I will have the tacos please

“Are you alright?”

Brooke had been almost too quiet. It was like she knew immediately. But it was kind of her to ask anyway. She looked up at her as she examined the next component on the checklist in her mind and then turned back to the body in front of her.

No, she wasn’t alright. She was tired. The new bed she ordered was delayed again. It felt like a joke. She felt like a joke. The feeling in the pit of her stomach wouldn’t go away. She was trying to distance herself emotionally from Harry and it felt like they were in a fight. There was a court case she was dreading tomorrow because of the feeling in her stomach. The tutoring was all fine and dandy, but she knew she had to read her brother’s lab report when she got home, and her sister wanted her opinion on what to wear to graduation this weekend and it felt like it was just all too much.

On top of that she was almost certain she had a nail in her tire (because of course there was) and she wasn’t sure how she was going to get that fixed between now and when she left for her sister’s graduation on Friday.

There was also a possibility she was getting a cold—or her allergies were finally making themselves known for the spring season. But she felt like the pressure in her sinuses wouldn’t go away.

“Lieutenant Davis is here,” Benny called.

She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath.

It was way too much. “I’ll be one minute, just send him to my office.”

“You need a spa day,” Brooke mumbled.

She remembered the last time she went to the spa. It was a terrible day. Felt eerily similar to her current day. “No time,” she mumbled. “I’m going to my parents for a few days to help them get ready for my sister’s graduation party.”

“Sounds like a perfect time to go to the spa. Fade into nothingness in a hot tub, wouldn’t that be lovely? Maybe you could bring Harry,” she grinned.

“I don’t know if… if that’s a good idea,” she stated quietly as she focused on her next checklist item.

She was actually pretty confident that Brooke’s idea was brilliant. But with how much she was distancing herself, it wasn’t an option. Hopefully Harry would just forget all about her. Brooke gasped. “You’re joking.” She didn’t say anything to her friend. She was being rude and cranky. Maybe that was Mrs. Wentworth’s problem. Too much in her life all at once. If it was the problem, she understood, finally. “Girl,” she was still in shock. “Please tell me you’re lying.”

“I have stuff to do, Brooke,” she put her tools down, tugged her mask off, and snapped the gloves off her hands into the trash. She used the hand sanitizer dispenser by the door and then tugged the hair tie out of her bun.

“Like going to the spa with Harry?” Her friend mumbled while finishing the report on the tablet for the last bit of stuff she’d gone over.

Did she really want to be friends with Brooke? “We can talk about it later. Maybe…”

“Oh, I plan on it,” she nodded to herself.

She rolled her eyes. Headed down the hall toward her office inspecting her cuticles as she went. A spa day would be nice. Really nice, actually. Maybe she could ask Raleigh what he could do for her in an hour. She needed to pack and get recipes gathered. Despite how much better it would be to be with Harry, she needed to keep her mind occupied away from him and—

She stopped in the hall back to her office like she bumped into someone even though she was the only one in the hall. She swiftly returned to the room she left Brooke in standing in the doorway but felt like her body wasn’t really hers. “What did you say?”

Brooke glanced at her and shook her head. “Nothing?”

“Earlier.”

Brooke looked up at her, her eyebrows furrowed together. “About what?”

“The spa,” was the earth moving? The room might have been spinning. Or were her legs giving out?

“That… that you should fade into nothingness? Like did you even go to the spa last time? You need a class in relaxation—what’s wrong? Why do you look like—where are you going?! Hey…! What about Davis?” Brooke was following after her but she simply wasn’t fast enough.

She ran to her locker at the back of the building and tapped the buttons for her lock code as fast as humanly possible. She opened the locker, grabbed her keys and nothing else; not her license, not her wallet, not her coat. She even left it open before she bolted out the building as well.

Her car was barely in drive before she peeled out of the parking lot. She swore she ran a red light, maybe two and there was a very good chance she was ruining the rim of her flattening tire. At a red light halfway down the street from Kingsley Place, there were simply too many cars between where she was and where she needed to be. Perhaps the city was finally filling the pothole that definitely would have ruined her tire in another few days if it wasn’t for the nail.

