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𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘-𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑

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"You're ... Still here?"

Roman glanced up from his desk to see Olivia standing in the doorway, sheepishly toying with the pressed collar of her blouse.

To the untrained eye, perhaps it had looked like he was doing work for once, an open laptop in the middle of his desk and a cup of steaming black coffee within arm's reach. In reality, he had spent much of the morning staring off into space, his mind a blank void.

Olivia wore an understandably forlorn expression as she nodded in response. One hand gripped the other's upper arm, as though she were weakly shielding herself. Roman pitied her enough to gesture to the chair in front of his desk, pressing his lips together as she moved to cross the room.

"You can shut the door if that makes you feel better."

This seemed to relax her considerably and she followed the instruction before seating herself. Olivia ran her hands against the material of her skirt as she settled herself in, looking down at the hardwood, unable to meet his eyes.

Roman didn't envy her position in the least. Logan had made it clear in the car the previous evening, after Cora had been loaded into an ambulance, shell-shocked and still thoroughly inebriated, that Olivia would have no means of recourse.

"Her word against ours means nothing." He had said, a finger pressed against his bottom lip as he stared out of the window. "If she's smart, she'll take whatever sum we offer and scamper off into the sunset."

Roman had no energy to reply.

It seemed inconceivable that Cora had hidden something so monumental from him. Retracing his memories of the past few weeks had drawn no hint of the truth in any of her actions. Had he been wrong about her? He had once thought he knew Cora better than himself, and the longer he sat with the truth, unable to sleep despite the pull of exhaustion, the more he realised how alien she had become to him.

He had spent the early hours of the morning googling reports about Olivia's father until his eyes could take no more of the digital glare of his screen. By the time he placed it facedown on charge, he had managed to piece an uneven picture together. The senator had died of a cocaine overdose, leading to posthumous disgrace, manufactured largely by his father's empire. Stories of his substance abuse, his mistreatment of staff, his extramarital affair, had surfaced even before the man had been put in the ground.

Cora's trip to rehab had followed soon after, public sightings of her drying up suddenly, save for the day after Carlisle's death when she'd been snapped in Soho, sourced by an obscure Twitter user and never validated outside of the hashtag of her name. Roman constructed a likely narrative.

Somehow their paths had crossed, Cora had done coke and God knows what else with him, and then he had collapsed of a heart attack.

"So, uh, how are you doing?" Roman volunteered into the silence.

"Oh, this is gonna probably sound horrible." Olivia began, awkwardly chuckling to try cushioning her words. "But ... I always knew he was going to die. Like, well, mom never made it a mystery and neither did he, how bad his problems were. And I mean, he really, truly was never subtle. Alcoholics rarely are, I think. I remember one time, on my 8th birthday, he came home stinking of booze.

"I had passed out on the couch but I woke up when he sat down next to me. For a second I was excited, you know, because he hadn't given me a present that day. I sat up and asked him where he had been and then ... Well he responded by throwing up in my lap. That was my present. Vomit."

Roman screwed up his nose, uncomfortable with the image that had swam into his mind. What made him squirm was how easily he could replace the two figures with himself and Cora.

"Jesus." He muttered softly. It was the closest he could come to something comforting. Olivia didn't seem to mind all that much, shaking her head with an odd smile.

"It's fine. You get used to it unfortunately."

"But no kid should."

"Oh of course. No kid should. But some kids just do." Olivia said, sighing. "My point is, I knew he was going to die, so I can't blame her, not really. Even if she bought it, even if she gave it to him, no one forced him to do it. He knew how bad his heart was, that was all on him. I've already grieved my father, I went to a support group and it really helped. I'll never be fully over it ... But I'm not angry anymore, and honestly I think that's half the battle. The rest is time, really."

Roman didn't know how to react. She had shown such astonishing wisdom that he found it disarming. It had been quite some time since he had brushed with someone who had even an inch of self-awareness, arguably Tabitha had been the last, insightful in a way that stung him to be around.

"So ... " Roman said, it was the best reply he had.

