger and the constant forward momentum, she looks almost fragile. Her brow is knotted tight, teeth ground together, lashes fluttering rapidly like her eyes are moving beneath them too fast.
There’s a tremor running through her; not dramatic, not cinematic, just a low-level vibration under her skin, like she’s holding something back with everything she has.
Jesus Christ.
Paige hesitates, fingers curling at her sides.
She doesn’t know the rules here.
On the court, Paige knows exactly what to do when someone’s spiraling, but this- this is private, unwitnessed, something that feels like it wasn’t meant to be seen at all.
Caitlin’s breathing breaks again, a small, strangled sound caught in the back of her throat.
That decides it.
“Caitlin,” Paige says, closer now. Firmer. “You need to wake up.”
Her hand taps gently on Caitlin’s forearm.
Solid. Warm. Real.
The reaction is instant.
Caitlin explodes upward.
She rips her arm free with a violent jerk and comes up off the mattress in the same motion, twisting hard enough that the sheets tear loose beneath her. Her breath punching out of her in a sharp, broken cry that barely sounds human.
“Don’t!”
Caitlin’s eyes fly open, wild and unfocused, pupils blown wide, hands coming up before Paige can even register what’s happening; palms out, elbows tight, body folded in on itself like she’s bracing for impact that hasn’t come yet.
Paige stumbles back a step instinctively, heart slamming into her ribs, hands coming up in surrender before she’s even conscious of the movement.
“Hey… hey- it’s me-”
She fumbles for the lamp, flicks it on. Light floods the room, harsh and unforgiving.
“Caitlin, it’s me-”
But Caitlin isn’t hearing her.
She’s scrambling backward across the bed, movements frantic and uncoordinated, until her back hits the headboard with a sharp crack that makes Paige flinch hard.
Caitlin doesn’t even register it.
“Please! Please don’t-,” Caitlin gasps, words breaking apart as they leave her mouth. “I can’t-It-It h-hurts-”
Her breathing is completely blown now, shallow and erratic, chest hitching like it won’t work right. Tears spill unchecked down her face, catching in the low light as she shakes her head over and over, like she’s trying to shake something off her.
Like it’s crawling under her skin.
Paige’s stomach drops through the floor.
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
This isn’t just being startled awake.
This is terror.
Ancient. Full-bodied. The kind that takes over everything.
“I’m sorry,” Paige says immediately, the word rushing out of her before she can shape them, panic rising in tandem. “I’m- I shouldn’t have touched you, I didn’t-”
Caitlin still isn’t listening.
Her gaze skitters wildly around the room, everywhere and nowhere, not landing on Paige at all.
She’s somewhere else entirely, cataloging exits, corners, shadows, her body locked in a moment Paige doesn’t know and suddenly doesn’t want to.
She’s seen Caitlin angry. Seen her cocky, sharp, relentless. Seen her lose her temper on refs and laugh too loud in press scrums and roll her eyes dramatically at Aliyah’s music choices.
She has never… never… seen her like this.
This is Caitlin stripped of everything sharp and shiny and defended. This is raw nerve and panic and something old clawing its way out of her chest.
Paige feels sick with it.
Like she’s trespassed.
Like she’s walked barefoot into something sacred and shattered and the hotel carpet is suddenly too thin to hold the weight of what’s happening on it.
It’s just me,” Paige says again, her voice sounding wrong in her own ears, thin and mechanical. “Just Paige. I… I promise. I just- you were having a nightmare.”
She backs up deliberately, slow and careful, until she’s sitting on her own bed, hands visible, body angled away to give Caitlin space she clearly needs.
“We’re roommates,” Paige keeps going, rambling now, grasping for anything solid. “For Team USA. We’re in Madrid. It’s just us. It’s okay.”
Her words feel useless, like paper thrown at a fire.
Caitlin rocks violently once. Twice. Presses herself harder into the headboard, trying to create distance where there isn’t any.
And all Paige can think is how small she looks.
Folded in on herself. Fragile. Breakable in a way Paige never imagined her being.
She huffs a forced breath of her own.
Slow. Deliberate.
They can’t both be panicking.
“Cait,” Paige tries again, steadier this time, firm. “Look at me.”
