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S ean’s eyes wouldn’t open. He was awake, he knew he was awake, but his eyelids felt like they were sealed shut with concrete. He tried to take a deep breath and choked on something in his throat. He went to yank it out but his hand wouldn’t work. The weight of something on his forefinger spread through his hand, travelled up his arm like lead in his bloodstream. He struggled to gasp around the thing lodged in his windpipe. He tried to cry out, tried again to open his eyes.

“Easy, Sean. Easy,” a deep, familiar voice said from beside him as fingers slid between his and squeezed. “The nurse is here. Try and breathe through your nose ‘til he gets that out.”

He was so close that his breath fanned over Sean’s forehead, making the hair at his temples tickle. He smelled like he always did—fancy deodorant on clean skin. But no scent of sweat; the sweat that continued to burst on his skin long after he showered. It was replaced by a musk, tired and worn in. Sean remembered the smell of his fresh sweat, right before he ended up here.

A steady beeping layered with another beeping came from beside him. It was the second one that rose as his heart rate picked up. That hand tightened on his.

“Just relax, he’s getting it out,” the voice said gently, but it was laced with panic. “Can you do it any fucking faster?” he said over Sean’s head.

Sean’s heart went wild. He heard a huff of breath from his other side, felt a hand on his face.

“He’s choking,” the voice said angrily.

“Back up,” a brisk voice replied. “Sean,” that voice directed at him, “just relax for me for a second, mate, we’re gonna get this out. We had to intubate.”

Sean didn’t know what that meant. All he wanted to do was breathe. To open his eyes. To know what the fuck was going on—where was he? Why was he here?

And why in the fuck was Jack in the room with him?

His attention was drawn violently back to the plastic tube being wrestled out of his throat. He tried to scream, but it was muffled. He couldn’t breathe. The nurse kept telling him to relax, asked another nurse to get him a measure of something, said he shouldn’t be waking up like this. Jack breathed noisily beside him. Sean knew those breaths—Jack was upset, he was angry, snorting out of his nose and inhaling vocally. It drove Sean crazy—clearly he had something to say, so why not just fucking say it instead of standing there, breathing like a steam train over it?

The tube popped free and Sean sucked in gasps of wet air. He groaned, tried to make his voice work but came out with a garbled moan.

“You reckon you can sit up and drink something for me, Sean?” the efficient voice asked. “Might as well, he’s awake,” the voice said to someone else.

He felt his hand being flipped over, something being plugged in. He tried to pull it away, tried again to open his eyes. His other hand was still clasped in that large palm.

“Sean,” Jack said softly, “drink something, it’ll help you talk.”

His voice was so kind; it was alarming. Sean blinked his eyes open with effort and between the slits he saw him. Jack Reaver. He was close, the corners of his eyes creased with concern, his full lips flat. Between blinks, Sean took in more pieces. Jack’s eyes were bloodshot, the blue dull. He was watching Sean expectantly; Sean wasn’t sure what he was expecting here, unless it was a smack in the face when Sean recovered the use of his hand.

A straw was placed between his lips. He sucked and cool liquid bathed his abused throat. His sluggish eyes never left Jack’s as he blinked up at him. Jack stroked a thumb over the top of his knuckles. Sean’s heart beat faster.

“Alright, buddy,” the man who’d pulled the tube out said, taking the drink back, “not sure how much you remember, but you’ve been our honoured guest here at Royal Perth Hospital ICU for four days now. I’ve paged Doctor Harris, whose probably gonna be pretty happy to see you awake. You scared us—can’t lose the only player who can actually kick a goal now, can we?” The nurse laughed. Sean watched Jack’s face, but Jack didn’t wince, instead the corners of his lips lifted slightly at the pronouncement that Sean was their superior goal kicker.

Sean didn’t understand. He tried to clear his throat.

“Do you remember the accident?” Jack asked carefully.

Sean couldn’t remember an accident, but he was suddenly terrified. He could hear the monitor reflecting that, blaring loudly as he relived a fear in his body that he couldn’t see in his mind.

“What’s going on?” Jack asked, his eyes darting to the nurse.