She pulled to the side of the road and parked before running the rest of the block to her apartment building. She didn’t look to check, but she was pretty sure she’d left her driver’s door open and from the sound of the horns beeping it was fairly good confirmation. At least whoever stole her car, wouldn’t get far on a flat tire.

She was out of breath as she entered the lobby and sprinted for the office behind the desk. She smacked the door open without warning. Harry nearly fell out of his chair, tossing some of the papers he had on his desk into the air along with the pen he was holding went flying across the small room. “Jesus!” He shouted. She didn’t even say anything as she yanked the AED box off the wall. She was vaguely aware that some of the wall plaster came with it. “Are you—”

“Give me your key!” She had to have looked like a lunatic. Her hand outstretched, her breathing erratic. It was probably illegal for her to have access to anyone’s apartment. She was in love with Harry but didn’t have the same privileges and she shouldn’t regardless of how much she loved him. With her luck, she’d get him fired. But Harry merely blinked once, overwhelmed by her urgency, and grabbed the keys off the hook behind him, and dropped his keyring into her hand.

“Is everything—” but he didn’t get the full question out before she was running out to the lobby again. Harry was still back by his desk, stuttering and confused while she waited for the elevator to come down from the ninth floor. She tapped her foot impatiently, breathing hard and she pulled her phone from her pocket. She ignored the simultaneous calls from Brooke and the lieutenant.

“Young lady, you’ve left a trail of some kind of mess—”

Mrs. Wentworth was her last straw. “Oh my God, SHUT UP! Just shut UP!” She was not proud of how she sounded. But the elevator stopped on the sixth floor for a moment longer than she would have liked, and she bolted for the staircase leaving Mrs. Wentworth to huff and about the mess she wasn’t sure she was actually leaving in the lobby.

Instead of answering the lieutenant’s call (for the fifth time) she dialed the emergency number and rushed through the introductions to the dispatcher at the other end. It was a huge déjà vu moment and for someone who often felt she wasn’t like a real doctor, there was no stopping her once she started.

“Hey! What’s wrong—” Harry was, for once, running behind her.

She spoke the address of Kingsley Place into her phone and was fortunate she got the words “fourth floor” out of her mouth before her toe almost got caught on the edge of one of the steps. Fortunately, she stopped herself before smashing her face into one of the next steps. It did make her lose her phone, however, but she didn’t need it anymore now that dispatch had been warned.

“Darling, can you—?”

But as much as she loved Harry and wanted to have it all out with him again, she couldn’t wait a second longer than she already had. Worry filled her so much it was honestly a miracle she could even remember all the stuff in her head. She slammed into the door for the fourth floor she was shocked it didn’t come off its hinges. Without breaking stride, she continued her sprint down the hall nearly falling again as she skidded to a stop in front of the door labeled G.

Her hands were shaking ferociously; she had to steady one with the other and still barely managed to shove Harry’s master key into the lock and push her way inside. At some point in time, she learned all five senses would be super useful to assessing any medical situation she encountered. But all of her senses were overpowered by the music blaring through the apartment. How no one had reported a sound violation to Harry was a mystery to her. Or the soundproofing was far more superior than she thought and it was just another thing about Mrs. Wentworth that she would love to argue about if she was a meaner person.

Other than the slight pause at the sound of the overpowering music, she rushed through the different rooms of the apartment. “Can you tell me what—” Poor Harry hadn’t asked a full question since she barged into his office. Without pausing to let him finish that one either, she shoved the bathroom door open of the master bedroom once she heard the sound of water running over the music.

An unconscious Mason in a half-state of undress (and the part that was dressed was fully soaked) was on the floor in front of her. The water was still running, overflowing from the tub. It was probably moments away from being an issue in the apartment below, but who knew if that would have been enough either?