There’s a long, terrible second where Paige thinks she won’t.
Where Caitlin will stay lost wherever she’s gone, unreachable.
But after a moment, a handful of moments, Caitlin drags in a breath that scrapes, chokes on another, flicks bloodshot eyes up, and looks.
Paige struggles to arrange her features into something that looks reassuring. Something safe. Even as her chest feels like it’s caving in. And it’s subtle, the way Caitlin’s pupils constrict, then dilate, recognition not coming in all at once, but in stages.
Creeping in slowly, like dawn edging over a horizon.
Confusion first, then disbelief.
The blonde watches in real time as the room seems to snap back into place around her; the familiar Team USA duffel on the chair, the glow of the digital clock reading 2:47 AM, Paige’s unmistakable silhouette in front of her.
Paige watches her swallow, watches her grind her teeth together, watches something like shame crash in behind it, fast and brutal.
Her shoulders sag a fraction. Just enough for Paige to see it.
“I’m fine.”
Caitlin whispers hoarsely.
It has to be muscle memory.
It has to be sheer habit.
Paige doesn’t move.
Doesn’t call her on it. Not yet.
“I-I just… Fuck-”
Caitlin’s voice breaks, the sound catching in her throat like glass.
She shakes her head again, looks away, anywhere but Paige.
“Just… Just breathe.”
Paige interrupts softly. Distant. Small.
Caitlin’s jaw tightens under the lowlight.
But she listens.
One breath. Shallow.
Another. Slightly deeper.
Each inhale looks like it costs her something.
“I… I.. uh- I’m sorry,” she mutters, fumbling over her words, struggling to piece them together. “I didn’t mean to- did I hit you?”
Paige shrugs.
Minimizes.
Knows that more guilt isn’t what Clark needs right now.
“I’m okay.”
Caitlin nods once. Then again. Not convinced.
Then, inch by inch, begins to rebuild herself.
Back straightening. Knees lowering. Shoulders forced loose.
Piece by piece.
Paige can see it happening. Control snapping back into place like armor. And something sour blooms in Paige’s chest because she knows exactly why Caitlin needs it.
“Sorry,” Caitlin mumbles again, more measured, like she’s struggling to keep her voice even, purposely nonchalant, still not looking, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Paige just looks at her.
It’s such a normal sentence. Polite. Considerate.
Not the kind of thing you say after begging someone to get off you in your sleep.
She opens her mouth. Closes it again.
The light is still on. Too bright now. It casts everything in brutal clarity: Caitlin’s flushed face, the tear tracks she didn’t bother wiping all the way away, the way her hands won’t quite stop trembling even as she pretends they are.The sheets are twisted around her legs, one corner half-pulled free from the mattress, evidence of a fight that no one else saw.
“Cait-”
“It was nothing,” Caitlin cuts in. “Seriously. Just a dumb dream. Travel messes with my sleep. You know how it is.”
She shrugs, a casual, dismissive motion that doesn’t match the tension still coiled in her body.
That’s it? That’s what she’s going with?
As if Paige didn’t just watch her relive something sharp and jagged and real.
Paige folds her arms across her chest, more to keep herself still than anything else. Her heart is still pounding, loud in her ears, adrenaline humming uselessly through her veins now that there’s nowhere for it to go.
She wants to push.
She wants to sit on the edge of the bed and say, That wasn’t nothing, and You don’t sound fine, and I saw you. She wants to be the kind of person who doesn’t let this slide, who doesn’t let teammates disappear behind practiced smiles and clipped apologies. Knows how dangerous things can get, how people fall through the cracks and get lost when that happens.
But she also knows what it feels like to be cornered when you’re already raw.
Knows how fast concern can turn into pressure. Into interrogation. Into something that feels like a demand.
Paige hesitates, exhales slowly through her nose, chooses her next words carefully.
“Cait,” she starts, keeping her voice even, low. Not accusing. Not prying. “That didn’t look like just a dumb dream.”
The air between them tightens.
“You were saying things.”
Caitlin’s jaw sets immediately. A familiar move. Paige has seen that jaw clamp down at refs, at reporters, at defenders who won’t give her space.