“He’s re-living the accident,” the nurse said, and then something about more drugs.

Sean refocused on Jack. Those blue eyes searched his, the hand in his gripped him tighter as he murmured, “I’m here. You’re alright, you’re alright.”

And Sean didn’t understand, but euphoria hit him and he was dragged under, his eyes blinking up at Jack looking concerned, frightened, unfamiliar, and Sean found his voice.

“Cunt,” he bit out.

The last thing he saw before he slipped back into oblivion was Jack’s flinch, the widening of his eyes, the hurt beneath the surprise. Sean wondered when he’d stopped schooling his reactions so well. And then he was out.

Sean woke up again with a drawn-out groan. When he tried to roll over, he realised he was hurt. Opening his eyes, he felt a stabbing sensation in his head as he squinted into the gloom around him. His left leg was covered in a gigantic cast from groin to ankle and elevated off the bed with a white sheet and pulleys attached to a frame. The room was dark, save for the colours from the monitors casting greens and blues over the bedding, the nurses’ station a bright yellow box beyond the glass door and glass walls of his room. He was familiar enough with the pounding in his head to be grateful for the darkness—he had a concussion.

“Back with us again, Sean?” a cheerful voice asked. He tried to turn his head in her direction but couldn’t. “I’m just going to,” she stood over him and hit a button. “Now let’s see if we can drink something,” her voice went low. “He’s very worried about you…” She nodded her chin to the other side of Sean’s bed.

He managed to follow where she indicated with his eyes. Jack was curled up in a chair, except he was far too big for it; his legs stuck out, his hands were tucked under his armpits like he was hugging himself, and his head rested on his torso as he breathed quietly and evenly.

The straw was back in Sean’s mouth. He sipped but his eyes never left Jack slumped and asleep in the chair. He was in loose black trackies, slides on his feet, a team hoodie, his blonde hair a mess. Jack wasn’t the most style-conscious dude in the league, but he rarely left the house looking like this, like he’d just woken up and thrown on a hoodie to make it respectable for the drive.

“I’ve buzzed for the doctor. Doctor Harris asked me to page no matter the time, but we’ll probably see Doctor Mercer, the night registrar, first, okay?” The nurse went on quietly as if Sean knew who any of these people were.

He pushed the straw out of his mouth, eyes stuck on Jack sleeping next to his hospital bed like the most confusing tableau he’d ever seen in his life.

“What happened?” he croaked.

Jack stirred and Sean watched as he stretched, blinked, met Sean’s eyes and smiled the softest, most disarming smile Sean had ever seen.

“Sean?” Jack said, his tone matching his smile.

“What…” Sean tried, his voice a husk.

“Sean?” A woman’s voice said from the doorway. She flicked the light on at the same time and Sean winced. “You’re back with us. I’m Doctor Mercer, Harris will be in shortly. How’re you feeling?”

Sean tore his eyes away from where Jack was inching closer, shooting the doctor concerned looks before looking at Sean with a reassurance that made no sense.

“Confused,” Sean answered honestly. He took stock of his body—thigh, ribs, head all fucked. “Fuckin’ sore.”

Doctor Mercer chuckled. “I bet,” she stood at the end of the bed and scanned his chart. “They had to cut you out of that mess. It’s a miracle you survived. Now, I’m just going to run some tests. Can you open your eyes for me…”

Sean was even more confused—what mess? His heart pounded again—he couldn’t see what was happening, but he was frightened, he was stuck, he was dying, he was never going to see him again, never going to be able to tell him he was sorry for this, for fucking up.

The monitors went wild around him.

“Why does that keep happening?” Jack asked—he was angry, but it was his ‘I’m actually scared so I’ll sound mad about it’ voice. Sean had no idea what he was scared about now. Why was he even here? Unless he put Sean here after their last altercation and he was feeling guilty. But that didn’t make sense—Sean was broken, everywhere.

“Sean,” the doctor said, voice firm, “listen to me. You’re in hospital. You’re safe. You’ve been in a car accident and sustained a compound fracture to the left femur, three broken ribs, swelling on the brain and a suspected concussion. You’ve had two surgeries. You’re no doubt in pain, but you’re safe. I need you to hold your breath for me.”

