𝙓𝘾𝙑.
FATHER'S SON

the next few updates ,,, bestie

we have 4 chapters left of flatline

i would say enjoy it while it lasts butbut its meand this is angstso

──────

ARCHER FELT LIKE Mark admitting it, but: He had no idea what was going on.

He felt exactly like Mark too: blindsided and slightly out of his depth, walking quickly across a hospital with no sure grasp on his destination. 

His pager blared in his pockets and he waltzed through consultations as if he was dreaming them, he walked from room to room, patient to patient, and yet, not once, could he draw his mind away from the critical family crisis that his whole world was ablaze with.

Oh, and wasn't it just a dumpster fire.

He couldn't remember the last time they'd had such a family crisis–– actually, no, he knew when it was and he knew that he wasn't there. He was sure that to Derek and Mark (and Addison too, if she'd been made aware), this was a grave that they would have rather left alone, but now watched with a dry mouth as it was excavated and it's coffin saw the light of day once again. 

They recognised this–– they knew this–– 

Archer, just swore under his breath and marched on.

The soundtrack to his morning was the echo of Addison's voicemail through his mind. It played over and over and over until his whole body was stiff with dread: it was always the pills, always. It's how Beth works. Please, just keep an eye on her. Don't say anything. Just watch her, please. 

He remembered replaying the voicemail over and over, too. 

He'd replayed it until it'd become a part of him, an extension of some tiny voice at the back of his head:

It's always the pills, always.

But he hadn't believed her, he hadn't believed Addison... he'd labelled it as a continuation of a argument between too sisters. He hadn't believed Addison when she'd said she was concerned, and now, his whole body ached with the regret and guilt of it. He'd just shrugged it off... Archer had just...

He should have watched her closely. That was his immediate thought. 

That's what had swamped his mind as he'd sat in that intervention and watched the expression as it passed across Beth's face. 

That's what he'd thought as he'd watched her hand tremble very slightly as she'd been passed that stack of forged prescriptions, he hadn't been able to unthink it. 

He hadn't been able to expel it from his train of thought. 

He should have listened, he should have taken Addison seriously. He should have watched Beth closely and been sensitive to any and every single red flag.

It's how Beth works.

But he hadn't, and Archer couldn't forgive himself for it.

His face contorted as he struggled to remove a latex glove off of his hand. 

Everything was so difficult today. The weather was shitty and so was his move. 

He'd just spent half an hour with a rowdy drunk patient in the pit, trying to diagnose concussion while simultaneously trying his best to not get the shit kicked out of him by a man sobering up–– the timing was almost uncanny. 

He'd watched this man thrash and pull against an ER nurse and wondered whether this is what Beth had been at her worst; someone who had such little grasp on reality that a wakeup call hadn't been enough.

Please, keep an eye on her.

God, today really wasn't a good day. 

He felt like he'd been completely out of it over the past twenty-four hours, trying his best to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do–– He wasn't good at this. 

He really wasn't good at this. 

He couldn't concentrate on his work and he definitely hadn't been able to sleep last night; not like he exactly had the chance––

At that thought, he caught sight of a very familiar blonde from out of the corner of his eye. 

She was in the middle of working with a patient, hair drawn behind her ears as she stooped very slightly and applied pressure to gauze on a kid's extended leg. 

He tried not to look in her direction as she noticed him in return, but, even then, saw the look of apprehension and vague concern that crossed her face. 

From across the room, even she could tell how out of it he was today; it was the combination of guilt, stress and exhaustion that was beginning to thin him out into something tragic. 

Without hesitation, she asked the mother of the patient to take her place and began to walk around the bed towards him.

"Doctor Montgomery––"

"Jeez."

Someone stepped into his path. It was abrupt and it made Archer's heart jolt in his chest. 

One moment he was locking eyes with this gentle and soft expression and the next–– He blinked at the nurse as he looked at him from head to toe, eyebrows raised as he watched Archer press a hand to the centre of his chest. 

It was almost a jumpscare, requiring the eldest Montgomery to catch his breath before he could continue.

"Long night?"

Eli Lloyd, on the hand, looked as though he'd had a very peaceful night's sleep. 

He regarded Archer with a gleam in his eye, amused at the sight of him: the ruffled hair, the askew clothes and very clear tiredness. 

While Archer just struggled to comprehend what was going on, Eli chuckled, almost knowingly, a wide smirk stretching across his face. 

The neurosurgeon sighed.

"Elijah."

He didn't know Eli well, but he knew that the nurse was the closest person to a person Beth had in this city. 

They'd sat in that wedding dress shop and they'd been with Beth through everything following the shooting. 

Archer knew that Eli cared a lot about, despite how reluctant he was to show it–– and admittedly, he felt a sense of relief just seeing the man's face.

"Archer," Eli said back in greeting. 

He was far too chipper for what was going on elsewhere in the universe, and it caught Archer completely off guard. It took a lot longer than usual for realisation to settle in. 

The nurse laughed again, shaking his head from side to side almost fondly, "Let me guess...a midnight teaching lesson with––?"

"Eli, I don't–"

"I get it, okay," His chuckle caused goosebumps to raise at the back of Archer's neck; it wasn't what was said but the inkling Archer got that Eli had no idea what was going on. Archer studied Eli's eyes, his bemused smile, the way he leant up against the counter beside him with a chart between his hands. "You don't want Beth to know––"

At the mention of her, Archer tried so hard to not make eye contact with the blonde. 

She appeared in the corner of his eye, glancing over at him as she went to go fetch more gauze. The tops of his ears burned red. He shook his head and murmured lowly.

"It's not––"

"It's cute," Eli said, and he looked over his shoulder to stare at the surgeon as she disappeared out of sight. "It's cute... really cute..."

"Eli—"

He smiled down at the chart as he scrawled in his patients' measurements. 

Meanwhile, Archer just bristled, sighing through his teeth as he rubbed at his hairline. At this rate, he'd be balding; he didn't know how resilient Montgomery genes were towards stress–– from Beth's example, he could only guess not very much.

"Maybe romance is in the air?" Eli joked as if they'd known each other for far longer than they had. Romance, funnily enough, was the last thing on Archer's mind. "But you do know that you're going to get murdered if she finds out, right—?"

