Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

When Jody Moreno was a kid, she believed in endings.

Not just any old endings, but good ones. The ones that swelled with music and softened the edges of everything sharp. The kind that made people stay. She loved the quiet certainty that things would resolve, that people would say what needed saying before the credits rolled, and that everything would stay fixed.

She believed problems came with time limits. Thirty minutes, usually. Forty-five if you counted ad breaks. An hour if someone fancied dragging it out. But always—always, always, always—there was a structure. A rise, a fall, a final act where everything made sense again. Where people said the right things at the right time. Where no one left without a reason that could be explained neatly in dialogue.

She didn’t just watch those stories, she studied them. Curled up beside her dad on a sagging couch that smelt faintly of takeaway and old fabric softener, she’d trace the rhythm of scenes the way other kids followed bedtime stories. He’d point things out—camera angles, lighting tricks, the way a pause could mean more than a monologue, anything—and she’d soak it in like it was gospel.

“See, this is where everything flips, just watch,” he’d murmur, nudging her knee as the tension built.

And she’d nod, serious, certain. Because of course it would turn. It always did. He was always right.

She worshipped him like a god, in the quiet, unquestioning way children do when no one tells them not to. Not loudly, not reverently in any way she could’ve explained—simply completely, wholeheartedly. He was the one who understood how things worked, who could pause a film halfway through and tell her why it felt wrong and how he’d fix it, who could promise that a story would come together if you just gave it time (unless it was a particularly bad movie). He spoke like there was always a plan, always a reason, always an ending waiting where it was supposed to be. And Jody—small, watching him like he held the key to everything she cared about—believed him without hesitation. Why wouldn’t she? He had never been wrong before.

Back then, her world was framed in widescreen certainty. The flat held sound in a particular way. Her dad’s laugh bouncing off the walls, her mum humming in the kitchen as buses groaned past outside, the distant murmur of voices drifting up from the street. Her sister always nearby, never needing to say much for Jody to know exactly what she meant.

But the thing about real life—something Jody would learn later, slowly and then all at once—is that it doesn’t care about pacing. It doesn’t build towards resolution. It doesn’t warn you when it’s about to cut the scene in half and leave it there, jagged and unfinished.

Fifteen was when her story broke in two. There was no swelling music. No carefully lit confrontation. No final speech that tied everything together in a way that made sense. It was a random Thursday. A phone call. And then the quiet, ugly collapse of something she hadn’t realised could even end.

Her father didn’t leave in a dramatic flourish. He didn’t even slam the door. He simply… chose somewhere else to be, a family that wasn’t her’s. And that was it. No third act, no resolution, and no neat little bow.

All she noticed was his absence, gnawing and obvious and painful.

For a long time after, Jody stopped watching films properly.

Oh, she still put them on—background noise, something to fill the silence—but she didn’t watch them. Not the way she used to. Not with that sharp, bright attention that picked apart every frame and tucked it away like something precious.

Because once you’ve seen how a story can fall apart in real life, it’s harder to believe in the ones that don’t.

So she did the sensible thing. She chose something practical. Psychology, she told people, when they asked what she was studying. It felt like the sort of answer that made sense. People were unpredictable, messy, prone to leaving without warning—so she’d learn them. Map them out. Understand the why behind the damage.

It sounded good on paper. It sounded like control.

University suited her well enough. Grey buildings, damp air clinging to everything, the sort of cold that didn’t just sit on your skin but worked its way in, settling somewhere behind your ribs and refusing to leave. The campus always looked slightly waterlogged, like it had been rained on five minutes ago or was about to be again. Pavements slick, grass flattened, students moving in loose clusters with hunched shoulders and takeaway coffees clutched like they were keeping them all alive.

Jody moved through it without much fuss.

Her hall of residence was exactly what you’d expect—too small, too loud, too thin-walled to ever really feel private. A narrow bed pushed against one wall, a desk she used more for dumping things than studying, a window that never quite kept the cold out. The radiator worked when it felt like it, which wasn’t often, so she learned to layer hoodies and thick socks and pretend it didn’t bother her.

The kitchen was worse. Perpetually messy, always smelling faintly terribly of something burnt or forgotten, a rotating disaster of unwashed dishes and half-labelled food no one trusted enough to touch. There was always someone in there, though. Someone cooking, someone drinking, someone talking too loudly at two in the morning like the concept of time didn’t apply in that space, and it mostly didn’t.

Jody hovered on the edge of it most of the time. She wasn’t antisocial. She just didn’t quite settle into it the way some people did. She’d sit on the counter sometimes, legs swinging slightly, half-listening to conversations that jumped from topic to topic without much structure. People drifted in and out—coursemates, hall-mates, friends of friends—faces she recognised more she actually knew them.

She had a group, technically.

A handful of people she gravitated towards without really thinking about it. They sat together in lectures, shared notes when someone inevitably missed something important, complained about deadlines over cheap food and shitty coffee. There was an ease to it, a familiarity that didn’t demand too much from her.

“You’ve done the reading, right?” one of them would ask, leaning over her shoulder before a lecture.

Jody looked up. “Of course I have.”

“Can I copy it?”

“You’re already doing it.”

“Yeah, but I like the consent, dumbass.”

“You don’t need it.”

They laughed, easy and unbothered, like this was just how things worked. And it was.

They’d all end up in someone’s room some nights, crowded onto mismatched chairs and the edge of a bed, talking about nothing in particular. The walls would be covered in brightly-coloured posters, in a calendar dotted with fluorescent highlighter. Someone would put music on, someone else would complain about it, and the conversation would drift endlessly. It was comfortable in a low-stakes way. There was no expectation to be anything more than present, and throw a joke into the ring every so often.

Her lectures all blurred into each other, mostly made up of the low hum of someone talking at the front while half the class typed or wrote and the other half pretended to. She took notes anyway. Personality disorders. The DSM-5. Case studies. STATS101 lectures that she bloody despised. Names like Freud and Skinner and Bandura written neatly that she’d probably never look at again. Late at night, it all made her want to strangle herself, or run away to America to become an urban legend in the woods or something of that nature.

The library became her constant hiding place, more out of habit than anything else. Rows of books, quiet that wasn’t really quiet, just the soft shuffle of pages, the occasional cough, the low buzz of fluorescent lights. She’d sit there for hours, laptop open, working because that’s what she was supposed to be doing.

Outside of that, everything settled into a rhythm she didn’t have to question. Cheap, shitty meals, late nights, early mornings she dragged herself through on autopilot, conversations that didn’t stick. Days that passed without leaving much of an imprint.

There were moments, sometimes, where something else broke through.

Film posters pinned up around campus. Late-night screenings in cramped rooms with terrible sound systems. She’d go occasionally, sit in the back, watch something that made her chest tighten in a way her lectures never did. She’d find herself analysing shots without meaning to, noticing pacing, framing, the way a scene held or didn’t.

It felt natural. Easy, in a way nothing else quite did. Like coming home. She felt like a kid again. But then the lights would come back on, people would start talking, and she’d pack her things and leave, letting it slip back into the background where everything else lived.

Psychology was practical. Sensible. Something you could build a life out of without too many questions.

So she stayed.

She kept moving through it, one lecture to the next, one deadline to the next, anxiety taunt in her shoulders and the way she carried herself, letting the structure carry her forward without asking whether she actually wanted to be there.

She functioned, above all else.

Jody was very good at functioning.

But somewhere between all the lecture halls and late-night study sessions, she started to feel it—that itch. Like something tapping at the back of her skull, asking to be let in.

She’d catch herself watching how someone paused mid-sentence, how another filled the silence too quickly. The way people framed themselves without meaning to—examples of film techniques in real life. She noticed light more than she used to, as well, how it cut across desks, how it softened edges late in the day.

Cutting her essays too close to the deadline because she’d spent an hour rewatching the “perfect” scene from some random film she swore she didn’t care about anymore.

She told herself it didn’t mean anything.

But it did.

The breaking point wasn’t cinematic. Of course it wasn’t. No epiphany. Just a lecture she couldn’t focus on, a pen tapping restlessly against her notebook, and the slow, thin, creeping realisation that she didn’t care. Not in the way she was supposed to. Not in the way that justified the weight of it all.

So she left.

Walked out halfway through, ignoring the curious looks, the faint scrape of chairs as a handful of people shifted to watch her go. Her heart was beating too fast for something so small, like she was doing something reckless instead of just… standing up.

Outside, it was raining. Of course it was.

Jody stood there for a moment, getting properly soaked, and felt—ridiculously, inconveniently—awake.

There was a film building on the other side of campus. She’d passed it a hundred times without going in. Didn’t think too hard about it now.

The place buzzed in a way the rest of the university didn’t. Messy. Alive. People arguing over shots and scripts and lighting setups like it actually mattered. Like it was worth raising your voice over.

It was chaos.

It was perfect.

She slipped into the back of a student production without asking—just hovered at the edges at first, watching the way everything came together. Or didn’t. Watching the director (frazzled, sharp-tongued, clearly one bad moment away from losing it entirely) try to wrangle something coherent out of a situation that refused to behave.

It should have looked like a disaster. Instead, it looked familiar. That same tight feeling in the chest. That same need to fix it, to shape it, to make it all mean something.

Jody didn’t remember actually sitting down and making a decision. One day she was a psychology student. The next, she wasn’t.

Switching courses wasn’t.. great, especially in her third year. There were forms, meetings, raised eyebrows. A lecturer who told her, gently but firmly, that film wasn’t exactly a “stable” path.

Jody had smiled, tight and polite.

Stability had never exactly worked out for her anyway. Film, at least, was honest about the chaos. And maybe—just maybe—it gave her something real life didn’t.

A chance to build an ending and actually see it through.

And years before the Hail Mary—years before the news choked on words like Astrophage, years before the world watched Antarctica explode and years before someone paved over the Sahara with solar panels—years before she encouraged her boyfriend to go looking for a brother he didn’t know he had, and found a man trying to save everyone—

Years before that same man got strapped into a one-way mission and launched into the dark—

Years before Jody stood there and watched that man’s brother come apart at the seams, slow and quiet and devastating—

Before all of it—

She met Colt Seavers.

It was Alaska in winter, rife with the kind of cold that slipped through layers, settled into bone, and made every piece of exposed skin feel like a mistake. The air was so sharp it almost tasted metallic, each breath biting on the way in. Snow stretched out in every direction, blinding and endless, broken only by equipment tracks and the ugly sprawl of a film set trying to pretend it belonged there.

It didn’t. Film sets never did. They forced themselves into places and then vanished. Jody liked that about them. This one was particularly chaotic. Big-budget, overstuffed, running behind schedule in that slow, inevitable way that meant everyone was tense and pretending they weren’t. Crew members moved quickly and purposefully, all of them trying to look like they weren’t one minor inconvenience away from snapping.

At the centre of it all was Tom Ryder—the face of the production, a walking ego wrapped in expensive layers. He had that polished, effortless charisma that translated perfectly on camera and grated everyone around him off of it. He was an asshole, plain and simple. People laughed a fraction too quickly at his jokes. Listened a fraction too closely when he spoke.

