Holy Sins

The Mercy Of Distraction

AERIS

I lay there for a while after the alarm went off, staring at the ceiling, waiting for my damn heartbeat to calm the hell down.

Another dream. Another version of Ronan I had zero business conjuring up in my sleep, and even less business enjoying as much as I did. I pressed the heel of my hand against my eyes until spots bloomed behind them, muttered something obscene at the ceiling, and finally hauled myself up before I spiraled any harder than I already had.

First day at the clinic. That was the thing that actually mattered today. Not whatever filthy little movie my subconscious had decided to run me through overnight.

I showered until the water went cold, threw on scrubs that still smelled like the box they shipped in, and dragged a brush through my hair without much enthusiasm for the effort. When I came downstairs, my mom already had eggs going and a look on her face like she knew exactly what kind of night I'd had which, thank God, was impossible.

"You look tired," she said, sliding a plate at me.

"Didn't sleep great."

"Mm." She didn't push, just handed me coffee like she knew I needed it more than food. "Nervous about today?"

"A little." Not a lie, at least. "It's not Elderglen. Different pace. Different everything, probably."

"You'll be fine." Said like it was already decided, like arguing with her would be a waste of everybody's morning. "You always land on your feet."

I hadn't felt like I'd landed on anything lately except a man I had absolutely no business landing on. But I let her have the moment and ate my eggs.

---

I was maybe five minutes down the road, windows cracked, coffee sweating in the cupholder, when I spotted a young woman walking the shoulder with one hand pressed to her back and the other braced under a belly that looked like it was actively trying to ruin her whole morning.

I slowed and rolled the window down.

"Hey…you need a ride?"

She turned, squinting into the sun. "God, yes." Already moving toward the car like she'd been praying for exactly this. "Thank you. I swear this kid's trying to walk me to death before it's even born."

"Get in before you go into labor on the shoulder." I popped the door. "I'm Aeris."

"Josie." She dropped into the seat with a groan that sounded like it came straight from her spine. "You're Vaelina's daughter, right? The one who came back."

"That's me. Word travels fast."

"Everything travels fast in this town." She buckled in, wincing. "You headed to the clinic? I've got an appointment."

"First day, actually."

"No s**t. Small world." She laughed, then grabbed her belly like the laugh had cost her something. "You'll like Dr. Ella. Hardass, but good. Way better than the guy she replaced."

"When are you due?"

"Three weeks. Feels like three years." She shifted, clearly failing to get comfortable. "Everybody keeps asking if I'm 'ready.' I don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean. Nobody's ready. You just get shoved into it whether you like it or not."

"Sounds about right." I pulled back onto the road. "First kid?"

"Yeah. My husband's working most days, so it's mostly just me and this thing kicking my ribs at three in the morning." She glanced over. "You got kids?"

"No."

"Married?"

"Widowed," I said, eyes on the road. "Recently."

"s**t. Sorry." She didn't dance around it, didn't get weird about it either, which I appreciated more than I expected to. "That's why you came back?"

"Something like that."

She let it sit a beat, which I also appreciated, then mercifully changed the subject. "Have you heard about Father Dominic?"

"Yeah. I was at the burial."

"The whole town was." She shook her head. "Man married my parents. Baptized me. Feels wrong, this place without him in it." A pause. "Have you met the other one yet? Father Armand?"

My hands stayed steady on the wheel. Barely. "Once or twice."

"He's something, right?" Said it like the most obvious fact in the world, completely oblivious to what it was doing to my pulse. "My husband's not exactly the jealous type, but he even made a comment once about how unfair it is that a priest looks like that. Should be illegal."

"Should be," I agreed, and kept my eyes very, very forward.

"Anyway. The whole town's worried about him after Dominic. Those two were tight. Like, real tight. My mother-in-law says he hasn't been the same since." She winced again, hand low on her belly. "God, I hope this kid comes soon. I'm so damn done being a house."

I laughed, grateful for the subject change, and pulled into the clinic a few minutes later with my nerves mostly buried under everything she'd just handed me to chew on instead.

---

The clinic was smaller than anything I'd worked in back in Elderglen one main hallway, a handful of exam rooms, a waiting area that hadn't been updated since the nineties but was clean as hell and clearly well-loved. Josie peeled off toward the front desk with a wave and a "good luck, new girl," and I found my way to the back where a woman in dark blue scrubs was elbow-deep in a supply closet, cursing under her breath.

"You must be Aeris." She didn't even look up, just kept shoving boxes around like they'd personally pissed her off. "I'm Renata. Head nurse, unofficial supply closet warden, and the only person in this building who actually knows where anything is."

"Nice to meet you."

"You will be, once you find out what a shitshow this place runs on." She finally straightened, blowing a strand of hair out of her face, and looked me over with the kind of assessing glance I recognized from every hospital I'd ever worked in the *are you gonna be useful or are you gonna be a problem* look.

"Vaelina's daughter. City nurse. Big shoes, small town."

"I can handle small towns."

"We'll see." Said with something close to a smile, jerking her head toward the hallway. "Come on. Dr. Ella wants to meet you before she gets buried in appointments, and trust me once Josie's in there complaining about her back for the fortieth time this month, she will be."

Dr. Ella turned out sharp-eyed, no-nonsense, and completely uninterested in wasting time on pleasantries, firm handshake, a rundown of the clinic's chaos disguised as a schedule, and exactly ninety seconds of small talk before she handed me a chart and told me to keep up.

I spent the rest of the day running between exam rooms, learning where things actually lived versus where the labels claimed they lived, and getting quietly, thoroughly tested by both Renata and Dr. Ella in the particular way small clinics test new hires, like they didn't have the bandwidth for anything less than competent.

By the time my shift ended, my feet ached in a way that felt almost good, familiar, like something in my body remembered how to be useful again. Renata caught me on the way out, arms crossed, giving me the same assessing look from that morning.

"Not bad," she said. "For the first day."

"High praise."

"Don't get used to it." But she was smiling when she said it, and I took the win.

I drove home with the windows down, tired in the kind of way that actually felt like relief, and for a solid twenty minutes I didn't think about Ronan Armand once.

It didn't last. Nothing lately did.

But for twenty minutes, at least, I got to be somebody who fixed s**t instead of somebody drowning in a decision she hadn't even fully made yet.