Chapter 1: Blood, Breath, and a Bad Lie
The air in the medical room was cold and still, smelling sharply of antiseptic and vinyl. It was a sanctuary of silence after the roaring, rain-lashed chaos of Murrayfield. Roz’s fingers, usually so steady when holding a textbook or a pen, trembled slightly as she peeled the blood-soaked gauze from the young man’s brow.
Alistair MacLeod. Ally. Everyone knew him. His grin was on billboards, his try-scoring highlights on every sports reel. Seeing him pixelated on a screen or from the dizzying height of the stadium stands was one thing. Having him seated on the examination plinth, his massive thigh brushing her hip, his breath coming in hot, ragged gusts against her wrist, was entirely another.
“Just a superficial laceration,” she said, her voice softer than she intended. She aimed for professional detachment, the kind her tutors demonstrated. It sounded thin, even to her.
“Superficial.” He chuckled, a low, pained sound. “Tell that to my head. Feels like a prop stood on it.”
She risked a glance at his face. Up close, the movie-star likeness was unfair. Grass stains smudged one sharp cheekbone. His green eyes, vivid against the mud and blood, were fixed on her with an unsettling focus. It wasn’t the vacant stare of concussed players she’d assisted with before. This was acute, present. It made the fine hairs on her arms stand up.
“You need sutures,” she said, turning to prepare the tray. The clink of instruments was too loud in the quiet. “Local anesthetic first. It’ll sting.”
“Aye, fire away. Can’t be worse than Big Donnie’s elbow.”
She administered the injection, her touch as light as she could make it. He didn’t flinch. The silence stretched, filled only by the distant, muffled roar of the crowd still filing out. She could feel the residual energy vibrating off him, the heat of ninety minutes of brutal exertion. It was like standing next to a banked furnace.
She began to clean the wound, the iodine swab painting his skin a violent orange-brown. The cut was clean, about two centimeters long, perfectly positioned above his right eyebrow. Her world narrowed to the flow of blood, the neat edges of skin, the precise movements of her hands. This, she could do. This was language she understood.
“You’re new,” he said suddenly. His voice was closer. He’d dipped his head slightly.
“Student placement. Fourth year.”
“Roz, right? Saw your badge.”
She nodded, concentrating on threading the fine, curved needle. Her name sounded different in his mouth. Less like a clinical label.
“You’re good at this. Better than Hammy. He’d have just superglued it and told me to man up.”
“Superglue is for equipment, not people,” she murmured, leaning in. The first suture required her to bracket his brow with her fingers, to steady the skin. His face was inches from hers. She caught a scent beneath the sweat and mud: something clean, like soap and cold air.
He held perfectly still. “Don’t tell Hammy I let this happen, aye?” he whispered, a conspiratorial edge to his tone. “Threw a stupid pass, took my eye off the cover. He’ll skin me.”
Then he smiled. It was a crooked, pained thing, but it transformed his face entirely, crinkling the corners of his eyes and revealing a dimple she hadn’t noticed. It was an unguarded, boyish grin, utterly at odds with the fierce warrior who’d just left the pitch. It hit her with a physical force, a sudden, warm unraveling in her chest that traveled down to her fingertips. Her breath caught.
The needle slipped.
It didn’t pierce him, but it was a clumsy, unprofessional movement. She froze, mortification flooding her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey.” His hand came up, large and wrapped in strapping, and gently wrapped around her wrist. His touch was surprisingly gentle. “It’s fine. Breathe. I’m the one covered in muck, not you.”
His thumb rested lightly on her pulse point, which was hammering. He could surely feel it. She forced a breath, nodded, and withdrew her hand from his grip. The air between them felt charged, thick.
“Right,” she said, her voice tighter now. “Let’s… let’s finish this.”
She worked more quickly, her movements efficient but less graceful than before. Three more sutures. She could feel his eyes on her the whole time, but she refused to meet them again. The silence returned, but it had changed. It was no longer just clinical. It was full of something unspoken, a current that hummed beneath the hum of the fluorescent lights.
As she tied off the final knot and trimmed the thread, he spoke again, his tone quieter, less performative. “You study at the university? Not just rugby medicine, I mean.”
“Yes. Full medical degree.”
“Must be clever.” He said it without the usual laddish irony. It sounded like a genuine observation.
“I work hard,” she corrected, applying a sterile dressing. Her composure was returning, brick by brick. “There. All done. Keep it dry. Come back in seven days for suture removal. Or your usual physio can do it.”
He hopped off the plinth, his height suddenly dominating the small room again. He touched the dressing with careful fingers. “Thanks, Roz. For not using superglue.”