Jody did neither. She was too busy trying to keep her camera from freezing.

“Come on,” she muttered under her breath, crouched beside a rig that had absolutely no intention of cooperating. Her gloves were useless at this point, offering about as much warmth as an unlit fire. She tugged one off with her teeth, immediately regretting it as the cold sank into her fingers.

The metal was so cold it burned. “Shit!” she exclaimed, shaking her hand out before diving back in. The mechanism had locked—again—and if she didn’t get it working before the next setup, someone higher up the chain would notice. And when people higher up noticed things, it tended to become her problem.

“Bold strategy,” a voice drawled from somewhere behind her, easy and warm. “Fight the camera. Really assert dominance. I think it’s close to surrendering.”

Jody didn’t turn around. She tightened a bolt with more force than strictly necessary. “Great,” she said flatly. “Commentary. Exactly what this situation was missing.”

There was a crunch of boots in snow, slow and unbothered. “I could offer moral support instead, if you’d prefer.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Encouraging words? Light applause? A standing ovation when you inevitably win this battle?”

She exhaled sharply through her nose and finally glanced over her shoulder—and, of course, it was him.

Colt Seavers.

Up close, he looked exactly like he belonged in the middle of something reckless. Snow clung to his jacket, his hair slightly damp at the edges, cheeks red, like he’d just come off a stunt and hadn’t bothered brushing it off properly. There was an ease to the way he stood there, hands tucked into his pockets, like the cold didn’t quite apply to him the same way it did to everyone else.

Annoying.

Jody became very aware, all at once, of the state she was in.

Half-crouched beside a temperamental camera rig, one glove missing, the other hanging uselessly off her wrist. Hair escaping in every direction, golden strands sticking to her face where the snow had melted and refrozen in the worst possible way. Her accent always sharpened when she was cold or irritated, and a British accent was the kind of thing people clocked immediately and never quite let go of. She’d suffered though many terrible renditions of her vowels and speech patterns.

She straightened a bit, not fully standing, just enough to look like she hadn’t been actively arguing with a piece of equipment for the last five minutes.

And then—briefly, accidentally—Jody’s attention snagged. On the curve of his jaw, still faintly flushed from the cold. The way his hair fell just slightly out of place, like he’d run a hand through it and left it there. A small crease at the corner of his mouth that looked like it spent more time there than not. Even the way he stood; balanced, relaxed, like he trusted his footing without thinking about it.

Jody didn’t stare. She was very deliberate about not staring. She did, however, take in far too much detail for someone who didn’t care about this man.

“Unless you know how to fix this,” she said quickly, turning back to the rig, “you’re wasting both of our time.”

“Bold assumption,” he replied, stepping closer. “What’s it doing?”

“Not working.”

“Ah,” he nodded, as if that confirmed something important. “Classic issue.”

She shot him a look. “Do you have anything useful to contribute, or are you just committed to being irritating?”

He grinned, entirely unapologetic. “Little bit of both, if I’m honest.”

Jody huffed, shifting slightly to give him space despite herself. “You’ve got thirty seconds before I decide you’re a liability.”

“Ouch,” he said lightly, crouching beside her. “Harsh. I thought we had something.”

“We have nothing.”

“Feels like something.”

“It’s not.”

“Agree to disagree.”

He leaned in, fingers already moving over the frozen mechanism with a familiarity that caught her attention despite her best efforts not to care. There was no hesitation there, no second-guessing—just quick, knowledgable movements, like he’d done this before.

“Stunt guy,” she said, watching him. “Why do you know how to fix camera rigs?”

“Occupational hazard,” Colt replied. “Things break. I fix them. Occasionally I’m the thing that breaks.”

“That tracks.”

“Wow,” he glanced at her, mock-offended. “You wound me.”

“You’ll recover.”

“Emotionally? Maybe not.”

She rolled her eyes, but there was something tugging at the corner of her mouth now, something she refused to acknowledge.

“Hold that,” he said suddenly, nodding toward a loose component.

“I am holding it.”

“Yeah, but like you mean it.”

She tightened her grip. “If this breaks because you’re talking instead of working, I’m blaming you.”

“Good,” he said, entirely unbothered. “I thrive under pressure.”

“That’s not something to be proud of.”

“Too late.”

There was a brief pause—just the sound of metal shifting, the distant hum of the set carrying on around them, the howl of the wind—and then—

Click.

The rig shuddered, then whirred back to life. Jody blinked, surprised despite herself. She tested it, adjusting the angle, watching as it responded smoothly.

“…Huh.”

“‘Huh’?” Colt echoed. “That’s all I get? Not even a ‘wow, Colt, you’re incredibly talented and handsome, how do you do it?’”

“You’re pushing it.”

“I feel like I earned at least ‘moderately impressive.’”

She glanced at him, considering, then said, “You’re… less useless than you look.”

He lit up like she’d handed him a trophy. “I’m choosing to take that as a win.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Still am.”

Jody shook her head, turning back to her camera, but there was a shift now—small, irritatingly noticeable. The tension in her shoulders had eased a fraction. The cold didn’t feel quite as sharp. Which was ridiculous.

He was a distraction. That’s all. A temporary variable in a controlled environment. He’d leave when the job ended, same as everyone else.

That was how this worked.

Except—

He didn’t, not really.

Because after that, Colt Seavers had a habit of appearing.

Not in a way that got in the way of her work, but enough. Leaning against equipment crates, lingering just inside her peripheral vision, tossing out commentary like it was his personal mission to see how many times he could make her roll her eyes in a single day.

“You always this friendly,” he asked once, falling into step beside her as she crossed the set, “or am I just special?”

“You’re persistent,” she shot back. “I’ll give you that.”

“Persistent,” he repeated thoughtfully. “I like that. Makes me sound charming.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“You say that a lot.”

“That’s because you’re wrong a lot.”

She stopped walking, turning to stare at him. “You have an impressive amount of confidence for someone whose job description is ‘professional fall guy.’”

He spread his hands. “And yet, here I am. Fixing your equipment, improving your day, bringing a little light into your otherwise cold, joyless existence—”

“My existence was fine before you showed up.”

“Sure,” he nodded. “And this place isn’t freezing.”

“It’s objectively freezing.”

“Details.”

Jody huffed out a laugh before she could stop it, the sound surprising both of them.

Colt noticed. Of course he did. “See?” he said, throwing up his hands. “That right there—that’s progress.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Too late.”

They didn’t mean for it to actually continue. At least, she assumed he didn’t. She certainly didn’t.

That was the rule with sets—unspoken, but rigid as anything written into a contract. You showed up, you worked, you survived the chaos, and then you left. Everyone scattered back to their separate lives like it had all been a contained incident instead of something that swallowed weeks whole.

Jody liked that rule. It made things clean. Predictable. Contained.

So when the final day rolled around—when the last shot was called, when the director’s voice cracked slightly on that’s a wrap, when the crew clapped in that tired, half-sincere way people did when they were already thinking about what came next—she slipped easily into the rhythm of leaving.

Cables coiled. Equipment packed down. Checklists ticked off. Around her, people lingered in little clusters, exchanging numbers they’d probably never use, making vague promises about future projects that would almost certainly never line up. Jody didn’t linger. She never did.

“Well,” Colt said, appearing at her side like he hadn’t learned the concept of personal space in his entire life, “this is the part where you admit you’re going to miss me.”

She didn’t look up from the case she was locking. “You’ve got an impressive amount of confidence for someone about to be forgotten in, what, forty-eight hours?”

“Forty-eight?” he echoed, offended. “Moreno, I’m hurt. I was thinking at least a week.”

“You’re optimistic.”

“I’m memorable.”

“You’re loud.”

“Same thing.”

“It’s really not.”

He leaned against the crate beside her, watching as she worked, eyes tracking the way she moved. “C’mon,” he nudged, “just a little bit. Tiny admission. You’ll miss my charm. My wit. My athleticism. My incredible problem-solving skills—”

“You fixed one rig.”

“And it was a very important rig.”

“It was jammed.”

“It was critically jammed.”

She huffed a quiet laugh despite herself, snapping the case shut. “You’re unbearable.”

“And yet,” he said, grinning, “here I am. Still talking to you.”

“Tragic.”

“Devastating, honestly.”

There was a beat then—not awkward, but something that lingered a fraction longer than their usual back-and-forth. The set around them was thinning out, people peeling away in ones and twos, the noise fading into something quieter.

“Guess this is it,” Colt said, a little less flippant this time.

Jody straightened, adjusting the strap of her bag over her shoulder. She met his gaze properly then, and there it was again—that flicker. The one she kept ignoring. The one that didn’t fit neatly into anything she could categorise. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s usually how it works.”

“Usually,” he repeated, like he didn’t entirely buy into that.

She tilted her head. “What, you planning to dramatically reappear in my next job? Haunt the set? Continue your mission to be mildly irritating across multiple productions?”

“Mildly?” he scoffed. “I’m deeply irritating, thank you. Get it right.”

“I’ll make a note.”

“You should. Wouldn’t want to forget me.”

“I won’t,” she said dryly. “You’ve made that impossible.”

He smiled at that, something a little sharper—more Colt, the Colt he barely let anyone see—than the easy grin he usually wore. “Good.”

And then, because she was good at endings—because she always had been—

“Bye, Seavers.”

“Bye, Moreno.”

It lasted exactly six hours.

Jody made it back to her tiny, questionably heated flat and had to shoulder the door twice before it shut properly, the wood swollen from damp. Her bag made a dull thud where it landed. Boots followed, kicked off without much care, leaving faint wet marks across the floor. Great.

The cold didn’t leave with her coat. It clung. Sat in her fingers, in the back of her neck, worked its way in until it felt like part of her.

Her flight back home was soon. London waited in that steady, unavoidable way. The same streets, the same noise bleeding through the walls at all hours, buses groaning on the road, the same flat that never quite felt like it had enough space for everyone in it.

Her mum would open the door quickly, already mid-sentence, already moving before Jody had properly stepped inside. There’d be a hug, brief and tight, the kind that didn’t linger long enough to settle. Then the questions would come in sideways, dressed up as conversation. How work was going. Whether she was keeping busy. If anything had come of it yet.

Her stepdad would sit where he always did, one leg crossed over the other, watching more than speaking at first. When he did speak, it would be careful. Something about long-term plans. About how the industry she’d chosen was difficult, uncertain, not exactly known for looking after people.

Her sister would be there too. Probably half-buried in notes, some medical jargon spread out across the table, highlighter in hand. Everything Jody wasn’t, at least not in a way that translated easily. There’d be comparisons, never direct, just threaded through everything else. How well her sister was doing. How clear her path was. How hard she’d worked to get there.

Jody pressed her head back against the wall, the cold seeping straight through. She let her eyes close for a second, just breathing, just existing in the quiet before any of that became real again.

Her thoughts drifted, as they always did, back to the film.

