Who has the updated version?
Did anyone check with—
The sentence trails off before anyone says her name.
Adrian is working, doing exactly what’s required of him. But I’ve been paying attention to Adrian Wells for long enough to know what he looks like when he’s performing instead of being genuine. The warmth he usually carries in his voice when he’s working with people is not there this morning. He's present and technically doing everything right. But there's a distance to him that wasn't there a week ago, and the people talking to him can sense it even if they can't explain what feels off.
The scheduling issue resurfaces around nine.
I’m near the east wall when I overhear the first assistant director on his phone, voice low, running through tomorrow’s call sheet with someone on the other end. He stops mid-sentence, says “wait,” and I watch him flip back three pages, then two more, then stop and push a hand through his hair.
“There was a continuity note somewhere about the location of the secondary camera for this setup,” he says. “I can’t find it. She usually has it already flagged before we get here.” A pause. He listens. “No, I know. I’m looking. I just— she usually has it already flagged.”
He doesn’t say her name either. He doesn’t need to.
The set functions. Nothing catastrophic happens. But I keep watching, and the picture it draws is consistent: every system that runs smoothly on a normal morning runs smoothly because Maya ran it first. The continuity notes. The prop organization. The updated shot lists. The invisible pre-coordination between departments that nobody notices happening because it’s already complete before anyone arrives. All of it traces back to her. Work being completed before anyone realized it needed to be done.
I step over a cable that’s been left in a high-traffic path. Someone would have moved it yesterday. I go around and keep walking.
The AD says it to a camera operator sometime before lunch, in the narrow corridor between the equipment room and the grip station. He says it quietly, almost to himself, the way people say things they’re ashamed they didn’t understand sooner.
“We didn’t realize how much she was handling.”
The camera operator makes a sound of agreement and they keep moving.
I don’t keep moving immediately. I stand there for a moment longer and let the truth of it settle into place.
She was afraid of this. She has been since the first morning her presentation made itself visible, the specific terror thatbecoming an omega meant the work would stop mattering. That she’d stop being the person people called when something broke and start being the variable that needed managing. The director thought he was protecting her. He said so. He was very kind about it, apparently. And this morning a first assistant director is standing in a corridor realizing out loud that they didn’t understand what they had.
She was right to be afraid. That’s the part that sits heaviest.
Adrian finds me during the long setup break when the lighting crew is rebuilding a rig and anyone without an immediate task has scattered to margins of the floor. He appears beside me near the storage corridor, and I know by the set of his shoulders what kind of conversation this is going to be.
“She slept,” I say, before he asks. “The whole night.”
He exhales. It’s small and carries more relief than he’d show anyone else. “Any symptoms shift overnight?”
“No increase. She was settled.” I think about the morning light in that room where we woke up. The way I knew she was awake before I opened my eyes. “She’s still thinking through it. But she’s not fighting herself the way she was last week.”
Adrian nods. His gaze moves out over the set, checking positions automatically. He does it the way I do, neither of us ever entirely off, and after a moment, he speaks again.
“How far out do you think we actually are from her heat?”
“Three days. Maybe less,” I say. “The blockers are doing less every day. The doctor confirmed as much. Her scent changes more every day.”
A muscle at the edge of his jaw moves. “She’s calmer when you’re near,” he says. He turns toward me now, which means the real conversation is starting. “She trusts you differently than she trusts us. I don’t say that as a complaint. I say it because it’s relevant.”
I wait.
“Bash and I talked last night,” he says. “After you took her upstairs. We talked for a long time.” He pauses for a moment. “We want you to move in. Permanently. Not because of the heat. And it’s not contingent on anything. The life we’re building around her.” He meets my eyes. “We want you to be part of it. Permanently.”
I don't answer immediately.
The offer hangs between us.
“You’ve been standing beside her like one of us from the beginning,” Adrian continues. “Bash and I aren’t interested in pretending otherwise anymore.”
The thing is, I already know my answer.