He was leaving. The moment, whatever it had been, was over. Relief and a strange, sharp disappointment tangled in her gut. She began tidying the tray, the sharps, the bloody gauze.
At the door, he paused. “That book,” he said, nodding toward the worn couch in the corner. On top of her stacked notebooks and a physiology textbook, a paperback lay face down. Its spine was cracked.
She looked up. “What about it?”
“The Once and Future King. It’s a good one. The bit about the ants gets me every time. All that ‘everything not forbidden is compulsory’.” He quoted it perfectly, the rhythm of the prose natural in his Scottish accent. Then he gave her that grin again, smaller this time, almost shy. “Not just a pretty face with a hard head, despite evidence to the contrary.”
And then he was gone, the door sighing shut behind him, leaving Roz alone in the sterile silence.
She stood motionless, holding a soiled gauze pad. The roar of the crowd was entirely gone now. All she could hear was the frantic thump of her own heart and his voice, replaying in her head. The bit about the ants.
He knew the book. He’d quoted T.H. White. In the medical room. After fifteen stitches.
She walked slowly to the couch and picked up the novel. She traced the cracked spine. The disconnect was dizzying. The brutal physicality of the man on the plinth, and the quiet, literary mind that had just revealed itself. It didn’t fit the profile. It shouldn’t intrigue her.
But it did.
Down the concrete corridor, she heard a sudden, explosive burst of laughter—deep, male, celebratory. Ally’s laugh, she was sure of it. She pictured him back in the belly of the stadium, slapping shoulders, telling a version of the story that probably didn’t include a flustered medical student or a quote from medievalist fantasy.
Roz placed the book in her bag, methodically cleaned the rest of her station, and switched off the lights. As she stepped out into the dim, empty corridor, the echo of that laugh seemed to hang in the damp air. For the first time all day, the quiet felt like loneliness. And the thought of returning to her silent flat, to her orderly, predictable texts, felt profoundly, unsettlingly empty.
The flat was never silent. That was the first, jarring truth that greeted her as she pushed open the front door, the damp Edinburgh night clinging to her coat. The sharp smell of burnt toast undercut by floral detergent. The thump of bass from Cat’s room, the frantic clatter of a keyboard from behind Sam’s door. A shout of laughter from the kitchen.
“Roz! That you?” Cat’s voice, loud and cheerful, sliced through the hallway. “Get in here and tell us if this looks infected!”
Roz sighed, a soft, familiar sound of surrender. Her quiet, orderly mind was a pebble dropped into the pond of her flatmates’ chaos. She hung her coat, her fingers still faintly smelling of antiseptic, and padded into the warm, bright kitchen.
Cat, a drama student, was perched on the counter, holding out a dramatically reddened finger. Sam, studying computer science, was scowling at a line of code on his laptop, a mug of cold tea forgotten beside him.
“It’s a paper cut, Cat,” Roz said, not even needing to look closely.
“But it’s throbbing. And I’ve a devised piece tomorrow. What if it’s septic? What if my arm falls off mid-monologue?”
“It won’t.” Roz opened the fridge, surveyed its chaotic contents. “Wash it. Put a plaster on it. You’ll live.”
Sam snorted without looking up. “Told you.”
“You lot are medically negligent.” Cat hopped down, grabbing the peanut butter jar. “So? How was the land of giant, sweaty men? Sew any heads back on?”
Roz busied herself with making tea. “Just a few stitches. Standard stuff.”
“On who?” Sam asked, his interest piqued enough to glance away from his screen.
“No one. A player.” She kept her voice neutral, focused on the pour of the hot water.
“Which one?” Cat pressed, her eyes sharp. Roz’s reticence was a language her flatmates were fluent in, and they knew how to translate its nuances. Silence meant something interesting.
“Alistair MacLeod.”
The keyboard clattering stopped. Cat let out a low whistle. “The poster boy? The ‘MacLeod the Magnificent’ one? Face intact, I hope?”
“He needed a few sutures. Above his eye. It was fine.”
“You stitched up Ally MacLeod’s face,” Cat stated, drawing out each word with theatrical delight. “And you’re standing there making tea like you just filed some paperwork. Roz. Look at me. Did he speak? Was he nice? Was he an arrogant prick?”
He quoted T.H. White. His smile felt like a minor cardiac event. “He was… polite. Cooperative.”
Sam chuckled. “You’re blushing.”
“I am not.” She felt the heat in her cheeks betray her. She took her tea, a retreat towards her room. “I have a mountain of renal pathophysiology to get through.”
