“You think so?” 

She zips up her purse, gets up off the bed and comes to stand behind you by the mirror. In its reflection you can see her outfit too, the long burgundy dress she bought specifically for this occasion, the black high heels. 

“Look at me,” she says, and waits for you to glance back and meet her eyes. Her voice is measured, sure. “You’re perfect. You always look perfect, tonight is no different.”

You can’t hold her gaze. You look into the mirror instead, taking in the way you look beside one another. “We look good together.” 

“We do. That’s why I want you with me tonight.” 

You hum in feigned disapproval. “Is that the only reason?” 

“Maybe.” 

“Wow, you’re not even going to pretend otherwise?” 

Baran steps closer, takes your left hand in both of hers and raises it to examine. She adjusts your diamond wedding ring, spinning to the center of your finger. 

“This,” she says, “is why I want you with me. You’re mine, and I want to show you off.” 

Your heart swells and you nod, unable to keep up with the joke anymore. She says it so easily — you’re mine — that it leaves you speechless. 

“They’re going to love you,” Baran says. She leans in and presses a kiss to your temple, and when she pulls back there’s a mark on your face from her lipstick. “I love you.” 

— 

With a drink in your system and a seat comfortably close to Baran’s at your table, you’re feeling amazing. 

Introductions went well with her coworkers. You’re able to put faces to names now, conversation is easy, and you’re comfortable as long as Baran stays at your side. 

She leans close to you, speaking into your ear. “I told you they would love you. Smart people.” 

You don’t deny it. You reach for her hand on the table, entwine your fingers with hers, and watch as the seats at your table keep filling. 

“What do you think?” Baran asks. She looks at you hopefully. 

“Everyone seems nice,” you say. “Except Robby. You were right about him.” 

She nods. “Well, at least now you’ve seen him for yourself. It’ll make my stories more vivid.”

You raise your joined hands and press a kiss to her knuckles. “I like being here with you. We should come to more of these, I want to support you.” 

“I’d like that.” 

At the other end of the table, Trinity Santos leans in conspiratorially to whisper to Cassie. But she’s a terrible whisperer, you learn this quickly, and the whole table can hear it when she says, “Did Garcia and Walsh ride together?” 

Beside you, Baran tenses. Her grip on your hand tightens, she shifts uncomfortably in her seat, and she turns to look at you guiltily. 

“What’s wrong?” you ask, leaning closer to her. “Baran, are you okay?” 

“I kind of—” she cuts herself off, shaking her head. With every passing second, she looks more anxious. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. 

At first, you don’t understand why. Her words only make you nervous, and a thousand terrible possibilities flash through your mind all at once. 

“I didn’t know she would be coming,” she continues. “Please stay calm. We can talk about it at home.” 

You turn and look at the door to the event center and your stomach drops to your heels. 

—

“I can't go back out there, Baran! Why didn’t you tell me?” 

She sighs, leaning back against the sink in the restroom. She looks down at her shoes. “I didn’t think it was important.” 

“You didn’t think to tell me that you’ve been working with your ex-girlfriend all this time? My ex? Our ex, which I can’t believe I’m even saying.” 

Baran looks up to meet your eyes. She gives you a pleading look, begging you to let it go, but you can’t yet — you’re still angry. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” you say, voice softer now. “Please don’t.” 

“I’m not looking at you in any special way.” 

“You’re giving me that look you do when you want me to forget whatever you’ve done to piss me off and pull you into my arms,” you accuse. “But that is not happening right now.” 

“Baby…” 

“No,” you interrupt. “There’s nothing you can say right now to make this better.” 

“We share an ex,” she says. “So what? We’re gay, that’s the landscape. Everyone has dated everyone else, it’s nearly incestuous!” 

“I’m not angry about that. I’m angry that you’ve had a thousand opportunities to tell me you work with her, and you haven’t taken any of them.”  

“She works in surgery,” Baran says tiredly, as if she’s already thought this over a thousand times to assess the risks and talk herself down — she likely has. “She’s not always down in the ED.” 

You cross your arms. “Do you talk to her?” 

“When I have to, and it’s always professional. I dated Yolanda in college and it was nothing, less than nothing. I know your relationship with her was similar.” 

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” 

“Because I knew you would react this way,” she answers. “I knew you would be upset, and I didn’t want to make you upset. And you know very well that seeing Yolanda at the hospital would be at the bottom of the list of terrible things that happened on my first day at PTMC.” 

That last part is probably true, and you won’t argue it. But you also won’t bend and tell her that everything is fine, you forgive her, it’s water under the bridge. 

The restroom door opens. In walks Yolanda Garcia, who sees the two of you and pauses. 

“Evening, ladies,” she says. She looks between you, a small smile playing on her lips as if she knows exactly what you and Baran have been in here arguing about. “Trouble in paradise?” 

Baran gives her a sharp glance. “Yolanda, please.” 

“No, no, I’m kidding. Seriously, I hope I didn’t cause any problems earlier. I walked in and the two of you disappeared.” 

You can’t look at either of them. You don’t trust yourself. You study the floor, the space between the white tiles. 

“Crazy how you two ended up together,” Yolanda says, crossing her arms. “Married and everything. I was like the curve in the queer little road that brought you together.” 

“You didn’t bring us together,” you tell her bitterly. “If anything, you’re having the opposite effect.” 

She clutches her chest as if you’ve just shot an arrow through her heart, like you’re some malevolent equivalent of Cupid. “Harsh.” 

You move closer to Baran. You suddenly remember all the reasons you left Yolanda, all the reasons you started seeing Baran. 

“Can you two argue about me somewhere else?” Yolanda asks. “I really have to pee, and I don’t want to hear about how much you two hate me while I’m tinkling.” 

You reach out a hand for Baran to take. Immediately, she slips hers into it. 

— 

Despite the heavy summer heat that blankets the city during the day, Pittsburgh can still get chilly at night this time of year. You shiver when you walk out the doors of the convention center, but you don’t stop.

“We can’t go home,” Baran says. “I know you’re angry, but we can’t just leave!” 

You lead her through the parking lot, past rows of cars that make you wish you’d parked closer. 

“Being around Yolanda is part of my job!” she continues, struggling to keep up with you. “Can you slow down a little?” 

You finally reach the car. You stop, turn around, and Baran nearly runs into you. 

“You have to stop hiding things from me,” you say. “You know it’s a bad habit of yours to keep quiet about things you find upsetting. That needs to stop.” 

“I know.” 

“Do you?” 

“Yes,” she assures you, stepping closer. “This is exactly what I didn’t want. I don’t want to fight with you. After not telling you about her that first night, I thought I could avoid it altogether.” 

You shake your head. “Look at where we are now.” 

“Yes,” she says again, and grabs your left hand. She compares it to hers, making you look down at your matching diamond rings. “Look at where we are now.” 

You can’t argue that. 

“I’m married to you,” she reminds you. “You’re married to me. Yolanda has no place in this.” 

“Do you promise?” 

“I promise,” she meets your eyes. “You know the reasons why I left her. They were your reasons, too. That’s why we work well together.” 

You look down at your rings again. You find yourself drifting closer to her, and if you tilted your head up then you would be in perfect range to kiss her. 

“I don’t want anyone but you,” Baran says. 

You look up, meeting her eyes briefly before leaning in and kissing her, drawing closer to her. The sharpest edges of your anger dull, she softens you. 

“I shouldn’t have been so harsh,” you tell her quietly after you part.

She shakes her head. “I should have told you about Yolanda.” 

You kiss her again, deeper this time, letting her back you up against the side of the car. The handle of the backseat door digs into your back and you gasp at the sharpness of the sensation, releasing a shaky exhale, and Baran’s lips dip down to your neck. 

“Tell me what you want to do,” she murmurs. “Do you want to go home?” 

You consider it. It’s appealing to abandon this place and go home with her, let this continue in the privacy of your home. But you’re all dressed up, the night has just begun, and you think Baran would buy you another expensive drink from the bar to atone for her mistakes if you asked her to. 

“Not yet,” you answer. “You don’t get off the hook that easily.” 

“I usually do. This must be a grave offense, because there’s this spot on your neck that if I…” 

You push her away gently, kissing her one more time before taking her hand and leading her back through the parking lot. 

thank you for reading <3

The first time Cassie McKay sees you, you’re backing through the ambulance bay doors with both hands locked around the frame of a stretcher.

“Fifty-eight-year-old male, sudden onset substernal chest pressure while carrying boxes upstairs,” you say as the wheels strike the seam between pavement and tile. Your voice stays level despite the movement around you. “Diaphoretic and nauseated on arrival. Twelve-lead shows elevation in II, III, and aVF. He’s had three hundred twenty-four milligrams of aspirin. Pressure dropped to ninety-two systolic after one dose of nitro, so we held the second. Two large-bore IVs, no known allergies.”

Cassie falls into step beside you, one hand closing around the stretcher rail while her eyes move from the monitor to the patient. “Mr. Daley, I’m Dr. McKay. We’re taking you straight back.”

The patient turns his gray face toward her. “Am I having a heart attack?”

“I think you might be,” Cassie tells him. She doesn’t soften the truth, but her thumb presses briefly against the back of his hand. “You got help quickly. Your paramedics did exactly what you needed, and we’re already moving.”

You look at her then.

Most doctors meet your eyes during a handoff because they’re listening for information. Cassie meets yours like she’s making sure you’re still included in the room after your part is technically finished. Her gaze is direct, dark, and strangely steady in the noise of the Pitt.

Your next sentence catches in your throat.

“Last pressure was ninety-six over sixty-two,” you manage. You hand her the printed rhythm strip, careful not to let your gloves brush her fingers. “No change in pain.”

“Got it.” Cassie glances at the strip, then back at you. “Good catch.”

It shouldn’t matter. You hear some version of it every shift from nurses, residents, and attending physicians. You give a short nod, help transfer the patient, collect the sheet from your stretcher, and leave while the cath lab activation unfolds behind you.

Your partner catches the ambulance doors before they close. “You coming?”

“Yeah.” You drag your gaze away from the trauma bay. “Of course.”

The doors swing shut behind you.

The second time Cassie sees you, you’ve got rainwater dripping from the ends of your hair and a six-year-old girl sitting upright on the stretcher with an oxygen mask over her face.

“Known asthma,” you report as Cassie approaches. “Two days of upper respiratory symptoms. Her inhaler wasn’t helping tonight. Initial saturation was 87% on room air, with diffuse inspiratory and expiratory wheezing. She’s had two albuterol and ipratropium treatments and oral dexamethasone. She’s at ninety-five percent now, and air movement has improved.”

The little girl reaches for your sleeve when you begin stepping away.

You stop immediately. “I’m still here, sweetheart.”

Cassie notices the change in your voice. It’s the same voice, but its edges have lowered. You crouch until you’re level with the girl’s frightened eyes, one knee pressed to the wet floor.

“This is Dr. McKay,” you tell her. You angle your body so the child can see Cassie without losing sight of you. “She’s going to listen to your lungs and help you keep breathing easier.”

The girl studies Cassie over the clear plastic mask. “Does she give shots?”

Cassie pulls the stethoscope from around her neck and sits on the low stool rather than towering over the stretcher. “Only when I have to. I’m much more interested in borrowing your lungs for a minute.”

The child’s eyebrows pinch together. “You can’t borrow lungs.”

“That’s what everyone keeps telling me.” Cassie warms the stethoscope diaphragm between her palms. “Can I listen to yours instead?”

The girl nods.

You stay while Cassie examines her, although your partner has already stripped the used linens and replaced the oxygen cylinder. When Cassie finishes, you squeeze the girl’s hand and promise that her mother is right behind the ambulance in a car.

At the curtain, Cassie catches you with a quiet, “Hey.”

You turn too quickly. “Yeah?”

“What’s your name?” She taps the side of her own chest. “Your radio strap keeps covering the badge.”

You tell her.

Cassie repeats it once, like she’s checking the pronunciation. Then her mouth curves into a tired smile. “I’m Cassie.”

“I know.”

The answer comes out before you can stop it.

Her smile deepens. “Right. The doctor introduction. That would explain it.”

Heat crawls beneath your collar. “That’s definitely why.”

Your partner calls for you from the hall. You lift one hand in an awkward farewell and follow the empty stretcher back through the doors.

Cassie watches you go.

After that, your arrivals develop a rhythm that only makes sense if no one looks at it too closely.

You come in three times during one of Cassie’s shifts. The first time, you bring an older woman with a fractured wrist. The second, a college student who fainted after donating blood and then tried to walk home without eating. The third, a man with a deep laceration across his palm from attempting to repair a lawn mower while it was still running.

“You again,” Cassie says when you wheel the third patient into a treatment space.

You set the brake and glance over the stretcher. “You say that like I brought him here personally.”

The man lifts his uninjured hand. “This was mostly my fault.”

“Mostly?” Cassie raises her eyebrows while pulling on gloves.

“The mower started it.” He gestures toward you. “She said you people could sew my hand back on.”

“I said we’d have someone evaluate the injury,” you correct. You unwind the outer layer of blood-speckled gauze enough for Cassie to see the wound. “Distal circulation, sensation, and movement are intact. Bleeding controlled with direct pressure. Tetanus status unknown.”

Cassie leans closer without disturbing the dressing. “The good news is that your hand is still attached. I’m going to work very hard to keep it that way.”

The patient exhales. “See? She’s less scary than you.”

You rest one hand against your chest. “That’s devastating.”

Cassie’s laugh surprises both of you. It’s low and brief, worn thin by the shift, but it makes warmth spread beneath your sternum.

You leave smiling.

Then Cassie doesn’t see you for eleven days.

She notices by the third.

On the fifth, she looks toward the ambulance entrance every time the alert phone rings. On the seventh, Dana catches her standing at the central desk with a chart open and her attention fixed on two unfamiliar paramedics rolling an empty stretcher toward the exit.

“Lose something?” Dana asks. She keeps typing as she speaks.

Cassie looks down at the chart. “No.”

“Then I’m sure the ambulance bay appreciates your supervision.”

Cassie leans one hip against the desk. “Do different crews rotate through different hospitals?”

Dana’s hands pause over the keyboard. She looks up slowly. “Are you asking me to explain emergency medical services to you?”

“I understand emergency medical services.” Cassie folds her arms. “I’m asking about receiving patterns.”

“Units post in different zones. Calls take them wherever calls take them. Patients have destination preferences. Hospitals go on diversion.” Dana studies her for another moment. “And paramedics occasionally get days off, despite our best efforts.”

“That’s all I was asking.”

“Sure.” Dana returns to the chart. “Which paramedic?”

Cassie pushes away from the desk. “I have patients.”

“They’ll be relieved to hear it.”

You return on the twelfth day with a cup of gas-station coffee in one hand and no patient in front of you.

Cassie’s relief arrives so quickly that it irritates her.

You spot her near the charge desk and change direction. For one hopeful second, she thinks you came inside to see her. Then you hold out a folded piece of paper.

“We found this under the stretcher mattress,” you say. “It belongs with the chart for the lawn mower guy.”

Cassie takes the form. “You disappeared.”