Not the parts people would talk about. Not the ones that made it into conversations or quick summaries. It was the smaller details that stayed with her, the ones that sat just under the surface and shifted the whole thing without anyone pointing at them directly. The way a scene lost tension because someone crossed the frame a fraction too early, breaking the focus before it had a chance to settle. A line delivered at the right volume but the wrong pace, cutting through what should’ve been a pause that carried weight. Coverage that didn’t quite match on the reverse, an eyeline drifting just enough to pull you out of it if you knew where to look.

She noticed continuity in movement, in light, in intention. The way a shot lingered a beat too long and dulled its own impact. The way it could’ve worked if the camera had been placed slightly lower, if the framing had committed to what it was trying to say instead of hesitating. Even the rhythm of the edit started forming in her head while she was still on set—where it should cut, where it should hold, where silence would do more than anything written into the script.

She could see it. The structure underneath it all, the mechanics of it. Where it needed tightening, where it needed space, where it needed someone to step in and make a decision instead of letting it sit in that half-finished state. It stayed with her like that, fully formed, like something already assembled in her head that the footage just hadn’t caught up to yet.

Her fingers curled slightly against her palms, like they were still working through it. And then, without warning, her thoughts slipped again.

Back to him.

He’d been out in the cold earlier, jacket off for the stunt like the freezing temperature didn’t register as something worth reacting to. Just a tank top against the snow, skin flushed from the temperature, breath barely visible in the air.

They had him set at the top of a narrow metal staircase rimmed with frost, each step slick and unforgiving. The drop below had been packed and shaped to read harsher on camera, but it still looked terrifying. Enough to do damage if he got it wrong. But he moved straight into it—down fast, one hand catching the rail for balance, boots hitting with a controlled rhythm before he shifted and let himself go. The fall landed exactly where it needed to, impact taken clean, his body rolling through it with precision that looked instinctive.

They reset and ran it again. Nothing about it dulled. Crew members who’d been half-distracted earlier had stopped what they were doing, watching properly now. There were a few low whistles, a muttered “nice” from somewhere behind Jody. He got back to his feet like it hadn’t taken much out of him, brushing snow from his arms, already turning back to position without waiting to be told.

Jody tracked it through the lens the first time, then over the top of the camera, then not really pretending after that. The way he moved held. It made sense on screen and off it. Timing, control, awareness of where everything else was without needing to check twice.

At one point between takes, he turned slightly, listening to someone call out an adjustment. And how he looked got stuck in her head. The lines of his back. The movement under his skin. The way it shifted easily, like nothing there was held too tight. The way it looked like something you could map out with your hands if you had a reason to.

Jody looked away quickly.

Later, when he’d wandered over, it hadn’t gone unnoticed.

A couple of crew members had clocked it straight away. One of them nudged the other, not even trying to be subtle about it. Someone else looked up properly, like they were waiting to see where he’d go. He could’ve stopped anywhere—people would’ve made space for him—but he hadn’t. He’d come straight toward her like it had already been decided, like there hadn’t been another option worth considering.

Jody had kept her focus on the camera, shoulders slightly hunched against the cold, fingers adjusting a setting that had been fine five minutes earlier.

“You always go that hard on a take,” she’d said, tone forcefully flat, “or was that a bit extra for effect?”

He’d let out a quiet laugh, stopping close enough that she could feel the cold coming off him, sharp and lingering. “Depends,” he’d said. “You watching, or am I doing all that for nothing?”

She’d glanced up at him, unimpressed on principle. “You hit your mark,” she’d said. “Congratulations.”

“And you noticed,” he’d replied, just as quick, like he’d been waiting for it.

Jody had looked back to the rig, jaw set just slightly, turning the focus ring with more precision than necessary. “That’s the job.”

“Sure,” he’d said, easy, a trace of that smile of his in it. “Still counts.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she’d muttered. “It’s one decent take.”

He’d shifted his weight a fraction closer instead of back, hands still tucked into his pockets, watching her. “Too late,” he’d said. “I’m already there.”

She’d huffed under her breath, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her face with the back of her hand.

“You’re in my way.”

“Am I,” he’d said, not moving.

“Yeah. Properly in the way, actually, you wanker.”

His eyes had glittered. He’d stayed exactly where he was for a second longer, like he was choosing to, then slowly stepped just enough to the side to clear her line. “Better?” he’d asked.

“Bit.”

“High praise.”

“You’ll cope.”

He’d glanced at the camera, then back at her. “You always this welcoming?”

“Only when I’m freezing and someone’s hovering over me,” she’d said.

“Good to know,” he’d replied. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She’d rolled her eyes, but there’d been the slightest delay to it, like she’d caught the edge of something before deciding what to do with it. “That would require you doing something actually impressive,” she’d said.

He’d tipped his head slightly, a small grin settling on his face. “Yeah?” he’d said. “Thought I already did.”

Jody hadn’t looked up this time. That was what he wanted, and she always liked to see how far she could push. She’d adjusted the camera again, steady, deliberate.

“Debatable.”

“Right,” he’d said lightly. “I’ll raise the bar.”

“Please don’t,” she’d muttered. “I’ve got enough distractions.”

He’d lingered a second longer anyway, like he wasn’t in a rush to be anywhere else, before finally stepping back properly. “See you around, Jody.”

She’d paused for half a second before answering, still not looking at him. “Yeah,” she’d said. “Try not to break anything.”

Jody’s eyes opened, a small crease forming between her brows. She pushed herself off the wall, restless, dragging a hand through her hair like she could reset her own thoughts if she tried hard enough.

She was going home soon. Back to a place where everything about her choices had already been… God. She missed being around the crew just because they understood.

Her phone buzzed.

She ignored it at first. Obviously.

It buzzed again.

And again.

With a sigh that was entirely more dramatic than necessary, she grabbed it off the counter and glanced at the screen.

Colt Seavers.

Of course.

you alive or did you freeze solid without me there to save you?

She stared at the message for a second, thumb hovering over the screen. She could ignore it. Probably should ignore it. That would be the sensible thing to do.

But Jody had never been particularly interested in sensible when it came to things that annoyed her.

I was fine before you, she typed back. I’ll be fine after.

The reply came almost instantly. yeah but were you this fun?

She snorted, dropping onto the edge of her bed.

Blocked.

bold move. you’d miss me.

I wouldn’t.

liar.

You’re very confident for someone I’ve known for three weeks.

quality over quantity.

That doesn’t make sense.

it does if you don’t think about it too hard.

I’m hanging up.

we’re texting.

Same concept.

its really not.

Close enough.

She shook her head, but she didn’t put the phone down.

It didn’t stop after that.

It settled into her days without asking, threading itself through everything else until it felt expected. Not scheduled, never neatly placed, but it kept showing up. A message when she was halfway across a set, a call just as she was packing down, his name lighting up her phone when she was wedged between equipment and someone asking her a question she’d already answered twice.

One day blurred into the next—early starts, long hours on her feet, the weight of the camera digging into her shoulder, fingers stiff from repetition or overuse. The kind of work that stayed in your body even after you’d stopped. She’d be adjusting a frame, checking focus, listening to direction being thrown across the set, and her phone would buzz somewhere nearby.

She’d ignore it the first time. Then usually pick it up the second, if she could.

“You’re working,” Colt said once, not even a question.

Jody shifted slightly, bracing the camera, eye flicking to the monitor.

“What gave it away?”

“Background noise. You sound busy.”

“I am busy.”

“Then hang up.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

He laughed, and she could hear something open on his end—air moving, a change in sound like he’d stepped outside.

“What are you doing?” she asked, adjusting the angle by half an centimetre.

“Waiting around,” he said. “Figured I’d see if you’d answer.”

She exhaled through her nose, focused on the frame. “Thrilling.”

“You answered.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Doesn’t sound very convincing.”

“It’s not meant to.”

Someone called her name from across the set. She lifted a hand briefly in acknowledgment, not taking her eyes off what she was doing.

“Hold on,” she muttered, then to someone else, “Yeah, I’ve got it—just give me a second.”

“You always like this?” Colt asked, voice lighter now, like he was leaning into it.

“Like what.”

“Half-talking to me, half running everything else.”

“I’m not running anything.”

“Sure sounds like it.”

Jody adjusted the focus again, then straightened slightly, rolling her shoulder back. “You done?” she called out, getting a nod in return.

“Alright,” she said, quieter now, stepping back from the camera. “What do you actually want?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Just calling.”

She shook her head, even though he couldn’t see it.

“Bit weird.”

“You like it, really.”

Evenings didn’t slow it down. The setting just tended to change.

Her flat stayed cold no matter what she did about it. The radiator clicked, hummed, and then promptly gave up halfway through trying. She’d end up wrapped in layers anyway, curled against the wall or sprawled across the bed with her phone balanced somewhere nearby.

London quieted, but never completely. Cars passed, voices carried, something always moving just out of sight. She’d scroll through things she wasn’t really reading, replay moments from the day without meaning to, let her thoughts drift—

—and then her phone would buzz.

She’d look at it. Leave it for a second. Pick it up anyway.

“Do you ever sleep?” she asked once, voice low, blanket pulled tight around her shoulders.

“Sleep’s optional,” Colt said. “You answer every time, though.”

“That’s not something to be proud of.”

“Feels like it is.”

She shifted, pulling her knees in closer, resting her chin briefly against them.

“What time is it there?” she asked.

“Afternoon,” he said. “Still bright out.”

“Course it is.”

“You sound tired.”

“I am tired.”

“Go to sleep.”

“And miss this?” she said, dry.

“Exactly.”

She let out a quiet breath, something close to a laugh, not quite committing to it. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Just got back,” he said. “Long day.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause.

“You still freezing?” he asked.

“Always.”

“You need better heating.”

“I need a different country.”

“Come here, then.”

She went still for half a second, then shifted, like she’d physically moved past the thought. “Don’t start.”

“I’m not starting anything.”

“Sounds like you are.”

“Just making suggestions.”

“Terrible ones.”

He hummed slightly, like he disagreed but wasn’t pushing it further.

Time kept moving forwards.

Conversations drifted, circled, picked up threads they’d dropped days earlier without either of them pointing it out. He’d mention something she’d said offhand, she’d call him out on something he’d forgotten he’d admitted. It built quietly, piece by piece, until there was a familiarity to it that didn’t feel new anymore.

“You’re doing that thing again,” he said once.

“What thing?”

“Thinking too much.”

“I’m not—”

“You are.”

She shifted, dragging a hand over her face. “Even if I was, it’s none of your business.”

“Still happening, though.”

“You fall off buildings for a living.”

“Controlled,” he said. “Important distinction.”

“Yeah, alright.”

“And you overanalyse everything.”

“That’s also important.”

“For what?”

“For getting things right.”

“You think you can fix everything if you look at it long enough.”

She didn’t answer that straight away.

“Maybe,” she said eventually.

“Yeah,” he replied softly. “Thought so.”

It kept going like that.

Days folded into each other. Calls blurred into conversations she couldn’t quite place in time. His voice became something she expected to hear, even when she didn’t admit it to herself. The rhythm of it settled in, familiar enough that the absence of it felt noticeable in a way she didn’t examine too closely.

Her phone would sit beside her, screen dark. She’d glance at it without meaning to.

Look away. Look back. And when it lit up, she answered.

