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The fluorescent lights of the hospital cast too sterile of a glow for Pansy's liking, like everything was trying too hard to be clean, controlled, neutral. But grief had a way of seeping into even the most scrubbed surfaces, and it clung to the air in places like this. She kept her arms folded tightly across her chest as she walked, each click of her heels echoing down the corridor like a metronome counting down the time the family upstairs didn’t have. She had done what she came to do—listened, asked the right questions, explained next steps with practiced clarity. She was composed, measured, and professional. It was the deal she made with herself every time: get in, help where she could, and get out before the weight of it pulled her under. She was almost to the exit when the voice cut through the hallway noise like a grin turned vocal.
“Longbottom, your woman is here to see you!”
Pansy froze, mid-step, brows immediately knitting together. She turned her head toward the Emergency Department’s triage bay, expecting a mistake, that she had misheard. But there Porter, one of Neville’s coworkers, stood in front of a curtained-off exam space, grinning like he’d just said the cleverest thing in the world. Pansy’s mouth went dry. Her first thoughts, irrational and intrusive, was blood. A stretcher. The sound of monitors screaming flatlines. She hated how quickly her mind went there. But this place invited worst-case scenarios like ghosts. She had just left a family upstairs where someone was dying, someone who wouldn’t make it to next week. Her pulse kicked up. Her hands itched with that useless, nervous electricity that came when fear crept in and tried to wedge itself between her ribs. What if it was serious?
“Relax,” Porter said, clearly amused, already reaching for the curtain. “He just needs a few stitches. Nothing too bad this time.”
Pansy couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop the flicker of panic still rising in her chest, even as the words “a few stitches” tried to calm it. Porter yanked the curtain aside.
And there was Neville.
Sitting on the edge of the exam bed, one sleeve rolled up and bloodied, a nurse bent over his forearm with a curved needle and a steady hand. He had a couple of scrapes along his jaw, a fresh bruise beginning to bloom near his temple, and a split along the side of his shirt where the fabric had torn. Dirt smudged the side of his face, and his hair was matted down from sweat and whatever chaos he’d just come from. But he was upright. Breathing. Joking with the nurse, even.
Still, her heart dropped like an anchor in her chest. And when he looked up and saw her, the warmth in his eyes made it worse somehow.
“Pansy?”
She didn’t answer right away. Her legs finally moved, carrying her forward like they had a mind of their own, until she was standing just a breath away from the exam bed. Her eyes darted to the stitched gash on his arm, the bruises, the torn shirt. Not life-threatening, no. But seeing him under the fluorescent lights shook something loose in her chest.
“What the hell happened?” she asked quietly, voice low, controlled, but edged with something sharp. Protective. Frayed.
Neville blinked. “Small apartment fire. Debris from a ceiling panel came down—we didn’t see it coming. Just clipped me. I’m fine.”
“You bled through your shirt.”
He shrugged, wincing just slightly as the movement tugged at the new sutures. “Looked worse than it was.”
Porter leaned against the wall just outside the curtain, arms crossed, watching the scene unfold like it was the best thing he’d seen all day. “How nice that you came to join us, Pansy.”
Neville shot him a look that was half mortified, half warning, but it only made Porter grin harder.
“I was already here,” Pansy snapped, without even turning around. “I was here on a wrongful death consult.”
Porter just hummed, clearly enjoying himself. The nurse gave them a glance as she stood, stripping off her gloves. “He’s all done. Just need to get your discharge papers,” she said to Neville, then exited the space.
Pansy reached out and gently touched just above the stitched line, fingertips feather-light, her gaze still searching his face. “You could’ve hit your head,” she muttered, almost like she was speaking to herself.
“I didn’t,” Neville said. “I'm okay.”
She finally met his eyes, and for a moment, her expression cracked, just barely.
Porter, still loitering in the doorway, tilted his head with an exaggerated sigh. “Right, well. I’m going to go grab something from the vending machine.” He turned and left the two of them alone.
Neville shifted on the bed, “I’m really okay,” he said gently. “Just a couple stitches and some gauze. I only get one night off work, that’s how not big-of-a-deal it is. Don’t let Porter make it sound like I lost a limb.”
