His fingers are still shaking.

Nick takes another long drag of his cigarette, inhaling deeply, his worried gaze flickering across to Madison, who lies silently still against the pristine white sheets. He sees a shadow flit across the room and Nick swears violently under his breath, preparing to put out the cigarette.

When nobody comes, Nick lets out a low breath and continues to stare longingly towards Madison.

He's standing next to the window, his arms leaning against the sill so that the smoke doesn't go into the room, his breaths fraught. His heart is still pounding, even after he had torn down the empty hallway to catch Madison as she fell.

He still sees it in his mind. Still sees Madison's soft, lithe figure, cast against the gold light of the sun, as she held herself taut in that way that she usually does. Remembers thinking how curious it was that Madison Sutton, of all people, was walking away from the exam that she'd been so adamant about.

And then she had fallen, like a fragile leaf in autumn.

Nick hadn't thought, had just charged across the hallway to clutch at Madison like a drowning man, his eyes wide. He'd called out to her frantically, but Madison's eyes had been closed.

They hadn't opened since.

Taking a ragged breath that drags him straight to his heart, Nick closes his eyes and presses his lips together, his brows furrowed. The nurse had told him, over his frantic ramblings, the words tumbling out of his mouth without abandon, that Madison was simply lacking in the appropriate nutrients, that were required for a girl her age and that she needed to eat and rest.

It was a classic case of exam stress, the nurse had said.

But Nick can't help thinking how stupid he is.

He knows she doesn't eat. He's seen it, seen the way she pushes away the food, heard the barrage of excuses that fall out of her mouth.

How many times has he called her out on that stupid diet that her mother put her on?

"Put that damned thing out."

Nick spins so fast he gets dizzy.

Madison is groaning and blinking against the bright light. She winces a little as she attempts to pull herself up against the headboard of the bed. He puts out the cigarette in one swift motion, using his elbow to knock the window open, and reaches for Madison immediately. Nick helps Madison sit up, his fingers light against her feverish skin, and she's still shaking under his touch, he realises.

"You idiot," he begins, his voice breathless. "How could you do that to yourself?"

Madison blinks.

"Do what?" She turns her head and Nick sees the flitter of confusion settle against her features, her brows furrowing together. Her voice turns thin and frail as she speaks and so, Madison clears her throat impatiently. "What the hell – why am I here?"

Nick stares at her.

"You fainted," he tells her, almost feverish in his frantic and worried state.

Something flits across her face, but it is too quick and fleeting for Nick to make out. Madison shakes her hair as she attempts to fix herself, her fingers pressing down her crinkled shirt.

"Then what are you doing here?"

"I caught you."

Her head snaps to him and her eyes flash with worry.

"Did anyone see you?"

"You almost cracked your head open," Nick says, and he can't help that his voice is growing loud in his rippling anger, because, for God's sake, this girl's priorities, "and you're worried if someone saw you?"

"Don't you raise your voice at me," Madison snaps at him, but then, her gaze falls to the drip that's attached to her.

Nick recognises the slight shock and soft fear that flashes in her eyes and without even thinking, he reaches for her shaking fingers. She's scared, he realises, and Nick squeezes her fingers as Madison trembles, barely able to hold herself. Her cheeks are pale, and she looks as though, any moment now, she might burst into tears before him.

He forces himself to calm down, his heart clenching.

"You could have really hurt yourself," Nick says, and his voice is softer than anything.

Madison flinches.

"I don't understand," she says, frowning slightly as she speaks. Her voice is so quiet he can barely hear her, but he still does. "I don't – I thought I had it under control. Why – why am I here?"

"The school nurse says that you've been burning yourself out," Nick tells her, as Madison leans into him, her figure a soft and trembling thing against his hulking frame. His fingers push back a strand of hair that falls across her face. "She thinks it's exam stress. A couple more students have been doing the same, too." He continues speaking, because he sees how Madison is growing calmer with his explanations. "She hooked you up to an IV and went to check on the others. She thinks that you'll be alright, in half an hour, tops."