“She’s blushing!” Cat crowed. “Oh, this is brilliant. The ice queen of medicine meets Scotland’s rugby prince.”
“He’s not a prince. And I’m not an ice queen.” Roz’s protest was half-hearted, already spoken to their empty hallway as she escaped.
Her room was a smaller sanctuary: a single bed, a desk groaning under textbooks, a small window looking onto the darkened street. She placed the tea down beside The Once and Future King. The juxtaposition was absurd. The dense, highlighted medical notes on glomerular filtration rates, and the mythic, bittersweet fantasy of a boy becoming a king.
She tried to read. The words swam on the page. Everything not forbidden is compulsory. The phrase looped in her mind, in his voice. What did that even mean, here, now? That because no rule forbade her from thinking about him, she was compelled to? It was a ridiculous, unprofessional line of thought.
A notification chimed on her phone, making her jump. It was a generic email from the placement coordinator about shift schedules. She dropped the phone, irritated with her own reaction.
The flat’s noises continued around her—a shower running, a dispute over the last of the milk, the relentless tap-tap of Sam’s keyboard. This was her real life. The medical room, with its charged silence and green eyes, was the anomaly. A vivid, disquieting dream.
She opened her pathology text again, forcing her concentration. This was her focus. This was her future. Not the fleeting, adrenaline-soaked world of athletes, and certainly not the confusing smile of one who read the same books she did. That way lay distraction. And Roz did not get where she was by being distracted.
Down the hall, Cat laughed again. Roz took a deep, steadying sip of tea, the warmth a concrete comfort. She anchored herself in the familiar weight of the book, the known challenge of her studies. The emptiness from the stadium was just fatigue, she decided. Just the crash after a strange, high-pressure evening.
She would forget the way he’d looked at her. She would forget the feel of his skin under her fingers, the surprising gentleness of his hand on her wrist. She would forget the clever, hidden mind behind the famous face. It was just a clinical interaction. A one-off.
Another notification. This one was a text, from an unknown number.
Unknown: It’s Ally. From the stitches. Hammy gave me your number. Hope that’s okay.
Unknown: I was thinking. About the ants. And compulsory things. Fancy a coffee sometime? When my head’s less scrambled.
The phone felt suddenly heavy in her hand. The flat’s noises—Cat’s voice, Sam’s typing, the hum of the fridge—all receded into a distant, muffled haze. The only real sound was the frantic drum of her own heart, loud in her ears, as she stared at the glowing screen.
The only real sound was the frantic drum of her own heart, loud in her ears, as she stared at the glowing screen.
What the hell?
The two messages burned in her vision. Hammy gave him her number. Dr. Hamilton, her placement supervisor, the strict, old-school team doctor who’d lectured her just last week on professional boundaries, had just handed her personal number to a player. A patient. It was so inappropriate it was laughable. It wasn't just unprofessional; it was a breach. A hot spike of betrayal, sharp and clean, shot through her shock.
What was Dr. Hamilton thinking? Was it some kind of test? A twisted favor? She imagined the conversation: Ally’s charming grin, a casual ‘hey, what was the student’s name?’, and Hammy, maybe seeing a star player’s interest as a trivial thing, scribbling it down. Her privacy, her carefully maintained separation, traded for nothing.
Her thumb hovered over the screen. A part of her, the part that had felt that unwelcome unraveling in the clinic, wanted to decipher the second text. The ants. Compulsory things. It was clever. It was a direct line to the one moment she’d let her guard down.
No.
She locked the phone with a decisive click and placed it face down on the textbook, as if it were something radioactive. She didn’t reply. She wouldn’t. Instead, she powered it off completely, the screen going black and empty. The silence it left was heavier than before.
The next morning was a blur of forced normalcy. Lectures in the ancient, echoing medical school hall, the smell of old books and floor polish. She took meticulous notes on ischemic heart disease, her handwriting a controlled, angular script. She didn’t turn her phone on. The absence of it in her pocket was a constant, nagging reminder.
“You’re quiet,” Cat mumbled around a mouthful of banana at the library steps.
“Tired,” Roz said, which wasn’t a lie.
Her afternoon placement was at the out-patient physio clinic at the sports complex, a different wing from the stadium’s inner sanctum. It was a bright, airy space with the constant whirr of exercise bikes and the low groan of athletes pushing through rehab. It was safe. It was mundane.
She was restocking the ultrasound gel when she heard the deep, familiar laugh.
It came from the reception area, just beyond the open door. Her hands stilled. It couldn’t be. He’d be training. Or doing media. Or having his head examined by Hammy himself.