Your fingers remain on the edge of the paper for a second too long. “I did?”

“You were here three times in one day, and then you weren’t here at all.” Cassie releases the form when you do. “I was starting to think you’d been reassigned to a different dimension.”

You smile into the rim of your cup. “Four days off. Then three night shifts. We transported mostly to Mercy and Allegheny General.”

“So there is a system.”

“There’s an attempt at one.” You take a sip, then wince at the taste. “Why? Did you miss me?”

Cassie’s expression stills.

The question was meant to be teasing. You hear that only after it’s out, when your own pulse begins beating in your ears.

“I noticed,” she says.

Something in the quiet answer makes it hard to breathe normally.

You crush the paper cup slightly between your fingers. “Well, now you know I’m alive.”

“That’s useful information.” Cassie’s gaze drops to your hand. “Your coffee might not be.”

“It’s terrible.”

“You keep drinking it.”

“I make a lot of questionable choices at work.” You step backward before your face can reveal more than you understand. “I should get back to the truck.”

Cassie watches the doors close behind you again.

This time, she looks less perplexed by the leaving than by the fact that you’d come in at all.

You’ve always been straight.

The statement has the familiarity of an address you learned as a child. You’ve repeated it without needing to inspect it. You dated boys in high school, men after that, and once spent nearly four years building a life with someone you assumed you’d marry. None of it felt false. Some of it had even been good.

Straight is the word you’ve always used, so straight is the word that should continue working.

It becomes less useful every time Cassie McKay looks at you.

You try replacing attraction with admiration. Admiration explains why you notice the patience in her voice when a frightened patient lashes out. It explains why you remember the loose strand of hair she tucks behind her ear while she reads an ECG. It might even explain why her praise settles somewhere deeper than professional approval should.

It doesn’t explain why you think about her mouth.

That realization arrives in the cab of the ambulance at two in the morning while your partner sleeps in the passenger seat and rain ticks softly against the windshield.

You stare at the dark entrance of a closed pharmacy across the street.

“Oh,” you whisper.

The word fogs a small patch of glass.

After that, you become terrible at being around her.

You’re warm one day and distant the next. You seek Cassie out after a handoff, then escape the moment she gives you her full attention. When she asks whether you’ve eaten, you answer with a detailed description of the protein bar in your pocket as if she requested a nutritional assessment. When your hands brush over a clipboard, you nearly drop it.

Cassie notices every change.

Of course she does.

She lets it continue for two weeks before cornering you in the ambulance bay after you deliver a stable patient with a dislocated shoulder.

The overhead door rumbles shut behind the departing ambulance. Your empty stretcher stands between you, remade with a clean white sheet. The bay smells like exhaust, rain, and industrial disinfectant.

“Did I do something?” Cassie asks.

You look up from fastening the last strap. “What?”

She slides both hands into the pockets of her white coat. Her posture is casual, but the line between her eyebrows isn’t. “Sometimes you talk to me like we’ve known each other for years. Sometimes you look at me like I’ve caught you committing a crime.”

“I don’t do that.”

“Yesterday you saw me in the hall and walked into radiology.”

You pull the blanket straighter. “I could’ve needed radiology.”

“You were carrying three empty oxygen cylinders.”

“Maybe they needed radiology.”

Cassie presses her lips together. The attempt not to laugh makes the concern on her face harder to bear.

You grip the stretcher rail. “You didn’t do anything.”

“Okay.” She draws the word out gently. “Then is this about someone else?”

“No.”

“Is it about work?”

“Not exactly.”

“Do you dislike me?”

Your head comes up. “No.”

The answer is so immediate that it echoes off the concrete walls.

Cassie’s eyebrows lift.

You close your eyes. “That’s the problem.”

Silence settles between the distant monitor alarms and the hiss of rain outside.

When you look again, Cassie hasn’t moved. Her expression has softened, but she doesn’t rescue you from the explanation.

“I’ve always been straight,” you say. The words sound defensive even to you. “I’ve never questioned it. I’ve never had a reason to question it.”

Cassie takes one slow step closer. “And now?”

“Now you keep being here.” You give a helpless gesture toward the emergency department behind her. “Which is unreasonable, because you work here. You’re supposed to be here.”

The corner of her mouth twitches.

“Don’t laugh,” you mutter. Heat spreads across your cheeks. “I’m trying to have a crisis.”

“I’m not laughing.” Cassie’s hands leave her pockets. She rests one palm on the end of the stretcher, still leaving the full length of it between you. “I’m trying not to make your crisis worse.”

“You’re the crisis.”

“That feels like an unfair amount of responsibility.”

A startled laugh escapes you. You lower your forehead to the cool metal rail. “I’m serious.”

“I know.” Her voice becomes quieter. “You don’t have to decide what this means while standing next to an ambulance.”

You lift your head. “You’re not uncomfortable?”

“Because you might be attracted to me?” Cassie considers that with exaggerated solemnity. “I’ve survived more upsetting news.”

Your eyes narrow. “Might be?”

Her smile finally appears. “You walked into radiology to avoid me.”

“Right.” You rub both hands over your face. “Subtle.”

“Not especially.”

The smile fades from her mouth, leaving warmth behind. She traces one finger over a scratch in the stretcher’s metal frame.

“Would you let me buy you coffee?” she asks. “Outside this building. When neither of us is responsible for keeping anyone alive.”

Your heart kicks hard enough to make the bay feel unsteady. “Like a date?”

“Only if you want it to be.” Cassie holds your gaze. “It can also be coffee with someone you find confusing. I’m comfortable being confusing.”

“I noticed.”

“You can say no.”

“I don’t want to say no.” You curl your hands around the rail again. “I’m just not sure what I’m saying yes to.”

Cassie nods, and the absence of disappointment makes your chest ache. “One cup of coffee. One conversation. You don’t owe me a conclusion afterward.”

The ambulance radio crackles from your shoulder, dispatch asking your unit to confirm availability.

You key the microphone and answer automatically. When you release it, Cassie is still waiting.

“One cup,” you say.

Her whole face changes. The smile is small, but delight brightens it from underneath. “I can work with one cup.”

Cassie chooses a diner that’s open all night because neither of your schedules fits conventional meal times.

You arrive first and spend six minutes sitting in your car, questioning every item of clothing you own. Your sweater feels too deliberate. Your jeans feel insufficiently deliberate. You nearly leave twice.

Then Cassie pulls into the space beside you.

She gets out wearing dark jeans, worn boots, and a green jacket over a plain black shirt. Without her scrubs and hospital badge, she looks unfamiliar enough to unsettle you all over again. She spots you through the windshield and raises one hand.

You make yourself open the door.

“Hi,” Cassie says as you meet between the cars. Her hands tuck into her jacket pockets. “You came.”

“You sound surprised.”

“You have a documented history of leaving whenever I look directly at you.”

“That was before you had coffee to use as leverage.”

“Good. I was afraid I’d have to stare at the ground all night.” She turns toward the diner entrance, then glances at you. “Still okay?”

The question is simple. The room it gives you isn’t.

You nod. “Still terrified, but okay.”

“Those can coexist.” Cassie opens the door and holds it for you. “I learned that in medical school.”

The diner is nearly empty. A jukebox glows in one corner, and the air smells like coffee, syrup, and fries that have soaked into the building over several decades. You choose a booth near the window.

Cassie waits until you sit before sliding onto the opposite bench. She picks up the laminated menu, studies it for three seconds, and puts it down.

“You already know what you want,” you say.

“I’ve been here after enough night shifts to have a standing order.”

“Then why open the menu?”

“I wanted to look adaptable.” She folds her hands on the table. “Did it work?”

“Not even slightly.”

“That’s disappointing.”

Your nervousness loosens enough for you to smile.

After you order, the server leaves two mugs and a bowl of creamers on the table. Cassie wraps both hands around her coffee but doesn’t drink.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” she says.

You peel the paper from a creamer. “It’s the only reason we’re here.”

“I thought we were here because my workplace coffee could dissolve surgical instruments.”

“That too.” You pour the cream and watch pale clouds turn through the dark surface. “I don’t know how to do this.”

Cassie lifts her mug. “Drink coffee?”

“Go on a date with a woman.”

She takes a careful sip before answering. “It’s a lot like going on a date with anyone else. We talk. We figure out whether we like each other when nobody’s bleeding.”

“I already like you.”

The words slip out softly.

Cassie lowers the mug. Her thumb moves once over the ceramic handle. “I already like you too.”

The quiet certainty in her voice settles your nerves more effectively than reassurance would have.

You look through the window at the wet parking lot. “I keep feeling like I should have known.”

“Known what?”

“That I could feel this way about a woman.” Your finger follows a drop of condensation down the side of your water glass. “People talk about figuring themselves out like the answer was always waiting for them. Like they look backward, and every part of their life suddenly makes sense. I look backward and mostly see men I genuinely cared about.”

Cassie leans one forearm against the table. “That doesn’t become untrue because you’re sitting here with me.”

“Then what does this make me?”

“Someone sitting in a diner with me.” Her gaze remains steady when you look at her. “Anything beyond that is yours to name, if you ever want to.”

You study her face. “You really don’t need me to know?”

“I need you to be honest with me.” Cassie’s fingers tighten slightly around her cup. “I don’t need you to produce a label so I can feel secure about one date.”

There’s history in the careful way she says it, something learned through years that didn’t unfold neatly. She doesn’t offer the history as a lesson or make your uncertainty about herself.

You reach across the table before you can overthink it. Your fingertips stop beside her hand rather than covering it.

“I’m attracted to you,” you say. Your pulse flutters at the base of your throat. “I know that much.”

Cassie looks down at the small distance between your hands. “That’s useful information.”

“You said that when I told you I was alive.”

“Both facts matter to me.”

You turn your palm upward.

Cassie pauses long enough to let the choice remain yours. Then she places her hand in it.

Her fingers are warm. There’s a faint indentation near one knuckle from hours spent in gloves. You close your hand carefully, as though the gesture might startle either of you.

It doesn’t feel like an answer.

It feels better than one.

The food arrives, and conversation gradually moves into safer territory. Cassie tells you about starting medicine at an age when most of her classmates seemed offensively well-rested. You tell her about the first call of your career, when you forgot the apartment number before reaching the second floor and had to run back outside to check.

“You abandoned the patient?” Cassie asks. She points a fry at you, scandalized.

“For eight seconds. My preceptor was already upstairs.” You dip a fry into ketchup. “I spent the rest of the call pretending I’d returned to the ambulance for clinically significant equipment.”

“What equipment?”

“A pen.”

Cassie laughs, head tipping forward until her hair falls across one cheek. You stare, then remember that staring is something people can see.

She tucks the hair back. “There it is.”

“What?”

“The look that sends you into radiology.”

You cover your eyes with one hand. “I’m never recovering from that.”

“Probably not.” Her boot nudges yours beneath the table. “I might let you build new material.”

By the time the plates are cleared, two hours have passed.

Neither of you mentions that one cup of coffee became refills, fries, pie, and the slow discovery that silence between you doesn’t need to be filled immediately.

Outside, the rain has stopped. The parking lot reflects the diner’s blue and pink lights in broken patches. You stand beside your car while Cassie rocks once on her heels, suddenly less composed than she was across the table.

“How was your first date with a woman?” she asks.

You rest your hip against the driver’s door. “I don’t have enough comparative data.”

“Very scientific.”

“I might need a second trial.”

Cassie’s breath catches. Her smile arrives slowly. “For accuracy.”

“Obviously.”

She steps closer, stopping with enough space between you that the choice is visible. “Can I kiss you?”

Fear moves through you first. It isn’t disgust or regret. It’s the sharp awareness that something you considered fixed is about to become real in a new way.

Cassie sees the hesitation and begins to step back.

You catch the sleeve of her jacket.

“I’m scared,” you admit. Your fingers tighten in the fabric. “I still want you to.”

Her expression softens. “Those can coexist.”

Cassie lifts one hand and waits until you lean into it before touching your cheek. Her palm is warm from the diner. Her thumb rests near the corner of your mouth.

The kiss is gentle and brief.

Nothing in the world rearranges itself. The pavement stays wet beneath your shoes. A truck passes on the road. The diner’s sign continues buzzing overhead.

Still, when Cassie draws back, your hand remains curled in her jacket, and your whole body feels startlingly awake.

“Okay,” you whisper.

Concern flickers across her face. “Okay good or okay bad?”

You look at her mouth, then meet her eyes. “I’m going to need more data.”

Cassie laughs, relief warming the sound. She presses her forehead lightly to yours. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

Your radio is silent in the car. Her pager is quiet at her waist. For once, neither of you is being called through a set of doors.

You don’t know what word you’ll use tomorrow. You don’t know whether the second date will become a third, or how this will fit around twelve-hour shifts, Harrison, missed meals, and the kind of work that can change a person before breakfast.

You only know Cassie is standing close enough for you to feel her breath, and you aren’t looking for an exit.

When she asks whether she can call you, you say yes.

It isn’t a conclusion.

It’s an opening.

Tag List

-----

After years of practice, you had the morning routine of an early shift down. You and Cassie moved around the kitchen like a well-oiled machine, she was making a quick breakfast and filling your lunch boxes, while you got the morning coffee and coffee to go ready.

At the same time that Cassie put the lunch boxes in the bags, you added the coffee to go cups. The routine was perfect, and you loved that you were able to execute it to a tee, and therefore have an extra ten minutes before you had to leave the door.

You move behind your girlfriend and snake your arms around her waist. Placing a couple kisses to the back of her shoulder. 

“Before I forget.” You say as you reach for something in your back pocket. “Harrison asked me to give you this today.”

You give her the envelope, kiss her shoulder one more time, and then grab the bags to give her some privacy.

Cassie turns the envelope around, for my mom. She smiles to herself seeing her son's handwriting. He was at his dad's now, and she wouldn't see him again until the weekend. It wasn't always easy to not have him constantly, but on days like this she remembered just how much it meant to get however many days she could with him.

She opens the envelope and takes out a card. A folded piece of paper, on the front were two people drawn in bright colours. They were hugging with some hearts surrounding their heads. She traces her fingers over his written words next to each person. Harrison. And next to the other drawn person, Mom. 

If she wasn't supposed to leave in a couple of minutes, she would have studied every little detail on the front of the card before opening it, but she knew if she wanted to read the inside, she would have to do so now.

Dear Mom

I am very proud of you!!

Thank you for being my mom

Love Harrison

Maybe he realised what day it was, or maybe it was just a coincidence that he wanted to give this to her today. Either way, Cassie was tearing up reading her son's words.

When the clock strikes midnight that evening, she will have been ten years sober. A journey she started because of her son. The first year of his life she barely saw him, and she worked hard on herself to turn that around. 

Cassie was wiping away some tears when you came back into the kitchen, “Everything okay?” She nodded. “Yeah, he's just the sweetest.” You smile and nod, agreeing with her statement. 

Before coming your way, Cassie turns to the fridge, and grabs a fridge magnet to add Harrison's card to the rest of his drawings that you had collected in your home over the years.