Weeks passed. Then months.

The work shifted around her—different sets, different crews. Early calls, late finishes, the constant weight of equipment, the quiet pressure of getting things right when no one was going to say it outright if she didn’t.

Colt stayed threaded through all of it.

Not in any way that interrupted things. He fit into the gaps. The quiet at the end of a long day when her hands finally stopped moving. The walk back from set when the air had that damp edge to it and her shoulders ached in a way she’d stopped noticing. The low light of her flat, phone balanced against her knee while she half-listened, half-watched something she’d already seen before.

He called when he could. Texted when he couldn’t. Showed up in small, consistent ways that didn’t ask for anything in return but still took up space.

Jody noticed it. Not all at once. Gradually. The way it stopped feeling like a coincidence. The way it didn’t shrink or fade or get replaced by something else when it should have.

It kept going. And she didn’t interrupt it. She didn’t step back, didn’t draw a line around it, didn’t reduce it to something easier to manage. She let it stretch into her life, uneven and ongoing, without trying to force it into something clearer.

They met in the middle of it. Not in a single moment, not something she could point to later and name properly. It built through repetition. Through familiarity. Through the way they kept choosing the same direction without needing to say it out loud.

Colt filled the space around her easily.

“I missed you,” he said once, like it had just occurred to him mid-conversation, leaning back in his chair with his phone tilted against his ear.

Jody was halfway through cleaning a lens, seated cross-legged on the floor of her flat, kit spread out around her.

“You spoke to me yesterday,” she said.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Still counts.”

She didn’t answer straight away. Just kept working, slower now. “Bit dramatic,” she muttered.

“Little bit,” he agreed. “You like it.”

“I tolerate it.”

“That’s not what it sounds like.”

She huffed quietly, but there was something in it that didn’t quite line up with the words.

He said things like that often. Easy, unguarded, like they weren’t important. Like they didn’t make her nervous just to hear them.

“You’re my favourite part of this job,” he told her once, distracted, voice slightly muffled and far away like he was taping up his hands at the same time.

Jody paused mid-movement, fingers stilling against the edge of her camera. “That’s a low bar,” she said.

“Not really.”

“It is.”

“Not to me.”

She shifted, adjusting something that didn’t need it. “Right,” she said.

He didn’t push it further.

He didn’t need to.

Jody’s version of it looked different. She didn’t say things like that. Not directly. Not easily.

But she always showed up. Earlier than she needed to, earlier than anyone expected. The kind of early that meant the set was still half-asleep, lights not fully up, crew drifting in with coffees and quiet, tired voices. It gave her space. Gave her a reason to be there without anyone asking why.

She told herself it was practical. More time to check equipment. To run through setups without interruption. To get ahead of whatever the day was going to throw at her. She checked everything twice anyway. Adjusted things that didn’t need adjusting. Rebalanced, reframed, recalibrated. Hands busy, mind busier.

And always—always—she positioned herself where she could see him. Not enough for anyone to call it out. Just close enough that when he stepped into place, when the crew started moving with more intention, when the energy shifted before a stunt, she was already there.

Watching.

It settled somewhere deeper than she liked to think about.

People left. Quietly, sometimes. Without warning. Without a scene big enough to match the impact. One day they were there, the next they weren’t, and everything else just… kept going like it hadn’t mattered as much as it had.

So Jody learned early—if something mattered, you paid attention while it was still there. You showed up.

Colt stepping into a stunt carried that same sharp edge, even if she didn’t say it out loud. The way he moved like it didn’t cost him anything, the way everyone else trusted him to land it, the way it only took one wrong moment for things to go sideways.

She watched all of it. The setup. The rehearsals. The final take. The way his body aligned before he moved. The split-second decisions that didn’t look like decisions unless you knew what you were looking for. The impact, the recovery, the moment after where he pushed back up like it hadn’t taken much out of him.

Jody stayed until she saw that part. Every time. Only then did she move. Back into her own work, into the noise and movement and responsibility that was slowly building. Like she could file it away properly once she knew he was still standing.

If he noticed, he didn’t call it out directly. Just looked at her sometimes, a fraction longer than necessary, like he’d caught onto something she hadn’t meant to show.

“You’re here early,” he said once, walking past her as she adjusted a rig that had already been set.

“So are you,” she replied, not looking up.

“Yeah,” he said, a hint of something in it. “Guess we’re both dedicated.”

“Something like that.”

She brought him coffee without asking. Not every day. Not enough to make it obvious. Enough that it became expected.

He took it from her the first time with a small lift of his brow, glancing between the cup and her. “You remembered,” he said.

“You complain when it’s wrong,” she replied, adjusting the strap of her camera.

“I do not—”

“You absolutely do.”

He took a sip, paused, then nodded slightly. “Alright, yeah. That’s fair.”

She shrugged, like it didn’t matter.

He watched her a second longer than necessary before looking away.

Another time, she handed it over and started to walk off before he caught her wrist lightly, just enough to stop her.

“Hey,” he said.

She looked back at him, expectant.

“Thanks.”

She gave a small nod, like it hadn’t required anything.

“Yeah.”

He didn’t let go immediately.

Neither of them commented on it.

They learned each other in pieces. Not through big conversations or carefully laid-out explanations. Through repetition. Through noticing.

Jody picked up on the way Colt struggled with stillness. How he filled quiet with movement—tapping, pacing, adjusting things that didn’t need adjusting, how his energy shifted when he wasn’t working. Like it had nowhere to go.

Colt noticed the way Jody carried tension. How it settled in her shoulders first. How her focus sharpened when she was stressed, like she could cut through everything else if she just concentrated hard enough. How she deflected with dry comments instead of admitting anything directly.

“You’re doing that thing again,” he said, leaning in the doorway like he had nowhere else he needed to be, arms loose, watching her with a kind of patience that felt deliberate.

Jody didn’t look up from her notes. “You’re going to have to be more specific. I do a lot of things.”

“The one where you pretend you’ve got everything under control,” he said. “And everyone else is supposed to just believe that.”

“I do have everything under control.”

“Yeah,” he replied, easy. “You look real relaxed about it.”

She flipped a page, a bit sharper than necessary. “If you’ve come in here to critique my stress levels, you can leave.”

“Not a critique,” he said. “Just an observation.”

“Unwanted.”

“Still accurate.”

Jody exhaled through her nose, scribbling something down that didn’t need writing. “I’m working.”

“I can see that,” he said, pushing off the doorframe and stepping inside, closing the distance between them. “You’ve been working for the last six hours.”

“Welcome to the industry.”

“Yeah, I’m familiar,” he said. “Difference is, I take breaks.”

“Good for you.”

“You should try it.”

She didn’t look up. “I don’t have time.”

“You’ve got five minutes.”

“I don’t—”

“You do,” he cut in, softer now, but not backing off. “Five minutes isn’t going to derail this entire film.

“It might,” she muttered.

He huffed a quiet laugh, stepping closer, close enough to reach out and tilt her clipboard down just enough to break her line of sight.

“Hey.”

“What,” she said, sharper now, finally looking up at him.

“Scale of one to completely fine,” he said, “how bad is it, actually?”

Her expression didn’t shift much, but there was a flicker of something there. “Functional,” she said.

“That’s not a reassuring answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.”

He studied her for a second, head tilting slightly, like he was deciding how far to push it.

“Alright,” he said. “New plan.”

“No—”

“Five minutes,” he repeated, quieter, steadier. “You sit. You breathe. You don’t think about the next shot, or the one after that, or the ten things you’re already trying to fix.”

She held his gaze, the resistance still there, stubborn and immediate.

“You’re incredibly irritating,” she said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “And you’re still listening.”

“That’s not a win.”

“Feels like one.”

She leaned back in her chair eventually, slow, reluctant, arms crossing loosely like she hadn’t agreed to anything. “Five minutes,” she said again.

“That’s all I asked for.”

“You’re very bossy.”

“Only when you’re being difficult.”

“I’m not being difficult.”

“You are a little bit.”

She rolled her eyes, but she stayed where she was, not reaching for her notes.

Colt’s mouth tipped into a small, satisfied smile. “Look at that,” he said. “Progress.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” he replied. “I like the challenge.”

He was easy with contact in a way she wasn’t used to.

A hand at the small of her back as he passed, steady enough to guide her through the narrow space between equipment. Fingers brushing her arm to get her attention instead of calling across the set. He stood close without thinking about it, like proximity was something natural, not something to measure.

Jody noticed every time. It registered in small, precise ways—the way her focus shifted for a second too long, the way her shoulders held before settling again. She didn’t step back. She didn’t lean in either.

Affection, when she’d seen it, had always come with edges. Observed, commented on, something that could be pulled away without warning. It made you aware of it while it was happening. Made you careful.

Colt didn’t seem careful about it at all.

Near the end of a long day, when the light had started to drop and everything felt a bit slower, he dropped into the chair beside her without asking.

His shoulder knocked into hers on the way down, solid and warm through the layers. Up close, he still carried the cold from outside, hair slightly damp at the edges, a faint flush still sitting across his skin. There was a small cut along his knuckles, taped over badly, clearly a wound he’d ignored as soon as it stopped bleeding.

Jody adjusted automatically, shifting just enough to make space without drawing attention to it. Her eyes stayed on the monitor in front of her, though her focus wasn’t quite there anymore.

“Long day,” he said, leaning back, arm hooked loosely over the back of the chair.

“A bit,” she replied. Her gaze flicked sideways for half a second before she caught it, taking in more than she meant to. The way his hair fell forward slightly, the line of his jaw, the way he looked entirely at ease sitting there like he hadn’t just spent hours throwing himself onto a mat or dangling by a wire.

She looked back at the screen.

“You good?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Alright,” he said, like he’d heard everything in that one word and filed it away anyway.

She dragged her thumb along the edge of her clipboard, not really reading what was on it.

“You’ve been staring at that for a while,” he added, glancing at the monitor.

“I’m thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

She huffed quietly. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Here.“

She shook her head slightly, lips pressing together for a second before she could stop it.

“You’re insufferable.”

“Only with you.”

“That’s not the compliment you think it is.”

“It’s not a compliment,” he said, glancing at her. “It’s a fact.”

He nudged her shoulder lightly, deliberate. Jody didn’t move away.

“You’re tense,” he said.

“I’m working.”

“You’ve been working all day.”

“That’s how a career works.”

“Doesn’t mean you’ve got to run yourself into the ground doing it.”

She shifted in her seat, crossing one arm over the other without thinking about it. “I’m fine.”

He tilted his head slightly, watching her. “Yeah,” he said. “You keep saying that.”

“I am.” She finally looked at him, expression flat.

“Alright,” he said easily. “Then I’ll stop asking.”

There was a pause. He didn’t stop looking at her. She held it for a second longer than she meant to, then looked away first, attention dropping back to the monitor.

“Good,” she muttered.

“Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna sit here, though.”

“You’re in the way.”

“I’m barely in the way.”

“You’re in my space.”

“That’s new,” he said lightly. “You’ve never complained before.”

She adjusted the camera slightly, even though it didn’t need it.