It’s the same expression, just quieter.
“People talk in their sleep.”
The words land flat. Defensive. Practiced. Like Caitlin’s already said them to herself a dozen times in the span of the last thirty seconds and decided they’re good enough to stand on.
She reaches for the water bottle on her nightstand, takes a sip with shaking hands. She notices; Paige sees the exact moment it registers; and clamps down harder, knuckles whitening around the plastic until the tremor stills.
Paige clocks every second of it. Every micro-adjustment. Every way Caitlin is managing herself back into something presentable.
“Yeah,” she says, nodding slowly, even though something tight and sharp continues to twist under her sternum. “They do.”
Caitlin’s mouth twitches. A reflexive half-smile ghosts across her face, all sharp edges and deflection.
“Cool. Then we’re good.”
No,” Paige says, before she fully means to.
The word comes out wrong. Too solid. Too anchored.
It lands between them like a door slamming shut.
Caitlin freezes mid-motion.
Paige feels it immediately. The regret.
The way she’s already gone too far and not far enough all at once.
“We’re… not,” Paige says, softer now, overcorrecting, scrambling. “You were-”
She stops.
Because there are a dozen ways to say it and every single one feels like a violation.
She chooses the least dangerous option and hates herself for choosing it even as she does.
“You were scared.”
It comes out softer than she means to make it. Careful. Almost gentle. Like if she keeps her voice low enough, the truth might not bruise on the way out.
Caitlin laughs.
The sound is wrong. Doesn’t belong there.
It breaks against the walls and doesn’t come back.
“Yeah?,” she says. “So?”
Her shoulders lift in something that pretends to be a shrug.
It doesn’t touch her eyes. Barely reaches her neck.
“It was a nightmare. You saw me lose my shit. Congratulations.”
Paige flinches despite herself.
“I know,” she says. “I just…”
She trails off.
There’s no play here. No spacing. No timing. No right cut that opens the floor. This isn’t basketball; there’s no diagram for how to step into someone else’s pain without making it worse.
Her hands flex at her sides, empty. Useless.
She can feel the moment slipping, feel the window narrowing.
She tries again.
“Cait,” Paige says quietly. “You were saying ‘get off me.’”
The effect is immediate.
Caitlin flinches like the words have weight, like they hit her square in the chest. The water bottle slips from her fingers and thumps against the mattress, rolling until it presses into her thigh.
She doesn’t reach for it.
“That doesn’t-”
Caitlin starts, then stops. Swallows so hard Paige can see it.
Tries again, slower, more deliberate.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
Her face goes blank in a way Paige recognizes instantly. Neutral. Controlled. The look Caitlin wears in press conferences when she doesn’t want to give anyone an inch.
But her eyes are too bright. Her breathing is just a fraction too fast.
“It does,” Paige says, and hates herself for how certain it sounds. “It really does.”
She doesn’t move closer. Doesn’t raise her voice. She just stays. Like that alone might be enough.
“You’re making this into something it’s not.”
Caitlin snaps.
The sharpness doesn’t quite hold.
There’s panic under it, thin and frantic, bleeding through the edges.
“People have nightmares. People freak out sometimes. It doesn’t mean-”
“It means you were scared of being touched,”
Paige says, quietly enough that it almost hurts to hear.
They still hit like a blow.
Caitlin spins on her.
“You don’t know that!”
“I touched you,” Paige says. Her voice breaks despite herself, thin and traitorous. “And you thought I was hurting you.”
The room goes still.
Not quiet.
Still.
Like the air itself has locked up, like something vital has paused mid-motion and forgotten how to continue.
Caitlin’s chest is rising too fast now. Her eyes shine with something that looks like anger right up until it fractures and something raw bleeds through.
“I didn’t know it was you.”
And the way she says it- flat, defensive, almost hopeful- guts Paige completely.
Like that should be the end of it.
Like that should make the fear smaller.
Like the terror only counts if it was aimed at the right person.
Paige feels it settle in her chest, heavy and sickening.
Because Caitlin isn’t saying I was scared.
She’s saying, It shouldn’t matter.