In the five years the two of you had been together, Cassie had maybe once told you the anniversary month of her sobriety, but never the exact date. While making progress in her sobriety, it wasn't something she liked celebrating big. It was a positive thing to be able to add year after year onto her sobriety, but it still stemmed from something she was deeply ashamed of.

She assumed you knew her ten years were coming up, because just adding a year on top of Harrison's age was an easy reminder, but she knew that you weren't aware of the significance today had on Cassie.

You stepped into the driver's side of the car, and Cassie joined you on the passenger side. You don't know exactly how it happened, but if you were both working the same shift, you always drove to the hospital, while she sat behind the wheel on the way back home.

—

Dana gets out of her car beside you, and the three of you walk into the hospital together. You and Dana are heading the same way, and Cassie has to go in a different direction. She kisses your cheek quickly, before turning away. “See you in about fifteen hours.” You chuckle. “Optimistic.” You yell after her.

While working in the same hospital and every now and again being on the same cases, the hospital was usually busy enough to not see each other for hours on end while being in the same emergency department.

The night shift hands over the patients and your day instantly springs into action with incoming trauma after trauma.

You had been planning to ask Dana before shift started if you could slip out for fifteen minutes around twelve, but since the rush instantly started, you had gone straight to work.

—

Three hours in, you finally had a case with Cassie. An eighteen year old girl coming in after an intentional overdose. Cases like this always hit hard because they were so personal, but you knew they tend to hit Cassie even harder than they did you.

You lock eyes with Cassie for a moment when she enters the room, before she puts her focus on the patient as she introduces herself. “So, Jaimy, I am going to be asking you a lot of questions. I know it can be overwhelming, and if it does please let me know. The reason I am going to ask all these questions is to best assess your situation, so we can see how we can best help you.” Jaimy nods in understanding, and Cassie gets to work.

While Cassie is assessing the patient, you’re hanging a bag of saline. “Sorry, I just need your arm for a moment.” The girl holds out her arm reluctantly, not showing any reaction at you putting in the IV. She has been through a lot in the last hour, so you weren’t too surprised by it. Still you take a mental note, and look to Cassie before nodding back down to her arm. Cassie nodded back and continued her conversation with Jaimy.

You move around the room collecting blood samples and preparing the tests Cassie orders, while she continues talking with Jaimy about what drugs she took and mixed. As you move behind Cassie to check the output of one of the machines on the other side of the room, you put your hand to her back gently. She leaned into your touch slightly, a silent I’m here that you had been doing for years now and now just did without even thinking.

The machine is done with its test, so you hand the results to Cassie. She looks them over before putting in the orders for some more tests. 

You move around the room, just in the background handing Cassie whatever she needed, and setting up whatever Jaimy needed. 

Cassie pulls up a stool and sits down next to the young girl. The question of why she had done what she had done, had made the room go quiet. Jaimy’s tears start flowing freely, and Cassie reaches out to hold the hand laying down on the bed closest to her. “It’s okay, take your time.”

The room stays quiet besides the beeping monitors, and Jaimy’s soft sniffles. Both you and Cassie gave Jaimy the space she needed before she would be able to share her reasoning.

“It wasn’t just one thing.” Jaimy starts, wiping away some tears with her free hand. “It was everything all at once. University, my grades, my parents, my so called friends, just everything kept adding up, and my mental health was getting so bad and then I just-” She choked on her words for a moment, but continued after a deep breath. “I got tired. I just didn’t want to be here any more. I don’t want to be.”

Cassie squeezes Jaimy’s hands softly. “I am sorry the world has been feeling so heavy on you.”

“I don’t want people to think I did this for attention.” Cassie shakes her head, “I don’t think you did, you were overwhelmed, you were struggling, you didn’t see a way out. But there is a way out, and I am very glad that you’ll be able to have a chance to find it.”

“I feel like I’ve ruined everything.” Jaimy says somehow looking smaller than she did before. “Many people think that, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.” Jaimy huffs, “Easy for you to say.”

“You’d be surprised.” Cassie tells Jaimy, who instantly locks her eyes on Cassie with a found sense of curiosity. Slowly Cassie lets go of Jaimy’s hands and folds them into her own lap.

“There was a time in my life, where I didn’t think I could continue.” Cassie speaks slowly, her emotions high, but also her intention not on her but trying to help Jaimy. “I have made decisions I’m not proud of. I’ve hurt people. I’ve lost people.”

“I desperately needed help. Accepting it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It wasn’t easy, and it still isn’t always easy. But with the right help, the bad days get less over time. I still have moments where I question if I’m doing enough.” Cassie’s eyes move over to yours for a second, but long enough for you to be able to read the guilt she still felt in them.

“But then I have days like this.” She continues when she looks back at Jaimy. “Work?” She asks, confused. “Helping people.” Cassie says with a smile. “I have a son at home. I have people who love me. I have a job I never thought I could be worthy of. My hard days didn’t disappear, they just stopped being the only days.”

Jaimy took in every word Cassie spoke. “I don’t know if I believe that can be the case for me.” She speaks after she lets it all settle. “That’s okay, you don’t have to right now. You just have to let us believe it for you until you're ready.”

The room grows quiet again as Jaimy nods. Until the silence got interrupted by a knock on the door and Dana’s head poking in to let Cassie know she’s needed for an incoming trauma.

“I have to head out for a bit, but I will be back to check on you soon. In the meantime, you won’t be alone.” She nods her head over to you, and you smile Jaimy’s way with a nod. Cassie stands up and walks to the door, but turns around before leaving the room.

"I'm glad your roommate found you." Emma swallowed hard at the words. “Me too.” She said so quietly that you almost missed it. Cassie smiled at the small step of progress she had made already. "I'll come back and check on you."

As she disappeared through the curtain, she caught your eye for the briefest moment. You offered a small nod. I've got her. Cassie nodded back before hurrying towards the next patient. 

The emergency department never stopped moving, and neither did you. But, every now and then, in the middle of the chaos, there was enough time to remind someone that tomorrow was still worth showing up for.

You adjusted the settings on the IV drip quietly. Then Jaimy turns to you, “Can I ask you a personal question?” You nod, “Yeah, go for it.”

She hesitates for a moment, but she wants to know if Dr. McKay was telling the truth or just making up a story to make her feel better.

“Are you and Dr. McKay together?” You smiled, “We are, yes. Are we that obvious?”

Jaimy shrugged lightly, “I don’t know. It’s just the way you communicate without having to say a word, and how you move around each other like you know exactly how the other person works.” 

You had no idea people noticed the little things that had come to be so routine to the two of you. “I guess we’ve learned some things after five years together.” You chuckle lightly, even earning a small smile from Jaimy.

“Is that all you wanted to know?” You push slightly, assuming there was more to the question. “Actually no, I wanted to ask you if she was telling the truth.” “About what?” You ask, wanting to know if there was anything specific that she was questioning. “All of it.” She didn’t sound judgemental, just genuinely curious.

You sat down in the stool that Cassie left beside the bed. “Every word was true.” Jaimy stares down at her hands in her lap, running the sheets through her hand. “I thought maybe she was just trying to make me feel better, I didn’t know.”

“You’re good. She would never lie to a patient, especially not about serious topics like this.” You thought for a moment which parts of everything you could and should share, but you settled on something simple.

“I met her after she got help, when she was in a better place. I’ve been with her through many bad days though. I notice the guilt she carries, but I also notice the woman that makes me breakfast in the morning, even when she’s in a hurry. The mother that keeps all her son’s drawings on the fridge. The doctor that makes sure every patient is heard, and gets the proper care. The partner that has learned to cook my favourite meal, so she can make it on my bad days.” You think for a moment, was that everything you wanted to say? Then you think of one more thing to add. “I might not have known her back then, but I’ve known the woman she has worked very hard to become.”

Cassie stood at the door, hearing the last part of your conversation. She had spent years wondering if people would always see the worst version of her first. Her heart warmed after hearing you speak so effortlessly about the life she had built. Cassie wanted to run in and hug you, but this moment wasn’t about her, it was about Jaimy.

“She really has all that even after going through lows like that?” Jaimy asks softly. You nod, “She built it. Piece by piece. It didn’t happen overnight, of course. It happened because she kept choosing tomorrow.”

“Do you think I could?” Jaimy’s eyes started watering again. You reach out and put your hand on her lower leg. “I think today probably feels impossible.”

“It does.” She fills in. “And I also think that McKay would’ve said exactly the same thing if you had asked her ten years ago.”

Jaimy was quiet again, taking in your words this time. “I hope she’s right. And I hope some day I get to have someone like you in my life.”

“How’s that?” You ask her. “Someone that looks at me and talks about my bad days as a chapter of my life and not my whole story. You squeeze her leg, “I know you will, and you do. Right now, you've got us in your corner. And we're going to make sure you leave here with people who'll stay there too.”

Cassie gives it thirty more seconds before she walks fully into the room to check in on Jaimy. You give Jaimy’s leg one more squeeze before you give them the room, quickly reaching out for Cassie’s arm as you pass her.

—

As you walk out of Jaimy's room you notice the time and immediately check your phone.

“You alright?” Dana, asks from behind the nurse's desk, noticing instantly that something is on your mind. 

“Yeah, I’m good. I’ve just been meaning to ask if I can slip out for like fifteen minutes in a bit, but it’s been so busy. And I hate to do this so last minute, but if it's possible could I do that right now?”

“Not unless someone’s dying.” Dana instantly jokes, and you chuckle. “No one is dying, but it’s very important.” Dana raises her eyebrows. You never asked to step out, especially if it was busy. You were one of the nurses she knew she could always count on. “How important?”

“Very important. Please Dana, I’d owe you.” The corners of her lips curl up slightly, “Fine, but fifteen minutes. Not a second longer.”

With Dana's permission, you rush out of the emergency department, and head to the parking lot where the notification said they'd be waiting. 

When you see him standing there you smile wide. “Thank you so much for doing this. I wish I could stay and chat, but I really have to get back to work.”

The man smiles when he hands you the black velvet box. “Not a problem, and my pleasure. Tell Cassie congrats from us.” You smile back at him, “I will, thanks again!”

Once you're back inside you manage to not run into Cassie, but since she knew your locker combination, you needed a different place to store the box. Dana, you thought, Dana would keep it safe.

Back at the nurses desk Dana looks at her watch, “Now why did you have to sound so dramatic, you were literally gone for five minutes.” You smile sheepishly, “I know, I felt bad about taking longer.”

“You managed to do what you had to do, though?” You nod, “Yes, I did. And about that, can I please owe you another favour?” 

Dana laughed, she hadn't even cashed in the first favour and you first favour and you were already asking for a second. 

“Please, I need you to keep this safe during the shift.” You pull the box out of your pocket, and Dana gasps. “Omg!” She exclaims loudly, then followed by a soft, “You're proposing to Cassie?”

You hush her and shake your head, “No, shut your mouth before the whole emergency department starts telling my girlfriend that I am.” 

You open the box to show Dana the silver and blue Sobriety Coin. The charge Nurse instantly turns serious, “Ten years, wow.” 

When you hear Cassie’s voice coming closer, you quickly close the case and shove it into Dana's hands with pleading eyes. “I've got you.” She says as she quickly tucks it away in her drawer.

Cassie stops next to you, “Hey, do you have a moment to talk about Jaimy?” You tell her you do and follow her, but not after mouthing a quick thank you to Dana.

She doesn’t stop walking until you’re in an empty patient room, away from all the noise of the emergency department floor. Cassie slides the door closed behind you, it feels like she is working up toward something big and important, which is confusing you a little, but you don’t push her.

“So, I talked more with Jaimy. She’s medically stable, and psych will clear her sooner than later as well.” You nod along, as it sounds like the standard of care with patients like her.

“I don’t like sending her home. I asked her who she could call if she was ever in a bad place.” Cassie looked defeated for a moment, “She stayed quiet. She doesn’t have anyone in her corner.”

You step forward, and reach out your hand to her arm, letting it slide down until you can interlace your fingers with hers. “I need you to hear me out, no Cass you know that’s against the rules, just please listen.” 

With a nod of your head and a soft squeeze to her hand, Cassie continues. “I know we’re not supposed to get attached, but she reminds me of me. She needs someone in her corner the way I did when I decided that I wanted to get better. I wouldn’t do this without your permission, but if you were okay with it too, I would like to give her my number. Let her know I am in her corner, be there for her, check in on her. Be for her who I needed back then.”

You pull your hand away from hers, “Cass,” she drops her head, feeling the no coming. Which she would take because she knew doing this was against work rules, and would affect your relationship.

But instead of saying no, you pulled a piece of paper out of your pockets. You hand it to your girlfriend to read. 

bad day?

call us whenever

cassie & y/n

Along with both your phone numbers written down. “I was going to ask you the same thing.” Cassie smiles, “This means a lot, thank you.” She looked out onto the floor quickly to see if no one was near, when she saw the coast was clear she reached out her hand to grab yours and pull you closer to her. She pressed her lips on yours shortly, before pulling you further into a hug.

Together you walk back into Jaimy’s room. The two of you standing at the end of her bed.

“Earlier you mentioned you didn’t have anyone to call.” Cassie starts softly, not wanting to scare her off with it. “We’ve been talking, and if you’re comfortable with it, we would like to change that.”

You take the note out of your pocket again, and hold it out for Jaimy to take. She reads the note and then looks between the two of you.

“You don’t need to do this.” She insists. “We know, but we want to.” You tell her, but she wasn’t convinced that easily. “Why?”

Cassie takes that answer. “Because someone did it for me once, and it changed my life.” Jaimy nodded slowly, “Okay.”

—

The rest of the shift blurred together. Just like every day in the emergency department. There was barely enough time to process one patient before another came into the department in need of treatment.

A teenager with a fractured wrist. An older patient experiencing chest pain. A crush injury after a car crash. A toddler that spiked a high fever. 

The ever changing board kept you busy for every hour of your shift. The only constant in your day was catching glimpses of Cassie.

Sometimes you only caught her for a second, walking into a patient room as soon as you laid eyes on her. Other times she walked past the nurses station while you were standing there as well discussing something with Dana. She offered you a tired smile as she walked by.

Once, she caught your eye from the other side of the department floor. She looked exhausted, you felt exhausted too. You okay? You mouthed her way, she nodded before getting pulled away by Javadi.

Whenever you had a minute between patients, you found yourself in Jaimy’s room. Not because she needed you medically, just because you knew waiting in an empty hospital room was lonely.

She was waiting on a psych consult, but you knew she had to be here for a bit longer before they would speak to her. You kept her company while you could, working on some notes on the stool next to her bed, or if you had the time striking up a conversation to get to know her better.

By the time night shift started to filter in, you were mentally and physically exhausted. You were finishing handovers when someone clapped their hands, “Who’s coming for a drink?” You chuckled at the chorus of groans and half-hearted agreements around the nurses station.

Javadi looked at Cassie, “Are you joining?” Your girlfriend smiled apologetically, “Not tonight, I think I desperately need my bed.” Javadi chuckled, fair enough. Then she looked over to you with a questioning look in her eye. “Another time.” You said with a tired smile.

