"You're okay. You're here. Look at me."
But she can't. She's gasping for air that won't come, clawing at her own throat now. I try everything—her name, breathing counts. Grounding techniques from too many nights with soldiers lost in their own minds. Nothing works. She's drowning in memory, and I'm watching her sink.
She's spiraling deeper, face going pale, lips turning blue.
Every protocol I've ever learned screams against what I'm about to do. You don't touch assets. You don't cross lines. You maintain professional distance at all costs.
This is a mistake. Touching her is a mistake. But she's dying in front of me and I've seen enough death. Not her. Not on my watch.
The kiss isn't a decision. It's desperate, tactical. My body moving before my brain catches up.
I grab her face with both hands and crush my mouth to hers.
It's not gentle. Not romantic. It's a shock to the system, a live wire to cut through the spiral, desperation made physical. Her lips are soft beneath mine, tasting of tears and terror and something sweet underneath that makes my chest tight in ways I can't afford.
She freezes. Completely. Stops breathing, stops clawing, stops everything.
Then she gasps against my mouth, air rushing into her lungs in one desperate pull. Her hands stop clawing at her throat and grab my shirt instead, fisting the fabric like I'm the only solid thing in a world that's tilting.
I pull back just enough to see her eyes. She's here now, present, seeing me instead of ghosts. Her chest heaves againstmine, heart hammering so hard I feel it through both our clothes.
"Breathe," I tell her.
She does, shaky and ragged but real.
"Again."
Another breath, steadier.
"Good. Keep going."
We stay like that, her gripping my shirt, my hands still framing her face, bodies pressed together in ways I shouldn't catalog but do anyway—the softness of her against my chest, the heat of her skin, the way she fits against me like she was designed for it.
Stop. She's just an asset. A mission.
Her heartbeat gradually slows from hummingbird-fast to merely racing. The panic recedes like tide going out, leaving her exhausted and shaking but breathing, breathing, breathing.
"You kissed me." Her voice is wrecked.
"You were suffocating."
"That's not—panic attacks don't usually—you can't just kiss someone better."
"It worked, didn't it?"
She almost laughs. Almost. It comes out as something between a sob and surrender. "I'm so tired, Nico. I'm so fucking tired of being afraid all the time."
"I know."
"You don't. You don't know what I did. What I helped him do."
"Then tell me."
She shakes her head, but she doesn't pull away. If anything, she leans in closer, and every point where her body touches mine feels like a breach in my defenses.
"No, I can't."
"Okay."