"Have you seen Beth?"

His question was a sharp interjection, causing the nurses' eyebrows to raise. 

Eli didn't look up from the paperwork, but did make some light comment about how Archer was deflecting. 

For the second time in a very short timeframe, Archer felt like ripping his hair out and screaming at the top of his lungs; it was such a weird experience to have–– he knew that his family was in crisis, that his whole world was on the verge of collapse, and yet here Eli was, so amused and cavellier––

"Not since I threatened to kick her ass if she didn't turn up to her own wedding," was his response. 

It was light, airy and joking, in the way that made Archer's stomach turn. He seemed to pause for either applause or laughter, Archer was a bit too out of it to distinguish what. 

Eli just shrugged. "She's probably sunbathing on a beach outside Saint Tropez with her new husband by now––"

But, then he paused.

A cog whirred away in the back of his brain. 

He knew Eli was smart. He knew that Eli was also probably one of the best nurses in this hospital; it didn't exactly take rocket science to interpret Archer's silence. As he watched Eli's chin raise, his jovial tone sinking to the back of his throat like a rock to the bottom of a lake, Archer could imagine himself tied to it. 

That's what the last twenty-four hours had felt like, like he was tied to a stone and he drowning, drowning in his thoughts and in the distraction of soft lips against his––

"Tell me she didn't leave lover boy at the altar."

Eli was looking at Archer now. Gone was amusement and now, in it's ruins, all that remained was a voice that caught on something in Eli's chest, maybe a rib? It was so low, so wary and Archer didn't have an answer.

"I don't know," He said honestly, and a rush of air came with it. It was the sort of sigh that could deflate an air balloon or blow down a whole village. "I don't know what... I don't what she's done but... but..."

"She's still in Seattle?"

Archer just nodded. 

Even though he hadn't seen her or heard from her ever since she'd disappeared out of that conference room, he knew that she must've been within State lines. 

In fact, he hadn't seen anyone, not Beth, not Charlie, not even Derek–– it was as if he'd been pulled out of storage for one single intervention and then dumped on the sidelines as a reminder of how absent he'd been in Beth's life-–

But holy crap, he was trying. Dear god, please just let him try.

(He didn't catch the expression on Eli's face, but what transpired was something between bewilderment and dread. Out of everyone in Seattle, it was Eli Lloyd's reaction that was most telling–– he stared at Archer for a little too long, playing that nod over and over in his head as he thought about the last time he'd seen Beth. He recounted the smile in the corner of her mouth, the pep in her step, the sweeping sense of relief that she'd had as he'd forced to drag her down the aisle himself––)

(This was an Amelia moment, it was the distinctive moment in which someone sensed that something wasn't right.)

Eli set his pen down onto the countertop and frowned lightly.

"Have you spoken to him?"

"Yeah, I spoke to Mark earlier––"

"No, not Sloan. Charlie."

Ah. Archer's jaw went slack. 

As aforementioned, he hadn't seen the man since the farewell dinner a few days back (they'd parted with fond, drunken slaps on each other's shoulders and Archer wishing the groom good luck for his big day) and he hadn't heard a word. 

Come to think of it, wasn't it weird that Charlie wasn't around? The only person Archer had seen today was Mark––

"Where's the groom?"

Eli said it in the way a detective would say it on television, standing in front of an invisible wall of photos, string and cards. 

For a moment, Archer could almost see it: the look on Eli's face as he looked at all of the evidence, seeing something that the neurosurgeon couldn't see. 

Charlie's location, apparently, was pinned on the outskirts of a very intricate theory web, one that he watched Eli pick at, one fact at a time.

The only fact Archer knew was this: He didn't know, he didn't know where Charlie was.

 He'd made the assumption that Charlie was around here somewhere, but he wasn't sure. He had to be, right? His fiancé (or wife or whatever they were to each other) was in deep legal shit, he had to be helping her somehow? 

Archer knew Dom was in town, he'd watched Charlie's lawyer jump to Beth's defence and he knew, definitively, that Charlie must've been holding things together behind the scenes––

"Where's the bride?"

Archer breathlessly rephrased his question from earlier. 

He knew that Mark had said that he'd tell Beth that he wanted to speak with her but she hadn't appeared. For a moment, his heart seized in his chest with the thought that maybe Beth just didn't want to talk to him? Maybe he'd burnt that bridge down? Maybe she'd walked into that room, seen Archer sat at Derek's side and just decided that she didn't want anything to do with him––?

"When did you last see her?" Eli asked, and his voice was softer than either of them had expected. It was low, as if he didn't want the people around them to overhear him. "What happened? Did it––?"

"Last time I saw her was with Derek Shepherd," was Archer's quiet response; Eli nodded slowly, his eyebrows knitting together as he tried to figure out why the hell she would be in a room with a man she couldn't stand. But then, Archer sighed, "She, uh... it was an intervention..."

He watched the blood drain out of the nurses' face. 

Eli, the purveyor of witty comments and scathing commentary, was momentarily speechless. He bit down on his tongue, hard. 

Archer shook his head gravely, feeling as though he was telling one of his patients that their family had passed in surgery.

"She's, uh, She's not okay, Eli––"

"No."

The interjection wasn't expected. 

Archer had been looking down at the floor as it happened, chin raising so abruptly that it neatly made the whole world spin. He stared at Eli as the other man shook his head almost dismissively, shoving away the implications of what okay really meant.

"She's not––"

A very insistent scoff.

"No," Eli repeated, "She wouldn't do that to herself. There's something else going on here."

"It's not..."

"What the fuck did Shepherd do to her?"

Archer almost recoiled at the heat in Eli's voice; that's what replaced his amusement, his speechlessness, his pause... this deep anger that was built on concern. Concern and frustration, a fire that was somewhere within him, far stronger than the irritation and the sternness Eli would inject into his work. 

Before Archer could even process what was happening, Eli was walking, walking quickly, sweeping the surgeon behind him to follow in his wake.

"What do you––"

"Do you really believe a single word that man says?"

He sounded like Beth, he really did. 

Archer's scrambled brain just had to trip and stumble over the sentiment behind the words. They were weaving through the ER, moving far quicker than Archer had for the last two days–– His words flickered across Archer's train of thought. 