When she walks off, Cassie turns to you. “You didn’t have to decline just because I wasn’t going.” You smile her way, “I know, I just want to be with you tonight.” Cassie smiles back, “Yeah, me too.”

Before leaving the department, the two of you stopped outside Jaimy's room. She looked up from her bed and smiled your way, maybe just as tired as the two of you smiled her way. “The night shift is taking over from us.” You said gently. “We’ve caught them up on everything, and you are in good hands. I promise.” 

Cassie takes over. “Remember we are only a call or text away always. You don't have to do tomorrow on your own." Jaimy's eyes filled again. “Thank you." You knew she wanted to say more, but she didn’t have the words. So, you reach over and squeeze her shoulder, “We’ll see you soon.”

—

The car ride home was quiet. You were both exhausted after the long shift, so you just sat in silence with the radio playing softly in the background. Cassie’s right hand laid comfortably on your upper thigh, while her left was on the wheel.

Back at home you took Cassie’s back, like you had done every night when you got home. “Go run yourself a bath.” You say as you kiss her cheek. “I’ll order dinner.” Cassie pulls you back into herself and hugs you tight, “You’re the best.” Her kind words bring a smile to your face. You place a long kiss to the top of her head.

As soon as you hear the bath water running, you rush to the bedroom and place the velvet box in your nightstand without Cassie noticing it. Then you place the food order before changing into a pair of sweats and one of Cassie’s sweaters. 

The food arrives while you are scrolling on your phone, seeing what messages you missed over the course of your workday. You quickly hit send on your reply to Harrison’s message asking if you gave his mom the card, before you get up to walk to the door to grab the food. Of course, it’s hanging proudly on the fridge.

When you turn back around Cassie walks in, her hair still wet, one of your old college shirts on, and a pair of plaid pajama bottoms she had stolen from you years ago. “What are you smiling about?” She asked with a tired smile. “Nothing, you just look super cozy.” 

You have dinner on the sofa. Just the two of you, a bunch of takeout containers and the new episode of your favourite show playing on the tv. It might not be much, but after your long shifts, this was perfect.

When you were heading to bed, it was nearing midnight. You watched the clock as you sat down onto the bed after brushing your teeth. One minute before midnight, perfect you thought. 

The moment Cassie walked into the room, you patted your hand on the bed to come sit with you. She had a confused look written on her face, but it was late, she was tired, and you were asking her to join you in the bed, so she just complied. “What’s up?”

You just smiled and took her hand in yours. “I just wanted to take a moment to tell you how proud I am of you. You know I am proud of you every day, but today with Jaimy, I got to see how much you’ve grown over the years.”

Cassie’s heart was beating fast in her chest. She was grateful for you, but a part of her would always feel like she didn’t deserve any of it. You rub your thumb over the back of her palm to get her focus back to you.

“I know you don’t like celebrating you big, but I did want to do something to celebrate you and how much progress you’ve made.” You lean back so you can open the drawer of your nightstand.

When you sit back up again, you’re holding the black velvet box in your hands. “I wanted to be able to be the first to congratulate you, and give you this.” 

You hand the box over to let Cassie open it herself. She takes it and slowly opens the box, not sure what to expect. The silver coin with blue accents reflected the dim light from the room. 

At first she just stares at the coin. She lets her thumb run over the X in the middle, once, then twice. As if she couldn’t believe it was real. The X indicates ten years of sobriety. Ten years since she decided she needed to change. 

Tears well up in her eyes, as she looks up at you from the coin. “You knew?” You nod, “Of course, I knew.” 

She puts the coin back into the box and puts it to the side so she can fall into your arms. You hold her tight, rubbing circles over her back. “You’ve worked so hard to come here, and I am so very proud of you for choosing tomorrow every single day. You are an amazing person, so caring, so loving, and I am glad to have you in my life.”

Cassie sits back up again, a serious look flashing over her face. “I overheard part of your conversation with Jaimy earlier. ‘I’ve known the woman she has worked very hard to become.’ Those words hit really deep, and I wanted to thank you for speaking about me like that even when you don’t know that I am around to hear.” 

You reach out your hands and wipe a couple fallen tears off her cheeks with your thumbs, before kissing her slowly. The kiss was soft, but passionate. It spoke a millions words of love and gratitude without ever having to physically say them. 

The kiss gets interrupted by the buzzing of both your phones at the same time. You each reach out and look at your phones at the same time.

They’ve moved me to psychology for the night

Thank you for everything

Jaimy

The two of you smiled at the message and the groupchat name, My corner. A silent look between the two of you that meant you made the right call to not follow protocol on this one. You each sent a message back, before putting your phones on their chargers.

You kiss Cassie again, and pull her down to lay down in the bed. You lay down on your back and pull Cassie into your side. She lays her head on your chest, and her hand on your lower stomach. “Thank you for loving me.” 

You press a long kiss to the top of her head. "You never have to thank me for that.” 

It didn’t take long for the two of you to fall asleep after that.

-----

➶❥➶❥➶

Night shift had started calmly enough, but by the time the clock hit ten, your desk is already buried in forms, patient charges, and a line nearly out the ER doors. You barely had time to sip the lukewarm coffee you’d grabbed before your shift started, and your phone is sitting on your desk behind the registration counter, buzzing insistently, forgotten. 

You’ve left it, your pocket empty as you walk back to a patient bay, paperwork in hand, juggling a clipboard and this particular patient’s medical history file.

The faint trill of your alarm continues ringing behind you, lost in the noise of beeping monitors and conversation.

You glance up from your spot in North-1 and catch Parker leaning against the counter at the nurse’s station, arms crossed and her eyebrows raised in a mixture of amusement and mild impatience. You throw her a quick smile and she tilts her head, her lips twitching up in the smallest smile before returning her attention to the chart she’s reviewing.

Back at registration, your phone’s alarm keeps insisting on your attention, even though you aren’t there. After a few moments, your coworker, who’s become irritated by the constant noise, snaps. “Seriously? Turn that shit off,” he mutters, pressing the side button to disable the sound before walking away. 

Your medication reminder silenced without your knowledge.

You don’t think twice about it because you’re already down the hall in another bay, answering a patient’s questions about an insurance form. A nagging feeling that something is off tugs at the back of your mind, but you ignore it, instead focusing on the words coming from the patient’s mouth.

You’re fine. You always are. 

The ER chaos is familiar, almost comforting even, at least when you’re not a doctor being pulled in a million different directions at once. Your job is important, there’s no mistake there, but it’s not a matter of life-and-death if you screw up. But the constant noise and movement of the emergency department doesn’t bother you now, especially with Parker around.

It’s beyond you how a casual night out turned into this.

The Monday-to-Friday night shift had been planning drinks after a long week, and while the front desk staff didn’t usually attend, they were always invited. You were expecting to see familiar faces when you arrived, but instead, it was just her. Just Parker. You hadn’t ever actually talked to her before; she always seemed…serious. Intimidating, even, in that calm, no-nonsense way that doctors can be. You’d almost turned around and left until she gave you an easy, small smile and nodded for you to join her. 

And then the night unfolded in a way that still makes your stomach flip even now. One-on-one, alone in the dive bar just up the road from the hospital, the ice had melted. She laughed when you told personal stories, her hand brushed yours when she reached for the appetizer menu, and God that teasing smirk when she leaned in close enough to whisper something that was hard to hear over the bar chatter. And when she’d kissed you, it was quick and surprising and left the tingling feel of her lips on yours long after you’d gone home alone.

Since then, it’s been more than just little moments. It’s been late dinners that turn into sunrise conversations, taking turns staying the night at each other’s places because neither of you can stand to say goodnight yet, and mornings spent sharing coffee in mismatched mugs while you scroll through streaming services and you have to pretend not to stare too hard at her. 

But tonight, as you pivot to another bay and Parker’s eyes find yours across the room, your pulse isn’t just running from the floor. You’ve learned her microexpressions, how to tell when she’s actually upset versus her focused face, and you love to watch her in her element so much that you can’t stop yourself from looking for her every time you cross the doors from triage into the department.

The night stretches forward in a blur of paperwork and patient names, and the constant shuffle of movement never really stops. By the time the initial rush settles into something more manageable, you finally make it back to your desk, your chair creaking as you drop into it for the first time in what feels like hours. The glow of your computer screen washes blue light across your face as you begin catching up on entries you’d been forced to postpone.

You rub at your eyes, blinking hard as the numbers blur together for a moment before snapping back into focus. You chalk it up to fatigue. Night shift always carries this heavy, dragging exhaustion that settles in your head and makes your brain go fuzzy. You take a sip from the cup beside your keyboard anyway, grimacing at how cold it’s gone.

The ER doors open and Parker moves through a cluster of patients in triage, her posture straight and voice calm as she discusses something you can’t hear. You watch her for a second longer than you should, the familiarity of her presence making your chest warm, before you drag your attention back to your screen. There’s still too much to do.

The lull doesn’t last long.

Another patient is called back before you can finish their intake and you’re back on your feet again, the clipboard tucked against your side as you weave through the maze of curtained bays and rolling equipment. The fluorescent lights overhead seem abnormally harsh, catching the edges of your vision in a way that makes you squint slightly as you step into the next room.

The patient greets you with the tired politeness that often comes with being in an ER in the middle of the night. They hand you their insurance card while you run through your practiced script, fingers moving automatically across your tablet. Halfway through confirming their address, the room tilts, like you’re on skates and someone has bumped you without warning. You falter, your sentence stuttering as you instinctively shift your weight, your hand finding purchase against the edge of the workstation beside you.

It passes as quickly as it comes.

You finish the intake without another hitch, offering the patient a reassuring smile as you step back into the hallway, rolling your shoulders once to shake off the lingering fuzziness.

You’re fine. Just tired.

The hours crawl forward, marked only by the rhythm of new arrivals and discharged patients. You move between bays, occasionally stopping at your own desk long enough to input information before being pulled away again. Somewhere around two in the morning, you realize you’ve refilled your water bottle twice already, even though you don’t remember finishing the first one. Your mouth feels dry anyway.

You’re halfway down the hall toward South-15 when the dizziness hits again, but worse this time. Your foot catches slightly on the tile beneath you, your balance slipping just enough that your shoulder bumps lightly into the wall. You still, pressing your hand flat against the textured surface as the world sways.

A passing nurse gives you a quick glance. “You good?”

“Yeah,” you answer automatically, pushing off the wall with a quick and embarrassed smile. “Just tripped.”

The explanation is enough for the nurse to let you move on without the conversation lingering.

The next few hours blur together in patches of conversation and data entry, your concentration slipping in and out. At one point, you find yourself staring at a patient’s insurance number, re-reading the same sequence of numbers three times before you realize you haven’t typed any of them. You blink and shake your head, and force your fingers back into motion.

It’s just fatigue. A long shift. Nothing out of the ordinary.

By the time the clock creeps towards four, the department has settled into a comfortable rhythm. Not slow, the ER is never slow, but everything seems less emergent. There hasn’t been a trauma in over an hour, allowing staff to start clearing out the patients in the waiting room.

You step into another bay, offering the patient a polite greeting as you pull his information up on the computer stationed near the foot of the bed. He hands over his wallet, chatting absently while you confirm his details, your fingers moving on autopilot through the familiar forms and fields.

Halfway through entering his policy number, a sudden wave of lightheadedness crashes over you.

Your breath catches.

The edge of the room darkens instantly, your vision peppering with black spots that flicker and multiply no matter how hard you blink. Sound dulls, muffling the patient’s voice into something distant and warped, like you’re hearing him in a tunnel.

Your pulse hammers wildly in your ears, fast and uneven, and you can feel it in your head, in your chest, in your fingertips. Your fingers slip against the keyboard as you try to steady yourself. The floor feels unsteady under your feet again.

You grip the edge of the workstation, knuckles paling, fighting to stay upright as your vision tunnels further, the overhead lights dissolving into blurred halos. 

You know this feeling, the warning signs buzzing in the back of your mind, but it’s hitting you too fast, too hard, stealing the breath from your lungs before you can think past the heightening of your senses.

“Can you -” your voice comes out thin and distant, even to your own ears. You swallow and force the words out through the haze. “Can you hit the red button behind you?”

The bed creaks as he moves to do what you’ve asked, confusion etched into his face.

You never even see him reach for it.

The last thing you register is the sharp trill of the alarm beginning to sound as your knees buckle, the world folding inward as you crumple toward the floor.

➶❥➶❥➶

Parker Ellis has always considered herself observant. It’s part of the job, noticing subtle things that patients don’t say, the symptoms that hide beneath lab results and vital signs, the changes in condition that can mean everything if you catch them early enough.

She’s been watching you all night. 

Not intentionally at first. It’s second nature now, her attention is drawn to you in the same unconscious way her hand finds you in the dark when she wakes up in the middle of the night. She watches you move through the department with your usual easy rhythm, weaving between bays with paperwork tucked under your arm, greeting patients with that unusually cheerful demeanor that sometimes puts patients at ease and sometimes surprises them that anyone can be that peppy in the middle of the night. It’s one of the first things she noticed about you: how naturally you slip into kindness, and how little effort it seems to take you to be happy.

She hadn’t expected that from you the night you first sat across from her in that bar.

You’d been quiet then, nervous in a way you tried very hard to hide, your fingers tracing condensation around the outside of your glass while you looked for something to say. Parker remembers thinking you were going to bolt at any second, or maybe throw up. She remembers intentionally slowing her tone, softening her posture, coaxing conversation out of you piece by piece.

And then you’d surprised her.

Beneath that shyness was quick humor, dry and witty in a way that didn’t lend itself to your nervous exterior. You’d discovered you both stayed up at ungodly hours on your nights off watching Formula 1 races, you trade commentary about teams and drivers like you’d known each other for years instead of minutes. By the time the bar staff had started stacking chairs, Parker had already become invested in the way your eyes lit up when you talked about something you loved, in the way your laughter slipped out and you covered your mouth to stifle it.

And later, when she’d kissed you outside beneath the parking lot lights, she was happy everyone else had bailed.

Now, months later, she’s learned the quiet details of you. The way you instinctively curl into her side while you sleep, one hand clutching her shirt to anchor yourself to her. The way you mumble half-formed words when she runs her hands over your hair. The way you pretend to still be asleep when she moves to get out of bed, only to then tighten your hold when she moves too far away.

She doesn’t scare easily. She works in emergency medicine, panic isn’t something she does. But the realization of how quickly you’re becoming important to her still catches her off-guard sometimes, surfacing in small moments like watching you from across the department and not knowing how to handle the affection that swells in her chest. 

Shen often makes fun of her for the way she stares at you.

Tonight, though, something is off. 

It had started subtly enough that she almost dismissed it. A slight hesitation in your step leaving registration. A moment where you’d paused mid-conversation with a patient, blinking like you’d lost yourself completely. She had caught it in her peripheral vision while discussing labs with a resident, her attention snagging instinctively on the movement before she forced herself to look away.

You’d kept moving. Smiling. Working.

She told herself it was nothing.

