Connecting Flights

Lottie boards the connecting flight without expecting much. She never does. Planes are just machines in the sky, cramped seats and recycled air and hours of trying not to elbow the stranger next to you. She tells himself she’ll nap, maybe read a little, maybe scribble some notes in the margin of the article he stuffed into her bag, but nothing exciting ever happens on flights. That’s the rule.

She shuffles through the line at check-in, clutching her boarding pass like it’s going to sprout wings and fly away if she loosens her grip. She tries not to fidget, tries not to pace. Waiting makes her twitchy, and airports are basically temples to waiting.

The announcement crackles over the speakers, muffled and impersonal, and the line starts to move. Lottie shoulders her bag and follows along, humming under her breath, nerves buzzing the way they always do when she’s in transition—between one place and another, one role and another, one version of herself and the next.

Somewhere in the distance, she sees it. That head of hair. That sharp, impossible black that she would recognize anywhere, in any crowd, under any lighting.

She freezes, boarding pass crumpling in her fist, because Hannah is there. Hannah, of all people, on the stupid connecting flight in the stupid airport at the exact stupid time. And not just there—smiling. Laughing at something the flight attendant says, flashing that sharp, easy grin that makes people think she’s approachable, charismatic, someone you want to talk to.

Lottie knows that smile. Knows it in her bones. Knows what it looks like up close, knows how it shifts when it’s forced, knows how rare it actually is when it’s real.

And just like that, a regular flight becomes ten times more difficult.

Because how is she supposed to sit on a plane for hours, breathing the same air, maybe brushing by, maybe making eye contact, pretending like she doesn’t remember every single detail about the first time they met? Pretending like she hasn’t spent years balancing on the knife-edge between admiration and bitterness? Pretending like she isn’t still keeping score in a game Hannah probably doesn’t even know they’re playing?

Lottie remembers the first time she met her like it’s carved somewhere in her brain, fossilized in that strange amber light of memory that always makes everything seem sharper, harsher, too defined to have been real. It wasn’t even anything special, not really.

She’d been new. Ridiculously, painfully new. Her whole body was buzzing with nerves and anticipation, like she couldn’t stand still even if her life depended on it. She remembers bouncing on her heels, trying to swallow down the lump of excitement in her throat, trying to look professional and calm, which—didn’t work. At all.

“Lottie Reeves, I’ve heard a lot about you,” she’d blurted out, way too fast, voice cracking just a little because her vocal cords were conspiring against her. She hadn’t even gotten halfway through her rambling, overly rehearsed introduction when Hannah looked her up and down like she was something on the bottom of her shoe.

“…You in training?” Hannah had asked, flat, uninterested, like the answer was already obvious and the only reason he bothered to ask at all was to confirm the thing she already knew.

Lottie, who had been expecting—well, not praise, not exactly, but maybe something warmer than a verbal shrug, had lit up anyway. “Yes!” she said, too brightly.

And Hannah hadn’t even blinked. She just grunted, shoved her hands into her pockets as though the conversation was already over, and said, “Don’t expect we’ll be working together much, then.”

Lottie should have hated her for that. Should have felt that sharp sting of rejection and turned it into resentment. It would’ve been easier. Cleaner. But she didn’t. Not really. Because beneath the sting there was something else: recognition. Because Lottie had already known Hannah’s name before she’d met her, already knew her reputation, already knew the weight he carried in a room. She couldn’t hate her.

Not until he realized how often Hannah’s name came up in meetings, how often her reports were praised, how many nods and acknowledgments he got for things Lottie had done too, things Lottie had done maybe even better, though of course she’d never say that out loud.

Not until Lottie found himself clapping politely in the background while Hannah was recognized again, and again, and again, as if Lottie’s efforts were invisible, as if she were just… supplemental. An echo of someone louder, sharper, easier to see.

Lottie leans back in her seat, a book resting uselessly in her lap. She exhales slowly, trying to pretend she’s reading, but the words blur and swim across the page. The hum of the plane beneath her is constant, almost comforting.

With a groan, she leans forward and pushes off the seat, moving towards the restroom.

She doesn’t even get to knock before the door opens, and suddenly Hannah is all up in her space, leaning back like she owns the cramped space. Her black hair sticks up in ways that somehow make her look both infuriatingly confident and annoyingly approachable at the same time. The fluorescent light bounces off the tile, making every sharp angle of her face impossible to ignore.