Derek... believing... what? He was just–– This was just––?

"They found Fentanyl in her test," He said, but he could tell that Eli was not listening. "This past two days has just been... I don't know what to say––"

(Archer really wished he had a tighter grasp on reality. This all felt like a dream, a very bad dream.)

"Beth's happy," Eli said, and Archer realised where they were going. 

They were headed straight towards the nurses station at the front of the pit, right towards the Head Nurse–– Daphne was in the middle of taking an incoming ambulance, stood rearranging beds and directing Owen towards the nearest passing gurney.

 "Whatever's happened," Eli said, "Whatever it is that's going on–– it's probably Shepherd being an asshole and trying to stop her from finally getting away from all his crap-–"

"I don't know what that––"

"He's not the good guy, Archer."

(Maybe it was the sleep deprivation? Maybe it was the fact that Archer felt so painfully out of his depth that he was clinging to any driftwood he could find–– but that, he'd almost forgotten.) It hit him, as he watched Eli lean over the desk and reach for the landline phone; Derek had never been his ally, not once. If Archer's grasp on everything was right, Derek had been nothing but an instigator in every step. He'd ruined both Addison and Beth's happiness and then returned for an encore like some big Hollywood action hero––)

Daphne appeared out of no where, slapping Eli's hand off of the receiver.

A low whine fell past the nurses' lips:

"Daph."

The woman glowered at him, eyebrows raised high on her forehead as he appeared with hell on his heels, and a considerably disorientated Archer Montgomery. 

Her eyes bounced between the two of them, as if to silently sense what was going on. She stood protectively beside her personal landline, the one phone in the hospital that could do a whole lot more damage than they probably even realised–– she had this power, this certification, it was the direct connection to the hospital wide tannoy, one that Eli had just attempted to hijack.

"No."

"I need a favour."

"No," She repeated, reading his mind, "No favours."

He let out an exasperated sigh.

"C'mon just––"

"The last time I let you on the intercom you paged Doctor Adamson by calling her the 'surgeon least likely to succeed'––"

"Well, I wasn't wrong was I–"

"That's distasteful."

"Look, I apologised––"

"You can't apologise to a dead person, Lloyd."

"Yeah, well, at least I can't do it again, can I?"

Listlessly, Archer just stared between the two of them, watching as Daphne's distaste burned into a very steady glare. 

It was almost awkward, standing there, watching as they stared each other down–– he felt half inclined to remind Eli that this was a very time sensitive issue, that Beth was god knows where doing god knows what... but the words got caught at the back of his throat. 

He knew Daphne's reputation, knew the chokehold she had on this whole hospital, and didn't really feel like getting on her bad side. Eli, however, very clearly, did not have that same fear––

"You're not using this phone," She said firmly and with a final ring to her voice. Eli just sniffed very loudly through his nose, clearly very aware of the fact that this was his boss. He shook his head and sighed, placing his hands on his hips. "You're not going anywhere near this tannoy, you hear me?"

"I'll work extra shifts––"

"I don't need extra shifts," Daphne interjected sharply and her eyes narrowed even further, "This isn't a negotiations, it's a no. I gave you your chance and you blew it."

Eli let out a noise from the back of his throat, one that told Archer that it had been worth it at the time. He didn't know much about Reed Adamson but he knew that Beth didn't like her much. He figured that Eli was the sort of person to take the chance when he was given it–– it made his heart squeeze tighter in his chest.

Maybe Eli was right, maybe something more was going on here.

They continued to glare at each other and Archer just scuffed the bottom of his shoe against the floor. 

"Fine," Eli said between gritted teeth, "Can you please page someone for me––"

"Why?" Daphne asked, head cocked to the side as she questioned what exactly he was doing with so much passion and haste. Her eyes flickered to Archer, suspicion clearly painted across her face. "Eli, your patient was just discharged––?"

"It's for my patient."

Archer's voice caught at the back of his throat. 

He didn't often consider himself shy or intimidated, but again, today had been doing wonders. He had to clear his throat over and over, meekly meeting Daphne's eyes as she stared at him. Him, stood there in his neurologist's coat with his temporary staff badge and his reputation as a respectable clinician that was doing this whole hospital a favour. 

He even managed a slightly professional smile, one that was slightly twitchy, but seemed to do the job. Daphne paused for a couple of beats, redirected her attention back to Eli (who smiled like an angel who had never done anything wrong in his life) and then sighed.

"Who do you need?"

"Doctor Perkins," Eli said brightly and a little too enthusiastically, but Archer didn't miss the way his fist clenched in his pocket. "Can you ask him to come down to the clinic?"

"The clinic is closed," Daphne's suspicions raised once again.

"Page Beth Montgomery," Archer corrected, "To the cafeteria."

Both the nurses looked over at him, brows furrowed as Archer contradicted whatever game plan Eli had spontaneously concocted. 

Eli blinked at him, momentarily forgetting that Montgomery blood ran through his veins–– he was built of the same material as Beth was, the sort of person who was determined to find his legs and weather this storm. 

And he did, for a moment, find his clarity and clear his throat for the thousandth time. Daphne looked over at Eli again, almost like a impulse.

"Archer––"

"Page her," He repeated, voice a little stronger.

(Did he have any idea what he was doing? No, adamantly, No. )

(Archer was doing all of this blind, but he knew that he had to do something. Eli was paging Charlie for an interrogation, as if they needed to play some sort of strategic long game here... but Archer was trying to think differently. This wasn't as complicated as he'd made it out to be. Sure, he hadn't been there the first time, but Addison had–– and what would Addison do? She would've gone straight to Beth and figured it all out right there.)

Eli shook his head slowly, "Arch––"

"Neither Doctor Montgomery or Doctor Perkins are employees anymore," Daphne stated almost redundantly, setting down the phone back into its cradle. "They won't respond to any pages–– I can't even guarantee they're in the hospital––"

"They're here," Archer said, he was sure of it, he couldn't think of anywhere else Beth would go, "They have to be here––"

"Is she in her apartment?" Eli asked, almost in undertone to the surgeon. Archer just shook his head, "Did you check the apartment? Or, maybe they left Seattle like they planned to––?"

"No," Archer denied, "There was a board hearing this morning––?"