But the pattern continued.

She’s watched you lean a little too heavily against a workstation while entering information, your shoulders tight as though you were steadying yourself before pushing off again. She’s watched you refill your water bottle twice in the span of an hour. Once, she could swear she saw you misjudge a turn near South-10, your shoulder brushing the wall before you corrected yourself with a quick recovery that might’ve fooled anyone who wasn’t paying close attention.

Parker had noticed.

She notices everything about you now.

At one point, earlier in the shift, she’d walked past registration intending to make some excuse to stop by – she’d ask about a patient, maybe, or offer to grab coffee from the vending machine down the hall. The chair behind your desk had been empty when she arrived, the computer screen still glowing with an unfinished intake form.

Your coffee sat beside the keyboard, untouched and long since gone cold, the surface unbroken except for a thin film forming across the top. 

You’ve been running the floor nonstop tonight. She knows how registration gets when the ER backs up, how easily breaks get skipped, meals forgotten, coffee left abandoned in the rush.

Your exhaustion makes sense. It explains the sluggish movements, the occasional stumbles, the way you seem slightly less present when she catches your eye across the department.

So she lets herself believe it.

Even now, as she signs off on discharge paperwork near the nurses’ station, her gaze drifts automatically across the floor, tracking you as you disappear into another patient bay. There’s discomfort settling in her stomach that she can’t quite figure out, restless awareness tugging her attention every time you leave her sight. 

She tells herself she’ll check on you when things slow down. Make sure you’ve eaten, make sure you have more water, maybe steal five minutes alone with you in the stairwell.

The thought makes her smile.

The shrill alarm slicing through the ER shatters it instantly.

Her head snaps towards the sound before her brain has fully processed it, adrenaline surging as the emergency call light flashes from one of the bays down the hall.

The same one you’d just disappeared into a few minutes earlier.

Parker is already moving before she’s thought it through.

Nurses are converging from multiple directions, Lena’s voice is already rising above the noise as she pushes through to get to the front, Mohan is stepping out of a nearby bay and following close behind, Dr. Abbott appearing from the physician station with the calm and purposeful stride that always seems to precede chaos.

Parker is right behind them.

Or, she thinks she is.

By the time she reaches the curtained bay, they’re already inside. 

She catches the curtain with her hand and pulls it aside just enough to see through – and then she stops.

You’re on the floor.

Dr. Abbott is already kneeling beside you, his fingers pressed firmly against the side of your neck while his other hand steadies your shoulder. Lena is barking orders, her voice clipped and efficient as she directs someone to grab a gurney. Mohan drops to one knee beside Abbott, reaching for your wrist to confirm a pulse, her brow furrowing as she watches the second hand tick across her watch.

“What happened?” someone is asking the patient sharply.

“I – I don’t know,” the man stammers, half-standing from his bed, his eyes wide as he gestures helplessly toward you. “She was talking and then she started acting weird – she told me to hit the button and then she just fell!”

Abbott nods once, already moving.

“Pulse is rapid,” Mohan says quietly.

“Get her on the gurney, let’s move.”

Lena shoves the gurney into the bay, locking the wheels with a sharp click. Hands move in coordinated precision, lifting, stabilizing, repositioning you. Parker watches as they gather you carefully, one nurse supporting your head while another secures your legs, Mohan guiding your shoulders as they transfer you onto the mattress in one smooth motion.

You look wrong against the stark white sheets.

Parkers feet feel rooted to the tile.

She knows what she should be doing. She knows every step of this protocol, she’s performed it dozens of time for strangers, has issued the exact same rapid-fire instructions that are currently spilling from Abbott’s mouth. But her brain feels distant from her body, like she’s watching through thick glass as they wheel you out of the bay.

“BH-2,” Lena calls, already steering the gurney down the hall. “Someone go grab her bag from registration.”

The trauma bay doors swing open ahead of them, and Parker follows automatically, her pulse hammering painfully in her throat as her own team floods into the room. The heavy doors seem to slam shut behind her, cutting off the ambient noise of the ER and trapping her inside with the harsh fluorescent brightness.

Abbott is issuing orders immediately.

“Vitals. Cardiac monitor. Start a line.”

Mohan is already reaching for your arm, her fingers searching for a vein while another nurse rips open the velcro of a blood pressure cuff. Someone is coming in behind her, practically slamming your bag onto the table and looking through it to search for something that might help them understand.

Parker lingers through the doorway, her hands clenched uselessly at her side. She can’t make herself step forward. The air feels too thin in her lungs, her focus narrowing to the unnatural stillness of your body on the bed, the pallor of your skin under the lights, the way your chest rises too quickly with shallow breaths.

“Hey,” a voice says from beside her.

Shen appears at her shoulder, slipping into the room, his eyes shifting between you and Parker in an assessing glance.

“Parker,” he says firmly. “Stay back. We’ve got it.”

She barely hears him.

“Does she have any allergies?” he asks, reaching for the chart tablet someone hands him.

The question slices clean through the fog in her head.

“Yeah,” Parker says automatically. “Aprepitant, anaphalaxys.”

The room seems to all still at once, not literally, the movement of the people inside continues, but it seems like everyone’s awareness changes. Heads turn, surprised eyes flick towards Parker.

Shen looks at her, then toward Abbott.

Abbott straightens from the bedside, glancing between Parker and the tablet in Shen’s hand, his expression tightening. “You’re involved?” he asks. It doesn’t sound accusatory, more like it’s just confirmation.

Parker swallows, her throat dry. “Yes.”

Abbot nods, already turning back toward the team. 

“Dr. Ellis, you’re not on this case.”

“I’m fine,” Parker protests quickly. “I can still -”

“No,” Abbott interrupts, leaving no room for argument. “You can’t.”

“I’ve got her ID,” one of the nurses calling out breaks the tension as she rifles through your bag. There’s a soft clatter as something plastic inside it shifts. “Hang on -”

She pulls out a small, color-coded pill organizer, the translucent lids marked with days of the week. “We’ve got meds.” She flips the Thursday lid open. “Today’s still in here, whatever it is, she hasn’t taken it yet.”

Abbott reaches for the container and holds it up to the light. “Looks like Propanolol, and I’m counting four, if she’s on a standard dose that means she hasn’t taken any.”

Propanolol? Why would you be on Propanolol?

“Looks like we’ve also got Fludrocortisone in here!”

“Give me her chart,” Abbott orders, reaching for the tablet that Shen is holding out to him. 

The room hums with movement, your blood pressure cuff inflating, monitor leads snapping into place, while Abbott scrolls quickly through your file, his eyes scanning efficiently. 

Parkers brain works overtime. Propanolol and Fludrocortisone together are typically only used to treat one specific condition –

“There it is,” Abbott announces, mostly to himself. “POTS, we’ve likely got a flare up.”

The room seems to relax all at once, but Parker can’t tear her eyes away from you.

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.

You never told her. 

It’s not like you owe her your medical information, Parker isn’t stupid. She isn’t accusing you of anything, not even for a second. But she still can’t stop the disappointment that pangs her chest. 

She knows how you take your coffee, the weight of your sleeping body tucked against hers, she knows the cadence of your breathing when you’re dreaming. 

But she didn’t know this.

“Let’s get her positioned in a reverse trendelenburg and start a saline bolus,” Abbott orders. 

The bed begins to tilt as Lena adjusts the controls, angling your body while Mohan preps the IV line with quick and steady hands. She secures the IV catheter smoothly, saline beginning to drip steadily into the line as the cardiac monitor chirps with rapid, uneven rhythm.

Abbott straightens from the bedside and moves closer to her, resting an insistent hand on her arm. 

“Parker,” he murmurs. “Come on.”

She doesn’t allow herself to be moved, even as he tugs at her elbow.

“If I can’t stay as her doctor,” she says,  “I’ll stay as her girlfriend.”

The room pauses again. Mohan’s hands still for just a second before she continues her work. Lena glances briefly toward Abbott to see if he’ll allow it.

Abbott studies her, the lines around his eyes deepening with conflict he doesn’t bother hiding. His gaze settles on you, then on the steadily improving blood pressure reading crawling upward on the monitor.

“You can’t interfere,” he says finally.

“I won’t.”

“You don’t touch equipment. You don’t answer for her medically. You stay out of the team’s way.”

Parker nods immediately. “Okay.”

Abbott holds her gaze another moment, calculating. “You stay until she regains consciousness. Then you get back to work so we can assess her properly. Understood?”

Relief washes over her. “Understood.”

Abbott gives another short nod and turns back to the bed.

The room resumes it’s rhythm around her. Parker shifts backwards until she’s pressed lightly against the wall near the side of the bed, careful and silent and exactly where Abbott told her to be.

Close enough to see you.

Close enough to hear the deepening of your breathing as your body begins to respond to the fluids coursing into your veins. Minutes stretch as the monitor tone gradually slows, each beep spacing out just a little more than the last. Color creeps back into your lips and cheeks. Mohan checks your pulse again, nodding to Abbott.

“Pressure’s coming up,” Lena says, her eyes trained on the screen.

There’s a flutter beneath your eyelids, a subtle twitch to your fingers against the sheets. She leans forward without realizing it, crossing her arms to prevent the instinct to reach out and touch you.

“Hey,” she says softly, before she can stop herself. “You’re okay.”

Your brow tightens slightly, like the sound of her voice is tugging at you beneath the surface.

“There we go,” Mohan murmurs, pulling at your eyelids to watch your pupils as she shines a penlight briefly across your eyes.

Your fingers flex again, purposely this time, dragging across the bed beneath them. A faint, confused sound escapes you.

Your eyes flutter once. Twice. Then they crack open.

You flinch at the harshness of the lights, disorientation evident in your face as your gaze drifts unfocused across the ceiling before sliding sideways, searching without direction.

“…wha…” The syllable falls apart halfway out of your mouth, your voice hoarse.

“You’re in the ER,” Abbott says gently, stepping into your line of sight. “You had a syncopal episode, but you’re okay.”

Your eyes slide again, more in focus this time, past Abbott and land on Parker.

Recognition flickers in your face, followed by confusion and the ghost of fear as you try to piece together why she’s standing against the wall of a trauma bay, her face almost looking panic-stricken.

“Hey,” she says again, softer this time, but careful not to move closer lest Abbott lay into her. “I’m right here.”

Your brow furrows deeper, your lips parting as if you’re trying to ask a question but can’t quite get it out, your hand twitching weakly against the sheet. 

“...what happened?” Your voice comes out rough, barely more than a rasp.

With a glance back at the Attending, who nods, Parker approaches your bedside and reaches for your hand. “You collapsed,” she says, her thumb brushing an absent circle against the back of your hand. “You were in a patient bay. You must’ve missed your first propranolol dose and had an episode.”

Memory doesn’t come back so much as it flashes – the black spots in your vision, the sound of your own voice telling the patient to hit the red button.

A groan slips out of your mouth, eyes squeezing shut in mortification. “Oh my god,” you mumble. “That is so embarrassing.”

Parker huffs out a laugh, shaking her head. “You passed out at work,” she says. “I promise you, nobody here is judging you for it.”

“You don’t get it,” you mutter, dragging your free hand over your face. “Administration fainting in the ER is like…the most humiliating professional hazard ever.”

“You fainted because you have a medical condition,” she corrects softly. “That’s not the same thing.”

You peek at her through your fingers, studying her expression, the lingering worry still in her eyes. Guilt twists in your chest.

“I didn’t tell you,” you say quietly.

It’s not a question.

Parkers gaze softens but her grip on your hand tightens just a little. 

“You didn’t get the chance,” she says. A lie to save your guilt.

Silence settles between you for a moment. The monitors continue their steady rhythm, the IV pump clicking beside you. You become vaguely aware of the rest of the staff trying their best not to intrude on what feels like a very private moment.

“I scared you.”

She exhales slowly. “Yeah,” she admits.

Her thumb brushes over your knuckles again. 

“But I’m here,” she continues. “You’re okay. And for what it’s worth, I’m glad it happened while I was around.”

You swallow, your throat tight for reasons that have nothing to do with dehydration.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

Parker’s expression shifts into surprise, then relaxes into a small smile. “You don’t have to apologize for something your body just does,” she says quietly. Then, after a small pause, her voice lowers even more.

“I love you.”

The words are gentle.

Your eyes widen and you inhale sharply. Parker’s gaze flickers, a hint of uncertainty slipping in. But she doesn’t take it back.

“I think I have for a little while,” she admits. “I just didn’t know when to say it.”

Emotion swells in your chest, shoving away the lingering haze in your head, past the embarrassment and exhaustion.

You squeeze her hand weakly, a watery laugh escaping you. “So you pick the moment where I’m hooked up to fluids and humiliated in a trauma bay bed?”

One corner of her mouth lifts. “You’re very memorable like this.”

You shake your head, tears threatening at the corners of your eyes despite yourself.

“I love you too,” you say.

The relief that washes across Parker’s face is immediate and raw, so tender it makes your chest ache. She leans forward, pressing a careful kiss against your forehead, lingering just a second longer than necessary.

“Good,” she murmurs against your skin. “Because you’re not allowed to scare me like that again.”

You chuckle again faintly. “No promises. My autonomic nervous system is kind of dramatic.”

Parker pulls back just enough to meet your eyes, smile still resting on her lips. “Then I guess I’ll have to stay close enough to catch you next time.”

➶❥➶❥➶

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You like to have dinner started by the time she gets home. You think it’s a nice gesture, and you’d do anything to see Baran’s face light up the way it does when she comes into the kitchen to find you plating her favorite meals. 

Today, you walk in the door and go immediately to the couch. You kick off your shoes and put down your bag on the way, leaving it all strung across the floor, and let yourself slump down into the cushions. 

“Fuck,” you sigh, closing your eyes. You curl up on the couch and reach for the blanket on the back cushion, pulling it over you. 

It’s been a hard day. Work was rough, you forgot your lunch at home, your phone died halfway through the day, and a thousand other things went wrong that you somehow found yourself right at the center of every time. 

At least you had a phone charger in your car. Your phone is at a measly seven percent now, but it’s enough. At least you were able to text Baran that you got home safely. 

You keep your eyes closed, releasing another sigh. You feel so heavy, and with each passing moment you find yourself being pulled further towards sleep. 

You try not to let yourself succumb to it. You need to get up and cook dinner, change clothes, put your shit back where it needs to be so that it’s not strung all over the house when Baran comes home. But you feel so tired, this couch is so nice, and soon enough you’re out. 

— 

What wakes you up is the way the cushion dips by your head when Baran sits down next to you. It jostles you just enough, and you blink against the warm light of the living room lamps. 

“Sorry,” Baran says softly, “I didn’t mean to wake you.” 

You sit up a little, rubbing your eyes. You give her a dazed look, check your phone for the time, and then sit up the rest of the way. “It’s already seven-fifteen?” 

“How long have you been asleep?” 

You shake your head, pushing away the blanket. “Dont worry about that,” you say, offering her a smile. “Fuck, I’m glad you’re home.” 

