Chapter Text
David Wymack was working late.
It was nights like these that made him wish he had an assistant he could actually trust—someone to handle the endless paperwork that came with managing the Foxes. Instead, he was here on a Saturday night, stuck at his desk, when he could be at home with a glass of whiskey. Or five. Not that he’d trade his team for anything. But less paperwork? He could wish for that.
A faint noise cut through the otherwise silent stadium.
His pen paused mid-scratch. Light footsteps. Too soft for Minyard and his lot, who were likely in Columbia. That ruled out night practice. Wymack frowned.
He pushed back from his desk, standing. He wasn’t the type to ignore things that felt off. He stepped out of his office, scanning the dimly lit hallways, listening.
The court stretched out before him, vast and empty, bathed in the eerie glow of emergency exit signs, its usual occupants long since retired to their dorms. The dull scent of sweat and rubber still lingered in the air, a remnant of countless hours spent training. The bleachers sat silent and abandoned. Shadows pooled in the corners where the overhead lights didn’t quite reach. The air was colder than usual, the kind of chill that crept under the skin and made him feel like he wasn’t as alone as he thought.
A shadow flickered at the edge of his vision—just a trick of the low light, he told himself. The faint hum of the stadium lights buzzed in the silence, broken only by the occasional creak of settling metal.
After a couple of minutes of searching and finding nothing, he sighed.
His mind was playing tricks on him. Too much paperwork. Too little sleep.
Wymack turned back toward his office, determined to finish up and get some rest. But as he crossed the threshold, he stopped dead in his tracks.
A young woman sat at his desk, in his damn chair, flipping through his damn paperwork.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he barked.
He expected her to jump, to panic, to fumble for an excuse. Instead, she didn’t even glance up. That was almost more unsettling.
His voice darkened. “Who the hell are you to break into my office, to go through my files?”
As he strode forward, she finally looked up. He snatched the folder from her hands, about to lay into her, but something made him hesitate.
He was sure he’d never met her before, yet an eerie sense of familiarity crept up his spine.
Her face was unremarkable at first glance—plain brown eyes, average-length brown hair. And yet, something was wrong. Not with her appearance, exactly, but with the way it felt like he should already know her.
It was a feeling he hated. The kind that came with a past he had no business remembering.
Freckles dusted her skin, and beneath the glow of the desk lamp, he caught a faint scar slicing through her right eyebrow, running from her forehead to just below her ear. It was well covered with makeup—easy to miss, if not for the shadows shifting across her face.
“Hello, David,” she said politely. “Do you mind if we have a quick chat?” Her voice was smooth, flat, absent of any discernible accent.
“If you wanted a chat, you could’ve called during the daytime. You don’t break into my office and rifle through my shit.”
She smiled—a polite, detached thing. “Ah. You misunderstand me. I wasn’t asking.”
Her right hand lifted from her lap, and Wymack’s stomach clenched as she placed a gun on the desk between them.
“Please,” she said, “sit. There are some things I would like to discuss.”
Wymack didn’t move. This wasn’t the first time he’d been threatened with a gun, but there was something different about this. Something cold and practiced. Like pulling the trigger wouldn’t be an inconvenience.
His mind flashed to the Foxes. They were safe in the dorms, it was only him here.
Then, unbidden, came the image of Josten, standing in his office months ago, fresh from finals, bruised but unbroken.
Wymack took a slow breath. Was this related to the Moriyamas? Were they checking up on their investment?
He exhaled sharply and sat. “Who are you?”
“Who I am isn’t important,” she said, tilting her head. “But you can call me Ada.”
“You don’t look like an Ada.”
She smirked. “That’s because I’m not.”
Wymack’s eyes flickered to the gun before meeting hers again. She watched him like she was cataloguing every detail, every twitch of his expression. Ada smiled again. And just like before, recognition tugged at the edges of his mind—too faint to grasp, but strong enough to gnaw at him.
Then, she said, “I want to talk about your team.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I want to ask.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he shot back. “I don’t give out information about my team without their consent. So you can take your gun and get out.”
Ada didn’t seem the least bit surprised by his refusal. That irked him.
“Alright,” she said, pushing to her feet. She picked up the gun from his desk and slipped it into her coat pocket, her voice turning sharp. “There are other ways to get information. I’m sure your Foxes will be more than happy to talk with me.”
She moved past him, striding toward the door.
His jaw tightened. He didn’t know who the hell she was, but he knew her type. People who saw others as pawns, as leverage.
And his team? They weren’t fucking leverage.
Wymack hesitated. Something burned in his gut—something that made him speak before he could stop himself.
It was the way she moved. The way she held herself. Like a person used to living on high alert. Like someone who had learned, through necessity, to take up as little space as possible while still being ready to react at a moment’s notice.