His words make Madison stare at him.

"What do you think?" she asks, quietly.

"I think that this stupid diet is killing you and if I see you touch a salad again, I'm torching the damn thing."

Madison chuckles lowly, unable to help herself, as she shakes her head. She wrinkles her nose a little.

"God, you shouldn't have smoked in here. It smells disgusting."

Nick pauses. He wonders if he should confess that he was so panicked and frantic that drawing the soft and quiet drags of a smoky cigarette was the only thing that could settle the terrifying shake of his fingers.

Instead, he says, "I'll stop smoking, if you eat my baked stuff."

"You're really going for this Mary Berry vibe, aren't you?" Madison says, as he brings out a chocolate cupcake, topped with thick cream. Nick had baked a full batch of them and he was quite proud of his work, to be honest. Her brows furrow together as she parts her lips in surprise. "You sent the cupcake."

His lips curve.

"You weren't supposed to find out," Nick tells her, as Madison's gaze lingers on the cupcake. "I thought you would throw it in the bin."

"I gave it to my housekeeper."

"Close enough."

Nick raises the cupcake temptingly and waves it in Madison's face. She scoffs at him and rolls her eyes disparagingly, but he sees the way her eyes follow the trail of the confection. She's hungry, he knows it.

He just has to get her to admit it to herself.

"I'm a great baker," Nick tells her. "Better than Mary Berry, that attention seeker."

Madison can't keep down the quiet laugh. Something warm grows in his chest at the sound.

"And I suppose you want me to taste test?"

Her voice is deliciously disparaging.

Nick leans in, his eyes wicked.

"The cupcake or me?"

"I know what you're trying to do," she tells him. "You're so transparent."

"Then do it," Nick tells her. "Break that stupid diet. You're better than it."

Madison's gaze lingers.

"It's not so easy."

Their voices are quiet. Nick lets out a deep and ragged breath.

"Your mother doesn't have to know," he tells her. "I won't tell her. You know I wouldn't."

Her fingers reach out, tentative and shaking, and settle around his own. They unwrap the cupcake from its wrapper and Nick watches, his breaths fraught, as Madison takes a piece of the cake. She puts it into her mouth and her eyes widen in surprise.

"It's good."

"Of course it is. I made it," Nick says, and laughs. "Whoa."

"What is it?"

"Look around."

Madison lifts her head.

"What am I looking at?"

"The earth," Nick tells her. "It's still spinning. You broke your diet and the world didn't crumble."

It's a terrible joke, but Madison laughs anyway, her eyes bright.

God, he thinks to himself, but how beautiful she looks in this moment.

How is he so lucky to be here?

Nick wants to stay at this moment, beside her, for as long as he can. He almost dwarfs her, from where he sits, beside her on the bed, her lithe form all but captured within his great body alone. But Madison still holds her own, where she sits, lifting her head and eating his cupcake delicately and elegantly as ever, in only the way that Madison Sutton can.

"So..."

Madison arches a questioning eyebrow.

"What?"

"Did you really kill the scholarship girl?" Nick asks.

She almost chokes.

"No," Madison says, laughingly. "No, I just got her suspended."

Nick frowns.

"But it's exam week. Does that mean she's not doing her exams?"

Madison shrugs.

"Deserves it," she says. "She tried to do the same thing to my friends." Her voice lilts a little strangely, but Nick lets out a breath. Madison clears her throat a little, her eyes bright and questioning. "What are you really doing here?" she asks him, her brows furrowed together. "We're not supposed to – people might get suspicious."

You scared the hell out of me, Nick wants to say. I'm here, because the nurse couldn't keep me away.

Instead, he says, the lie falling off his tongue easily, "You kept saying stuff in your sleep, and I'm not an idiot. Got it all recorded in my phone for future blackmail."

He hasn't recorded anything, but it's true that Madison moaned and whispered words in her sleep. Nick had thought he might break apart with the amount of panic rising up within him. She rolls her eyes at him.