Sean clasped his mouth shut. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he knew what she was asking him to do. He held the breath to a count of ten and felt his heart beat frantically against his chest bone. The thumping felt loud, too loud, but he exhaled for five, inhaled for five, felt the nurse putting something in the back of his hand again.

“Alright, you with me, Sean?” the doctor asked calmly. Sean had endured enough minor footy injuries over the years to be familiar with the confident no nonsense manner the hospital staff, trainers, and doctors always brought—they sounded like they could take charge of everything, get it all in hand until you could hold yourself on your own again.

“Sean?” Jack asked.

Sean winced. Jack’s voice always made him wince, but he usually hid it. Because he usually had a damn good guard up around Jack. He’d built that guard to protect himself from the sharp pain being vulnerable around him had caused on the few stupid occasions he’d done it when they’d first met. But having to bring his guard up while he was like this was a bridge too far.

“Why’s he here?” he managed, his voice gritty and hoarse.

A hint of surprise flickered over the doctor’s smooth features. She was a pretty white woman, maybe a decade older than himself, early thirties, with lovely skin, clear eyes, all of her tidy and professional, but his question stirred the life behind the doctor’s mask.

“Your teammate?” she asked carefully, the professional mask sliding back into place with a look that suggested the beginning of a questionnaire.

“Sean, what?” Jack asked. “Of course I’m here, where else would I be?”

Sean squeezed his eyes shut. Jack’s confused, hurt voice was even worse than his usual cheerful teammate voice.

“Did he do this?” Sean whispered hoarsely at the doctor. It seemed impossible—but why else was Jack here?

“Did Jack cause the accident?” the doctor replied calmly though.

“What—”

“Yes,” Sean whispered, his eyes searching the doctor’s, but his awareness was completely fixed on Jack beside him, hovering, filling the room with his presence, the way he entered and absorbed every room; became its fucking sun, or its black hole.

“I was in bed, I was at home in bed,” Jack said, his voice pitching in disbelief, in horror. “You didn’t come back—”

The doctor looked past Sean. “Jack?” she smiled easily, “would you mind if I had a chat with Sean alone for a moment? Maybe you could go get some coffee.”

“But I didn’t, I don’t—”

She was moving around the bed, the sound of her sneakers squeaking on the tiles as she herded Jack out of the room, his voice never wavering in his defence, his confusion, and, worst of all, his hurt. He’d never heard Jack sound that vulnerable except for the last time he saw him after they lost the preliminary final and got into it after everyone else had left. Jack’s voice had cracked then, cracked brittle and hurt as he’d said, “You’re not worth it.”

The doctor reappeared at his side, smiling like they were old mates.

“Okay, Sean, you want to tell me why you think Jack was involved in your accident?” she asked like it was a completely normal question.

“‘Cos why else would he be here?” Sean repeated because nothing else made sense. They despised each other.

The doctor frowned. “I’m pretty sure he’s down as your emergency contact,” she reached over the bed to hit a button for one of the nurses.

Sean’s lips parted and the dull headache that’d been throbbing behind his eye sockets pulsed. Was it a joke? A prank? It must’ve been. Ben must’ve gotten hold of all his personnel files at the club and changed his emergency contact to Jack Reaver as a joke. Speaking of Ben, where was he? He was Sean’s best friend on the team, his house mate. And where was his mum? Or even Jayden—she’d send his brother down if she couldn’t get to the city; it was offseason, he’d be home by now.

He listened as the doctor had a chat with the nurse, checked some paperwork, before reassuring Sean that Jack was, in fact, his emergency contact. It was a joke, it had to be. But he didn’t think he had the brain power to explain that to her right now.

“Would you like us to ask him to leave?” she asked after the nurse left. She was completely calm about it, like they kicked hysterical teammates out of players’ rooms all the time. But then he thought of Jack sleeping next to him in the armchair, thought about how he hated Jack but he always liked being around him; it was perverse, but he loved it when Jack was in any room, it invigorated him, made his self-righteous anger pulse in a way that made him feel powerful. Plus, Jack was acting like such a fucking pussy at the moment, if Sean asked him to leave, he’d probably cry. Sean didn’t actually ever want to see Jack cry, that’d be too much.

