The panic attack came on a Tuesday.

Not dramatically — her panic attacks never announced themselves. They crept in through the service entrance, under the cover of an ordinary afternoon. She had been reviewing her next collection's galley proofs when the deadlines stacked themselves into a structure she couldn't see around, and then she was thinking about the collection and the contract and the conversation she needed to have with Daniel about extending the arc and the one she needed to have with her landlord about the heating unit that had been making a sound since October, and then she was thinking about all of it simultaneously which was not the same thing as thinking about it usefully.

Her chest tightened.

She put the proofs down and sat on the floor of her studio, which was the closest available surface, with Sunny crowding immediately into her space.

"Hey," she said to him. "Hey, it's fine."

He was not convinced.

She texted Lucien from the floor: Having a moment. Not an emergency. Can you come?

He was at her door in four minutes.

She heard the key — she had given him a key two weeks ago, part of the ongoing transparency negotiations, access acknowledged and accepted — and his footsteps crossing the apartment, and then he was at the studio doorway.

He looked at her on the floor.

At Sunny occupying most of her lap.

At the proofs scattered around her.

Then he came and sat beside her on the floor.

Not across. Not in front of. Beside.

"Tell me," he said.

"I ran the math on the deadlines," she said. "And then I couldn't stop running it."

"Show me."

She showed him the calendar on her phone. He looked at it for a moment.

"Chapter 44 can move," he said.

"Daniel needs—"

"Daniel can have it a week later. You've delivered early six consecutive times." His voice was even. "You have credit."

"That's not really—" She stopped. Breathed. "It's not just the deadlines. It's the accumulation. Everything at once."

"What's everything?"

She sat with that for a moment.

"The collection contract. The healing unit. My grandmother's birthday is in two weeks and she's been gone three years and every year it catches me by surprise how much that hurts." She looked at her hands. "And I'm very aware that I'm sitting on my studio floor having a small breakdown and you're here and I'm simultaneously grateful and embarrassed and trying to assess whether I'm leaning on you too much."

He was quiet for a moment.

Then: "What would 'too much' look like to you?"

She thought about it.

"You changing your schedule for my emergencies repeatedly," she said. "Becoming responsible for my emotional regulation."

"Has that happened?"

"Not exactly."

"Then your concern is anticipatory."

She looked at him.

"Lucien."

"I'm not dismissing it," he said. "I'm being precise. You're describing a fear about the future, not a current failure."

She leaned her head sideways against the wall.

"You're very logical," she said.

"When you need me to be," he said. "I can be less logical."

"Can you?"

"I can sit here and not say anything useful."

She smiled despite herself. It was small and slightly wet around the edges.

He reached over and rested his hand on her knee.

She put her hand over his.

They sat on the studio floor while Sunny gradually redistributed himself across both of them with the democratic warmth of a dog who found emotional crises an excellent opportunity for extended physical contact.

"The heating unit," Lucien said, after a while.

"What about it?"

"I know the building's contractor. I can have someone look at it this week."

"You don't have to—"

"I know." A pause. "Your grandmother's birthday. Do you want to do something? A small thing. Mark it."

She looked at him.

"Like what?"

"I don't know her. You could tell me."

She sat with that for a moment.

"She made jam every August," Elowen said. "But we could — there's a small Japanese garden near the river that she would have liked. She liked quiet places with intentional design."

"We could go on her birthday," he said. "If you want company."

She looked at him.

The panic had not disappeared exactly, but it had been redistributed somehow — acknowledged, made lighter by being seen. That was the specific alchemy of him: he didn't fix the thing. He sat on the floor with it until it was a manageable size.

"Yes," she said. "I'd like company."

His hand turned and held hers properly.

"The deadlines," he said. "Want to work through them now or tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," she said. "Tonight I think I need to just—"

"Alright," he said.

"—not be productive."

"Then don't be."

She leaned her head against his shoulder.

He stayed.