The fact that Caitlin didn’t know it was her doesn’t soften anything. It doesn’t rewind the way Caitlin’s body reacted on instinct, or the sound of her voice coming apart, or the way fear took over so completely there wasn’t room for recognition at all. If anything, it makes it worse. Means the fear lives somewhere deeper than names or faces. Means it doesn’t need context to wake up.
Paige knows all of that.
She just doesn’t know how to say it without shattering something that already looks one breath away from breaking.
Caitlin won’t look at her.
Her gaze is fixed somewhere past the desk beside them, unfocused, like she’s picked a spot on the wall and is daring it to hold her together. Her hands are locked tight in her lap, fingers threaded together so hard the knuckles have gone pale. The tremor is still there; not dramatic, not obvious. Just a constant, low vibration under her skin, like her body never quite got the message that the danger passed.
“I didn’t know it was you,” Caitlin says again, quieter this time.
Not defensive now. Pleading.
Like if she repeats it enough, it’ll become the whole truth.
Paige swallows. Her throat aches.
“I know,” she says, because she does.
Because that part is easy. Because it costs nothing.
What it costs her is everything she doesn’t say.
She wants to tell her that fear doesn’t work like that. That bodies remember things brains don’t want to. That being safe now doesn’t erase the fact that something taught Caitlin not to be. She wants to tell her that none of this is her fault and all of it matters and she doesn’t have to minimize it just to survive the night.
Instead, Caitlin exhales, shaky and thin, like she’s been holding her breath for far too long.
Something small and terrified flickers across her face, so naked and human it almost hurts to witness.
“Can we just-”
Her voice catches.
She clears her throat, swallows hard, forces the sound back into something steady.
“Can we not do this? Please.”
The words coming out wrong. Thin. Frayed.
“I’m fine.”
This time it isn’t sharp. It isn’t defensive.
It’s tired.
“I just… need you to let it go.”
Paige feels the weight of it settle in her chest.
Because Caitlin isn’t asking her to believe the lie.
She’s asking her not to touch it.
“It was nothing,” Caitlin continues, rushing now, patching over the cracks as fast as they appear. “I freaked out. You freaked out. That’s it. We move on.”
“I’m fine,” she repeats, firmer this time.
Final.
Paige’s stomach twists.
There it is. The line in the sand.
She could cross it. She could ignore the warning and push anyway, demand honesty, insist on help, refuse to let Caitlin minimize something that clearly still has claws in her.
Or she could respect it.
Give Caitlin what she’s asking for, even if it feels like abandonment.
She nods.
Once. Slow. Deliberate.
“Okay.”
She says at last.
The word feels too small for what it’s being asked to hold.
Caitlin still doesn’t look at her, but Paige can feel the shift anyway, the subtle easing in her shoulders, the way the tension pulls back just enough to breathe again.
“Okay.”
Paige repeats, softer this time.
Not agreement. Permission.
She scoots back on the bed, inch by careful inch, creating space she doesn’t want to give but knows Caitlin is already bracing for. Every movement feels deliberate, exaggerated, like she’s showing her hands, like she’s proving she understands what backing off looks like.
“If you say it’s nothing,” she adds, forcing the words past the tightness in her throat, “I’ll drop it.”
There’s a beat.
Then Caitlin nods.
Immediately. Too quickly.
Relief flashes across her face, unguarded, almost startling in its intensity, before she catches it and locks it down. It vanishes behind that familiar, brittle composure, the one built to survive scrutiny. To survive anything.
“Thanks.”
But that’s not the word she uses.
“I’m sorry if I woke you,” she mutters instead, eyes flicking over somewhere past Paige’s shoulder. “Won’t happen again.”
The phrasing twists something sharp and helpless in Paige’s chest.
Won’t happen again.
Like this is a problem to be managed.
Like she can control it if she just tries harder.
Paige could argue. Could tell her she doesn’t owe an apology, that nightmares don’t follow schedules, that fear isn’t something you promise away.
She doesn’t.
“Try to get some sleep,” she says instead, because it’s safe and it doesn’t ask for anything back.
Caitlin huffs out a quiet, humorless sound.
“Yeah. Sure.”
She turns over, rolling onto her side and then further, until her back is to Paige. Her shoulders draw in, arms tucked close, her body curling around itself like armor pulled tight.