“...just popping in to see Hammy about the stitches, but he’s not in his office. Said I’d check here.”
Ally’s voice. Casual, friendly.
Roz slowly turned. He was leaning on the high reception desk, dressed in track pants and a tight training top that outlined the powerful set of his shoulders. The white dressing above his eye was stark against his skin. He was smiling at Linda, the head physio, who was smiling back with a warmth she usually reserved for consultants who signed off on new equipment.
“He’s at a meeting at the Royal, won’t be back today,” Linda said. “But let me see that. Our Roz did a neat job.”
Our Roz. The phrase made her flinch.
He turned, following Linda’s glance. His green eyes found her instantly, as if he’d known exactly where she was standing. The easy smile on his face shifted, just a fraction. It became more specific, more intent. It was a look that said there you are.
“Hey,” he said.
Every protocol, every professional instinct, screamed at her to be polite, detached, and brief. The betrayal over her number tightened her jaw. She gave a small, formal nod. “Alistair.”
“Could you take a quick look, Roz?” Linda asked, already turning to answer a ringing phone. “Make sure it’s not angry. I’ve got this call.”
And just like that, Linda was gone, leaving them in the middle of the busy clinic.
Ally walked over. He moved with an athlete’s loose-limbed grace, but his eyes were watchful on her face. “You didn’t text back,” he said quietly, stopping a few feet away. A respectful distance, but it felt intimate amidst the clinical bustle.
“I turned my phone off,” she said, her voice cool. She focused on his brow, avoiding his eyes. “It was inappropriate for you to get my number that way.”
He had the decency to look abashed. A faint pink tinged his cheeks above his stubble. “Aye. I know. I just asked Hammy for the name of the student who fixed me up so I could thank her properly. He must have misunderstood. I’m sorry. That was my fault.”
The apology disarmed her. It was direct, didn’t make excuses. She finally met his gaze. “It was.”
“Can I… make it up to you? That coffee? As a proper apology. No ants. No compulsory anything.” The crooked grin returned, this time tinged with a genuine uncertainty that was far more dangerous than his confidence had been.
She should say no. This was the line. Crossing it meant admitting the current she’d felt, meant engaging with the complication.
Linda was still on the phone. A cyclist winced on a plinth nearby as a physio worked on his IT band. The sun streamed in through the high windows, catching the dust motes in the air.
Her mouth was dry. “I’m working.”
“After?”
“I have to study.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“This isn’t a good idea.”
“Why not?”
Because you’re a patient. Because you’re famous. Because my flatmates will never shut up about it. Because you look at me and my hands forget how to hold a needle.
“One coffee,” he said. His voice was low, earnest. “If it’s terrible, if I’m terrible, you never have to see me again. You can report Hammy for ethical violations. I’ll testify.”
A laugh, unbidden and startled, escaped her. She clamped her lips together, but it was too late. The sound had changed the air between them.
He saw it. The hope in his eyes was blatant now. “That’s a maybe. I heard a maybe.”
“It’s a ‘I need to check your wound’,” she deflected, stepping closer. The professional pretext. She gently peeled back the dressing. His skin was warm. The sutures were clean, the edges knitting well. No sign of infection. “It’s healing fine.”
“So is that a yes?”
She replaced the dressing, her fingers steady this time. The decision felt less like a step and more like a lean, a gradual giving way to gravity. “What time?”
“What time?”
The question hung there, and the moment stretched thin. The whir of the exercise bike behind her seemed to amplify, a metallic soundtrack to her indecision. She could feel Linda’s occasional glance from the reception desk, could sense the entire clinic as a stage where she was suddenly, terribly visible.
His eyes were on her, waiting. Hopeful.
The reality of it crashed down, cold and sobering. The white dressing on his brow was a beacon, a professional brand. She saw Dr. Hamilton’s disappointed frown, the ethics committee’s stern letter, the collapse of a placement she’d worked for years to earn. This wasn’t a meet-cute in a bookshop. This was her future.
She took a small step back, creating air, creating boundary. Her voice, when it came, was firmer than she felt. “It’s a no, Mr. Fraser. I’m on placement. You’re my patient. I could get into a lot of trouble. So could Dr. Hamilton, for that matter.” She smoothed her scrubs, a physical anchor. “Now, you should make an appointment with the practice nurse to get your stitches out in five days.”
The use of his surname was a wall. She watched it hit him. The light in his green eyes dimmed, not into anger, but into a swift, understanding embarrassment. He nodded, once, a sharp movement.
“Right. Of course. Sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair, avoiding the dressing. The charm was gone, stripped away, leaving something more raw and surprisingly young. “I wasn’t thinking. I just… never mind. Cheers for checking it.”