Eli's eyebrows rose, "A board hearing? Why would there be a hearing?"

"There was this thing with Beth's prescriptions––"

"Her prescriptions?"

"Yeah, turns out she'd been writing fraudulent narcotic prescriptions out, Derek took it to the board..."

For the second time this morning, Archer watched the realization bloom at the back of his eyes.

 His jaw clenched, face contorting as if there was a bad taste in his mouth that he couldn't swallow–– his head turned to look back over Archer's shoulder, ambiguously in some direction that Archer felt was probably wherever Beth was–– it was the way that Eli's whole body went stiff, shoulders raised and his brain ticked over like a bomb just waiting explode––

(Charlie, Eli's brain put his name on blast. Of course. Clean, perfect, nice guy. Fucking Charles Perkins.... And Beth. That stupid, self-sacrificial, self-sabotage mythic bitch.)

This is it, Archer thought to himself as he watched Eli put the pieces together, This is Beth's person.

"Forget the tannoy," Eli said and Daphne just frowned in response. Without hesitation, Eli grabbed Archer's arm, tugging him towards the exit and, eventually, the security office at the back of the building. "We're finding her ourselves."

***

On the other side of the hospital, a clammy-palmed Amelia Shepherd paced thin lines outside her older brother's office.

She'd given herself a thousand pep talks in the past five minutes, ignoring the blatant stare of Derek's secretary (who was very clearly canvassing her to see if she was a security risk.) It was a very prying stare, the sort that Amy wouldn't forget for a very long time.

Don't worry, Amy felt like saying to the middle aged woman staring her down, Between you and me, I think I'm the one least likely to leave that room in one piece.

***

────── "Just give me a second!"

In all honesty, she needed an hour.

There was a feeling at the bottom of her throat that she couldn't quite swallow.

It was stuck there. 

She'd been trying to remove it for a long time. 

Her coughs had been periodic, frantic at times, as if she was worried that she was choking. 

That's what it felt like: choking. 

It felt like the emotions and the words were a bitter pill that had congealed and stuck and she was unable to breathe with it there. It'd been inserted so skilfully that she could feel it, a weight that made it barely possible to think of anything else. Small, round, a heavy weight that made her eyes burn from the strain.

Foreign object retrieval, a wanton thought reminded her, as if a momentary stillness had managed to stir knowledge that she'd, for a long time, thought was lost. 

Manoeuvring into the oesophagus to remove the foreign body from the airway. It was a textbook procedure. She'd seen it done hundreds of times—the only problem was she didn't know how to extract words, things that weren't physical, things that weren't real. 

She wasn't a surgeon anymore either, that realization burning like a brand of failure on her skin.

The coughing brought tears to her eyes.

There was something about this moment, about standing in that harsh of a lighting and really seeing beneath the cracks of things. 

She'd been here before, hunched over the same hospital faucet with the same energy humming at her skin. 

She felt like a live wire, unruly and seconds from just set everything around her on fire. She'd never been much of a pyromaniac, but she figured that there was a first time for everything.

She had been here before. 

This was the exact same restroom she'd stood in all those months ago, crippled by the newfound knowledge that Mark Sloan prowled these floors. 

For a moment, she felt the ghost of it: the pain that had gipped her from the moment Derek had looked at her with that expression on his face, the relief she'd felt at slapping down that resignation letter but also the intense grief of everything she'd lost, the way that she'd been so blindsided, so screwed over by the universe—

You see me now, Charlie? Beth asked to the universe as she dried her face on a paper towel. A crooked and bitter smile twitched across her face, You'd be so proud. Everything's fine, right?

She turned off the faucet. Or, at least, she tried to. Her hands were shaking so violently that she grappled with the tap, fingers clumsy and uncoordinated, and the only giveaway of the storm that was currently brewing behind her eyes.

"Fuck," She mumbled to herself and squeezed her eyes shut, her whole face tensing for just a moment of silence. 

For once in her life, she craved it: an empty room, an empty second, a moment for her to catch her breath before she could—

FUCK. She wanted to exclaim it across the room. She wanted to break that stupid mirror. FUCK. She wanted it to sound as loud as it did in her head. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK--

"Beth?"

Dom's voice called through the door, causing her to flinch. 

She met her own gaze and, for a second, things almost felt peaceful. 

It almost felt as though she was immersed in the same world that she'd always been, the kingdom of make believe and faux promises. 

It felt warm and smelt of Charlie's cologne. 

It made her want to go back into that bedroom, under those covers and burrow into that chest—but after a few moments, things felt sour. She saw the panic and bewilderment and pain behind that gaze and blinked through the water she'd splashed onto her face.

There was still the bitter taste of stomach acid in her throat, a bitterness that met the anger that was boiling her bones.

She coughed into the back of her hand.

It was time to go.

He was stood outside with her blazer jacket slung over his forearm, leaning against the wall with an effortless grace that had always mystified her. 

But, now, however, it just made her blood boil. His head was bowed slightly, face made up into a pensive reflection that reminded her of the last time he'd been in this hospital. 

Dom offered a seldom smile and extended the jacket, barely even emoting when she snatched it from him, the usual fondness between them murdered coldly by the way Beth's lip curled slightly with anger. Her motions were so blunt and her stare crackled with betrayal.

(He could feel the anger that had built up in that body. A body worn by the last two months and now spread thin by the revelation that had caused her to crumple in the back of the restroom. Dom had always been warned to heed her anger. Her temper was a dangerous little time bomb and he couldn't even imagine what the timer looked like on it right now. If he strained enough he could hear it tick down. Closer and closer.)

(Tick Tick Tick.)

(Dom cleared his throat and nodded silently.)

(He understood. He'd hate him too if he were her.)

He offered her a bottle of water. She refused.

Beth didn't like how walking down the hallway with Dom flanking her felt a lot like a perp walk.

 They walked through the hospital with him a few steps behind, his footfalls in perfect sync. 

She didn't like anything about any of this, of how she felt like she was walking around in a dizzy daze, as if she'd been beaten brutally over the head, and of how she felt as though everyone was looking. 

It'd been bad before when she'd been a dead girl walking, someone who had survived a bullet that had intended to kill—but now she was a dying girl walking, her career bleeding out right in front of the doctors and nurses that cared to look.