Baran leans in, tipping your head up with a hand on your chin and leading you into a kiss. Her lips meet yours gently, tiredly, as if she’s the one who just woke up from a nap instead of you. 

“I missed you,” you say once you part. 

“I missed you too,” she replies. She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “How was work?” 

You shake your head. “It was shit. How was yours?” 

She leans back against the couch cushions. “The same.” 

You move closer to her, enough that she can wrap her arms around you and pull you into her side. You press a kiss to the side of her jaw, then just below her ear, breathing in the soft lavender scent of her perfume. 

Then you remember that you were supposed to be making dinner. Your heart drops and you tense, sitting up again. 

“What’s wrong?” Baran asks. She runs a hand up and down your shoulder. “Talk to me, love.” 

“I forgot about dinner. I fell asleep. Fuck, I can’t believe I didn’t think to set an alarm!” 

“It’s fine,” she says. “We can make something together.” 

“But I wanted to have it ready for you. I always do.” 

“And I appreciate it,” she tells you, sitting up. She shrugs off her purple jacket as she speaks, laying it gently over the armrest of the couch. “I’ve never asked that of you though, have I?” 

You frown. “No.” 

She stands up, holding out a hand for you to take. “Come on. Team effort.” 

“Baran…” 

“Am I that bad of a cook?” she jokes, and pulls you to your feet. “It’s fine if I am, you can tell me.” 

“You’re not a bad cook.” 

“Then let’s go.” 

— 

You wrap your arms around her waist, stepping forward to rest your chin on her shoulder. 

“It smells good,” you murmur, and press a kiss to the bare skin of her shoulder beside the black strap of her tank top. 

“It’s just pasta.” 

“Don’t do that.” 

“Do what?” 

“Sell yourself short,” you say. “Dont do that.” 

She rests a hand over yours across her middle, turns her head and kisses you. “Thank you,” she whispers eventually, “for reminding me.” 

You pull her closer, listening to the sizzling and boiling of the contents on the stove, and you think that if you closed your eyes then you might be able to fall asleep again. 

“Go set out some plates for us,” she tells you. “It’ll be ready soon.” 

— 

“We need to get that dishwasher fixed,” you say, walking into the bathroom and hoisting yourself up onto the edge of the sink counter while Baran does her nightly routine. “It rumbles and starts and then stops and then starts again. I don’t know what’s wrong with it.” 

“We can have someone look at it this weekend,” she says. “I’ll call in the morning.” 

“Thank you.” 

She grabs her moisturizer bottle. She starts twisting the lid, but it’s stuck, and she works at it for a few more moments before setting it down harshly on the counter. 

“Are you okay?” 

She nods. “Fine.” 

“Do you need some help?” 

Baran looks at you, looks down at the bottle of moisturizer, and then relents. She hands it to you and watches as you try to wrench the lid off. 

“Here,” you say, popping it open and handing it back to her. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

“I’m tired,” she says, and it sounds so raw and honest that you don’t think it’s an excuse. “Today was just… endless.” 

“I know. I get it.” 

She squeezes some moisturizer into her hands and rubs it into her face, meeting her own gaze in the mirror. “I know you do.” 

“Is there anything I can do?” 

She wipes her hands on the sink towel, then steps between your legs and places her hands on top of your thighs. “Just be here with me. That’s all I need.” 

You nod. You slide forward a little, meeting her in a kiss that is tired and familiar and feels like home. 

Baran’s hands slide up your thighs to your hips and she deepens the kiss, pulling you against her. It emboldens her when your legs spread a little wider and your hands find hers, pulling them just beneath your shirt. 

“This helps too,” she murmurs against your lips, then kisses you again and swipes her tongue into your mouth. 

You feel her hands growing more anxious beneath your shirt. They slide up your sides and palm over the fabric of your bra, and yours come up to guide them under it. 

“Is this okay?” she asks quietly, as if she doesn’t already know the answer by the way you’re arching into her touch. 

“More than okay,” you say, and pull your shirt off along with your bra. 

Baran leans in and presses a kiss to your neck, just beneath your jaw, and peppers more down the column of your throat to your collarbones. She nips at the skin in a way that makes you gasp, and when she leans down to wrap her lips around a nipple, it elicits a sound from you more desperate than you’d like her to think you are already. 

“Bedroom,” you tell her, pushing her away so you can hop down onto your feet. “Please, I need this.” 

Baran leads you toward the connected bedroom, stopping in the doorway to pull you to her and kiss you, pressing you back against the doorframe. It’s rough against your back and compresses your spine in a way that’s terribly uncomfortable, but you can’t bring yourself to push her away — it feels too good to have her in front of you, pressing into you from the front. 

Baran gets down on her knees. One rests on the bathroom tile and the other on the dark wooden floor of your bedroom. She looks up at you with pupils wide and hands expectant. 

“Here?” you ask hesitantly. 

“Here.” 

Before you can overthink it any further, Baran leans forward and licks a trail up your thigh, making you gasp. She reaches up for the band of your shorts, meeting your eyes as she pulls them down with your underwear and helps with gentle hands on your calves as you step out of them. 

“Whenever work is shit,” she says, “I imagine us right here, just like this. I imagine having this perfect fucking view of you.” 

A familiar warmth spreads through your body, gathering low in your belly and down to live between your thighs. Your breathing gets heavier, you spread your legs a little wider without thinking about it, and you bite down hard on your bottom lip when Baran kisses higher up your thighs. 

You can feel her breath fanning against your center and she looks up at you, hoisting one of your legs over her shoulder so she can have better access to you. 

“Tell me what you want,” Baran orders, as if she doesn’t already know. Her hand on your hip presses you harder against the doorframe — it’s a precarious position, not the most stable, but she’ll take care of you. You know she will. 

“You,” you plead, bucking your hips forward only for them to be pressed back again. “Your tongue, your fingers, whatever you want. I need to feel you.” 

“You need to?” 

You nod, suppressing a low moan that threatens to escape from deep in your chest. “Please.” 

She gives in, leaning in and licking through your wet folds, humming contentedly at the taste of you. She feels your thighs tense and she presses you back hard against the doorframe until they relax, using it as a warning and reward system without hardly meaning to. 

You weave a hand into her hair, guiding her closer. You sigh when she runs her tongue over your clit, and she uses enough pressure to make your hips jump. 

“Be patient,” she warns, but she can’t say she’s following her own rules. Already she’s wrapping her lips around your clit and sucking gently, fishing for a reaction from you, relishing the low groan you give her. “Good girl.” 

She shifts a little in the way she’s kneeling, the hard floors beginning to make her knees ache. But when she has you above her like this, lost in the feeling of her tongue on you and looking at last so relaxed and relieved, the last thing she wants to do is move. 

You raise a hand to your own chest, squeezing and palming at your breast, running your thumb over your hardened nipple. You crave release, and while it’s hardly ever a race to the finish line when the two of you have sex, tonight feels different. It’s the exception. 

“Keep doing that,” she says, voice a little shaky. “You look so fucking beautiful like this.” 

You feel her tongue going lower, dipping into your entrance before moving to focus on your clit again. It throws you off — your legs begin to shake and you place in Baran’s hands an unfair amount of responsibility to keep you standing. 

Baran can feel you getting close already. She keeps going, sucking your clit into her mouth and then releasing it to run her tongue over it, gripping so hard with her hands that you’re both sure little indents will be left in your skin from her nails. 

Your grip tightens in her hair. Your hips buck into her and she follows the movement, hardly giving you any room to escape the intensity of her mouth against you, and release rushes over you in a sudden flash that has your back arching against the doorframe and a sharp cry falling from your lips. 

Baran helps you down from it, working you through the aftershocks and cleaning your release from your thighs with her tongue until you push her head away. She releases your leg from her shoulder, waiting for a second with her hands on your legs until she knows you’re okay to stand securely on your own two feet. 

“Come up here,” you say breathlessly, reaching down for her. “I want to kiss you.” 

She smiles, nodding, but then she pauses. Her knees ache terribly and even the slightest movement makes her wince. Sometimes she forgets that she’s forty years old, but her body always reminds her. 

“Baran?” 

“Give me a second,” she says, the warmth of embarrassment spreading across her cheeks as she shifts over to sit down and stretches her legs out in front of her. “Oh, fuck…” 

One of her knees pops in a way that makes you wince. 

“It’s fine,” she assures you, seeing your expression. “It does that sometimes.” 

With wobbly legs, you step in front of her and hold both hands out for her to take. “Come on,” you say. “Up you go.” 

“Do I have to?” 

“Baran, seriously.” 

She relents, grabbing your hands and letting you pull her up. 

Once she’s on her feet, she leans in and kisses you. You can taste yourself on her tongue and it sparks another wave of heat to rush through you. 

“Come here,” you say, pulling her into the bedroom the rest of the way and guiding her to sit down on the edge of the bed. 

“You don’t have to,” she tells you. 

“I know. I want to.” 

She softens. She likes hearing that. “Okay.” 

You climb into bed after her, maneuvering Baran so that she’s lying down and you’re hovering above her, taking off her clothes piece by piece and worshipping every new inch of skin revealed to you. 

Today was hard. It’s undeniable, and there is no changing it. There will be more days like this that will spring upon you without warning and do their damage. 

But this makes it better: to know that you are cherished, that you can spread that feeling to someone else, that even the worst of days can have desirable ends. 

Baran’s other knee pops and you jump. 

“The woes of middle age,” you tease. “You’re going to have metal knees by the time you’re fifty.” 

“That’s not how it works. We don’t call them metal knees.” 

“Yeah, well. Just so you know, I’m happy to drive you home post-op.” 

The first thing you notice is the beeping.

Steady. Rhythmic. Insistent.

It drags you up from the dark like a hook in your chest, pulling you toward consciousness whether you want it or not.

You don't want it.

The dark was easier. Quieter. Painless.

But the beeping won't stop, and neither will the voices murmuring somewhere beyond the fog in your head. Your eyelids feel like they've been glued shut. It takes three tries before you manage to crack them open, and when you do, the light is immediate and brutal.

You flinch.

"Hey, hey, easy."

Parker's voice.

Close.

You turn your head, or try to. Everything feels sluggish, like you're moving underwater. Your mouth tastes like copper and something chemical. Your throat is raw.

"Don't try to talk yet," Parker says, and now you can see her.

She's sitting in a chair pulled up beside your bed, still in her scrubs. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun that's half-collapsed on one side. There are shadows under her eyes so dark they look like bruises.

She looks like she hasn't slept in days.

Maybe she hasn't.

You blink at her, trying to make sense of where you are.

Hospital room. ICU, probably, based on the equipment crowding the space around your bed. Monitors stacked on a rolling cart. IV pole with multiple bags hanging. A ventilator in the corner, mercifully unused. The walls are that particular shade of pale green that only exists in hospitals, and the fluorescent lights overhead hum faintly.

Your left arm has an IV line taped down. Your right has a pulse ox clipped to your finger.

There's something in your nose.

Oxygen, you realize distantly. Nasal cannula.

You try to take stock of your body, but everything below your chest feels... distant. Muffled. Like it's wrapped in layers of cotton.

"You're okay," Parker says, and her voice cracks just slightly on the second word. She catches it, clears her throat. "You're okay. You're out of surgery. You're in the ICU."

Surgery.

The word lands like a stone in your chest.

You remember the gunshot. The sidewalk. Ms. Gunder's hands pressing down on your leg. The ambulance. The trauma bay.

Parker's face when she saw you.

You try to speak, but what comes out is a rasp that doesn't sound like your voice at all.

Parker reaches for the cup of water on the bedside table, angles the straw toward your mouth.

"Small sips," she says.

You obey.

The water is lukewarm and tastes faintly of plastic, but it soothes the rawness in your throat enough that when you try again, actual words come out.

"How long?"

"Eighteen hours since you went into the OR," Parker says. She sets the cup down carefully, like she's afraid her hands might shake if she's not deliberate about it. "You've been in recovery for about six hours. They brought you up here around four this morning."

You blink at her.

Eighteen hours.

"What time is it now?"

"Just past ten."

Morning, then.

You try to do the math, but your brain feels like it's been stuffed with gauze.

"The surgery," you manage. "Did it?"

"It went well," Parker says quickly. Too quickly. "You're stable. Your vitals are good. You're..." She stops. Swallows. "You're okay."

There's something in her voice that doesn't match the words.

Something careful.

Something scared.

You look at her more closely.

Her eyes are red-rimmed. Her hands are folded tightly in her lap, knuckles white.

"Parker," you say slowly. "What happened?"

"You were shot," she says, like you might have forgotten. "The bullet went through your femoral region. It missed the artery, which is the only reason you didn't bleed out on the street, but it damaged a lot of surrounding tissue. Veins, muscles, nerves. When they got you into the OR, they tried to repair what they could, but."

She stops again.

You wait.

The beeping continues, steady and indifferent.

"There were complications," Parker says finally. "Vascular damage was more extensive than they initially thought. They did everything they could to restore blood flow, but some of the tissue had already started to necrose. And there was a high risk of infection spreading if they didn't."

She cuts herself off, jaw tightening.

You stare at her.

Something cold is starting to creep up your spine.

"Didn't what?" you ask.

Parker closes her eyes.

When she opens them again, they're wet.

"They had to amputate," she says, and her voice breaks on the last word. "Above the knee. Your left leg. I'm so sorry."

The words don't make sense at first.

They're just sounds. Syllables strung together in an order that your brain refuses to process.

Amputate.

Above the knee.

Your left leg.

You look down.

The blanket is pulled up to your waist, but even through the thin fabric, you can see the shape of your body beneath it.

Two legs.

Except.

Except the left one is shorter.

Stops where it shouldn't.

Ends halfway down the bed in a bulk of bandages that your mind can't reconcile with the concept of your own body.

"No," you hear yourself say.

Parker leans forward, reaching for your hand.

You pull it away.

"No," you say again, louder this time. "No, that's not."

You try to sit up.

Pain explodes through your left side so violently that you cry out, and Parker is on her feet immediately, hands hovering over you like she wants to touch you but doesn't know where.

"Don't move," she says urgently. "You can't. You just had major surgery; you need to stay still."

"Let me see it."

"You need to."

"Let me see it!"

Your voice cracks, raw and desperate.

Parker stares at you for a long moment, and then, slowly, she reaches for the edge of the blanket.

"Are you sure?" she asks quietly.

You're not.

You're not sure of anything.

But you nod anyway.

Parker pulls the blanket back.

Your right leg is there, whole and familiar, an IV line taped into the top of your foot.

Your left leg is there too.

Until it isn't.

It ends just above where your knee should be, wrapped in layers of white gauze and surgical dressing. There's a drain tube snaking out from beneath the bandages, connected to a small bulb half-filled with dark red fluid.

You stare at it.

At the place where your leg should be and isn't.

At the empty space beneath the blanket where your calf, ankle, and foot are supposed to exist.

Your leg.

Your leg is gone.

The room tilts.

You can't breathe.

You're trying, but the air won't go in, won't fill your lungs, and the beeping is getting faster, louder, and Parker is saying your name, but you can't hear her over the rushing in your ears.

"I can't," you gasp. "I can't."