"So no, I'm not going to the press or whatever. I did play it up for Gerri this morning though, I think Logan's probably writing me a check with more money than I could ever dream of." Olivia giggled, smiling to herself. Her expression faltered though as she continued. "But I don't really want blood money. I just ... It's so stupid, but I just don't want the same thing happening to her."

"I don't think there's a check he could cash that would really make an impact on Cora, if I'm gonna be honest." Roman said with a shrug.

"No, I mean I don't want her to kill herself, you know, not intentionally or ... Not ... You know what I mean. I don't think she's suicidal, but her actions are ... Well they're bad. It's really bad." Olivia shifted in the chair, kneading her hands in her lap. "I've seen this all before, obviously. I feel bad because I guess, I enabled her too."

"Like you said about your dad. They're all ultimately her decisions." Roman said firmly. As easy as it would be to shift the blame, he couldn't, not after everything Olivia had confessed to him. "But I think things might get better. Dad's arranging something, apparently."

It was hard to miss Olivia's scepticism, or indeed any emotion that entered her brain, which instantly transposed itself onto her youthful features. She frowned, biting her lip.

"I feel like that's just going to exacerbate things."

"I don't know how things could be any more exacerbated than last night." Roman replied, his voice betraying how hopeless the situation of Cora had become.

"I just think there's a lighter approach, you know? I mean, I don't have to leave. Not right away. I could be ... Maybe less of an assistant to her and more of a minder?"

Roman blinked in astonishment. "You ... Want to stick around?"

Olivia nodded quickly.

"Yes. I know it's weird but, well, I think she kind of trusts me. Not in any sort of, like, meaningful way. Just kind of like ... She doesn't think doing stupid things in front of me is going to bite her in the ass. Which I guess makes sense in a way, you know, she'd already done the worst thing possible, I suppose, in her mind at least. Doing drugs, drinking, asking me to get medication, it probably paled in comparison."

"Wait, what medication?" The moment the question left his lips, he knew he would regret the answer. Olivia's eyes drew enormous, almost like a cartoon character's, her breath hitching audibly.

"W-well I ... J-jus-"

"C'mon, you're gonna tell me regardless of how much you string the words out." Roman cringed at the harshness of his tone. "Sorry. But please, whatever it is, I just wanna know."

She swallowed, burying her gaze into the floor. Gingerly she leaned across the desk, dropping her voice low. "She asked me to pick up the morning after pill a few times? I just thought, honestly, that it was because you two were ... But ... It's really none of my business, I know."

Olivia leaned back in her chair as she assessed Roman's reaction, her face having increased considerably in saturation. Whatever suspicions she had had were confirmed by his stony silence and the wash of shock that came over him as his shoulders slumped.

Roman's mind reeled, despising himself for the sharp pang of betrayal that rang throughout his body. He'd been foolish to assume that her spiral wouldn't have included something like this, but this thought did nothing to numb the pain.

Who had she been with?

Greg? No, it couldn't be. Cora's behaviour in his presence spoke of irritation, not some secret love affair. Someone faceless, maybe one of the men she'd spotted when she'd been out drinking with Violet, that had to be the most likely explanation.

Unbidden, the memory of last night floated to the surface of his mind, of when she had left the bathroom. Cora had lingered, her gaze set on Kendall. Roman had thought he had imagined the lack of disdain and the night had moved on so quickly that he barely had had a moment to breath let alone linger. Now the image sat starkly in his mind, searing in its clarity.

No, Cora wouldn't do that. Not with Kendall. She wouldn't, couldn't have done that to Roman.

His throat was rough as he cleared it, grinding his teeth to force himself back to the present. Olivia was watching him warily, her brows knitted above soft round eyes, the awkward silence spanning long enough that Roman caught the sound of his own heartbeat, a frantic motor.

"Keep an eye on her and report everything back to me." He said finally with a concise nod. "We'll keep her safe."

Though who would keep Roman Roy safe was a question that went unanswered.