It was in her voice, too. That careful, deliberate neutrality. The kind that only came from a lifetime of knowing that the wrong word, the wrong tone, could cost you.
And then there was the scar.
Not its existence—plenty of people had scars—but the way she tried to hide it. The way she had gone through the trouble of covering it with makeup, as if she knew exactly how much it gave away. Like someone who had spent years being taught that any identifying mark was a liability. That it could mean life or death.
It reminded him of the way Neil used to flinch every time someone looked at his face too closely.
His stomach twisted.
Wymack had been around long enough to know better than to believe in coincidences.
He exhaled sharply. “This has something to do with Josten?”
Ada stilled; hand poised over the door handle. Wymack heard the sharp hitch of her breath.
Slowly, she lowered her hand. “Now why,” she asked, voice carefully measured, “Would you say assume it’s got anything to do with him?”
Wymack sighed wearily and moved around his desk to reclaim his seat. He sat heavily and slumped into his seat. He watched ‘Ada’ with narrowed eyes.
It wasn’t that hard a leap to make, he thought analysing her. The pair wore their fear in the same way.
“I didn’t know Josten had any family left. Other than the uncle.”
She turned back to face him, raising a single brow. “You’re making a lot of assumptions.”
“Am I? You look just like him.”
Her frown deepened.
“It’s the eyes.” He continued.
“My eyes are brown.”
“Yeah,” Wymack said, watching her carefully. “But he had that same look the first time he arrived here.”
“And what look is that?”
“Desperation.”
Ada flinched. It was quick, nearly imperceptible, but Wymack was watching her closely.
She inhaled slowly. “I’ve been looking for him for a long time.”
Then, to Wymack’s shock, she reached up and tugged her hair free. The brown wig dropped onto his desk, and auburn curls tumbled down past her shoulders. She peeled the dull brown contacts from her eyes and blinked up at him.
Blue.
Oh.
Hatford hadn’t sent her. She wasn’t from that side of the family at all.
“Nathaniel is my brother,” she whispered.
Wymack exhaled heavily. “He’s never mentioned a sister.”
An emotion flickered across her face too fast for him to pin down. “Like I said, it’s been a long time.”
Silence stretched between them before he asked, “Why come to me? Why break in here when he’s not even in the city?”
Ada rolled her eyes. “First of all, I did not break in. Your office was unlocked—”
“The front door has a code.”
“…Okay, that one I broke into.”
Wymack shook his head. “Why not just talk to him? You clearly know where he is.”
Ada looking away. “It’s complicated.”
“That boy’s whole life is complicated. He’s gotten good at handling it.”
“It’s not that simple,” she snapped. “He doesn’t know me anymore. He has no reason to trust me. And the life I live—” She cut herself off, jaw tightening.
Wymack studied her. “You mean the life he got out of?”
Ada said nothing.
"We can help you," Wymack said, earnestly leaning forwards, "Neil got out-"
"Neil isn't out, he actually has never been more in, you couldn’t help me even if I wanted you to. Which I don’t." Ada fired back, "That's not what this is about.”
“Then why are you here?”
She looked down. “The life I live is dangerous, and Nathaniel… Neil. He never wanted to be part of it. If I come back into his life, I bring that with me. I wanted to see what you and your Foxes were like for myself, I needed to know… if his life is better off without me in it.”
Wymack’s chest ached. He understood now.
This woman, Ada, or whatever actual her name was, she had come from the same home as Neil. The same hands that had laid harm on him, had laid harm on her. But he had gotten out, Neil had run and when the time had come he had stood his ground and drawn a line in the sand.
But she hadn't. For some reason, she was still there, she had never gotten out, and she didn't want to bring the very thing he had spent so many years running from right back when he was finally free.
“You want to keep him safe.”
Ada swallowed hard. “You have no idea what reconnecting with me could mean for him.”
“Don’t you think he should decide that?”
Ada laughed, brittle and sharp. “Like Nathaniel has ever made the smart choice.”
“Ada-”
She stood back up and turned to leave, “No. This was a mistake. Forget you saw me, you don't mention this to him. I needed to know what his life here was like, that people cared for him.”
“You’d deprive him of the last family he has?”
Ada smiled sadly. “I’m not the only family he has left anymore.”
~***~
After their exchange, after she left, Wymack sat back in his chair, running a hand over his face. His office smelled like cheap coffee and old paper, but now there was something else lingering—something weighty and unshakable.
Ada wasn’t just a ghost from Neil’s past. She was Neil, in a way. Same sharp edges, same defiance, same quiet, desperate hope buried under years of survival instinct. But while Neil had run, had fought tooth and nail to carve out something new, Ada had remained behind. Whatever that had done to her, it hadn’t broken her. But it had left marks he wasn’t sure even she saw.
How much had she endured to get here? How much had she sacrificed just to stand in this office and make sure Neil was safe? And how many nights had she spent wondering if she should just stay in the shadows?