“I’m not worried about you losing a limb,” Pansy replied, stepping closer again. “I’m worried about you bleeding out while some intern scribbles the wrong time on your intake chart.”
He huffed a laugh. “Dark.”
She shrugged, but there was a faint smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “Hospitals give me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Really?” His brow quirked. “You? The woman who cross-examines medical examiners for fun?”
“It’s not fun, it’s litigation,” she said, nose wrinkling. “And yes. The morgue, the ICU, triage—all of it. Everything’s either beeping or broken or sad.” Her voice softened at the end, and she glanced away.
“I don’t love being here either,” Neville said. “But… if it means you show up, I’m not entirely mad about it.”
She huffed, looked at him like he was ridiculous, and maybe a little irresistible. And then the curtain swished open.
“Oh, hey—Neville, I heard you were in here and—” The voice stopped short. Hannah Abbott stood just inside the threshold, cheeks flushed from moving quickly down the corridor.
Her eyes landed on Neville and then flicked immediately to Pansy. Silence, thick and immediate, settled between all of them. Pansy stood instinctively straighter, face smoothing over in that polished, high-gloss way that usually preceded cross-examinations or depositions.
Neville blinked, clearly startled too. “Hannah?”
Hannah’s eyes narrowed slightly, not with anger, but with that particular kind of quiet, stunned processing that came when puzzle pieces started clicking into place too fast. “Wow,” she said, voice light but tight. “This is… not what I was expecting.”
“I didn’t know you worked today,” Neville said lamely.
“I swapped a shift.” Hannah nodded, then crossed her arms, eyes flicking between the two of them again. “Another nurse mentioned you were in triage. I thought I’d come see how you were doing.” She paused. “Clearly… you’re not alone.”
Pansy said nothing. She just watched Hannah with a kind of stillness that could’ve passed for either discomfort or readiness to bolt or possibly both.
Neville opened his mouth, but Hannah cut him off. “It’s fine,” she said, lifting a hand. “Really. I should get back.” She managed a half-smile—polite, a little sad, but far from cruel. “Glad you’re okay, Neville.”
And then she turned and left, the curtain swaying behind her.
Neville sighed the moment it settled back in place. He ran a hand over his face. “That was… not great.”
Pansy folded her arms, looking toward the curtain even though Hannah was gone. All she could do was hum in response.
The curtain shifted again, and this time it was Porter returning with a crinkly bag of chips in one hand and a can of soda in the other. He clocked the weird tension immediately. He raised a brow and bit back a grin. “Did I miss something?”
Neither of them answered.
He popped the tab on his soda and leaned against the wall. “You two are terrible at pretending you’re not wildly into each other, by the way. Just so you know.”
Pansy’s phone emitted a shrill ringing noise, cutting the conversation short. She flinched, just barely, and dug it from the inside pocket of her blazer. One glance at the caller ID made her spine straighten. “I have to take this. And Porter, you need to shut your abnormally large and unfiltered mouth,” she hissed.
Porter, now half-finished with his snack, gave her a casual wave of acknowledgment. Pansy slipped past the curtain and stepped back into the hallway and swiped to answer the call, putting her phone to her ear. “Hi, this is Pansy Parkinson.”
A voice, thin, brittle, and soaked in heartbreak, came through. It was the daughter. The one who had barely spoken during the earlier consult, eyes wet and distant, like she was watching the present from somewhere two days behind.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman said, voice breaking. “He’s gone. Just… a few minutes ago. I didn’t know who else to call.”
Pansy closed her eyes. “I haven’t left yet,” she said gently. “I’ll come back upstairs. I’ll meet you there.”
“Okay,” the woman whispered. “Okay.”
The line disconnected. Pansy lowered the phone slowly, fingers still curled around it like it might ask more of her. She turned and walked back toward the triage bay. Porter looked up first, and then Neville, who immediately clocked the shift in her expression.
“I have to go upstairs,” she said, voice controlled but softer now. “The man I was consulting on… he passed. Family’s asking for me.”
Neville nodded slowly, sitting up a little straighter despite the stitches in his arm. “Okay,” he said. Then, before she could leave, he added, “I’ll wait for you.”