≪ °❈° ≫

In the pressed sheets of her hospital bed, Cora eyed the needle in the crook of her elbow. Above her, the bag of liquid currently washing her body clean hung above her shoulder, almost depleted. Her head throbbed, though not more than her ankle did, the pain like a beating heart.

Cora couldn't remember how she had gotten to the hospital, having awoken sometime midmorning to the sound of a nurse changing her fluids. What little memories she had came to her in patches, supplemented by a quick scroll on her Twitter feed which she had instantly regretted.

There was a clip of her swearing that had gone viral, at least a dozen different reaction gifs of Sophie Iwobi eyeing the camera in comical astonishment, eyes sparkling with keen awareness of the gold on her hands. Cora deleted the app after noting the trending hashtags: #CokeheadCordelia, #DisruptionTrainWreck, #RoyEngagement.

She clenched her hand reflexively at the memory, nails biting in the flesh of her palm. When she relaxed them, fingers opening with the hesitation of crushed flower petals regaining their form, four crescent moons were indented among the lines of her hand.

Her eyes flickered to her naked ring finger.

Logan had offered her a thorned olive branch and she was ashamed to say that she had taken it. She had known there was no other option. Step away from her duties, let the media pick up the story, hope that the embers dwindled enough in the near future so that she could slip away altogether.

Still she had been shell-shocked. The idea of signing her hand away hadn't been the sticking point, she felt no sanctity attached to the muddying of her relationship status. It had gone unspoken in Cora's mind for quite some time that she did not believe she was built for marriage. It had always seemed like a foreign concept, the prospect of settling down, for being responsible for the emotional care of another adult, let alone what might come after.

Instead it was her transgressions against Roman, if they could be considered as such.

Technically she had not done the wrong thing. She and Roman were nothing, at least in the technical sense. Cora wasn't so in denial that she didn't nurse a coiled rope of guilt in the pit of her stomach. There existed real feelings between them and with something as loaded as an engagement, no matter how false, the threat of complication was by no means lost on her.

Kendall's admission had been a permission slip in a way. By no means did it wipe the slate clean, nor absolve her of the wrongness her predicament. All along Logan had manufactured this, and Roman had known. He might not have known what lay in the lion's den that day, but the possibility of it had existed in his mind, and he had led her there all the same.

Cora had always thought of Roman as somehow exempt from the thick cynicism that flowed through his relatives. She was beginning to realise how truly naïve she had been for daring to think she knew him. The thought cut through her like a knife and she flinched, for what hurt more than her current state was the idea that he was capable of intentionally harming her.

On the bedside table, her phone buzzed aggressively. Pulled from her thoughts, she picked it up gingerly, unlocking it with her face.

[TEXT: Kendall] Are you angry at me?

Audibly she sighed beneath her breath.

She had told herself that it was the more gleeful coverage of her downfall that had stung the most, but this had been a bold-faced lie. Kendall was receiving almost as backlash as she was, but the keyword was almost. He had called her a liar in front of the nation, and while his hypocrisy hadn't been lost on the general public, she remained the easier target.

As best she could, she turned onto her side, propping an elbow as she struggled to type out a reply with one hand.

[TEXT: To Kendall] What do you think?

She shouldn't be replying to him and yet she knew she would anyway. From the brief scan she had done of the rest of her messages, or lack thereof, it was hard not to feel like she was completely alone. He had been the only one to reach out to her with anything that wasn't to the effect of "contact me when you're awake".

Cora didn't fear repercussions for Arthur's parting words. If she were to receive any kind of direct punishment, it would have already come. Logan would not let her weasel out of this so easily, she had learned that by now. Prison would be a blessing that Cora would not face, but a hint of what was to come already hung heavy above her like clouds that threaten storm.

[TEXT: Kendall] Probably. But you're responding.

If she had thought she could easily retrieve her phone, she would have thrown it across the room. Instead her hand shook as she shuddered with self-loathing.

[TEXT: To Kendall] Did you really not believe me?