“I’m complaining now.”

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

He didn’t move. Jody glanced at him again, catching the faint curve of a smile he wasn’t trying to hide.

“Unbelievable,” she muttered.

“You keep looking at me like that,” he said, voice lower now, “I’m gonna start thinking you don’t mind.”

“You think a lot of things.” Her gaze snapped back to the monitor, a fraction too quick.

“Mostly about you,” he said.

She went still for half a second.

“That sounds like a you problem.”

“Feels like a good one.”

She exhaled slowly, like she was trying to steady something that had shifted slightly off balance. “Go bother someone else.”

“No,” he said, like it didn’t require any thought. “I’m good here.” He nudged her shoulder again, softer this time.

She didn’t move away, nor did she tell him to stop, she just stayed exactly where she was, aware of him in a way that sat under everything else.

It kept building like that. Small things, repeated often enough that they stopped feeling small. The way he said her name like it belonged to him a little more each time, easy and certain, like he’d decided it did. The way she adjusted her pace without thinking when he walked beside her, matching him without looking, angling slightly so they didn’t have to move around each other.

It followed them everywhere.

Calls turned into plans, plans into flights booked late at night when neither of them had the energy to overthink it. He came to the United Kingdom with her, stepping into a version of her life that felt older, layered with things she didn’t usually offer up.

The city pressed in a bit more. The air held onto the cold. Streets carried all sorts of memories—the corner shop where she used to wait with loose change clutched in her hand, the bus stop with scratched-up graffiti on the glass where she’d spent too long watching other people go somewhere else, the stretch of pavement outside her old school where everything had once felt immediate and unbearable, the quiet road she used to cut down to avoid going home too early—whether she wanted them to or not.

Colt noticed the shift straight away. He didn’t comment on it directly, not in a way that would put her on edge, but she caught it in the way his attention sharpened, the way he stayed just slightly closer when they moved through crowded places, hand brushing her back almost instinctively.

“You always walk this fast?” he asked once, half a step behind her as she cut through a street she knew too well.

“Only when I know where I’m going.”

“I don’t,” he said.

“You’ll keep up.”

“I always do,” he replied, and there was something in it that made her glance at him, brief and unreadable, before she looked away again.

Her mum’s flat hadn’t changed. Same narrow hallway with the scuffed skirting boards and the faint smell of something overcooked clinging to the walls. The radiator ticked without much conviction, heat pooling in odd places and never quite reaching the corners. The living room still felt slightly too small for the furniture in it—sofa dipping in the middle, cushions arranged like no one actually used them, the television humming away at a volume that filled silence more than anything else. It all looked the same as it had when she was sixteen, when everything in her life had shifted and this place had decided it wouldn’t.

Jody stepped inside and felt that version of herself waiting there, like she’d never quite left.

Her mum hugged her quickly, already talking as she pulled away, already filling the space with movement. “Oh—this must be Colt,” she said, glancing at him, taking him in with a look that was polite enough. “Come in, come in.”

Colt stepped in with an easy “Nice to meet you,” and Jody almost believed it.

Her stepfather didn’t stand up. He stayed at the table, one arm hooked over the back of the chair, watching them in that same way he always had, like he was waiting to decide how much respect to give. He hadn’t been there when she was a kid. He’d come in later, already certain of how things should be. She was sixteen and grieving something she hadn’t known how to name properly yet, and suddenly there was a man in the house telling her what stability looked like.

“Right,” he said, like that was enough of a greeting.

Jody felt her shoulders tighten automatically.

Lena came in from the kitchen a second later, still in scrubs, dark circles under her eyes, hair tied back in a way that had clearly given up halfway through her shift. She moved quickly, crossing the room and pulling Jody into a proper hug, something solid and grounding.

“You look shattered,” she said, pulling back, hands still on Jody’s arms like she was checking she was real.

“Feel it,” Jody muttered.

Lena’s gaze flicked to Colt, sharp and observant, but warmer than anything else in the room.

“And you must be Colt,” she said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.“

Colt smiled slightly. “Hope it was decent stuff.”

“Mixed reviews,” she said, but there was a hint of a grin.

Her mum was already moving again, setting the plates down harder than necessary.

“So,” she said, “how long are you staying?”

“A few days,” Jody replied.

“Mm,” her mum hummed, like she had thoughts about that she wasn’t quite saying. She wiped her hands on a tea towel, glancing toward the hallway. “You know you can stay here, if you want. I’ve done your old room up—well, it’s more of a guest room now, but it’s perfectly nice. Fresh sheets and all.”

Jody’s stomach tightened slightly at that. Her old room. She could picture it without needing to look at it—except it wouldn’t look like that anymore. Whatever version of it had existed when she was a teenager, when everything had still been half hers, would be gone.

Her stepfather leaned forward slightly, forearms on the table now, attention settling squarely on Jody.

“And how’s work going, then?”

There it was.

“Fine,” she said.

“Still doing the film bits?” he added.

Her jaw tightened. “Yeah.”

“Right,” he said, slow. “And that’s paying, is it? Or are you still… figuring it out?”

“It’s work.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Jody’s fingers curled slightly against the edge of the table. “It pays enough.”

“Enough,” he repeated, like the word itself annoyed him. “You’re nearly—what—mid-twenties now. ‘Enough’ isn’t exactly reassuring, is it?”

Her mum gave a small, tight smile. “We just think, at this stage, it might be worth thinking about something more stable. Something with a clear path.”

“Like Lena,” he added, nodding toward her.

Lena’s expression tightened immediately. “Don’t.”

He ignored her. “She’s in her residency now,” he continued. “Emergency medicine. Long hours, yeah, but there’s progression. Structure. You know where it’s going.”

Jody sighed. “I know where mine’s going,” she said quietly.

He gave a short breath through his nose. “Do you.”

Lena stepped forward slightly. “She does. You just don’t listen.”

“I’m asking questions.”

“You’re comparing,” Lena shot back. “You always do this.”

“It’s not a comparison.”

“It is,” she said. “Every single time she’s here.”

Jody stayed quiet, gaze fixed somewhere past the table, that same old feeling settling in her chest. Sixteen again, trying to justify things she didn’t have the words for yet. Trying to explain why something mattered when the only answer she had was that it just did.

Colt shifted beside her. He’d been quiet, listening, but there was a tension in him now that hadn’t been there before. He leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees, attention locking onto her stepfather.

“It’s not the same job,” he said, voice steady but firm. “Doesn’t make it less of one.”

Her stepfather looked at him properly now, something sharper settling in his expression. “No one said it did.”

“You didn’t have to,” Colt replied. “It’s pretty clear what you mean.”

Jody glanced at him quickly.

“She’s running sets,” Colt continued. “Managing crews, making decisions that keep things from falling apart. That’s not vague. That’s not unstable.”

Her stepfather’s mouth tightened. “And it’s consistent, is it.”

“Yeah,” Colt said, without hesitation. “Because she’s good at it.”

“That doesn’t guarantee anything long-term.”

“Nothing guarantees anything long-term,” Colt shot back. “At least she’s doing something she actually knows how to do.”

Her mum’s voice cut in, thinner now. “We’re not saying she shouldn’t enjoy it—”

“It’s not about enjoying it,” Colt said, turning slightly toward her. “It’s her job.”

“It’s freelance,” her stepfather replied. “There’s a difference between that and a real job.”

“No, there isn’t,” Colt retorted.

Jody’s breath caught slightly, barely noticeable.

“And she didn’t just fall into it,” he added. “People trust her to do that work. That means something. It means she’s doing good.”

Her stepfather leaned back, unimpressed. “We’ll see how long that lasts.”

Lena scoffed. “You’re unbelievable.”

Her mum shot her a look. “Lena—”

“No, because it’s ridiculous,” she said. “You don’t do this with me.”

“That’s different.”

“Why?”

“You’re in medicine.”

“And she’s in film,” Lena snapped. “That doesn’t make it less valid.”

“It makes it less certain.”

Colt let out a short breath, something almost like a laugh, but there was no humour in it. “Right,” he said. “Because emergency medicine’s known for being completely predictable.”

Lena huffed a quiet laugh at that despite herself.

Her stepfather didn’t. “You’re missing the point.”

“No,” Colt said, voice almost dangerous. “I’m not.”

The room went quiet for a second.

Jody stared at the table, something tight in her chest she couldn’t quite name. No one had ever pushed back like that for her here.

“It’s fine,” she said eventually, trying to close it down.

Colt’s knee bumped against hers under the table. “It’s not,” he said, just as quiet.

She glanced at him, something flickering there again, unsettled and unfamiliar.

Her stepfather leaned back again, like he’d decided he was done with it. “We’ll see,” he said.

Lena muttered something under her breath, shaking her head.

Her mum busied herself with the plates again, like movement might smooth it over.

Jody sat there for a second longer, feeling all of it press in. Colt’s knee stayed where it was, solid against hers. She didn’t move away.

It wasn’t perfect.

They argued, sometimes. Not often, but enough to remind them that they were still two separate people trying to fit into the same space. Usually it was about work.

“You could’ve told me you were leaving,” Jody said once, arms folded tight across her chest.

“I found out this morning,” Colt shot back. “It wasn’t exactly planned.”

“You still could’ve said something.”

“I am saying something.”

“Now,” she stressed. “You’re saying something now.”

He ran a hand through his hair, frustration flickering. “What do you want me to do, Jody? Turn down work?”

“I want you to act like this—” she gestured between them, sharp and brief, “—matters enough to mention something like that.”

The words hung there, too honest, too close to something neither of them had said outright before.

Colt stilled slightly, something shifting behind his expression.

“It does matter,” he said, quietly.

She swallowed, looking away. “Then act like it.”

“I will.”

And he did. Not perfectly. Not always. But he tried. They both did.

That was the thing about them.

They weren’t built on big, flawless moments. They weren’t effortless or easy in the way films liked to pretend love was. They were messy. Slightly misaligned. Full of half-finished conversations and different ways of saying the same thing.

But they kept choosing it anyway. Kept meeting each other halfway, even when the path wasn’t clear. And somewhere in all of that—between the banter, the way they learned each other piece by piece—

Jody realised something she hadn’t let herself believe in a long time.

This didn’t feel temporary. This didn’t feel like something with a clean, predictable ending waiting just around the corner.

It felt—

Good. Ongoing.

And that should have scared her.

It probably did, a little.

But not enough to make her walk away.

Long-distance settled into their routine. It threaded itself through everything—call sheets, early mornings, late nights, the kind of exhaustion that sat behind her eyes, in her headaches, and made everything feel slightly out of sync. It didn’t loosen anything between them. If anything, it made every bit of it feel chosen.

They worked around it, anyway.

Her phone would buzz when she was halfway through resetting a shot, shoulder wedged awkwardly against a rig, fingers numb from standing still too long.

“You’re awake,” Colt said once, something like surprise in his voice when she answered.

Jody adjusted the focus ring, squinting slightly. “It’s two in the afternoon,” she said. “Some of us have jobs that exist in daylight.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’ve seen daylight in a while,” he replied. There was a muffled sound on his end—movement, voices, the distant clatter of something being set up. “Pretty sure I’m running on fumes and bad decisions.”