“Nah,” he breathed out, tried to smile.

“Okay,” the doctor said slowly before going through a series of tests—light shined in his eyes, reflex checks—and asked him a stream of questions about how he was feeling.

Jack reappeared in the door and Sean tensed. He was gripping two takeaway coffee cups.

“I got you a coffee. Can he drink coffee?” he asked the doctor.

“If he can stomach it,” she winked at Sean.

“I don’t want a fuckin’ coffee,” he ground out.

Jack recoiled like Sean had hit him. Sean was so fucking confused—why was Jack reacting like that? He could handle more than that.

Jack stepped into the room, cleared his throat awkwardly. “Two for me then,” he said in the most unconvincing display of cheerfulness Sean had ever heard. “I called Ben, let him know you’re awake. He’s on his way down,” he said as he took his chair again, coffees in each hand. He started drinking them like it was normal to be double fisting coffee and so looked anything but.

One of the things that’d struck Sean about Jack once he joined them at Freo, something he’d never really noticed when they’d met in high school at the footy carnival, was how insufferably awkward he was. He truly was a space cadet. Like now: he’d try and make that seem like a normal thing to be doing until it was painfully obvious it wasn’t. And don’t even get Sean started on the way Jack zoned out on the field sometimes, like he was wondering how the groundskeeper kept the grass looking so good rather than the, you know, fucking game they were playing in front of a hundred thousand people.

“Oh, and I messaged Jayden as well,” he went on, unsure but barrelling on bravely. “I called him right after too of course, but I didn’t want to call him now since it’s still early.”

Sean watched him through slitted eyes. “How the fuck did you get his number?”

Jack frowned. “Of course I’ve got his number.”

Sean squeezed his eyes shut. He’d woken up in a parallel universe.

“Sean Hiller,” a man said brightly from the doorway. Sean opened his eyes to see a big whitefella, his smile lively as he looked at Sean like he knew him. Sean had never seen him before in his life.

“Alright, Sean,” the lady doctor said, “I’m going to hand you over to Doctor Harris now, but everything looks good, better than we hoped when you first came in.” She smiled and patted his shoulder before going over to this Doctor Harris and inclining her head for him to follow her out the door.

Sean sat in strained silence with Jack, both of them watching the two doctors talking on the other side of the glass.

“I’ll have to pop home before six to check on Lola,” Jack said. He sipped his coffee, eyes fixed on the doctors; another attempt at casual.

Who the fuck was Lola? And why the fuck was Jack telling him about her?

“But Ben’ll be here by then. I’ll get some more of your stuff,” he jerked his chin at Sean’s travel duffel on the ground and the cupboard, where he presumed his clothes were. “Just let me know what you want.”

Sean stared at his profile, the blonde stubble on his jawline, the crease at the edge of his mouth, the laugh lines beginning to groove into his tan around his eyes. He looked older, and not like this conversation was ageing him, but like he was actually older. It was a slight change, a sharpness to his face, all evidence of the boyish padding from when they first met at seventeen completely gone.

“Who the fuck is Lola?” Sean asked, his voice still rough.

Jack jerked, eyes widening; it would’ve been funny except he looked scared. “What? She’s our—”

“Sean Hiller,” the man doctor said again with a smile in his voice. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you awake. Really stretching the old payroll, eh? This isn’t quite a torn ligament.” He laughed heartily.

Jack was standing, frantic; Sean could feel his energy, and it was making every hair on his body stand up.

“He can’t remember,” Jack said and faltered.

“Can’t remember?” The doctor, Harris, this was Harris, directed at Jack, smiling warmly.

“His head, he’s had a head injury, could his memory…?” Jack asked like he hoped he was wrong.

Harris frowned. “Sean,” he turned back to him, “do you think something’s off with your memory?”