Lottie’s chest tightens, stomach doing that jittery thing it always does when Hannah is near, and she has to swallow hard before her voice betrays her. “I just… need to use the restroom,” she says, words coming out faster than she intended, like a rush of air that wants to escape before it can be corrected.

Hannah glances up, one brow raising, the barest twitch of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Right,” she says casually, and leans further against the door. “Where are you flying to?”

“…Chicago,” Lottie says, hating how small her voice sounds. She wants to say more—maybe something witty, something neutral, maybe something that doesn’t make her feel like a seventeen-year-old standing in front of a disapproving superior again—but the words don’t come. They never do.

Hannah tilts her head, eyes narrowing just slightly, like she’s studying her, weighing her, testing whether Lottie has changed. “You really do end up everywhere,” she says, tone casual, but there’s a sharp edge that makes Lottie flinch.

“I travel a lot,” Lottie stammers. “For work. Training. Stuff.” she wants to add “important stuff,” but it dies in her throat because that’s exactly the kind of thing Hannah would scoff at.

Hannah shrugs. “Huh. At least you take the job seriously.” This time the grin is half teasing, half… something else, something Lottie can’t name without her face catching fire.

“Of course I do,” Lottie says too quickly, heart hammering because she knows Hannah is testing her, like she always does. “I mean, I… I try really hard. Always.” The words are almost pleading. Not for praise, exactly—just… recognition. Just some acknowledgment that all the time, the effort, the constant self-editing and training and planning actually matters.

Hannah stares at her for a second longer, arms crossed. “…Yeah, I’ve seen that,” she says finally.

And then, just as Lottie catches something in Hannah’s eyes, a man stumbles beside them, bright and smiling. “Dr. Mercer! Who’s this?”

Hannah blinks, momentarily thrown, but recovers instantly. She gestures toward Lottie. “This is Dr. Charlotte Reeves.” The introduction is simple, but Lottie can feel the weight in the pause. “My colleague.”

The man offers his hand, and Lottie mutters a small acknowledgment as she shakes it. “Nice to meet you.”

And then she quietly excuses himself, shuffling past Hannah, every muscle tense, heart still hammering from that small, impossible interaction, from the way Hannah had looked at her, the way Hannah had… known her, even now. She steps back into the aisle and heads for her seat, cheeks burning, head spinning, and the rest of the flight suddenly feels infinitely longer.

She opens her book and tries to read, tries to anchor herself in something normal—something that isn’t… Hannah.

But it doesn’t last. There’s a sudden commotion up front, a murmur that swells into something panicked. People are standing, whispering urgently. The air in the cabin suddenly feels thicker, and Lottie can’t help but lean forward, ears straining.

“Is there a doctor on the plane?” someone shouts, voice tight with fear.

The words hit her like a punch. The entire flight feels like it’s slowed, and all she can do is wait. Wait for Hannah. Wait for that head of dark hair to pop up, for that confident, infuriatingly competent self-assuredness to spring into action.

Except it doesn’t.

Except Hannah isn’t answering.

Something in Lottie twists in her chest, tightening so sharply it almost hurts to breathe. She pushes out of her seat before he can think, moving down the aisle two steps at a time, eyes scanning.

Hannah is on the floor, crumpled unnaturally, motionless, the small hum of the plane no longer enough to drown out the chaos around her. Someone kneels beside her, shaking her lightly. “…She’s not breathing!” a voice yells, and Lottie freezes, because the words are too real. Too impossible.

Time stretches. The cabin spins. Every instinct in Lottie’s body screams, but there’s a moment—just a fraction of a second—where she stands there, rooted to the spot.

Should she even help?

her heart pounds so violently he’s sure it can be heard over the flapping of panicked wings in the cabin. Her mind races, calculating, remembering every emergency drill, every lesson, every protocol she’s ever learned. Hands shake. Breath catches. And then her eyes lock on Hannah’s still face, jaw slack, hair matted against the floor.

She can’t think about their awkward bathroom conversation anymore. She can’t think about anything but this. Hannah isn’t dismissing her. Hannah is… helpless.

The hesitation doesn’t last long. Not when someone’s life is on the line. Not when that someone happens to be the infuriating, impossible, brilliant woman who somehow, stubbornly, matters more than she’s willing to admit.