She paused in the doorway, caught in the sincerity of it. “You don’t have to. You’ll be discharged soon. You should go home. Rest.”
He offered a small smile, warm and steady. “I’ll wait.”
Pansy didn’t trust herself to speak, so she just gave a quiet nod and turned away, heels clicking back down the corridor—slower now, heavier—as she returned to the place where grief had finished what it started.
Pansy walked with her arms folded across her middle, blazer draped over one arm. Her eyes were distant, unfocused, lashes still damp. The conversation with the family hadn’t lasted long—twenty minutes, maybe—but the weight of it felt longer. She offered kind words. Made sure the family had the right contact information for grief counseling. Said all the right things, just like she always did. But grief stayed in the air like humidity, clinging to her clothes, her hair, her skin. She rounded the corner near the elevators, eyes trained ahead.
And ahead, there sat Neville, in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs bolted to the floor, discharge papers folded in his lap, a paper cup of vending machine coffee in his hand. His arm was bandaged now, bruises a little darker than before. He looked tired. And he was waiting.
He stood the second he saw her, careful not to move too quickly. “Hey.”
Her throat tightened. “Hey.”
He didn’t ask how it went. Didn’t say I’m sorry or That must’ve been hard —and that, strangely, was the most comforting thing. He just looked at her with quiet understanding, like he knew that nothing needed fixing, just witnessing.
“I told you not to wait,” she said, voice thinner than before, but without bite.
“I know.” He offered her the coffee. “It’s terrible. Thought you might want something warm anyway.”
She took it, fingers brushing his, and held the cup even though she had no intention of drinking it. For a moment, she just stood there, staring at the swirl of color on the hospital floor tiles. Then, softly, “I hate this place.”
“I know.”
She looked up at him finally, something raw sitting just behind her eyes. “It never gets easier.”
“I hope it doesn’t,” Neville said, voice low. “Means you care.”
She exhaled shakily, almost a laugh but not quite. Then, after a beat, “Can we leave?”
“Yeah,” he said, already stepping beside her. “Let’s go.”
They walked in silence at first, their footsteps slow, steady, echoing faintly behind them as they moved toward the hospital exit. The fluorescents above buzzed dimly, the kind of white noise that blurred thoughts but didn’t quiet them. Pansy kept her gaze forward, her posture tight in that way she got when she was holding something in. Neville’s eyes flicked toward her, uncertain. Then, slowly, he lifted his non-sutured arm and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. To his surprise, the shorter woman next to him didn’t tense. Instead, she leaned into it. Just slightly. Just enough that he felt the full weight of her there, like a sigh let loose after hours of restraint.
They didn’t say anything about it. They just kept walking like that, together, through the double doors and into the early evening. Outside, the air was cooler, cleaner. The city was washed in the pastel colors of the sunset. She took a breath like she hadn’t been able to inside.
“You hungry?” she asked quietly, still tucked against his side.
Neville glanced down at her. “Kind of.”
“I can make you something,” she offered, casual on the surface, but her voice was softer than usual and uncertain in a way that wasn’t like her. “Or… hang around for a bit. Help you get settled. One-armed dinner prep might be tricky.”
He heard what she meant. Knew what she didn’t say. That she didn’t want to be alone. He nodded. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
She gave a small nod back, barely a motion at all. Neither of them said it aloud, but they both knew: she didn’t want to be alone tonight. And he didn’t want her to be either.
A few minutes later, they were walking up the stairs to Neville’s apartment, the buzz of the city behind them fading as the door clicked shut behind them. His apartment looked the same as before, just with a half-finished mug of tea sat forgotten on the coffee table. It smelled like lavender and laundry detergent. She slipped off her shoes by the door and crossed the room without asking, flipping on the small kitchen light. The yellow glow softened the sharp edges of the night. Neville hung back for a second, watching her move before he stepped inside, locking the door behind him with one hand, the other arm still wrapped and sore.
“Sit,” she said, nodding toward the couch. “Let me look through what you’ve got.”
He obeyed, though not without a small smirk. “Bossy.”
She shot him a look over her shoulder. “You have stitches in your arm and a bruise forming on your temple. You’re lucky I’m letting you sit upright.”