A few times, Dom reached out to guide her in the right direction, his hand gently wavering over her arm. Every time she flinched again, just as she had in reaction to his voice. 

Her arm would jerk away, dreading the feeling of his touch. She bit down on her tongue, hard enough to draw blood. Eventually, he stopped trying.

Good, Beth thought to herself.

She'd spent so many years feeling indebted to him, being grateful for him, that now she just felt foolish. Foolish and gross. All of those times Dom had been there, cleaning up messes with little too no complaint, she thought he'd just been nice. 

She thought he'd been a professional who was willing to fight for his clients until the death—but oh, how things are always too good to be true. Now, she figured, Dom's loyalty hadn't been out of kindness, but out of unmatched guilt.

He followed like a shadow, half performative and half true.

That was the funny thing now: Beth could feel the lines between the real and the fake. She hadn't seen them before, but now she was sensitive to them. She was asking herself how many things had been untrue or dishonest, whether everything had been meticulously pieced together. 

She wasn't sure whether it was paranoia or just the rushing feeling of having everything fall apart around her. 

Maybe it was the latter; either way, Beth was beginning to feel the stitches of how things had been sewn together, of how Dom's generosity and ability to appear perfectly like clockwork was not as innocent as it had first appeared.

Does he feel bad? Beth asked herself as she avoided the sight of him.

She hoped he fucking did.

For a moment, it almost made her laugh. 

There they were, walking side-by-side down a corridor flanked with curious eyes, Dom half a second away from holding her shoulder as if they they were about to go to jail—and how many years she'd spent feeling horrendously indebted to him. 

She'd spent years guilty over how she was constantly needing him, paying him, using him, of how she'd betrayed Charlie in a way, even though they hadn't been together. She'd spent years, years feeling the need to appease Dom just to fill that guilt— and now she knew what real betrayal looked like.

"Beth–" Dom began.

"Don't," She said in the smallest voice with her teeth gritted. 

Her whole body shook with the same wrenching sensation she'd felt in the restroom. She repeated the word again. Her lips felt numb. 

"Don't."

(He didn't.)

She felt him retreat and she'd never been so thankful. 

Her knuckles were still bruised but there was chaos trapped deep within her—her heart jumped into her throat with a lurch and she found herself aching to exert some sort of emotion somewhere. It was so tempting to revert to the sort of toddler that would kick and scream.

 Hadn't she been like that once? 

Hadn't she thrashed out in grocery stores, thrown shit and just beat her tiny fists into the ground? Where did that anger go now? What was she supposed to do with it? She wanted to kick something, tear something, dig her fingernails in as deep as they would go and just–

"Beth."

"Dominic I said don't—"

It wasn't Dom.

Archer was standing in front of them in the hallway. 

He'd appeared like a roadblock in her warpath and she visibly faltered. 

For a moment, she thought he was a badly timed mirage, the sort that was enough to derail her, but no, he was real. She stopped so abruptly that Dom had to catch himself to avoid a pile-up. The lawyer just stood, caught as off-guard by the appearance as she was.

Oh fucking hell.

Archer.

She'd almost forgotten about him. 

Almost.

(Now, just the sight of him made her almost cry.)

Small. Archer looked small. His hands were buried in his pockets and he looked tired. Exhausted. 

Beth looked down the corridor towards him and was reminded of the boy who'd helped her dust off after crashing her bike when the stabilisers had bent or had helped her out of trees after she'd gotten herself stranded. Familiar but fuck, the look in his eyes—

The hotshot neurosurgeon, now noticeably subdued, looked between his sister and her legal counsel. Beth appeared cold and collected. She wouldn't meet his eye.

"Can I talk to you?"

 He sounded small too. Beth hated that she knew what that tone entailed. It caused a sickliness to spread through her like wildfire, a second fight or flight that had been locked at the back of her chest like a keepsake. It was almost nostalgic. 

Archer cleared his throat and raised his voice a semitone, "Can we talk?"

Without even looking at Dom, Beth nodded her head.

She didn't need his legal advice. What a crap thought that was anyway. 

When Dom went to interject, probably to remind her of how she could get herself into legal trouble by saying too much or too little, Beth felt like reminding him of exactly what had just happened and remind him of how he'd now officially lost all jurisdiction in any of her personal matters.

Personal? Yeah, the look on Archer's face as he stared at her, that felt very personal.

The reversal of it: of Beth going from being followed to the follower felt like a shift or imbalance.

 But Archer had the floor, he led her to a room that was as non-descript as it was small and closed the door-to. 

Dom lingered outside and Beth just sat. She didn't allow herself to do anything else. 

She just clasped her hands in front of her and held her breath as Archer dragged a chair too close. He sat with his knees brushing hers and then the silence began. 

It began with the clearing of his throat and the awkward beat that felt so characteristic of their father—

How would this pan out? Beth thought to herself dryly, eyes fixed on her hands. 

She ran her gaze over her cuticles, anything to stop herself from thinking about this.

Archer had never been the serious one. 

He'd never been the sit in a room and clear his throat with intent, ruminate on words in a prolonged silence and then speak them. 

He'd never been the one who'd been there, who'd watched the glue and the tape and the staples at her seams, he'd never been the—

"I just quit my job."

She thought it was an interesting opening, to say the least. 

She said it to fill the silence, to be the first person who said something in what she was sure was going to be a very excruciating conversation. 

(But, also, it was to settle the unknown–– they'd never been here before, she'd never had this... not with her brother... she didn't know what to expect and she just... she needed something to––)

"You did?" He sounded quiet and thoughtful. 

Beth kept her eyes fixed on her fingers. She was still wearing her engagement ring and seeing it, so suddenly, made her stomach clench.

"Yeah," Beth responded, throat hoarse and eyes still doing everything but look at him, "I handed my resignation letter straight to the Chief..."

"I would expect nothing less."

His hand was on the table beside her. 

In her peripheral, she noticed how he was shaking too, a twitch and a tremor that neither one of them could contain. It went against the methodical steadiness of his voice. His knee was bouncing slightly, she could feel the movement through the furniture and the floor. 

For a moment, she was surprised that he wasn't pacing, but then she realised that, just like her, he was trying to keep everything contained. She kept her eyes on her trembling fingers and was so alarmed by the suddenness of her engagement ring catching in the light.