“How in the fuck should I know?” Sean asked, which was a legitimate question—how would he know? It was sure as shit strange that Jack was there, acting like they were friends, but that was probably guilt for their fight.

Harris chuckled. “Fair. Tell me who the Premier is,” he said and took a seat, clicking his pen open and glancing at Sean’s notes like he wasn’t concerned at all.

“How in the fuck should I know?” he replied again, aware he was being abnormally rude and this doctor probably thought he was another angry blackfella, but he couldn’t stop the irritation from infusing his words with Jack so close. “No one gives a shit about State politics, they ain’t got no real power,” he finished.

Jack snorted. Sean whipped his head to the side to look at him, which was a mistake since it made a sharp pain shoot up his neck and ricochet through his skull. “Don’t need no uni degree to know that.”

Jack’s eyes widened. “I don’t think you do. It’s just, you know, funny,” he finished weakly.

Sean narrowed his eyes.

“Alright, well, some people care about the state of the roads,” Harris replied around his laughter. “But maybe an easier question. What’s the last thing you remember? Before the accident?”

Sean stared at him. He didn’t think Harris was asking for explicit details here, but the memory made Sean feel hot anyway. The fight with Jack. Sean had thought he was alone in the change room after their loss. It’d been the worst kind of loss. Two points in it and Jack’s kick should’ve meant six points and a five-point lead and instead he’d missed the middle for a shot on goal and it’d dribbled through the outside posts for a behind, his point inching them to a one-point loss. Sean had been seething. But he’d been seething at Jack all year. Jack had gotten his trade back home to Perth from Melbourne, forcing his presence into Sean’s life as someone he had to see every day rather than twice a year, still so insufferably him . Certainly not the Jack Sean met in high school, not the guy who’d almost ended Sean’s career before it’d begun and never even deigned to take responsibility for it. By the time Sean had dragged himself out of the change room and into the showers and seen who was under the lone spray at the end of the row, he’d been furious all over again. All of it, a year of it, rushed back in. He’d stood under his own showerhead, doing his best to ignore Jack and those feelings, had tensed when he heard Jack’s shower turn off. His feet had slapped on the tiles as he approached, and then, unbelievably, stopped behind him. Sean breathed deeply, if Jack wanted to fucking go, they’d fucking go—

“We’d just lost the preliminary final by one point,” he said now.

Harris frowned. Jack sucked in a sharp breath.

“You boys weren’t in the prelim this year,” Harris said.

“Against Adelaide,” Jack choked out. “He means against Adelaide.”

Harris frowned. “Sean, what year do you think it is?”

Now Sean frowned. “2020. We just lost the prelim, then I musta had an accident on the way home?”

Jack’s chair scraped loudly on the floor. He crossed the room in a few long strides and left.

Sean watched him go around the side of the nurse’s station, his eyes down and those two stupid takeaway coffees in his hands. He collided with a nurse, righting the coffees just in time, apologised, spun, then disappeared down the corridor.

“Hmm,” Harris said. He didn’t sound too concerned. Sean returned his eyes to him. Harris smiled warmly again. “So, do you know who I am?”

“Ya said you’re Harris?” Sean asked.

“I am, Doctor Harris, Chief of Sports Medicine at Fremantle footy club, I took over from Doctor Antionette Lees at the end of 2020, treated you through a ligament tear in 2021, your best mate Jack there through a knee reconstruction in 2022 and since you boys are so close, you helped him with rehab and aftercare. We saw a lot of each other at Jack’s appointments.”

Sean was speechless. It felt like he was hearing a story from another time, another life, which he guessed he was, but how?

“How?” he asked.

“Well, I’m not sure yet, but we’re gonna run some tests and I’m going to ask you a few more questions…”

Harris asked his questions, and Sean responded like a normal person, he was pretty sure, but two years, he’d lost two years. Almost to the day. And somewhere in there he’d clearly lost his mind because it sounded like him and Jack were friends. Friends . It was ludicrous. He wanted to demand Jack tell him what he’d done to get Sean to concede to that. Did he have something on him? Except as the sun rose beyond the nurse’s station and filled the floor with spring sunshine, Jack never came back.