"What did I say?"

"Not much," Nick tells her. "Stuff about your friends. Is it Kyle? Is he back?"

Madison shakes her head, her hair slipping about her shoulders.

"He wouldn't be so much of a fool," she tells him. Her voice is soft and quiet as she speaks, a drag of a confession falling from her lips. "Maria said I was rude and a control freak."

"Well, you are."

"Shut up."

"Maybe she shouldn't have said it like that but she's not wrong," Nick amends, as he shrugs. "But then we're all rude, at times, aren't we?" He sees Madison's lips part. "You were such a bitch to me when we first met. You still are."

"But that's you," Madison points out. "I'm not rude or a control freak to them."

"Again, you are."

"Again, shut up."

Nick chuckles.

"Look at where you are, Madison," he says to her. "You're in the nurse's office because you couldn't let yourself eat. You control all of your friends' lives to the point that you risked your own life against that bastard. Is it any wonder that Maria's worried about you?"

Her forehead creasing in thought, Madison lets out a heavy breath that drags out of her chest slowly.

"What about you, then?" she says, her gaze soft on him. "How is the Carroway boy taking it all? And Mitchell?"

His gaze lingers on her face.

"Will – you need to stop forgetting his name, by the way – is fine, I think. It should all work out for the better," Nick tells her. "Mitchell, on the other hand..."

Madison's gaze lifts.

"You idiot," she says. "What did you do?"

"Why do you always assume I did something?"

"Because you usually do."

"Well, this time, you're wrong," Nick says smugly. He shakes his head, the smugness falling from his face as Madison waits for him to continue. "It's just that my Mum's been finding all these black feathers everywhere."

"Mitchell's sign."

"Yeah."

"Has he done anything, other than that?"

Nick shakes his head.

"Not yet. But I'd be an idiot to think that's the end." He huffs. "I thought I'd dealt with it."

"I can look into him, if you want," Madison offers.

But Nick is already beginning to panic at the mere thought of it. Mitchell getting his hands on Madison is the last thing he would ever want and the collision of both of his worlds would end in an earthquake, he thinks to himself.

"No," he says. "I can deal with it."

"And I can deal with Maria," Madison murmurs to herself.

When the nurse bustles in, she does so, with a beam.

"You're looking much better, Madison," Nurse Alia says, as her eyes brighten, and she reaches to check Madison's vitals.

Nick has to give her credit; she says nothing about the fuss he raised when he brought Madison in, shouting all the way. The nurse checks Madison over again, instructs her clearly to eat and to stop worrying so much about the exams, because she will be able to retake them, before letting them go free, early.

"I should call Louie," Madison says, already reaching for her bag. "I need to take care of Lula's parents and check on Elliot, to make sure that his parents haven't heard about the threat of suspension, thanks to that stupid scholarship bitch."

His brows furrow together and when he speaks, his voice is laced with deliberate meaning.

"But it's Friday."

Madison's gaze lifts to his.

*

She crashes against Nick impatiently, her mouth on his, as Nick's fingers push against her shirt, fumbling with the buttons.

He is already lifting her up against the wall of his room, one hand pressing her arm against the wall and Madison gasps into his mouth. Tilting her neck to give him better access, Madison moans as Nick drags his mouth across her bare skin, her legs wrapped around his bare chest.

They had been too impatient and now she's on the desk of his room, her fingers pushing aside papers eagerly as Nick drags down her skirt.

It slips around her legs and pools against the ground as Madison straddles him, flush with pleasure and desire. She impatiently tears off his shirt, tugging it off him eagerly, running her fingers across his chest, as Nick gasps against her skin.

As Nick's lips draw against her neck and she drifts into a haze of pleasure, her fingers curling into his hair, Madison thinks about how this is a snow globe moment. A moment she wants to stay in forever, to linger without a care in the world, to bask in the soft rush of the feelings.

In the quiet back of her mind, so quiet that even she does not know she's thinking it, Madison wishes it would be Friday night forever.