He turned to leave, his shoulders set in a line that looked more defeated than anything she’d seen on the pitch.
“Alistair.”
He paused, half-turning.
She didn’t know why she said it. The name just came out. “The coffee… it was a nice idea. Just… a wrong one.”
He met her eyes again, and a ghost of the crooked smile returned. “Aye. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong rules. Got it.” He gave a final, courteous nod to Linda at the desk. “Thanks, Linda. I’ll book with the nurse.”
And then he was gone, the glass door sighing shut behind him, cutting off the glimpse of the grey carpark outside.
Roz let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Her hands were steady. Her heart was not.
“Everything alright, Roz?” Linda asked, putting the phone down.
“Fine. Wound looks good.” She turned back to the shelf of gel bottles, her movements automatic. The clinic sounds reasserted themselves: the groan of a resisted stretch, the low murmur of consultation, the tap of a keyboard. Mundane. Safe.
She worked the rest of her shift with robotic efficiency. She assisted with a ultrasound-guided massage, she updated patient notes, she sterilized equipment. Her mind, however, was a stuck record. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong rules. He’d understood immediately. He hadn’t argued. He’d apologized.
It made him more real. It made the refusal feel heavier.
The walk back to her flat was damp with a fine, chilly mist. The city stones gleamed under the streetlights. She replayed it all, the feel of the suture needle, the heat of the room, the scent of mud and soap, the devastating cleverness of his quote. A bubble of something bright and forbidden, violently popped.
Cat was in the kitchen, painting her nails a violent tangerine. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. A very fit, dead ghost.”
“Long day,” Roz mumbled, filling the kettle.
“Any more adventures in sports medicine? See your superstar?”
“He came to the clinic.” Roz kept her back to Cat. “To get his stitches checked.”
“And?”
“And I checked them. They’re fine.” The kettle boiled, a screaming whistle. She poured the water, watching the tea leaves swirl and darken.
“That’s it?” Cat’s disbelief was palpable. “The man hunts you down in your workplace and that’s it?”
“He didn’t hunt me down. He had a medical appointment. And I reiterated professional boundaries.” The phrase tasted like dust.
Cat was silent for a long moment. Roz could feel her dramatic, scrutinizing gaze. “You liked him,” Cat stated, not a question. “You actually liked him. And you sent him packing.”
Roz finally turned, cradling the hot mug. “What was I supposed to do, Cat? Go for a latte and risk my degree? He’s a patient. It’s not a grey area.”
“It’s a very sexy, romantic grey area,” Cat sighed, blowing on her nails. “But fine. You’re right. You’re always right. It’s boring, but it’s right.”
Later, in the silence of her room, the rightness felt hollow. She opened The Once and Future King to a random page. The bravest people are the ones who don’t mind looking like cowards. She slammed it shut.
The following days were a study in rigid normalcy. Lectures, library, a shift at the university health centre dealing with freshers’ flu and sprained ankles. She avoided the sports complex. She turned her phone on and received no more texts from unknown numbers. The world had righted itself on its proper, predictable axis.
On the fifth day, her placement was at the Royal Infirmary’s A&E, a universe away from the tailored world of sports medicine. It was all noise, urgency, and raw human mess. She was fetching blankets when a familiar, broad-shouldered silhouette caught her eye at the main reception.
Ally. He was leaning on the desk, talking to the triage nurse. He wore a dark jacket, jeans. The white dressing was gone, replaced by a small, neat line above his eyebrow. He looked tired. He was gesturing with his left hand, which was wrapped in a fresh, bulky bandage.
Her feet rooted to the linoleum floor. He hadn’t seen her. This was it. The final, loose thread. He was getting his stitches out, just as she’d instructed. By a nurse. Not her.
She should disappear into the curtained bays. That was the professional, the safe, the right thing to do.
Instead, she watched as he finished his conversation, took a slip of paper, and turned. His gaze swept the waiting area, passing over the crying child, the elderly man coughing into a handkerchief, and then… stopping on her.
There was no smile this time. Just a look of weary recognition. He held up his bandaged hand in a brief, silent gesture of explanation. Another injury. Then he nodded, once, and walked out through the automatic doors, back into the misty Edinburgh afternoon.
The thread wasn’t cut. It was just… elsewhere. A different time, a different place. A different set of rules.
Roz stood there, a stack of scratchy hospital blankets in her arms, feeling the sudden, vast weight of all the compulsory things she was forcing herself not to do. And for the first time, the weight of it didn’t feel like duty. It just felt like weight.