The message is clear.
We’re done.
Paige reaches for the lamp and clicks it off.
The room drops into darkness, thicker now, heavier. Like it’s settled into all the places the light had kept at bay.
She did the right thing.
She respected a boundary. Didn’t push. Didn’t interrogate. Didn’t turn concern into pressure.
That’s what she was supposed to do.
So why does it feel like she just watched something important close in on itself?
Like she stood there and let it?
Her chest aches with it; the memory lodged behind her ribs of Caitlin’s hands raised, her voice shredded down to something raw and pleading, the naked fear that flashed through before the armor slammed back into place.
Paige lies back on her own bed, staring at the wall even though she can’t see it anymore.
............
The alarm goes off at 7:12 a.m.
Not loud, Paige made sure of that, but insistent enough to drag her up from the shallow, fractured half-sleep she never quite sank out of.
She slaps at it blindly, misses, then finds it and stills the sound with more force than necessary.
Silence drops back into the room.
It’s different in daylight-adjacent quiet.
Less ominous. More ordinary.
The kind of quiet that pretends nothing happened.
Paige stares at the ceiling.
She feels like she never slept at all. The imprint of last night presses up from underneath everything: Caitlin’s voice breaking, hands raised in reflex, the word please scraped raw. The way terror filled the room so completely there hadn’t been space for anything else.
The memory feels sharp, undeniable.
Which makes the quiet now feel… wrong.
Paige presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth until it aches.
Across the room, Caitlin is already awake.
Of course she is.
She’s sitting on the edge of her bed, back straight, feet planted, scrolling through her phone like this is any other morning.
Her hair is pulled back into a low, messy half bun.
Team USA tee. Compression shorts. Socks already on.
Ready.
Braced.
Like nothing about the air between them is different.
The sight of it hits Paige with a disorienting jolt of wrongness.
Like waking up after a car accident and seeing someone casually checking their emails.
“Morning,” Caitlin says, not looking up.
Her voice is normal. Clear. Light, even.
Too light.
Paige blinks. Pushes herself upright, muscles stiff and protesting.
“Hey,” she answers.
The word comes out cautious. Measured. Like she’s testing the ground before putting weight on it.
Caitlin hums in acknowledgment, thumb still flicking across her screen. ESPN notifications. Group chat messages. Weather. Normal things.
Paige can see it all reflected faintly in the mirror above the desk.
Normal, normal, normal.
Like Paige didn’t sit on her bed at a quarter past two and watch Caitlin claw her way back from somewhere dark and terrifying.
The denial is so seamless it almost works.
Almost.
Paige swings her legs over the side of the bed. The carpet feels less grounding in the morning. Just thin, industrial, impersonal.
She rubs at her eyes, trying to shake the heaviness out of her limbs.
“So,” Caitlin says casually, finally setting her phone down. “Breakfast in, like, twenty?”
There it is.
No hesitation.
No check-in.
No acknowledgment of the crater Paige feels like they’re both stepping around.
Paige nods slowly.
“Yeah. I think so.”
Caitlin stands, stretches her arms over her head, twisting at the waist with the loose-limbed ease of someone warming up before practice.
See? Fine.
Paige’s brain rebels at the image, at the mismatch between what she’s seeing and what she knows she saw hours ago. It makes her feel unsteady, like the ground is subtly shifting under her feet.
Caitlin moves into the bathroom, flips on the light. The fan whirs to life.
The sound feels abrupt. Too loud.
Paige’s chest tightens.
She drags herself to her own feet and starts pulling on clothes. Team shorts. Hoodie. Socks. Every movement feels deliberate, like she’s acting out a routine she’s done a thousand times but can’t quite remember the steps to today.
“Sleep okay?” Caitlin asks over the sound of running water.
The question lands wrong.
Not curious.
Not careful.
Just… procedural.
Paige’s hands still at her sides.
She considers half a dozen answers in the space of a heartbeat. Not really. No. Did you? We should talk.
What comes out instead is, “Uh. Yeah. I mean. Fine.”
Caitlin glances at her in the mirror.
There’s something sharp and assessing in her eyes for just a split second—like she’s checking to see if Paige is going to contradict the story she’s already telling—but then it smooths out.