Lottie drops to her knees beside her, hands trembling as they hover over Hannah’s chest. Every second is too long, every breath too loud in her own ears, and the world contracts until it’s just her and the desperate need to act.

“Okay,” she whispers, almost to herself.

She sees it a second later—the subtle rise and fall that isn’t rising or falling enough. The shallow, trembling chest. The way Hannah’s fingers twitch against the aisle carpet. The sharp pain in her face, the tension in her shoulders, the pallor that makes her blood run cold.

A collapsed lung.

her hands move before she can second-guess herself, shaking as she pulls the small, disposable kit from the emergency supplies. The metal glints under the harsh fluorescent cabin lights, and Lottie swallows hard, forcing herself to remember: precise. Fast. Controlled. Her heart hammers like it wants to escape her chest, but she can’t stop.

She positions the tiny needle just where it needs to be, careful, trembling, sweat prickling along the back of her neck. She barely breathes as she inserts it, and for a moment the world narrows to a single point: the hiss of air escaping, the sharp exhale of relief she didn’t realize Hannah had been holding.

Minutes stretch. Lottie stays by Hannah’s side, guiding her through shallow, careful breaths, watching for any subtle shifts or signs of regression, until the captain’s voice finally announces that medical assistance will meet them immediately upon landing. The plane hums beneath them, engines vibrating, but Lottie barely notices, mind tethered to the sharp lines of Hannah’s collarbone.

When the plane lands and the medical team swarms in, taking over, Lottie steps back reluctantly. She watches them lift Hannah onto the stretcher, secure her, check monitors, all the while the passengers are whispering like they can’t quite process what they just witnessed. And the whispers… are all about Hannah. About the fact that she collapsed, that the “famous” Hannah Mercer had nearly died mid-flight. No one notices the trembling hands, the focused eyes, the precise, life-saving insertion that made the difference.

Lottie’s chest tightens. The sting of invisibility—it’s familiar, almost routine—but it doesn’t matter. She didn’t do it for praise. She didn’t even do it for Hannah, not exactly, though that thought flares warmly in the back of her mind.

She slides down into the nearest empty seat, hands pressed to her face, breathing hard, stomach still coiled with adrenaline, and for a moment allows herself to just… exist. heart still hammering, chest still tightening with the unspoken relief that Hannah’s alive, that she’s breathing, that she’s okay.

Lottie isn’t expecting anything. When she’s back at work she is mostly trying to focus, to pretend like the week hasn’t been a whirlwind of panic, adrenaline, and—of course—Hannah. But somehow, improbably, she finds himself cornered. Not by an angry boss or a particularly nosy passenger, but by Hannah herself.

She’s leaning casually against the wall outside the staff break room, arms crossed, posture too confident for someone who’d almost died a few days ago. Dark hair slightly messy, expression sharper than a scalpel, and yet… there’s something softer there too. Just the tiniest flicker, the first crack in ice that refuses to melt fully.

“Lottie,” Hannah starts, voice low, rough around the edges, like it’s uncomfortable for her to voice what she’s about to say but she’s forcing herself anyway. “You did… good.”

The words feel like a spark, short-circuiting Lottie’s thoughts. She freezes, mouth dry, heartbeat pounding in a rhythm she can’t control. And then, Hannah extends a hand. Just a simple handshake, but it’s heavy with all the things neither of them say aloud.

Lottie blinks. hesitates. And then shakes it, fingers gripping Hannah’s with a little more force than necessary, trying to steady herself while her heart refuses to obey.

“You—” Hannah pauses, then shrugs like she doesn’t know what else to say, “…you did good, Reeves. Seriously.”

Lottie swallows, chest tight, eyes flicking away for just a second. And then she smiles, small, awkward, but genuine. “…I didn’t do it for you,” she says softly, both a defense and a confession all at once.

Hannah snorts, half amused, half exasperated, and somehow it makes Lottie’s chest ache. “…Yeah, yeah, I know,” she mutters, letting go of her hand and taking a step back, though the sharp angle of her shoulders still makes her look infuriatingly impossible.

Lottie lets out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. She feels lighter somehow, even if her stomach is still twisting, even if her brain is still scrambling to process the fact that Hannah just… said it. Just acknowledged her, even in the tiniest, strangest way.

And for the first time since forever, Lottie allows herself to smile a little wider. Because maybe he didn’t do it for Hannah—but maybe Hannah noticing it… means more than she’s willing to admit.