"Yes, you can," Parker says, and suddenly her hands are on your face, forcing you to look at her. "Yes, you can. Breathe with me. In through your nose."

She demonstrates, exaggerating the breath.

You try to follow.

Fail.

Try again.

This time, a thin stream of air makes it past the tightness in your chest.

"Good," Parker says. "Again. In through your nose, out through your mouth."

You do it.

And again.

And again.

Slowly, the rushing in your ears fades.

The room stops spinning.

You're left staring at Parker, whose face is so close to yours you can see the gold flecks in her eyes, the freckle just below her left eyebrow, the way her bottom lip trembles before she presses it flat.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm so sorry."

You don't know what to say to that.

What is there to say?

Your leg is gone.

Your leg is gone.

Parker pulls the blanket back up gently, covering the bandages, and you're grateful for it even though you know it doesn't change anything.

Out of sight doesn't mean it didn't happen.

"The surgeons said you'll be able to get a prosthetic," Parker says, and she's slipping into doctor mode now, you can hear it in her voice. Clinical. Informative. Controlled. "Once the residual limb heals, you'll work with a prosthetist to get fitted. Physical therapy will help you regain mobility. People live full, active lives with above-knee amputations. You'll..."

"Stop."

Parker stops.

You close your eyes.

"I don't want to hear about prosthetics," you say quietly. "I don't want to hear about physical therapy or full, active lives. I just..."

Your voice breaks.

You don't finish the sentence.

You don't know how.

Parker sinks back into the chair beside your bed, and for a long time, neither of you speaks.

The monitors beep.

Somewhere down the hall, someone pages a doctor overhead.

A nurse walks past your room, shoes squeaking on the linoleum.

You keep your eyes closed and try not to think about the fact that your leg is gone.

You fail.

The first two days blur together.

Nurses come and go, checking your vitals, adjusting your medications, changing your dressings. You don't look when they do it. You turn your head away and stare at the wall until they're finished.

Parker is there almost constantly.

She leaves for her shifts. She has to, you know that. But every time you wake up, she's back. Sometimes she's in the chair beside your bed, laptop balanced on her knees as she catches up on charting. Sometimes she's curled up on the narrow couch beneath the window, asleep in her scrubs.

Once, you wake to find her standing at the window, forehead pressed against the glass, shoulders shaking.

You close your eyes and pretend you're still asleep.

You don't know what to say to her.

You don't know what to say to anyone.

Dr. Shen stops by on the second day. He's not your attending. That's Dr. Varma, a soft-spoken surgeon with steady hands and a calm demeanor, but he checks in anyway.

"You're looking better," he says, which is a lie, but you appreciate the effort.

"Thanks for not letting me die," you say.

"Thanks for not dying," he replies.

It's meant to be light, but it lands heavy.

He glances at Parker, who's standing near the foot of your bed with her arms crossed, and something passes between them that you don't understand.

Then he leaves, and you're alone with her again.

"You should go home," you tell her.

"I'm fine."

"You look like hell."

"So do you."

You almost laugh.

Almost.

"Parker," you say quietly. "You can't stay here forever."

"Watch me."

And she does.

On the third day, the pain gets worse.

Not the surgical site, that's manageable, controlled by the IV pain meds they're pumping into you every few hours.

No, this is different.

This is your foot.

Except you don't have a foot anymore.

You wake up in the middle of the night with a scream caught in your throat, because your left foot is on fire. The pain is so vivid, so specific, that you can feel exactly where it is: your toes are cramping, curling inward so tightly you're sure the bones will snap. Your arch is seizing. Your ankle is twisted at an angle that makes your stomach turn.

You reach down instinctively to grab it, to straighten it out, to make it stop,

Your hand meets bandages.

And nothing else.

The pain doesn't stop.

You sob.

You can't help it.

The pain is so real, so present, and your foot isn't there, and you don't understand how that's possible, how you can feel something so intensely when it doesn't exist anymore.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong?"

Parker is awake immediately, on her feet, and at your side.

"My foot," you gasp. "My foot, it's."

"Phantom pain," Parker says, and her voice is tight with something that might be guilt. "It's phantom limb pain. Your brain is still sending signals like your leg is there. It's normal. I should have fuck, I should have warned you this might happen."

"Make it stop," you beg.

"I can't," she says, and she sounds wrecked. "I can't—I'm sorry, I can't just—"

She reaches for the call button and jabs it twice.

A nurse appears within a minute.

"Phantom limb pain," Parker says before the nurse can ask. "Can we get her something? Gabapentin? Amitriptyline? Anything?"

The nurse nods, already moving toward the computer to put in the order.

Parker sits on the edge of your bed, careful not to jostle you, and takes your hand.

"I know it hurts," she says quietly. "I know it doesn't make sense. But it will get better. I promise it will get better."

You want to believe her.

You can't.

The pain continues for another twenty minutes before the medication finally kicks in, dulling the sensation to a distant ache.

By then, you're exhausted.

Parker is still holding your hand.

"I'm sorry," you whisper.

"For what?"

"For this. For being a burden."

"Don't," Parker says sharply. "Don't you dare apologize for getting shot."

"I'm a burden."

"You're not."

"I am," you insist, and the words are spilling out now, too fast to stop. "You're a doctor, Parker. You save lives. You don't—you shouldn't have to deal with this. With me. I can't even—I don't even have a fucking leg anymore, and you're sitting here holding my hand like I'm not completely broken, and I don't understand why you're still here."

Parker stares at you.

For a moment, you think she's going to cry.

Instead, she stands up.

"I need to go," she says, voice flat.

Your heart drops.

"Parker,"

"I'll be back," she says, already moving toward the door. "I just—I need a minute."

She leaves.

The door clicks shut behind her.

You're alone.

And you're sure—absolutely sure—that you've just ruined everything.

Parker comes back twenty minutes later.

Her eyes are red.

She sits down in the chair beside your bed, and for a long time, she doesn't say anything.

Then:

"I watched you almost die."

Her voice is quiet. Controlled.

You don't interrupt.

"I watched you come into my ER with a gunshot wound, bleeding out, and I couldn't do anything. Shen wouldn't let me treat you, which was the right call, but it didn't matter because I was useless anyway. I'm a doctor, and I couldn't save you."

"Parker,"

"Let me finish," she says, and there's an edge to her voice now. "You went into surgery, and I didn't know if you were going to come out. And then you did, but you were missing a leg, and I thought—I thought you were going to hate me for it. For not being able to stop it. For not being good enough."

"That's not."

"And now you're lying here telling me you're a burden," Parker continues, and her voice is shaking now. "You're telling me I shouldn't have to deal with you. Like I'm doing you some kind of favor by staying. Like I'm here out of obligation."

She leans forward, and her eyes are blazing.

"I'm not here because I'm a doctor," she says. "I'm not here because I feel sorry for you. I'm here because I love you, you idiot. I'm here because the thought of losing you made me feel like I couldn't breathe. I'm here because when I close my eyes, I still see you on that stretcher covered in blood, and I need to see you alive to make it stop."

You stare at her.

"I don't care that you lost your leg," Parker says, and her voice breaks. "I care that you almost died. I care that you're in pain. I care that you're scared. But I don't care that your body is different now, because you're still you, and I still love you, and if you ever—ever—tell me again that you're a burden, I will lose my mind."

She's crying now.

Actually crying.

You've never seen her cry before.

"I'm sorry," you whisper.

"Stop apologizing."

"I don't know what else to say."

Parker wipes at her eyes roughly, smearing tears across her cheeks.

"Say you'll stop trying to push me away," she says. "Say you'll let me be here."

You swallow hard.

"I'm scared," you admit.

"I know."

"I don't know how to do this."

"Neither do I," Parker says. "But we'll figure it out."

She reaches for your hand again.

This time, you hold on.

They move you out of the ICU on day five.

You're stable enough now for a regular room, which is both a relief and a new kind of torture. The ICU was isolating, but it was also controlled. Quiet. Private.

The regular floor is louder.

You can hear other patients through the walls. Hear the nurses chatting at their station. Hear the meal carts rattling down the hallway three times a day.

It makes it harder to pretend this isn't real.

Dr. Varma comes by every morning to check your incision site. She's kind but matter-of-fact, which you appreciate. She doesn't talk to you like you're fragile.

"Healing well," she says on day seven, peeling back the dressing to inspect the sutures. "No signs of infection. We'll keep you on antibiotics for another week, but I'm pleased with how this looks."

You don't look.

You still can't.

"When can I go home?" you ask.

"When you're cleared by PT," Dr. Varma says. "You need to be able to transfer safely and manage basic mobility. Another week, maybe two."

Two weeks.

It feels like a lifetime.

After she leaves, Parker helps you sit up,a process that's more complicated than it should be, now that your balance is completely off.

"Physical therapy starts today," she says.

You knew this was coming.

You're still not ready.

The physical therapist's name is Alex.

He's in his forties, built like he used to play football, with an easy smile and a no-nonsense attitude that reminds you of a coach.

"Alright," he says, rolling a wheelchair up beside your bed. "Let's see what we're working with."

You stare at the wheelchair.

"I don't need that," you say.

"You do if you want to leave this bed," Alex replies. "Come on. Let's get you up."

It takes three tries.

Your right leg is weak from days of disuse. Your left side is a mess of pain and absence and confusion, because your brain keeps trying to use a leg that isn't there anymore.

When you finally manage to pivot and drop into the wheelchair, you're sweating and shaking.

"Good," Alex says, like you've just accomplished something impressive. "That's good. Now let's go for a ride."

He wheels you out of your room and down the hallway.

You hate it.

You hate the way people glance at you as you pass. Hate the way the wheelchair feels too big and too small at the same time. Hate the way your left leg (the residual limb, Alex calls it, which is somehow worse than stump) throbs with every bump in the floor.

Alex takes you to the PT gym, a large room filled with parallel bars, exercise mats, and unfamiliar equipment.

"We're going to start simple," he says. "Today's goal is just to get you comfortable with transferring. Bed to chair, chair to bed. We'll work on upper body strength and core stability. The more stable you are, the easier everything else will be."

He makes it sound straightforward.

It's not.

Every movement is a negotiation with a body that doesn't work the way it used to. Your balance is gone. Your center of gravity is wrong. You reach for things that aren't there and nearly fall twice.

By the end of the session, you're exhausted and humiliated.

"You did great," Alex says.

You don't believe him.

Parker is waiting in your room when Alex wheels you back.

She takes one look at your face and doesn't ask how it went.

She just helps you back into bed and sits beside you in silence.

The nightmares start on day nine.

You're back on the sidewalk.

Keys in your hand. Bag over your shoulder.

The shouting starts across the street.

You turn.

The gunshot cracks through the air.

But this time, you see it.

You see the bullet leave the gun. See it cross the distance between you in slow motion. See it punch through your leg, tearing skin, muscle, and bone.

You see the blood.

So much blood.

You try to run, but your leg won't hold you.

You look down.

It's gone.

Just gone, severed clean at the thigh, and you're standing on a stump that's gushing blood onto the pavement, and you can't stop it, can't make it stop,

You wake up screaming.

Parker is there immediately, hands on your shoulders, voice cutting through the panic.

"You're okay, you're safe, you're in the hospital, you're okay,"

But you're not okay.

You're trying to move, trying to get away from the blood that isn't there, and your left leg won't respond because it's gone, and the realization hits you all over again like a physical blow.

You sob.

Parker climbs into the bed beside you, awkward and careful, mindful of your IV lines and the surgical site, and wraps her arms around you.

"I've got you," she whispers. "I've got you."

You bury your face in her shoulder and cry until you can't anymore.

When you finally pull back, Parker's scrubs are soaked with your tears.

"I'm sorry," you say automatically.

"Stop," Parker says, but there's no heat in it. Just exhaustion.

She looks as wrecked as you feel.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks.

You shake your head.

What is there to say?

You're traumatized. You're disabled. You're terrified.

Talking won't change any of that.

Parker doesn't push.

She just stays in the bed beside you, one arm around your shoulders, until you fall back asleep.

The nightmares don't stop.

They come every night, sometimes multiple times a night.

The shooting. The blood. The moment you realize your leg is gone.

Sometimes you're in the trauma bay, watching yourself bleed out while Parker stands frozen across the room.

Sometimes you're in the OR, awake and aware as they cut through your leg.

Sometimes you're home, trying to walk, and you look down to find both legs missing.

You start dreading sleep.

Parker starts sleeping in your hospital bed every night, cramped and uncomfortable, because you can't stand to be alone when the nightmares come.

On day twelve, Dr. Varma suggests a psychiatric consult.

"PTSD is common after traumatic injuries," she says gently. "There's no shame in getting help."

You agree because you don't know what else to do.

The psychiatrist is a woman named Dr. Kimani. She's younger than you expected, with box braids pulled back in a low ponytail and a calm, steady presence.

She doesn't make you talk about the shooting right away.

Instead, she asks about your life before. Your job. Your relationship with Parker. What you like to do in your free time.

It's only after thirty minutes that she says, "Tell me about the nightmares."

You do.

You tell her about the blood and the fear and the moment you realize your leg is gone.

You tell her about the phantom pain, the way your brain insists your foot is still there even though you know it's not.

You tell her about the panic that hits you sometimes out of nowhere, the feeling that you're back on that sidewalk and the bullet is coming, and you can't move fast enough to get away.

Dr. Kimani listens without interrupting.

When you're finished, she says, "What you're experiencing is a normal response to an abnormal event. Your brain is trying to process something traumatic, and it's going to take time."

"How much time?" you ask.

"That's different for everyone," she says. "But we can work on strategies to help. Grounding techniques for when you're feeling panicked. Cognitive behavioral therapy to address the intrusive thoughts. Medication if you want it."

You're not sure you want medication.

You're already on so many pills you've lost count.

But you agree to try the therapy.

It's something.

By day fourteen, you're strong enough to start working with the parallel bars.

Alex wheels you into the PT gym and positions the wheelchair at one end of the bars.

"Alright," he says. "Today we're going to work on standing."

You stare at him.

"Standing," you repeat.

"Standing," he confirms. "You've got one good leg. We're going to teach you how to use it."

It sounds impossible.

It is impossible.

But Alex is patient.

He shows you how to position your right foot, how to grip the bars, and how to push up using your upper body strength.

The first time you try, you don't even make it halfway up before your arms give out.

The second time, you get upright for about three seconds before your balance fails and you drop back into the chair.

The third time, you stay up for ten seconds.

It's the hardest thing you've ever done.

When the session is over, your entire body is shaking.

But you stood.

On one leg, for ten seconds, you stood.

Alex grins at you.

"Told you," he says.

Parker's breaking point comes on day sixteen.

You don't see it coming.

She's been holding it together so well, too well, maybe, and you've been so focused on your own pain that you haven't noticed the cracks forming.

It's late.

Visiting hours are technically over, but no one enforces that rule anymore for Parker. She's sitting in the chair beside your bed, scrolling through her phone, when you say it.

"You should go home tonight."

She looks up.

"I'm fine here."