She had typed the message quickly, the first thought that had entered her head, regretting it the moment she hit send. She watched the grey bubble appear, three dots indicating he was typing. Cora let out a shaky sigh.

[TEXT: Kendall] Things were complicated. You put me on the spot. I started talking before I even knew what I was saying.

A noise from the doorway caught her attention and she dropped her phone onto the bed, narrowly missing her own forearm.

A handsome yet stern woman in a white coat had entered the room, evidently a doctor, striding over to pick up the chart that was attached to Cora's bed. Cora flinched reflexively, the movement so instinctual that it occurred in her ankle too. She hissed under her breath, light-headed from the stab of pain. The doctor frowned at her curiously, eyes flickering back down to the chart.

"Doctor Yang." The woman said, as if Cora had asked for her name. "Apologies for the delay."

Cora remained silent and Doctor Yang took this as an invitation to continue. She had a clipped voice, the kind someone attains when they are perpetually time poor. Cora felt, with some shame, that the woman would rather be in any room but hers.

"So you have hypotension, which is low blood pressure, and your liver's seen better days." Doctor Yang mused, her eyes scanning the chart with impressive efficiency. "You have a torn ligament in your ankle, second degree. You'll need crutches, at least for the next few days, maybe some physical therapy depending on your healing process. Definitely no weight on it, you'll need to take it easy, in more aspects than one."

"You were also quite malnourished when you came in, more than is usual for alcohol poisoning. Considerably deficient in iron, B9, copper ... B12, zin-"

"When can I go?" Cora interrupted. It didn't feel like a surprise that things were going wrong inside of her body, she'd received a similar spiel when she'd been checked into rehab. She didn't need a laundry list of all of her problems, she needed a bottle for Tylenol and something for the edge.

With a sigh, the doctor replaced the chart, folding her arms against her chest.

"How are you feeling?"

"Great, now that you've told me all of that." Cora replied. She cleared her throat quickly. "Sorry, I have a headache."

"Has anyone been by to talk to you about our outpatient program?" Doctor Yang continued, studying her in the uncomfortably clinical way that all doctors seemed to do. Cora wondered if they taught classes on it in medical school. Unsympathetic Stares 101.

"Out ... Patient?" Cora muttered in reply.

"For substance abuse." The doctor clarified. Cora didn't know what else to do but laugh, barely concealing the clenching of her fists.

"Oh, I don't ... I don't have a problem." She replied. "It was just a one off thing, the alcohol."

It was obvious that Doctor Yang was not convinced.

"I know you've been inpatient before, it's on your records." She replied. The woman paused before continuing, her gaze growing soft. Maybe she had finally detected Cora's discomfort, or maybe she simply pitied her. "I understand that the commitment can be a barrier for entry, in regards to residential. But we run a very successful, very discrete program here. Regular therapy, group sessions, lifestyle systems to help you cope with staying sober."

Maybe the alcohol was still in her system, but Cora found herself considering it. There had been, admittedly, some aspects of rehab that she had enjoyed. The structure for one, the reliability of the staff, the strange feeling of safety that came from being locked away from prying eyes and jagged whispers.

After the withdrawals had passed, not without leaving their mark, it had been relatively smooth sailing. Of course it had helped that the facility had been designed for people like her, the disillusioned and fractious sons and daughters of wealth. Among them, her shame had not been so stark. Cora couldn't have claimed the others as friends, kin had been a better descriptor.

Before Cora could loosen a reply from her throat, Doctor Yang was speaking once more.

"We had a call from a Logan Roy who also agreed to pay for the program, if the cost were prohibitive."

She felt herself shiver, shaking her head. Cora forced a smile to her face

"That won't be necessary, actually. None of it will. I'm fine. I just have to learn my limits."

"Right. Well ... I can't force you. But if you keep going at the rate you currently are, your liver won't see your 40s." The doctor replied with a sharp sigh. "I'll have a nurse drop off the brochure before you go, along with a diet plan and some things to help with the recovery of your ankle."

Cora nodded in response, barely processing the words.