“That tracks.”

“You sound supportive.”

“I’m incredibly supportive. You’re doing great. Keep suffering.”

He let out a tired laugh, quieter than usual. “I knew you cared.”

She shifted the camera slightly, checking the framing, then stepped back, phone still tucked between her ear and shoulder. “You could try sleeping.”

“Can’t,” he said. “Got some stunt works in a couple hours.”

“Then maybe don’t brag about being exhausted.”

“I’m not bragging,” he said. “I’m complaining.”

“Good,” she replied. “That’s more accurate.”

“Where are you?” he asked after a second.

“Same place I told you this morning.”

“You think I remember mornings?” he said.

She huffed quietly, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her face. “Set in Camden. Indoors, thankfully. I can feel my hands.”

“Lucky,” he said. “I’ve been outside since five.”

“Whose idea was that?”

“Director,” he said.

She made a small, unimpressed sound. “Of course it was.”

“You’d do the same thing.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, you would,” he said, a smile in his voice now. “You’d just justify it better.”

She didn’t answer that straight away. Just adjusted a setting that didn’t need adjusting. “…I’d have a reason,” she said eventually.

“You always do.” There was something in the way he said it that made her pause.

“Don’t start,” she muttered.

“Start what?”

“That tone.”

“What tone?” he said, too innocent.

“The one where you sound like you’re about to say something annoying.”

He laughed again, softer this time. “I was just saying you’re good at what you do.”

“I know.”

“I’m aware you know,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

She leaned against the edge of the rig, eyes tracking the movement on set out of habit. “You’re unbearable,” she said.

“And you answered,” he shot back.

“Debatable.”

“Jody.”

“Colt.”

“I miss you,” he said.

Her grip on the camera tightened slightly. “…Yeah,” she said after a second, quieter. “I know.”

He didn’t push it. “Got time tonight?” he asked instead.

“Depends,” she said. “Wrap time’s a mess.”

“I’ll be up,” he said. “Call me when you’re done.”

“You’re always up.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “But I’ll be waiting.”

“That’s a terrible use of your time.” She rolled her eyes, but there was a small shift in her posture, something loosening.

“Disagree.”

“You would.”

“Yeah,” he said lightly. “I would.”

Someone called her name from across the set. She straightened instinctively, attention snapping back.

“I’ve got to go,” she said.

“Alright.”

There was a brief pause.

“Hey,” he added.

“What?”

“Don’t let them rush you,” he said. “You hate that.”

Her mouth twitched slightly. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I know,” he said. “Just reminding you.”

She adjusted her grip on the camera, already half-turned away. “Go get some sleep,” she muttered.

“Make me,” he replied.

She huffed a quiet breath. “Bye, Colt.”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Later, Jody.”

And when they were on the same set, it was chaos in a completely different way. Two separate orbits colliding. Work and something softer threading together until it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.

The set itself was loud, crowded, constantly shifting, with crew weaving between cables and lighting rigs, assistants calling out updates no one fully listened to, the low hum of expensive equipment doing its best not to fail under pressure. Everything moved quickly, urgently, like if it slowed down for even a second the whole thing might fall apart.

Jody stood in the middle of it, steady as anything.

Headset slightly askew, one hand braced against the monitor, the other adjusting settings with quick, precise movements. Her focus was absolute—eyes locked on the frame, mentally tracking angles, continuity, timing. The rest of the world faded when she worked like this.

Which was exactly why—

“You’re hovering again,” she said, not looking up.

“I’m observing,” Colt corrected, leaning just slightly too close, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him through the chill of the set.

“You’re breathing on me.”

“I’m sharing oxygen,” he said easily. “It’s generous, really.”

She shifted sideways without breaking focus, shoulder angling just enough to put space between them. “Go be useful somewhere else.”

“I am being useful. Morale support.”

“You’re lowering morale.”

“Ouch.”

There was a beat where he didn’t move—just stayed there, comfortably planted in her space like he had every intention of remaining a problem.

She finally glanced at him, unimpressed. “Move.”

“Make me.”

She didn’t even stop to think, just nudged him back with her elbow, sharp enough to force him a step away.

“Violent,” he said, laughing as he rocked back. “Didn’t realise that was part of your process.”

“Only when necessary.”

“So I’m necessary?”

She paused, just for a fraction of a second—just long enough for the answer to exist before she shut it down. “Don’t push it.”

He grinned like that was a win anyway, hands lifting in mock surrender as he took another step back.

“Careful,” she added, turning back to her monitor. “If Ryder sees you hovering around instead of doing your job, he’s going to have something to say about it.”

Colt followed her gaze briefly, eyes flicking toward where Ryder stood near the monitors, surrounded by people who were trying very hard to look busy and important and like they actually liked the guy. Then he huffed out a quiet laugh.

“Yeah, I think I’ll risk it.”

Jody arched a brow. “You should care a little more about that.”

“I care about doing the stunt right,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. “Everything else is just… noise.”

“That ‘noise’ signs off on your paychecks.”

“And I show up, do the job, don’t die,” he replied easily. “We’ve got a good system going.”

She gave him a look. “That is not a system.”

“It’s worked so far.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“It’s not meant to be,” he said, grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “It’s meant to be efficient.”

“You’re impossible.”

“And yet,” he said, stepping back another pace, “you keep me around.”

“I don’t keep you around.”

“Debatable.”

“It’s really not.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“You say that every time you don’t have a real argument.”

“I always have a real argument,” he said, offended. “You just ignore it.”

“Because it’s usually bad.”

“Wow,” he placed a hand over his chest, mock-wounded. “You really know how to build a man up.”

“You don’t need building up,” she replied dryly. “You’ve got enough ego for both of us.”

“That’s confidence.”

“That’s delusion.”

“Harsh.”

“Accurate.”

He laughed again, like he was enjoying the rhythm of it more than the actual conversation. “You know,” he said after a second, leaning in just slightly again—not enough to be in the way this time, but enough to test the boundary, “you’re a lot nicer when you’re not pretending to hate me.”

“I’m not pretending.”

“Right,” he nodded. “And I just happen to be your favourite person to insult.”

“You’re just the most convenient target.”

“Convenient and charming.”

She didn’t look at him. “Just move before I make you.”

“That sounded threatening.”

“It was meant to.”

“Yeah,” he said, stepping back with a grin anyway, hands raised again in surrender. “Alright, I’ll go be a productive member of society.”

“Good.”

“Try not to miss me too much.”

“I won’t notice your absence.”

“Liar.”

She didn’t respond to that, she just shook her head slightly, adjusting the framing again like the conversation hadn’t happened.

But as he walked off, she tracked him for half a second longer than necessary.

And then she pulled herself back into the work, into the structure and control of it, where everything made sense again.

Even if he had a habit of stepping right into the middle of it and making it just a little bit harder to ignore everything else.

Half a year of that.

Half a year of something that didn’t follow structure, didn’t make a big deal out of defining itself, didn’t need a moment or a label to prove it was real—even if, somewhere along the way, they’d quietly become exactly that.

And then—

The day of the accident felt like every other day. That was the problem.

There was no quiet sense that something was about to go wrong. It seemed like just another setup, just another complicated sequence built on timing and trust and the assumption that everyone involved knew exactly what they were doing and everything was entirely safe.

Jody stood behind the camera, headset slightly crooked, fingers steady against the controls. The air inside the warehouse was stale and heavy, carrying the sharp tang of metal, dust, and overheated equipment. Industrial lights blazed overhead, casting everything in a harsh, artificial glow that flattened shadows and made the set feel more constructed than real. Still, everything narrowed the way it always did when she worked—frame, movement, light.

Focus.

Above her—twelve stories up—Colt was a figure against the sky. Harnessed, ready to drop on cue, a controlled descent timed to match the shot perfectly. From this distance, she couldn’t see his expression—even if his eyes were covered by a pair of sunglasses that made him look like a tosser—couldn’t catch the details she normally would.

But she knew him well enough by now to picture it anyway, that edge of recklessness he wore like a second skin.

“Camera ready?” someone called.

“Ready,” she replied.

Off to the side, Tom Ryder lingered near the monitors, waiting for the part where he’d step in and make it look like it had been him all along.

“Rolling.”

The world clicked into place.

“Action.”

At first, it looked fine. The drop started exactly as rehearsed. Jody tracked the movement smoothly, adjusting instinctively, following the descent—

And then something snagged in her chest. He was going too fast. A timing issue her brain tried to correct before it could fully process it.

Her grip tightened on the camera.

Something’s—

The descent accelerated. Not part of the plan. Not controlled anymore.

“Cut—!” someone shouted, but it was already too late.

The impact wasn’t cinematic. No dramatic crash, no echoing sound that filled the space. Just a sickening, heavy thud that landed wrong in every possible way.

Jody’s stomach dropped.

For a split second, everything froze—like the world had skipped a frame and didn’t know how to recover. Then it descended into chaos.

Voices collided. People shouting, swearing, scrambling forward. The clean structure of the set dissolved instantly into something frantic and uncontained.

Jody didn’t even stop to think. She sprinted over to the figure lying there.

The camera was gone—handed off, dropped, she didn’t know, didn’t give a shit—and she was pushing through people, ignoring the hands that tried to slow her down, the voices telling her to give space.

All she could see was him.

Colt, on the ground, too still in a way that made something inside her twist sharply.

“Move—” she snapped, sharper than she’d ever sounded, forcing her way closer.

Someone was already calling for medics, for an ambulance. Someone else was trying to keep the area clear. It blurred together, noise without meaning.

Jody dropped to her knees beside him, breath catching.

“Hey,” she said, voice thinner than she wanted it to be. “Hey—Colt, can you hear me?”

His face was pale, jaw tight with pain, eyes unfocused for a second before they found hers.

“You’re alright,” she said quickly, even though nothing about this looked alright. “You’re fine. They’ve got you—just stay still, okay? Don’t—don’t move.” Her hand had already found his, gripping tight.

Sirens cut through the noise not long after—too loud, too sharp.

Everything after that was blurry.

The ambulance was all harsh lights and movement and voices that spoke too quickly to follow.

Jody stayed. She didn’t remember deciding to, didn’t remember anyone asking—she just was there, squeezed into the space beside him, fingers curled tight in his jacket like letting go would make something worse.

“Hey,” she said again, quieter this time, trying to anchor him, or maybe herself. “Stay with me, yeah? You’re good. You’re—”

The words felt thin. Unconvincing. This wasn’t a scene she could frame, couldn’t control, couldn’t fix in post. This was real. And it wasn’t following any kind of script she understood.

Colt didn’t smile. The pain sat there, unfiltered, and for the first time since she’d known him, he looked… distant.

Like something had already started pulling him away.

He survived. But survival wasn’t the same as being okay.

The injury was bad. Worse than bad. A broken back wasn’t something you walked off, wasn’t something that resolved itself neatly with time and effort and a determined montage.

It lingered. It changed everything.