"Parker, you haven't slept in your own bed in over two weeks," you say. "You need a break."

"I don't need a break."

"You look exhausted."

"So do you."

You sigh.

"I'm serious," you say. "You can't keep doing this. You're going to burn out."

"I'm not going to burn out."

"You're a doctor," you say. "You know what happens when people don't take care of themselves."

Parker sets her phone down, jaw tight.

"I'm fine," she says again.

"You're not," you say quietly. "And that's okay. You don't have to be fine. But you can't keep pretending,"

"Pretending what?" Parker snaps, and there's an edge to her voice now. "Pretending I'm not terrified every time I leave this room that something's going to happen and I won't be here? Pretending I don't feel guilty every single day for not being able to stop this? Pretending I'm not fucking furious that some asshole's domestic dispute cost you your leg?"

You stare at her.

She's on her feet now, pacing.

"You want me to go home?" she continues, voice rising. "Fine. I'll go home. I'll go home to our apartment, where your shoes are still by the door, and your jacket is still on the couch, and I'll sit there alone and think about how you almost died. How you should have died, statistically speaking. How if that bullet had been two inches to the right, I'd be planning your funeral instead of helping you with physical therapy."

"Parker,"

"Do you know what it was like?" she asks, and her voice cracks. "Watching you come into my ER? Seeing you on that table, covered in blood, and knowing I couldn't do anything? Shen wouldn't let me touch you, which was the right call, but it didn't matter because I was useless. I'm a doctor, and I couldn't save you."

"You didn't need to save me," you say. "The surgeons—"

"The surgeons cut off your leg," Parker says, and she's crying now. "They cut off your leg, and I couldn't stop it, and now you're having nightmares every night, and phantom pain and PTSD, and I can't fix any of it. I can't make it better. I can't give you your leg back. I can't take away the trauma. I can't do anything except sit here and watch you suffer."

She sinks back into the chair, head in her hands.

"I'm supposed to help people," she says, voice muffled. "That's my job. That's what I do. But I can't help you, and it's killing me."

You reach for her hand.

She lets you take it.

"You are helping me," you say quietly.

"I'm not."

"You are," you insist. "You're here. Every single day, you're here. You hold my hand when I have nightmares. You help me get back into bed when PT wears me out. You tell me I'm not a burden even when I feel like one. That's helping."

Parker looks up at you, eyes red and wet.

"I don't know how to do this," she whispers.

"Neither do I," you say. "But we're doing it anyway."

She laughs, but it sounds more like a sob.

"I love you," she says.

"I love you too."

She climbs into the bed beside you, careful as always, and you hold each other in the dark.

On day nineteen, Dr. Varma clears you for discharge.

"You're healing well," she says. "The incision site looks good. You're managing pain appropriately. PT says you're making excellent progress. I see no reason to keep you here any longer."

You should be relieved.

You're terrified.

"What if something goes wrong?" you ask.

"Then you come back," Dr. Varma says simply. "But I don't think it will. You're doing everything right."

After she leaves, Parker starts making lists.

Medications. Follow-up appointments. PT schedule. Home modifications.

"We need to move some furniture," she says, chewing on the end of her pen. "Make sure there are clear paths for the wheelchair. The bathroom's going to be tricky—we might need a shower chair."

"Parker."

"And we should probably get a bed rail, just in case. I can pick one up on my way home tonight—"

"Parker."

She looks up.

"I'm scared," you admit.

Her expression softens.

"I know," she says. "Me too."

"What if I can't do this?"

"You can."

"What if I fall? What if I can't manage on my own? What if,"

Parker sets down her pen and takes your hand.

"You're not going to be on your own," she says. "I'm going to be there. And yeah, it's going to be hard. It's going to be really fucking hard. But we'll figure it out."

You want to believe her.

You're trying.

They discharge you on a Tuesday morning.

A nurse brings a wheelchair,your wheelchair now, apparently, at least until you're fitted for a prosthetic,and helps you transfer into it.

Parker has already loaded your belongings into her car. There's not much. Some clothes. Your phone. The flowers Ms. Gunder sent that have long since wilted.

The ride down to the lobby feels surreal.

You've been in this hospital for nearly three weeks, and now you're just... leaving.

Parker pulls the car up to the entrance, and the nurse helps you transfer into the passenger seat.

It's awkward.

Your balance is still off, and you nearly fall before Parker catches you.

"I've got you," she says.

You believe her.

The drive home is quiet.

You watch the city pass by through the window, the same streets you walked down three weeks ago, back when you had two legs and no idea how quickly everything could change.

When Parker pulls up in front of your building, you stare at the steps leading to the entrance.

"We're on the third floor," you say.

"There's an elevator."

"I know, but,"

"One step at a time," Parker says. "Literally."

She's right.

You can do this.

You have to.

Parker gets the wheelchair out of the trunk and helps you into it, and together, you make your way inside.

The elevator is small and smells faintly of cleaning solution. The ride up feels like it takes forever.

When the doors open on the third floor, you half-expect everything to look different.

It doesn't.

Same ugly carpet. Same flickering light at the end of the hallway. Same scuff marks on the wall outside your door.

Parker unlocks the apartment and pushes the door open.

You wheel yourself inside.

And stop.

Because everything is different.

The coffee table has been moved. The armchair repositioned. There's a clear path from the door to the couch to the kitchen.

The bathroom door is propped open, and you can see a shower chair inside.

Your shoes are gone from beside the door.

"I moved some things around," Parker says quietly. "I hope that's okay."

You nod, not trusting your voice.

Parker closes the door behind you and locks it.

"Welcome home," she says.

You burst into tears.

The first week home is brutal.

Everything is harder than it should be.

Getting from the bed to the wheelchair. From the wheelchair to the couch. From the couch to the bathroom.

You're exhausted all the time.

The phantom pain is worse at home, maybe because you're not distracted by nurses and doctors and PT sessions. Your foot cramps. Your toes curl. Your ankle twists.

None of it exists.

All of it hurts.

Parker does her best.

She takes a week off work, uses up all her saved PTO, and then some to help you adjust.

She cooks. She cleans. She helps you shower, which is humiliating and necessary in equal measure.

She doesn't complain.

Not once.

But you can see the strain in her face. The exhaustion. The worry.

On day four, you have a panic attack in the bathroom.

You're trying to transfer from the wheelchair to the toilet, and your balance fails, and suddenly you're falling, and you can't catch yourself because your leg isn't there, and you hit the floor hard.

Parker is there in seconds, but the damage is done.

You're on the floor, sobbing, because you can't even go to the bathroom by yourself anymore.

"I can't do this," you gasp. "I can't, I can't,"

"Yes, you can," Parker says, and her voice is steady even though her hands are shaking. "You can. You just need practice."

"I don't want to practice," you say. "I want my leg back."

Parker's face crumples.

"I know," she whispers. "I know."

She helps you up, a process that takes far too long and leaves you both sweating,and gets you back into the wheelchair.

That night, you have the worst nightmare yet.

You're in the OR, awake and strapped down, and you can feel them cutting through your leg. You scream and scream, but no one stops.

Parker wakes you, and you cling to her like a lifeline.

"I'm here," she says. "I'm here, you're safe, I'm here."

You don't feel safe.

You don't think you ever will again.

On day eight, Parker goes back to work.

She doesn't want to.

You can see it in the way she hesitates at the door, keys in hand, looking back at you like she's not sure she should leave.

"I'll be fine," you tell her.

"Call me if you need anything," she says. "I mean it. Anything."

"I will."

She leaves.

The apartment is too quiet.

You try to distract yourself. Turn on the TV. Scroll through your phone. Do the exercises Alex gave you.

But the silence is oppressive.

You're alone with your thoughts, and your thoughts are not kind.

By the time Parker gets home that evening, you're exhausted from doing nothing.

"How was it?" she asks.

"Fine," you lie.

She doesn't believe you, but she doesn't push.

The nightmares continue.

Some nights, Parker wakes you before they get too bad.

Other nights, you wake up screaming, disoriented, and convinced you're back on that sidewalk.

You start dreading sleep again.

Parker starts looking more and more exhausted.

On week three, Dr. Kimani suggests medication.

"An SSRI might help with the intrusive thoughts," she says during your telehealth appointment. "And we can add something for sleep if the nightmares are interfering with your rest."

You agree.

You're desperate enough to try anything.

The medication helps.

Not immediately, but gradually.

The nightmares don't stop, but they become less frequent. Less vivid.

You start sleeping in two- or three-hour stretches instead of waking up every forty-five minutes.

It's not much.

But it's something.

Physical therapy becomes the structure of your days.

Three times a week, Parker drives you to the outpatient clinic, and you work with Alex on building strength and learning to navigate the world with one leg.

It's slow.

Frustratingly slow.

But you're making progress.

By week four, you can transfer from the wheelchair to the bed without help.

By week five, you can stand at the parallel bars for a full minute.

By week six, Alex introduces you to crutches.

"Eventually, you'll get a prosthetic," he says. "But in the meantime, crutches will give you more mobility."

Learning to use them is harder than you expected.

Your upper body strength is better now, but your balance is still a mess.

You fall.

A lot.

But you get back up.

Because what else can you do?

On week seven, you look in the mirror for the first time.

Really look.

You're in the bathroom, getting ready for a shower, and Parker is at work, and you're alone.

You peel off your clothes slowly.

Your right leg is thinner than it used to be, muscles wasted from weeks of limited use.

Your left leg ends just above where your knee should be, the incision site now a thick, angry scar.

The residual limb is swollen. Discolored.

It doesn't look like part of your body.

It looks like something foreign. Something wrong.

You stare at it for a long time.

Then you cry.

Not the panicked, gasping sobs of the nightmares.

Just quiet, exhausted tears.

You're mourning.

Not just your leg, but everything that came with it.

Your independence. Your sense of safety. Your belief that your body was something you could trust.

All of it, gone.

When Parker gets home that evening, she finds you on the couch, staring at nothing.

"Hey," she says softly, sitting down beside you. "You okay?"

"I looked in the mirror today," you say.

Parker goes still.

"And?"

"I don't recognize myself."

Parker takes your hand.

"You're still you," she says.

"I don't feel like me."

"I know," Parker says. "But you are. You're still the person who makes terrible jokes when you're nervous. Who cries at dog videos. Who leaves coffee mugs all over the apartment. You're still you."

You want to believe her.

You're trying.

On week nine, you have your first appointment with the prosthetist.

Her name is Dr. Lim, and her office is bright and cheerful in a way that feels almost aggressive.

She measures your residual limb, takes notes, and asks questions about your activity level and goals.

"We'll start with a preparatory prosthetic," she says. "Something basic to help you learn to walk again. Once your limb is fully healed and the swelling goes down, we'll fit you for a definitive prosthetic."

"How long will that take?" you ask.

"A few months," Dr. Lim says. "Maybe longer. Everyone's different."

A few months.

You've already been living like this for two months.

The idea of several more feels impossible.

But you nod.

What choice do you have?

The preparatory prosthetic arrives on week eleven.

It's strange.

A socket that fits over your residual limb, attached to a metal pylon and a basic foot.

Dr. Lim helps you put it on for the first time, adjusting the fit, making sure it's secure.

"How does it feel?" she asks.

"Weird," you say honestly.

It's not painful, exactly, but it's not comfortable either.

It's foreign.

"That's normal," Dr. Lim says. "It'll take time to get used to. We'll start with just wearing it for short periods. An hour or two at a time. Let your skin adjust."

You nod.

She helps you stand.

The prosthetic holds your weight, but it doesn't feel like a leg.

It feels like a tool.

Something you're using, not something that's part of you.

"Try taking a step," Dr. Lim says.

You do.

It's clumsy and awkward, and you nearly fall before she catches you.

"Good," she says, like you've just done something impressive. "That's good. Try again."

You do.

And again.

And again.

By the end of the session, you've taken maybe ten steps.

It's the hardest thing you've ever done.

But you did it.

Learning to walk again is humbling.

You're an adult, and you're learning something you mastered as a toddler.

Every step is a negotiation.

Shift your weight. Swing the prosthetic forward. Plant it. Transfer your weight. Repeat.

It's exhausting.

Your residual limb aches from the pressure of the socket.

Your right leg is doing twice the work it's supposed to.

Your back hurts from compensating.

But you keep going.

Because what else can you do?

Alex is relentless.

Three times a week, he puts you through your paces.

Parallel bars. Crutches. The prosthetic.

Over and over and over.

"You're doing great," he says.

You don't feel great.

But you're doing it.

On week fourteen, you walk from the bedroom to the kitchen without the wheelchair.

It's only about twenty feet.

It takes you five minutes.

But you do it.

Parker is there, watching from the couch, and when you reach the kitchen counter, she bursts into tears.

"I'm so proud of you," she says.

You're proud of you too.

On week sixteen, you have a good day.

Not a perfect day.

But a good one.

You wake up without a nightmare.

The phantom pain is manageable.

You get dressed by yourself, including putting on the prosthetic.

You make coffee.

You sit on the couch and watch the morning news, and for a few minutes, you feel almost normal.

Parker comes out of the bedroom, still in her pajamas, and stops when she sees you.

"You're up," she says.

"I'm up," you confirm.

She sits down beside you, and you lean into her.

"Good day?" she asks.

"Good day," you say.

She kisses the top of your head.

"I'm glad."

That afternoon, Parker pulls out a folder.

"I need you to update some paperwork," she says.

You look up from your phone.

"What kind of paperwork?"

"Emergency contact information," Parker says. "For your insurance, your bank, your employer. You still don't have anyone listed."

You stare at her.

"I thought, after everything, you should probably have someone," Parker continues. "And I was thinking... if you want... I could be your emergency contact."

It's such a small thing.

A name on a form.

But it feels enormous.

"You want to be my emergency contact?" you ask.

"I want to be your emergency contact," Parker confirms. "I want to be the person they call. I want to be the person who shows up. I want," She stops. Swallows. "I want to be your person."

You reach for her hand.

"You already are," you say.

Parker smiles, and it's the first real smile you've seen from her in weeks.

"So is that a yes?" she asks.

"That's a yes."

She pulls out the forms, and together, you fill them out.

Name: Parker Ellis.

Relationship: Partner.

Phone number.

Address.

It takes less than ten minutes.

But when you're done, something feels different.

Settled.

Right.

"Thank you," you say quietly.

"For what?"

"For staying," you say. "For not giving up on me. For being here even when it's hard."

Parker sets the folder aside and takes both your hands in hers.

"I'm not going anywhere," she says. "I know the last few months have been hell. I know it's going to keep being hard. But I'm not going anywhere."

You believe her.

For the first time since the shooting, you actually believe her.

"I love you," you say.

"I love you too," Parker says.

She leans in and kisses you, soft and careful, and for a moment, everything else falls away.

The trauma. The pain. The fear.

All of it fades, and it's just the two of you.

Together.

That night, you have a nightmare.

But this time, when you wake up, Parker is already there.

"I've got you," she says, and you believe her.

You're not okay yet.

Maybe you won't be for a long time.

But you're here.

You're alive.

And you're not alone.

That's enough.