"You should have seen his face," Beth said absently, far happier to concentrate on what had happened rather than what was to come. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, trying her best not to slump. "You should have seen how... how angry he was... It wasn't..."

(To be honest, Beth had never felt as hurt as she had leaving that office.)

(She'd always known what Derek thought of her, of what he thought about people like her, of people who were vulnerable and not able to make their own decisons... and that's what had made her heart burn on Charlie's behalf. She'd had to brace herself in that restroom again, she'd had to hold herself together with her fingertips–– She couldn't imagine Charlie going through that. She couldn't... She couldn't even begin to think about it––)

"He's been angry all weekend," Archer said, and Beth felt her stomach roll. It was coming, she could feel it. She felt it like they'd all felt the storm: in the change of wind, in the drop in temperature and the rumble of the streets underfoot. "I've never seen him like it..."

Beth couldn't help her bitterness: "I have."

She had. She really had. 

Maybe not on this scale, but she'd seen it build back in New York. 

She'd watched how it'd began, this venom at the back of his throat that seemed to coat his teeth and his tongue. It'd begun with Amelia and it had spread over time, his bite developing with this unwarranted hostility towards people who didn't fit his idea of a functioning human being. He and Addison truly had deserved each other.

Her brother cleared his throat and she felt it begin:

"I know I'm not the best brother..."

His opening statement made her eyes burn.

Beth didn't speak.

She couldn't.

Beth hadn't been there to see Archer's reaction to her first spiral. Her first ever one.

 She should've kept keepsakes from it, framed it and hung it up on the wall like the first taken dollar in a new store. But she'd seen Addison's: she'd seen the incredulousness, the way that Addison hadn't believed it until she was face to face with it. 

She'd seen Mark as well, the confusion and the anger he'd had towards it-- the way that he'd taken it as a personal offence because she couldn't, for the life of her, just stop all of it just for him--

Her eyes burned even stronger

Beth had spent a lot more time than she would've liked to admit, just wondering whether Archer had been ashamed of her. 

But this-- these words were almost startling. 

They carried a sense of retrospective sadness about them, as if Archer was running through his memories and thinking of all of the times he'd gone wrong. It unlocked a very, very deep pain in Beth, one that she felt all through her body, all the way down to her toes.

"I mean fuck," He never swore. Her molars locked almost as a reflex to it. "I'm not the best at... at any of this... I just..." A pause. "I'm realising that there was a whole lot more I should have done."

It was painful to hear someone you cared about pull themselves apart like that. It was as if, in the past twenty four hours, Archer had dissected everything that he'd experienced since he'd arrived in Seattle two months ago. 

She could hear the dossier that he'd mentally acquired: every conversation, every exchange, every time he'd watched her take an aspirin or drink something that wasn't sealed or clearly labelled. 

Archer had always been so quiet in his pain and his concern. He was silent about many things. But, now, even subdued and reserved, Archer had never been so loud.

"I've spent the last... the last god knows how long trying to figure out what to..."

 He shook his head, he shook his head so violently that Beth looked at him, just fleetingly, to make sure he wouldn't give himself a whiplash. A chuckle that she could only explain as tortured fell past his lips. 

"What to say... what to... who to be... I wasn't there the first time... and I know that Addison would be better for this... like she knows... she knows so much more about this than me––"

Something twinged in Beth's chest and she had to try so hard not to look at him. 

If she looked at him it would make this all so much harder; she spoke from experience with that.

 If she looked at him, saw a certain expression on his face and felt his pain... god, she didn't... Beth didn't know what she'd do with that

"You can trust me, okay..." 

There was a slight hesitation in his tone, but Beth had a feeling that it wasn't trust that he was hesitant about. There was something else lurking within him, queued at the back of his throat like bullets in the chamber of a gun. Her skin itched in it's presence. 

"I... I, I know you deserve the best and I promise you... I promise you that we'll get you the best. I'll get you the best––"

Something was coming, she could feel it.

"I understand that it's hard and this whole situation is complicated," His voice was thick and Beth didn't want to look to see whether he was emotional. She couldn't. Looking at him made it feel real. She wasn't sure whether she could afford things to feel real. "I need you to know that I love you and uh... and I'm sorry I haven't been much of a brother––"

If she was capable of making a sound, she would have winced.

"––But I want to do this right," Archer seemed so definite about it. He was talking to his hands too, unable to meet her eyes as he carefully and cautiously assumed the role that Derek had never afforded him. "I, uh, I know that Derek has always been your... uh, that Addison and Derek was always––"

"Derek's not my brother."

It was a tremble in her vocal chords. 

It was barely words. A breathy exhale that caught at the back of her throat in a sound that did not sound like her voice at all–– Archer's head rose so quickly that, again, she was momentarily worried his neck would snap clean in half.

"No," He said after a brief pause, he seemed to hang his head in shame, "No, I, uh, I am. I know that, and I'm sorry that I haven't... that I haven't really..."

No, that wasn't what she'd meant. 

She'd meant the sentiment in the way that she really wished people would stop calling Derek her family. 

He wasn't family, he wasn't blood or bone or even a long distance branch of this tree (a wooden skeleton rotting from the inside out). 

He was Derek and Derek was dead to her. 

Derek was divorced. Derek was sitting in his office clutching the only remnant Beth was determined to leave behind of her: physical proof that she no longer wanted to be associated with him.

"I regret it," Archer continued and she just felt her whole body throb, "I regret everything that happened in New York and I just..."

A pause and then, with all the exhaustion and frustration in him, Archer laughed. It was a choked sound, the sort that Beth hoped she'd never hear again from the man she idolised.

"Fuck... I just...I love you so much, you know that?"

She did. 

No one else would have run through an airport for her. 

No one else would have done all of this for her. 

Beth knew that she was oh so very loved. 

It was her brother, and he'd been one of the only people who had ever loved her unconditionally; never once had he turned his back on her knowingly, never once had he made her feel ashamed of who she was or what mess she'd gotten herself into–– Beth felt her throat grow tighter from the threat of tears.

"You deserve better and you've got me..."