Not all at once, and not in a clean, obvious break where something snapped and left a clear line behind it. It settled in slowly, like dust in the air, like something you only noticed once it had already coated everything. One day things were different, and there wasn’t a single moment she could point to and say yes, that’s when it started. It was just there, threaded through everything, quiet and persistent.

At first, Jody told herself it was temporary. Of course it was. Injuries like that didn’t just heal overnight, and people didn’t come back from something like that unchanged. She understood that better than most—understood that recovery wasn’t just physical, that it was messy and uneven and often invisible from the outside. So she stayed. She showed up the way she always did, steady and consistent, sitting through hospital visits that stretched too long and bled into one another. She learned the rhythms of the place—the hum of machines, the quiet shuffle of nurses, the way time seemed to stall inside those walls.

She talked when he didn’t. Filled the silence with small things that didn’t demand anything in return. Stories from set, complaints about work, observations that didn’t require a response. Anything that might make it feel normal again, or at least something close to it. And sometimes, for a moment, it almost worked. Colt would respond just enough to remind her he was still there—a quiet comment, a dry remark that sounded almost like him—but it never quite landed the same way. There was always something missing, something slightly off, like the rhythm of it had shifted in a way she couldn’t correct.

Jody noticed that. She just didn’t push.

The distance didn’t arrive with warning. It wasn’t a sudden shift, wasn’t something dramatic enough to confront. It came in increments so small they were easy to ignore at first. Messages that took a little longer to come through. Calls that ended a bit sooner than usual. Conversations that felt thinner, like there was less behind them. None of it was enough to call out on its own, nothing she could point to and say this is wrong. So she let it go, adjusted around it, told herself it was part of the process.

It happened on an ordinary day.

That was the worst part. No build-up, no tension, no sense that anything was about to change. Just a message she sent—something simple, something normal, something she’d sent a hundred times before without thinking twice.

You free later?

She didn’t expect an immediate reply. She wasn’t waiting by her phone, wasn’t holding her breath. She went about her day the way she always did, letting work pull her focus, letting the hours pass without paying too much attention to the silence.

She checked her phone later. Still nothing.

It didn’t feel strange. Not yet. He’d been slower to reply lately, and she’d already adjusted to that. There were reasons—plenty of them. Physio, exhaustion, the general weight of everything he was dealing with. She could rationalise it easily, slot it into a version of events that made sense.

She sent another message, lighter this time, something that didn’t carry any of her usual bite.

Don’t ignore me, I know you’ve got your phone on you.

It should’ve gotten a response. A quick comment, a half-joking reply. That was how it usually went.

It didn’t.

By the next day, the silence had shifted into something else. Not quite worry, not quite panic—just a quiet, persistent unease that sat low in her chest. She called him, pressing the phone to her ear as she paced her flat, listening to it ring longer than it should have.

It went to voicemail.

She frowned, pulling the phone away slightly, staring at the screen like it might offer an explanation. Tried again, just in case.

Same result.

“Okay,” she muttered to herself, dragging a hand through her hair as she turned back across the room. “Fine. Busy. That’s fine.”

She didn’t leave a message. Didn’t want to sound like she was overreacting, didn’t want to make it bigger than it was.

Because it wasn’t big. It wasn’t anything. It was just—nothing.

By the third day, that ‘nothing’ sat heavier now, harder to ignore, threading through everything else she was trying to focus on. Work didn’t distract her the way it usually did. Her attention slipped more easily, her thoughts circling back to the same place no matter how many times she tried to redirect them.

She called again. Still nothing.

She sent another message, this one stripped of the humour she’d been using to soften everything before.

Are you okay?

It felt like stepping over a line she hadn’t wanted to cross. Like admitting, finally, that something wasn’t right.

The message sent.

Delivered.

Unread.

Jody stared at it longer than she should have, thumb hovering over the screen like there was something else she could add, something that might change the outcome. There wasn’t.

After that, it stopped feeling accidental.

People didn’t just disappear like this, not without a reason. Not without something leading up to it. And yet, when she tried to trace it back, tried to find the moment where it had started to go wrong, there was nothing solid to hold onto. Just a gradual fading, a slow retreat she hadn’t recognised until she was already on the outside of it.

She kept trying anyway.

Not constantly, not in a way that felt frantic. Just enough to convince herself she wasn’t giving up too soon. A message every few days. A call she knew probably wouldn’t be answered but made anyway. Small things. Careful things. Things that said I’m still here without demanding anything back.

Nothing came.

Time stretched in that quiet, relentless way it did when you were waiting for something that never arrived. Days blurred into weeks, and slowly, painfully, the shape of it became clearer.

He wasn’t just busy. He wasn’t just recovering in silence.

He wasn’t coming back.

There was no conversation, no explanation, no moment where it all got laid out in a way she could understand. No argument she could replay, no words she could pick apart later and assign meaning to. Just absence, clean and complete, like he had stepped out of her life and closed the door without making a sound.

And that was what made it worse. Not the injury. Not even the loss of what they’d had.

It was the way it ended without actually ending. The way it refused to follow any kind of structure she could make sense of. No third act, no resolution, no final scene where everything came together. Just a story that stopped mid-sentence and never started again.

And Jody—

Jody was left standing there, staring at the space where the ending was supposed to go, trying to piece together something that didn’t fit any pattern she knew, and realising, slowly and painfully, that this time, there wasn’t one.

So Jody did the only thing she knew how to do when something slipped out of her control. She worked.

She didn’t ease back into routine or give herself time to process anything. She went straight for the deep end and stayed there, filling every available hour with something that required her full attention. Work had always been the one place where things behaved. You put something in, you got something out. Problems had solutions. Mistakes could be corrected. There was structure, even inside the chaos.

So she built her days around that. Longer hours. Extra shifts on set. Side projects she didn’t technically need but took anyway. Anything that kept her moving fast enough that she didn’t have to sit still and think too hard about the quiet.

It worked. Until it didn’t.

Because at some point, standing behind a camera started to feel like… watching someone else tell a story she could already see in her head.

And that itch—the one that had followed her since university, the one she’d ignored because it was easier to stay where she was good instead of risk something bigger—it came back. Stronger this time. Louder. Harder to ignore.

“I’m going to direct,” Jody said one evening, like she was announcing she was picking up milk on the way home.

Lena didn’t even look up at first.

They were in Jody’s flat, takeaway containers scattered across the table, Lena still half in her scrubs with her hair pulled back in a way that suggested she’d been too busy to think much about it. There was a faint smell of antiseptic clinging to her, something she carried home from the hospital whether she liked it or not.

“Mhm,” Lena hummed, scrolling through something on her phone. “Took you long enough.”

Jody blinked. “That’s it?”

That got Lena’s attention. She glanced up, one eyebrow lifting. “What, did you want a standing ovation? I can clap if it helps.”

“I thought there’d be more… reaction.”

“This is a reaction,” Lena said, setting her phone aside. “It’s just not surprise. You’ve been halfway to directing for years. This is you finally catching up with yourself.”

Jody leaned back in her chair, arms crossing loosely. “That’s not—”

“It is,” Lena cut in, calm and matter-of-fact in that way that made arguing with her particularly annoying. “You hate not being in control of the outcome. You always have. You just got comfortable pretending you didn’t.”

“I don’t hate it,” Jody muttered.

Lena gave her a look. “You rewrite scenes in your head while you’re filming them. You complain about pacing like it personally offends you. Last week you spent twenty minutes explaining to me why a shot didn’t land emotionally and I had just come off a twelve-hour shift in the ER.”

“That was a bad shot.”

“That’s not the point,” Lena said dryly. “The point is—you care too much to not be the one making the calls.”

Jody exhaled, dragging a hand through her hair. “You’re incredibly irritating.”

“And yet,” Lena said, reaching for her drink, “consistently correct.”

“That’s debatable.”

“Not even slightly.”

Still—

She didn’t argue further.

Metalstorm wasn’t some fully-formed idea that dropped neatly into place, ready to go. It started messy, as fragments that didn’t quite connect yet but felt like they wanted to.

A line of dialogue scribbled down at two in the morning because it wouldn’t leave her alone.

A concept. A few concepts. Love. People isolated in space, cut off, forced to rely on each other in ways that didn’t always work.

She let it build slowly, piece by piece, not rushing the process even when it frustrated her. If she was going to do this properly—if she was going to step into directing for the first time—it had to be right.

That meant research.

A lot of it.

Her flat slowly filled with it—books stacked in uneven piles, tabs open across multiple screens, notes scribbled in margins and on loose sheets that somehow made sense to her and absolutely no one else. She fell down rabbit holes without meaning to, starting with something simple and ending up three hours later reading about propulsion systems or the psychological effects of long-term space isolation.

“You do realise,” Lena said one night, standing in the doorway with her arms folded, “that most of the audience is not going to care if your fictional engine system is scientifically accurate.”

Jody didn’t look up from her laptop. “I care.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“It is to me.”

Lena stepped further into the room, nudging aside a stack of papers to sit down. “You’ve been at this for—what—six hours straight?”

“Closer to eight.”

“Have you eaten?”

Jody paused.

“…Define ‘eaten.’”

Lena stared at her. “That’s not encouraging.”

“I had coffee.”

“That’s not food.”

“It’s close enough.”

“It’s really not,” Lena said, reaching over to close her laptop halfway. “Take a break before you pass out and I have to deal with you professionally. I refuse to treat you in A&E because you forgot basic human requirements.”

“I’m not going to pass out.”

“You absolutely are.”

“I’m fine.”

“Scale of one to fine?” Lena shot back.

Jody hesitated, then muttered, “Alive.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“It’s accurate.”

Lena sighed, pushing the laptop fully closed now. “Five minutes. Eat something. Hydrate. Then you can go back to being obsessive.”

Jody frowned. “You’re very bossy for someone who doesn’t even work in this field.”

“I work in emergency medicine,” Lena said flatly. “I deal with the consequences of people thinking they can ignore their limits. You’re not special.”

“Yes I am.”

“Not even slightly.”

Still—

Jody got up.

Writing Metalstorm wasn’t easy. It was long nights and early mornings, scenes rewritten over and over until they felt right, dialogue picked apart and restructured until it carried the weight she wanted it to. She mapped everything out on post-it notes on her bedroom wall—character arcs, pacing, emotional beats—approaching it with the same precision she brought to everything else.

Lena became an unwilling but consistent sounding board.

“This character wouldn’t say that,” Lena said once, skimming a page.

“They would in this context.”

“They sound like you.”

“That’s not a bad thing.”

“It is if they’re supposed to be a completely different person,” Lena replied, handing the page back. “Also, this—” she tapped a section, “—this is too technical.”

“It’s accurate.”

“It’s boring,” Lena corrected. “You’re writing a film, not a textbook.”

Jody narrowed her eyes slightly. “You’re very opinionated for someone who claims not to care about film.”

“I don’t care about film,” Lena said. “I care about you not making something people fall asleep watching.”

“Rude.”

“Helpful.”

“…Debatable.”

“Again,” Lena said, “not even slightly.”

By the time the script resembled something structured, months had passed, though Jody couldn’t have said exactly when the shift happened. It didn’t arrive all at once. It built, slowly and stubbornly, draft by draft, until one day she looked at it and realised it had weight. It held together. It worked.