He chuckled and sank into the couch, exhaling like he hadn’t realized how much tension he was still carrying. He watched her move around his kitchen, open a few cupboards, inspect the contents of his fridge, and mutter something under her breath about bachelors and their “questionable nutritional priorities.”
“Okay,” she called out eventually. “You’ve got eggs, bread, and cheese. Barely anything, but I can work with that.”
Neville leaned his head back on the couch. “Didn’t know I was signing up for a post-trauma grilled cheese, but I’m not complaining.”
There was something oddly comforting about her fussing. Like the sharpest parts of her had turned inward tonight, not as armor, but as care.
“You always do this?” he asked after a moment.
She glanced over. “Do what?”
“Take care of everyone else when it’s you that needs a minute?”
She paused, hand hovering over the stove dial. Then she turned it. “I like to keep busy,” she said simply.
Neville had risen from his spot on the couch and hovered near the edge of the kitchen, just out of reach, like he wasn’t sure if stepping closer would help or not. “You don’t have to,” he said finally, voice low. “Not with me.”
Pansy’s hands stilled where she was slicing through a block of cheese. She set the knife down carefully, like it might shatter if she moved too fast. “If I don’t keep moving, I have to feel it. All of it. And right now, I really… don’t want to.”
Neville stepped closer. “You’ve had a hell of a day,” he said. “And you still came here. And are in my kitchen, making me food, taking care of me.”
“I came because you are halfway to being an invalid.”
He nodded, slowly. “Okay.”
She glanced at him, eyes sharp even under the strain. “I don’t want you to think I’m someone who shows up just because I’m scared of my own silence.”
“I don’t,” he said. “I think you’re someone who shows up in spite of it.”
The words hit something deep. Her jaw twitched. She looked away. Neville closed the last of the distance. He was careful, still giving her the chance to pull away. His bandaged arm hung at his side, the other lifted gently, just enough to touch her elbow.
“You don’t have to be okay right now.”
She let out a breath, shaky and thin. “I know.”
But she didn’t step back. She turned, slowly, until they were facing each other, close enough to feel the heat between them, the static of everything unsaid. Her eyes lifted to his, guarded but soft, tired but searching. He was looking at her like she mattered. Not like she was unraveling, but like she was real. And then, finally, he leaned in. It was hesitant at first. A breath, a question. But she answered before he could pull back, closing the distance and meeting him halfway. The kiss was slow, deliberate, born out of everything they hadn’t said in words. Her hand came up to his chest, fingers curling lightly in the fabric of his shirt. He touched her jaw, feather-light, and then her cheek. The kiss deepened, not with urgency, but with gravity, like it had been waiting for the right moment to land. His hand slid to the small of her back. She moved closer without thinking, the warmth between them growing.
A faint sizzle, a crackle, and the unmistakable smell of something beginning to char interrupted them. Pansy pulled back just enough to blink at him.
“I think your grilled cheese is burning,” she said, breathless, eyes still half-lidded.
Neville froze for a beat, sniffed the air then groaned. “Bloody hell.”
Pansy laughed, hard. Neville yanked the skillet off the burner, his own laugh joining hers. Neville leaned against the counter with a grin. “Well. That was dramatic.”
Pansy glanced at the burnt sandwich, then at him, “It was your fault.”
“I didn’t say kiss me,” he said innocently.
“You didn’t not say it either,” she replied, waving the smoke away with the towel. “You shouldn’t distract the chef in the kitchen.”
“Good thing I’m a firefighter, then. I’m trained for emergencies like these.”
Pansy gave him a flat look, unimpressed. “Please tell me that’s not a line you use.”
“It’s a line I just used, and I stand by it.”
She shook her head, turning back to the counter to assess the damage.
Neville took a small step closer, peering at the charred remains. “Honestly, I’ve eaten worse. Shared bunk meals with a guy who thought powdered eggs counted as a real food.”
“Well, I have standards,” Pansy said, already pulling out fresh bread, her tone softening. “And pride. You’re getting a second attempt.”
Neville just laughed, grabbing her by the waist with his uninjured arm and pulling her in.