 Archer sounded so hopeless. She had to say, it was the most interesting pep talk she'd ever gotten. Usually with these sobriety talks, things were a whole lot more optimistic. 

"You've got me because I think we both know if I involved Addison this would just get..." (He didn't need to finish his sentence, she knew.) "But I promise you, Beth, no matter what I'm going to fight like hell for you and your sobriety, okay? I'm going to pull through this time. I'm gonna make up for it, okay?"

His guilt ran so deep, she could almost feel it. 

It made her feel pain on a whole different level–– why was this, listening to her brother crucify himself right in front of her, so much more painful than anything else she'd withstood over the past twenty-four hours.

Beth closed her eyes. She wanted to beg him to stop talking. 

She wanted to tell him that she loved him and she appreciated him and that she'd set herself on fire for him. 

She wanted to tell him that that's how deep her loyalty went for the people that she loved, that she'd take bullets for them, burn cities on their behalf. 

She wanted to tell Archer that her heart was aching to the point of no return and she didn't know what to do with the fact that she was so deeply torn that she couldn't feel herself anymore.

Huh, she thought to herself dryly, looks like the Fentanyl is doing wonders.

"I should have been here more," was what her brother said next, "I should have been there in New York and I should have opened my eyes and really paid attention here... noticed that you were struggling––?"

"Archie."

She didn't know what to do with herself.

Why did she feel so fake, all of a sudden? 

The way she sat, the way she held herself, it all felt as though she'd been transformed into some reflection of herself. 

For a moment, Beth found it hard to breathe. 

Had she spent so much time immersed in the unreal that she'd lost parts of herself too?

"I just need you to know that I'm here, okay?" 

He ignored her strained interjection, the way that she blinked rapidly as if on the verge of tears.

 "Please let me know what's going on Beth... I want to help, I want to help you. I love you and I want to support you through this recovery and I just... I need to know everything..."

Everything. Somehow, Beth figured that he didn't know how complex things were–– well, that was until she felt him load that sentence at the back of his throat. It was the way he shifted in his seat, clearing his throat and preparing himself for a half accusation and half question.

"I have to ask..." Her chest got tighter and tighter and tighter and–– "Does Charlie have anything to do with this––?"

(How deeply Beth wished she could be honest. She heard his pain, felt it, and saw the apprehension bunch in his brow. A beat passed and Beth could feel the confirmation on the tip of her tongue. But, she could see Charlie's face too, his sad eyes, his clenched jaw, his whole career in ruins on the floor...)

"No," Beth said, and her voice broke, "It's all me, Arch. It's all... I did it––"

For the first time since Mark had held him to her chest, Beth felt tears leave her aching eyes. 

(She couldn't say yes. Dom had been clear, too many people knew about this and, at this point, she was in far too deep covering for Charlie to take it back. If someone knew what had really happened she would have been in far too much trouble too–– Archer couldn't know, not when he'd probably let it slip to Addison or Derek too––)

(Not like either of them would probably believe him, anyway.)

She was crying. 

She was, a shaking hand pressing against her mouth as she tried her best to keep her cool–– that's what the whole of today had been, a series of averted eyes and this tightness in her chest that didn't release when she breathed out. 

She was a mannequin sat down by Dominic in a chair, a series of poses and guarded smiles. 

This blazer jacket, suddenly, felt too big.

"Hey..."

She felt the familiar tightness in her nose and the rush of moisture in her eyes. 

She squeezed every muscle in her body so tight as Archer reached for her hand. He squeezed that too. She'd never felt so malleable in someone's grasp before. 

She felt as though his fingers would leave permanent indents on her skin and his words would leave permanent scars. She felt compressed and tight, like coal that was cracking under the gravitational pull, condensing down and down and down—but, just like diamond appearing in the face of so much tension, Beth found herself able to swallow.

"Hey, kid, c'mon..."

Archer repeated it, his voice low and soothing and Beth took in a gulp of air. He squeezed her fingers so tightly that she almost forgot where he began and she ended.

"I fucked up, Archie."

As she said it, she felt like a kid again. 

She felt as though she was five, confessing to her old brother that she'd broken one of Addison's dolls on accident, or just done something else tragically stupid in the tradition of young kid. 

But this time, there was so much weight in her words, so much horror and so much pain–– a gentle thumb traced the back of her knuckles and he leant towards her, taking to it all as if Derek had never introduced himself to Beth on that cold winter's eve nearly 15 years ago.

"It's okay," He murmured it as if they were hugging, but all she had was his hand to hold onto for dear life. She just mumbled incoherently in return, her free hand pressing onto her eyes as if t suppress the tears. "It's okay Beth... I know... I know... but this is okay... you've done this before... okay? You can do it again... You can get sober again. I'll help you get sober again––"

"It's bad this time," was all Beth could say. A tiny child that was so despaired they didn't know what to do with themselves. "It's real bad, Arch."

"Where's Charlie?" Archer asked, and she just shook her head, "Do you want me to go get him? He can... he can talk to someone––"

"No," Beth said, and she felt grief saying it, "He's not here... he, uh, he went to Boston to figure out some stuff––"

(If she'd looked at his face, she would have seen the confusion of a man who'd spent fifteen minutes in a security office, studying surveillance footage, while listening to Eli rant and rave about how nothing added up. Eli was a heartbeat away from launching a mass conspiracy, and Archer felt it throb within him as he just held Beth's hand tighter in Charlie's absence.)

"Tell me what you wanna do," He didn't remove his hand, not even as he dragged his chair around the table towards her, and then he was there, right in front of her, studying her with such care. "Tell me where you wanna go Beth... we don't have to tell Mom, Dad or Addie... we can go to Boston... we can go to Canada... we can... we can find a good programme for you... get you clean... get you back on your feet."

Beth increased the pressure on her eyes, willing the whole world to slow to a halt.

"And then... and then when we get everything sorted we can find you a lawyer," Archer was talking and talking all in a passion rush that made her whole body feel as though she was filled with ice water. She felt it slosh around as Archer spoke with his hands, conviction causing the whole building to tremble. "I'll pay Fox's stipend, I'll pay for whatever we need to get you out of this mess–– I don't care if you did it or not, okay? I care that you're a good doctor and the best person and you do not deserve to lose everything again––"

God, Beth thought to herself as she listened to him, I don't deserve him.