"Wait, before you go." Doctor Yang stopped in the doorway, glancing over her shoulder. "What hospital is this?"

"Saint Clare's."

Realisation bloomed in Cora's chest. Before she had a moment to reconsider, she was speaking again.

"Is Frank Vernon still a patient here?"

The crutches made Cora awkward and ungainly as she entered Frank's hospital room. The area of the building he was kept in had a distinctly sombre air to it, far quieter than the surroundings of her own had been. Darkly she wondered if morgues were this quiet, but quickly stuffed the thought aside, moving gingerly through the doorway.

His room was underscored with the low hum of the various machines he was strapped to. The curtains were partially drawn, soft light filtering through the window and falling a foot or so from the edge of the bed. Cora stood to the side as a nurse brought her a chair and placed it by the side of the bed, Cora's eyes falling everywhere but her step-father's conscious body as she waited patiently. Already she regretted the decision to visit him, though she knew deep in her heart that the guilt would have crushed her had she turned her back now.

"He still has brain function, obviously." Doctor Yang said from behind her.

If Cora hadn't had the crutches, she would have jumped. She had thought the doctor would leave quickly, yet she lingered in the doorway, leaning her head against the frame with that same impassive gaze. Cora was beginning to think it was a core attribute of the woman.

"If you speak to him, he might hear you."

She didn't know if the doctor was attempting to dissuade her from trying or not. Cora's lips were dry as she pressed them together, nodding. As the nurse passed her, she hobbled down into the plastic seat, leaning her crutches against the bedside table.

There was a faint floral smell that hung in the air. On most surfaces, flowers in various states of decay sat in boxes, jars and vases. Cards littered what other space remained. Cora picked one up from the bedside, a pleasant illustration of a bear on the cover with the words 'bear with me' in cursive. She flipped it open, reading the hurried scrawl inside, signed off by 'K. Muller'.

"I'll leave you to it." Doctor Yang's voice summoned Cora's attention.

"Is he in pain?" She asked before the woman could leave. Doctor Yang paused, her eyes flickering past Cora to fall on Frank's unconscious form. Slowly she shook her head.

"No, he feels nothing. Likely to him it's all a very long dream. I've heard some people travel the world in their heads." A kind smile appeared on her lips, gone just as quickly as it had arrived. "Think of the deepest sleep you've ever had. A bit like that."

"Will he remember?" Cora asked. "If he wakes up."

"Probably not, no," she replied. "A good time to say anything, I suppose."

Cora nodded. "Thank you."

Doctor Yang disappeared and Cora shifted back around, finally facing Frank. He was lying on his back, his breath coming in calm waves, eyes held softly closed. She couldn't help feeling jealous at how tranquil he appeared. Cora found herself wishing that she could trade places with him, to slip into her own listless twilight and sail the sea of whatever abyss lay between his ears.

At the same time, she felt uneasy seeing him like this. She couldn't shake the thought that she was intruding upon something she shouldn't have been allowed to bear witness to. Cora had not seen her step-father so closely since her mother's funeral and had done everything in her power to keep the distance between them.

"So, it's been a while." She said awkwardly.

It felt strange to face him directly as she spoke, so she found a place on the hospital curtains where the light of the sun leached through. Cora's throat was dry as she attempted to swallow.

"I'm sorry for ignoring your calls, I guess. I got all of the cards, and kept them by the way, if that means anything to you. I ... I didn't know what to say, or do even, you know, after Reagan died. I think I thought that you wouldn't want me around and ... Well I didn't want to be around either."

Death had slammed the door to her, grief the lock and key, but she would be lying if she claimed he hadn't been a stranger to her before then. She had always been resentful of his presence. Reagan's patience and affection was so hard won, those fleeting moments where her gaze would soften, her hand drifting through Cora's hair with motherly care. When Reagan had met Frank, it was as though the well had run dry for Cora.

And it had been more than just that.