She had barely registered the time it had taken. She just knew it was ready. Or as ready as anything ever got.

The pitch meeting was different from set work in every possible way. There was nowhere to hide here. Just a room, a table, and a handful of people who could decide, in a matter of minutes, whether everything she’d spent months building actually went anywhere or stopped dead right here.

Jody stood at the front, notes in hand she didn’t really need. She knew this story inside out. She’d pulled it apart and put it back together so many times it felt less like something she’d written and more like something she’d lived alongside.

“This is Metalstorm,” she began, voice controlled in a way that didn’t quite betray how tightly wound she felt under it. “It’s a sci-fi space opera, but at its core, it’s a love story. It’s about distance—about two people being pulled apart by something they can’t control, and what’s left of that connection when everything between them becomes impossible.”

A few of them shifted slightly at that, interest sharpening slightly.

“It follows an alien princess and a human man,” she continued, pacing just enough to keep the energy moving without losing control of it. “They’re forced apart, and the story tracks what happens after that separation. Not just the spectacle of it, but the emotional cost. The isolation. The way connection doesn’t just disappear because circumstances demand it.”

One of the executives leaned back slightly, studying her more closely now. “And why you?”

“Because I understand restraint,” she said. “This kind of story falls apart if you rush it, or if you bury it under spectacle. It needs space to breathe. It needs someone willing to sit in the quieter parts of it and trust that they’ll land.”

There was a brief pause, but it the kind that felt evaluative. She could see the group thinking it over.

“And casting?”

“Tom Ryder,” she said, without missing a beat.

That got their attention.

“He brings in an audience,” Jody continued. “But more importantly, he’s capable of doing less. Of pulling back instead of pushing forward. This role isn’t about big, loud performance, it’s about what’s not said. About what’s left in the gaps. If it’s handled properly, it gives him something different to work with than what people expect.”

“And you think you can direct him?” someone asked.

Jody held their gaze, unwavering. “Yes.”

Jody didn’t celebrate in any big, cinematic way.

There was no swell of music, no slow-motion moment where everything clicked into place and felt complete. It didn’t feel complete. It felt… like something had shifted, but she hadn’t quite caught up to it yet.

She stepped out of the building, the air outside warmer than she expected, sunlight catching her a little off guard after hours under artificial lighting. The city moved around her like nothing had changed, everything continuing at the same steady pace.

Her phone buzzed in her hand. Her heart jumped before she could stop it, her brain already filling in the gap before she even looked down.

Colt.

It wasn’t.

Lena.

Jody exhaled through her nose, something tight and fleeting settling her heart back into place as she answered.

“Well?” Lena demanded immediately.

Jody could picture her without trying—still in scrubs, probably leaning against a nurses’ station or tucked into some corner she’d claimed for a five-minute break. Hair pulled back messily, exhaustion sitting under her eyes.

Jody leaned back against the wall outside the building, tilting her head up slightly as she let out a slow breath. “…I got it.”

Lena said, “Yeah. Of course you did.” Like it had never been in question.

Jody huffed a quiet, almost disbelieving laugh, dragging a hand through her hair. “They didn’t even make me fight for it that much.”

“Please,” Lena said. “You love a fight. You’d have been insufferable if they dragged it out.”

“I’m already insufferable.”

“Yep,” Lena replied. “So what’s the catch? There’s always a catch.”

Jody shifted slightly, pushing herself more firmly against the wall as she glanced back towards the building. “They want adjustments.”

“Of course they do.”

“More spectacle,” she said, the word sitting a little heavier than the rest. “They’re fine with the emotional core, but they want it… bigger. More movement. More set pieces.”

Lena hummed thoughtfully. “That sounds like code for ‘we’re spending money and we want to see it on screen.’”

“Yeah,” Jody said dryly. “Pretty much exactly that.”

“And?”

“And…” she hesitated briefly, then continued, “they want a major third-act sequence. Something large-scale. High impact.”

“How high impact are we talking?”

Jody let out a quiet breath. “They suggested ending it with a full-scale confrontation at the Sydney Opera House.”

“That’s kind of insane,” Lena said.

“It’s completely insane,” Jody corrected. “Logistically, visually, narratively—it’s going to be a lot.”

“Are you going to do it?”

Jody stared out at the street for a second, watching the way the light hit the pavement, the way everything moved like it always did. “…I don’t know yet,” she admitted. “It could work. If it’s done right. If it doesn’t overpower everything else.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Lena said, like it wasn’t even a question. “You always do.”

Jody huffed softly. “You have a very unrealistic amount of confidence in me.”

“It’s not unrealistic,” Lena replied. “It’s evidence-based.”

“Right.”

“Also,” Lena added, “if they want more stunt work, that’s—well.” She hesitated just slightly, like she’d caught the thought halfway out. “You’ll need someone solid on that.”

Jody stilled at that, the pause saying more than the words themselves. His name wasn’t said outright, but it lingered anyway—the space where something used to fit neatly, where that kind of thing would have been automatic. Easy.

Not anymore.

“Yeah,” she said after a second, tone even, controlled in the way she’d learned to make it. “I will.”

“Anyway,” Lena continued breezily, lighter now, “are you going to celebrate, or are you going to immediately spiral into overworking yourself again?”

“I don’t spiral,” Jody said.

“You absolutely spiral.”

Jody shook her head slightly, a faint smile pulling at the corner of her mouth despite everything. “I’ll celebrate later.”

“You said that last time.”

“And I meant it.”

“You didn’t do it.”

“I might this time.”

“Mhm.”

There was background noise on Lena’s end—someone calling her name, something urgent enough that it cut through even over the phone.

“Duty calls,” Lena said. “Try not to immediately run yourself into the ground, yeah?”

“No promises.”

“Of course not. Call me later.”

“Yeah. I will.”

The line clicked off.

Jody lowered the phone slowly, her grip loosening just slightly as the noise of the street filtered back in around her. The city didn’t care that something had just shifted for her. It carried on at the same pace—cars passing, voices overlapping, the low, constant hum of everything continuing exactly as it had before she walked into that building.

She should have felt something bigger. Relief, maybe. Excitement.

She’d done it. That part was clear. The work, the months of it, the late nights and second-guessing and relentless refining—it had gone somewhere. It had meant something.

Her film. Her story. It was real now.

Her thumb moved almost automatically, muscle memory carrying her through familiar motions before she’d properly decided on them. Contacts. A short scroll. She didn’t need to look too hard.

Colt Seavers.

His name sat exactly where it always had, unchanged, untouched, like nothing about the world around it had shifted. For a moment, she just looked at it, her expression tightening slightly in a way that didn’t quite reach anything visible.

This was the kind of thing she would have told him first. Not even deliberately. It would’ve been instinct. A quick call before she’d even left the building, words coming out faster than she could organise them properly. He would’ve picked up with something casual, something playful, and then listened—really listened—while she talked through it, half-coherent and entirely invested. He would’ve made some comment about how he knew she’d get it, like it had never been in doubt, like it had always been inevitable.

She could hear it, if she let herself think about it long enough.

That easy confidence. That steady, unshakable certainty he’d always had in her, even when she didn’t quite match it herself. Where had that gone? Or had he been putting on a show that entire time?

Her thumb hovered over his name, just barely. It would’ve been so easy.

Just one call. Just one moment of letting that instinct win, of pretending—if only briefly—that things hadn’t shifted into something unrecognisable. Her chest tightened instead, something sharp and unwelcome pressing in before she could fully stop it. Not overwhelming, not enough to knock her off balance, but enough to remind her of exactly where things stood.

He wasn’t there. This didn’t change that.

Jody drew in a slow breath, her jaw setting slightly as she forced her hand to still. She didn’t linger on it longer than she had to. Didn’t let the thought spiral into something bigger, something harder to pull herself out of.

Carefully, oh, so slowly, she moved her thumb away. Then, she began scrolling through her contacts again, down slightly, to ‘D.’

Dan Tucker.

Her grip steadied slightly as she hit call, lifting the phone back to her ear before she could second-guess it. The line rang for just enough time for her to settle into something more familiar, something that didn’t sit so uncomfortably in her chest.

It picked up.

“Well, this is either very good news or very bad timing,” Dan said, voice easy, threaded with that same dry humour she remembered. “I’m going to assume good, because I like to be optimistic.”

Jody let out a breath that almost resembled a laugh, the tension easing just slightly. “I got it.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

“Jody,” he said, and there was something more solid under the humour now, something genuine, “that’s—yeah, alright, that tracks. I was wondering how long it’d take before you took over completely.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she said, but there was less bite to it than usual. “It’s one film.”

“First of many,” he replied easily. “So what do you need?”

Jody shifted her weight, grounding herself in the conversation, in something tangible. “They want more stunt work. Bigger sequences. There’s a third-act set piece they’re pushing for—something at the Sydney Opera House.”

Dan let out a low whistle. “That’s not small.”

“No,” she said. “It’s not.”

“You’ve got a plan?”

“I’ve got ideas,” she admitted. “I need someone who can make them work without it turning into a disaster.”

“Flattering,” he said. “Really selling it.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” he said, tone sharpening just slightly, shifting into something more focused. “You want me on it?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I do.”

“Alright,” Dan replied. “Send me what you’ve got. Let’s build something.”

Jody nodded, even though he couldn’t see it, something in her settling into place in a way that felt… steadier. More certain. “Yeah,” she said. “Let’s do that.”

When the call ended, she didn’t check her contacts again, nor did she look back at the name she hadn’t pressed. Instead, she straightened, pushing herself away from the wall properly this time, already shifting her focus forward, onto the work, onto the next steps, onto something she could actually hold onto.

Seventeen months later, Jody would tell people she didn’t believe in happy endings anymore. That wasn’t entirely true. She believed in them the way you believe in something you’ve outgrown—like a childhood house that still exists somewhere, but doesn’t belong to you anymore, like Santa Claus, like a father’s ability to stay.

Now, she believed in something else. Control. Or at least the illusion of it.

On set, she could build a world from nothing. She could decide where the camera looked, where it lingered, when it cut away. She could take chaos—because there was always chaos, endless, suffocating chaos—and shape it into something that resembled meaning.

There were no disappearing acts there. No unanswered calls or unfinished conversations. If something broke, she fixed it. If something didn’t work, she restructured it until it did.

It didn’t matter if everything was on fire behind the scenes. Didn’t matter if she was running on three hours of sleep and sheer, grinding stubbornness, holding everything together by force of will and refusal to let it fall apart.

If the shot worked, if the scene landed, if the emotional beat hit exactly where it was supposed to, then at least something did.

Jody Moreno didn’t believe in neat resolutions anymore. Not in the way she used to, not in the way that promised closure or clarity or happiness or any kind of guarantee that things would end the way they were meant to.

But she believed in building them anyway. Even if they weren’t real. Even if they only existed inside the frame, contained and controlled and temporary.

Even if it meant white-knuckling her way through every second to get there, forcing something whole out of a world that had already shown her just how easily things could fall apart without warning.