Wymack exhaled. He didn’t like loose ends. And now, Ada was a loose end that refused to be tied up neatly.
How Neil would react was a mystery to Wymack. Did Neil even know his sister was alive? He had been so adamant about having no one left, Wymack was inclined to believe he didn’t. And for all Ada clearly loved her brother now, there was two decades worth of history Wymack didn’t know. For all he knew, Ada had followed in her father’s footsteps before now. This could be a convoluted and elaborate plan for revenge, for all he knew.
Neil had never even hinted at her, and there was a reason for that, even if Wymack didn’t know what it was.
And then there was Andrew.
Wymack rubbed a hand over his jaw, thinking of the blond menace that hovered at Neil’s side like a loaded gun with the safety off. Andrew was violently protective over Neil, and Wymack didn’t doubt that if Ada ever revealed herself, there would be hell to pay. Andrew trusted very few people, and a long-lost sister showing up out of nowhere? That would be a hard sell. He hadn’t exactly reacted well to the reveal of his own long-lost sibling.
Would Andrew see Ada as a threat? A liar? Or worse, would he recognize the same scars in her that Neil carried and not know what to do with them?
That thought was more unsettling than the gun she had placed on his desk.
Wymack pulled his phone from his pocket and stared at Neil’s contact, his thumb hovering over the call button. His office felt quieter than usual, like the absence of Ada had sucked all the air from the room, leaving only questions in her wake. He exhaled sharply and pressed the call button.
It rang twice before Neil picked up.
“Yeah?” Neil sounded distracted, but not in the way Wymack was used to. There was no edge of tension, no wariness lurking beneath the surface.
In the background, laughter erupted—Nicky’s, unmistakably loud and obnoxious, followed by an exasperated “Oh my god, Nicky, shut the fuck up,” which had to be Aaron. Kevin’s voice chimed in, something indignant, drowned out by another round of laughter. And then there was Andrew—his voice quieter, too low to make out, but there. Steady. Close.
Neil chuckled at whatever was happening on his end and then returned his attention to the call. “Coach?”
For a second, Wymack didn’t speak. He sat there, gripping his phone like it had an answer he couldn’t find in himself.
Ada’s words rang in his head: I needed to know if his life is better off without me.
And now, hearing Neil—really hearing him—Wymack knew.
Neil sounded… happy.
Not just okay. Not just surviving. Happy.
Wymack had spent all year watching that kid fight tooth and nail for every scrap of peace he could get. He had seen him bruised and bleeding, on the verge of losing everything. And now? Now he was in Columbia with his team, his friends, his family. He was laughing. He was safe.
What would bringing Ada into this do? Would it shake the fragile stability Neil had found? Would it send him spiralling into questions and doubts he’d finally begun to let go of?
But more than that, whatever Ada was caught up in, it wasn’t simple, and it sure as hell wasn’t safe. If she had stayed behind when Neil had escaped, then she hadn’t been given the choice to leave, or she had chosen to stay. Either way, Wymack had no doubt there were ghosts trailing her just as they had once trailed Neil.
And if he told Neil? If Neil knew she was alive, out there somewhere, possibly tangled in the kind of life he had run from?
Wymack had no illusions about how that would go. Neil didn’t let go of the people he cared about. He didn’t walk away from lost causes. If he knew his sister was alive, he’d chase that thread no matter where it led. And Wymack had a sinking feeling that whatever Ada had gotten herself into, it wouldn’t let go of her easily.
Maybe, for now, that danger stayed at bay by keeping Neil in the dark. Maybe not knowing was its own kind of protection.
“Coach?” Neil prompted again, still amused but now slightly confused. “You good?”
Wymack cleared his throat, forcing himself back to the present. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. Didn’t mean to call. Must’ve hit your contact by accident.”
Neil snorted. “Damn, old age catching up with you?”
“Watch it, Josten,” Wymack said, relieved when his voice came out steady. “I can still bench your scrawny ass.”
More laughter from the background. Neil hummed, and Wymack could almost picture the lopsided grin he was wearing. “Yeah, yeah. You need anything, though?”
Wymack hesitated, just for a second. Then he shook his head. “Nah. Nothing to worry about. Enjoy your evening.”
Neil accepted that easily enough. “Alright. See you soon, Coach.”
And then the call ended.
Wymack sat back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his face. His office still felt heavy, but now, it wasn’t uncertainty weighing on him. It was a decision made.
Maybe one day, Neil and Ada would find their way back to each other. Maybe that was inevitable. But if she wasn’t ready, if she wasn’t sure, then it wasn’t his place to force it. And if keeping quiet kept Neil from chasing ghosts that might lead him somewhere worse, then Wymack would bear that silence.
Neil had found his people, his life, his happiness.
And Wymack wouldn’t be the one to risk taking that away from him.