Cora's father had always been a perfect mystery to her, almost like he had never existed. There were no photos of him in their home, no treasured memories, no ghosts. An absence was how she had always felt him, and suddenly in this gaping hole was a complete stranger. Reagan almost acted like Frank had always been there, and any word to the contrary was an invitation for her ire. But Cora couldn't pretend, perhaps because she had been a little too old, perhaps because even then she could see the hypocrisy for what it was. So she did as she always had and pretended as if she had no father to speak of.

This had been no easy feat. Frank was as much a guest at the Roy's as she was, and with her mother's wayward traipsing all over Europe, Cora's escape was a double edged sword. She often caught glimpses of him, lounging in the drawing room or through the cracked door to Logan's office, waving to her in those moments. She hated him for it. Perhaps that was why she had buried herself in her friendship with Shiv, her crush on Roman, the formative nature of these relationships saving her from the truth of her life.

As she let her mind wander across the memories, a ripple of shame spread through her chest. Yes she had been a child, perhaps a hopeless one at that, but never had she stopped to think that Reagan's chronic absence had been a shared experience between herself and Frank. She had been Cora's mother, but she had also been his wife.

"Did it hurt? When she died? Did it hurt for you?" She asked, gasping as she realised that she had been holding her breath. "Because after the funeral ... It didn't. It didn't hurt for me. After the shock of it all, and seeing her there in the hospital, I ... The moment they put her in the ground, it was like they put me down there with her. I don't know if that makes sense, but it was like part of me died too. I don't know which part. Obviously nothing useful. I kept the anger and the shame, and all the stupid things I did to cope. But something fell down there when I tossed that hand of dirt on the coffin. Something I've never gotten back."

Cora clenched her hands in her lap, closing her eyes.

She was back in time, at the funeral, dressed all in black. It had been a windy day, her hair constantly catching on her face, in her mouth. The hole they had dug in the ground seemed to yawn wide as she approached it. Foolishly she had hoped they had cleared all the worms from the earth when they had dug it, Reagan had always despised bugs and it seemed cruel that her final resting place would be beside them.

Even in the throes of grief, she had felt Roman's eyes on her. She hadn't been able to stomach the thought of meeting them, even as she pushed the fact of his abandonment to the back of her mind. Cora had even ignored Shiv, she had had no room inside of her for kindness. Death was the great divider, a chamber that encased her body and denied her presence from those around her.

She remembered so little of the ceremony, her mind had escaped her as a gaunt priest had spoken some incantation about the afterlife. But she remembered the sound of the dirt upon the top of the coffin, like a string of pearls cut askew, skittering into nothingness.

"I felt like a ghost afterwards, like people were looking through me. For a while I thought it was just what happens when someone dies, because I used to feel like that as a child sometimes, but ... But then I started to think it was because I really wasn't a person anymore. I guess that's why I tried so hard, for so long to be seen. In any way possible. I just wanted to be seen.

"But I don't like it now. I don't like the way people look at me. I wish I could just disappear all over again, and maybe I've been hoping you would ... You would die too so I could have another go. Slip and fall, tell them not to bother when they try to help me out. I'm already being buried alive, so what difference would it really make? I guess the difference would be I wouldn't have to be aware of it anymore. I don't know."

Cora's breathing had become shaky. Everything was pouring out of her and she was unable to stop it. Far from bringing relief, it only twisted her insides more, admitting the dark thoughts she had never allowed herself to acknowledge.

"Did you know?" Cora croaked, her voice trembling. Her eyes had grown wet and she let the tears fall with little resistance. "Did you know what it was like to be under her thumb? Did you know how tightly she squeezed? Did you ever stop to think how hard it was to be her daughter? Because it was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. So why have I felt like a shell ever since she left? Why do I feel like I'm lost without her?"

She folded forward, shoulders tense as she shivered from the artificial cold. Blindly she pawed for his hand, finding it and lacing her fingers shakily between his. Foolishly she willed him to speak, to open his eyes and turn to her, to deliver an answer that would save her soul.

The answer never came, and Cora heard nothing but the heartbeat monitor, slow and steady save for a lone weak note.