How weird it was to think this was how she'd once felt looking at Charlie, hearing Charlie–– now, everything just accumulated to a bitter lump at the back of his throat.

"We managed to clear it to a 3 month suspension," Her voice was so quiet. She had nothing left in her, nothing more to offer. Head still tilted downwards and whole body burning with his touch. "We, uh, we managed to challenge the inquiry and they're rescheduling the hearing for the end of my suspension..."

"There's great," She felt Archer so tenderly, so warmly, "That's good news..."

"It's going to take work but... but Dom thinks he can save my license," It was everything she hadn't told Derek, everything that she'd almost hesitated to give him the satisfaction of knowing. She wanted for him to find it out from the board, to feel the frustration live and in person and not from her crumpled form. "It's going to take so much time-–"

"We have that time," Archer said, and his voice wobbled slightly. He squeezed her hand tighter, "I have that time. Whatever you need."

"They want me to do all the time in a rehab facility," It was all the information that Dom had dumped on her through the restroom door, a meeting worth of decisions that had all been made while she'd locked glares with Derek across his desk. As they'd bickered, Dom had saved her ass. They weren't out of the woods, but she knew that taking down Derek had been their saving grace. "We've found a good program out in Massachusetts... 60 days to just... some inpatient program––"

"Okay," He nodded, "I'll come to Boston––"

"I don't..."

A deep pain ricoheted through her chest.

How could she tell this man she didn't want him to come to Boston?

It wasn't malicious. 

At this moment in time, she felt as though she didn't love anyone as much in the world as her brother. 

She was so full of it, so tortorously full of adoration and awe that Beth was beside herself–– she didn't want him to come with her because she didn't know what would face her in Boston. 

She didn't know whether they'd fight to get out of this 60 day inpatient program, or whether Archer would be confused or caught up in some conspiracy–– she didn't know what was coming next and she loved him far too much to allow him to be swept up in it.

"I know I wasn't there the first time," Archer said. He repeated it as if it'd plagued him for years and Beth just... she just cried. She squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her chin to the floor and just held onto him. "But I'm going to try and be... I'll be Addison... I'll be Derek... I'll do it all, okay? I'll work with Charlie––"

"I don't need Addison," Beth said it so quietly, "I don't need Derek... I just need my big brother."

"Good," He sounded slightly choked too, "Because I'm not going anywhere, kid."

She looked up and saw him. Her brother, her big dumb ass brother, the same man who she'd flown across the world for and thrown herself back into all of this for. 

The same man who'd then returned the favour ten months later and was still sat here, holding her hand. She saw the kid who had helped her out of trees and out from under bikes and more—she saw love. 

She saw kindness. 

She saw a man who was honest and genuine and rubbed raw.

He was tired too, so tired. 

She was so tired–– this was too much, too much pain, too much exhaustion, too much thinking for a girl who now felt so old. 

Why did they look worse than they had when Archer had been dying? Why did everything feel so much worse than when Archer had been dying?

She wondered what she looked like. Did she look tiny? Did she look pale? Did she look like she'd had a really long twenty-four hours–– or did she look untouched? Just like she'd intended? 

As if she'd walked straight through the storm with no intention of letting anyone see how she'd left Derek's office and bawled in a restroom at the thought of everything going to shit.

"Let me help you," Archer whispered, "Please, Beth. Let me just..."

Please. Please. Please. Please.

Beth had been right, it was worse when she was looking at him. It made everything too real.

(It was at that moment, Beth understood what she had to do.)

Her hug with Archer would be something that she'd class, in retrospect, as a red herring. 

She gave him a watery, bottomless smile and let him pull her into him, as if relieved that he was given the chance–– that's what distinguished her siblings, Beth thought, while Addison thought being involved in Beth's life was a right, Archer seemed to see it as a privilege. 

He held her tightly to him, a hand cradling the back of her head as she tried to control her tears.

She stared over his shoulder, far more tortured about what she was about to do.

(It was what Dom had said through that door with a degree of apprehension: You're free to leave.)

(She was free to go anywhere on the requirement that, within 24 hours, her admission to a rehabilitation clinic was faxed to the DEA representative.)

(She could go anywhere in the country but if that document didn't end up on that desk, she'd have an arrest warrant out before she could even breathe––)

Dear lord, she'd never thought she'd ever get to being one of those fugitive leads Mark used to watch in his movies.

"I'm on the same contract as you," He said, the movement of his jaw bouncing against her shoulder. He was holding her so tightly that Beth's blood almost came to a complete stop in her veins. She felt cold in his fingers, but so loved and protected. Her eyes, slowly closed with the reluctance to weep. "Just give me an hour... give me an hour and I'll hand in my resignation letter and I'll give that son of a bitch a piece of my mind––"

(––and that's where the plan began. A silent calculation at the back of her head. She couldn't tell Archer that she didn't want him. She couldn't break his heart, she didn't have it left in her–– no, she'd go home right now and she'd pack a bag, and she'd leave before Archer even knew what was happening.)

(It would be the second exit Beth would take from everyone's lives, and this time, she was fairly sure it would be permanent.)

"We've got this, Beth," He said it into the shell of her ear, goosebumps racing down her back. She just held on, expression oddly impassive as she began to tear her heart from herself, forcing herself to figure that this was the best solution. "It's you and me. We're going to do this."

No, Beth thought to herself, No we won't.

***

────── It took Amelia exactly three seconds after opening Derek's office door to realise what a mistake she'd made.

She entered the room buzzing from her rolodex of pep talks, of constant reminders that there was nothing could say right now that could possibly take away how bad of a mess he'd made. 

A pep in her step, one that, she was proud to say, was completely bioligical-–– 

Yeah, suck on that Derek.

The man of the hour didn't look up, but did when the distant sound of his secretary calling out behind her–– 

"Ma'am, you can't go in there––"

She was ignored, blatantly, because, in fact, Amy could go in there and she did. So much for the man getting shot, wouldn't it have just been so easy to––

His head raised.

"Well, well, well," Amelia said, meeting her brother's baby blue eyes for the first time since she'd watched him flee New York in a thunderstorm, "I hear someone's been a bad Chief."

Her crooked smile did not falter. Not even once.