“Same,” Caitlin says easily. “Jet lag finally caught up to me, I think.”
Paige’s stomach drops.
There it is.
Jet lag.
The explanation slots neatly into place, retroactively sanitizing the night before. It’s clean. Plausible. Impersonal. Something that belongs to travel schedules and circadian rhythms, not to fear that lives in muscle memory.
Paige nods, slowly.
“Yeah,” she says, even though the word tastes wrong. “Makes sense.”
She hates how easily it comes out. Hates how quickly she’s being pulled into the narrative Caitlin is laying down, piece by careful piece.
Caitlin finishes in the bathroom, grabs her water bottle, screws the lid on tight. Her hands are steady now. No tremor. No hesitation.
If Paige hadn’t been awake, if she hadn’t been there, there would be no evidence anything happened at all.
The thought makes her feel dizzy.
They move around each other in the cramped space with practiced efficiency. Paige grabs her shoes. Caitlin checks her phone again. They avoid each other’s eyes in a way that feels almost choreographed.
Gaslighting is too strong a word, Paige thinks distantly.
Caitlin isn’t lying to her.
She’s lying around her.
And somehow, that feels worse.
“You good?” Caitlin asks lightly, slinging her backpack over one shoulder. “You look tired.”
Paige almost laughs.
The sound gets stuck in her throat.
“I’m okay,” she says instead.
The irony is sharp enough to cut.
Caitlin nods, satisfied. The question wasn’t really a question anyway; just a social checkbox, ticked and done.
They step into the hallway together. The door clicks shut behind them, final and definitive.
The hotel smells like coffee and carpet cleaner and other people’s mornings.
As they walk toward the elevators, Paige’s awareness keeps snagging on small things.
The way Caitlin positions herself half a step ahead, like she always does.
The way her shoulders stay squared, her posture immaculate.
The way she talks animatedly about the scouting report for Spain, about ball pressure and transition defense, like her voice didn’t shatter hours ago on a word that wasn’t meant for Paige at all.
Paige nods at the right places. Responds automatically. Adds a comment here and there.
From the outside, they look fine. Two teammates heading to breakfast. Locked in. Focused.
From the inside, Paige feels like she’s losing her grip on something real.
Because Caitlin is acting like last night didn’t happen.
And Paige is starting to feel stupid for thinking it did.
Did I overreact?
Was it really just a nightmare?
Am I projecting?
The doubts creep in insidiously, seeded by Caitlin’s calm, her certainty, her refusal to acknowledge anything outside the narrow, acceptable explanation.
Paige hates how persuasive it is.
They reach the elevator. Doors slide open. A few teammates are already inside;laughing, half-awake, arguing about coffee.
“Morning,” Aliyah says brightly.
“Morning,” Caitlin replies, just as bright.
Paige echoes it a half-second later.
The doors close.
As the elevator descends, Paige watches Caitlin out of the corner of her eye. Watches her joke with Sabrina. Watches her roll her eyes dramatically at something Kelsey says.
She looks like herself.
Which makes Paige feel uneasy.
Because Paige remembers the weight of Caitlin’s fear pressing into the room like gravity. Remembers how real it felt in her hands, in her chest, in the space between them.
And now…
Now it’s being rewritten in real time.
Paige presses her nails into her palm until the pressure grounds her.
She doesn’t know which version to trust anymore: the one Caitlin is offering up so convincingly, or the one that still lives behind Paige’s ribs, heavy and undeniable.
The elevator dings. Doors open.
They step out into the breakfast area, noise and light and normalcy rushing to meet them.
Paige follows Caitlin toward the buffet, feeling conflicted and off-balance and quietly furious at herself for letting doubt creep in where certainty once lived.
She doesn’t know if pushing would help or hurt.
Doesn’t know if staying silent is respect or cowardice.
Doesn’t know if she’s protecting Caitlin or helping her disappear.
All she knows is that something important happened last night.
And this morning, she’s being asked to pretend it didn’t.
Paige grabs a plate.
Across from her, Caitlin smiles, easy and bright, already moving on.
And Paige has never felt more alone standing right next to someone.