There was a cut on his head from where he had fallen into the haphazard position he laid on the ground. His towel rack was pulled from the wall with more sheetrock just like Harry’s office; telling the story about what had happened to him without needing any verbal explanation. “Shit,” Harry whispered behind her and then moved around them to get to the water nozzle.

She placed the AED box on the counter and started to drag Mason under his arms across the wet tiles and soaked bathmats. Her sneakers squeaked as she moved his heavy leadened weight and she grunted with effort. “Here,” Harry helped to grab under his arms as she had and since Harry was much stronger, they pulled Mason to his bedroom with much more ease.

She grabbed the AED box, flicked it open, and grabbed the small white nasal sprays from the box and turned back to Mason hurriedly. Harry pulled a blanket off the bed and covered him for some decency. “Hey!” She shouted at his unconscious form. “Turn the music off,” she directed to Harry. He hurried out of the room. “Mason!?” She rubbed the center of his chest with her knuckles, checked his pulse, lifted his eyelid to check his pupils. She checked for any sign of life before she put the tip of the spray nozzle into his nose and pushed the plunger.

She looked at her watch and scooted back just in case. “Is he—” Poor Harry couldn’t get a single question out today.

Mason practically sat straight up, as his consciousness returned. He gasped and spluttered, drooling and looking around trying to figure out what happened.

She sighed with relief, but her heartrate and adrenaline continued so it wasn’t that much relief. “Hey, it’s okay,” she said soothingly and grabbed his arm. “Lie down,” she turned his head gently to the side just in case he threw up.

Which was good because then he did, in fact, throw up.

“Holy shit,” Harry whispered.

Mason was blinking and moaning.

“Mason?!” It was Hailey’s voice. “There’s water leaking into Sloane’s apart—”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“What the hell happened—” Hailey and Sloane gasped again almost in unison as they joined her and Harry in Mason’s bedroom.

“Get. Out,” she snarled at the girls in the doorway. “And whatever pills you have, dump them,” she snapped.

“Oh my God,” Sloane whispered.

“Harry, can you get EMS up here?” She asked without looking at him. After the sound of heels disappeared, she heard Harry’s footsteps disappear as well. “Do you remember what you took, Mason?”

He mumbled something half coherently and she tugged the blanket off him to cover where he’d gotten sick. It felt a little stupid, perhaps, but she wanted to keep his face out of his own vomit while he lay there in pain. “Doc, a little warning next time,” Lieutenant Davis stated a bit breathless as he entered the room.

“Sorry, I figured it was… pressing.”

“I’ll say,” he chuckled without humor. “Mr. Collins,” Lieutenant Davis greeted as the medics began prepping him for a transfer to a gurney. They checked vitals and discussed his current state as she explained as much as she could from her perspective. “I’m Lieutenant Davis. It’s not very often my favorite medical examiner gets to work on patients before they get to her office. You’re an extremely lucky man,” he took the small notebook out of his front pocket and the pen in his other pocket. “Want to tell me what you took?”

All eyes in the room turned to him. The medics paused as they got Mason on the gurney and properly covered him. He cleared his throat as they strapped him into place and began hooking up the proper mechanisms for his trip to the hospital. Harry helped her stand on her feet. He was gazing at her with a million emotions running through his mind: shock, yes. But even she could recognize it was most entirely, complete and total awe. “I uh…” Mason started, cleared his throat again and looked down at his hands in his lap.

“It’s a lot better for you legally if you start telling me what you know now,” Davis reminded him.

He cleared his throat again. Looked at her, the lieutenant, and back again. “Thank you… really. I don’t…I don’t know what to say,” he mumbled.

She took a deep breath and looked at him pleadingly. The familiar feeling in her body for the last few months, the word on the tip of her tongue. It was right in front of her. “Tell him,” she tilted her head toward Davis.

He nodded. Swallowed hard. Closed his eyes. “It’s called Fade.”

*

Harry was waiting in the lobby in regular clothes, and he didn’t give a fuck who saw him. If they didn’t know he was in love with her now, they were going to. He was sick of her not sleeping in a bed. His bed. When she was wrapped in his blankets and arms that was the best sleep for him and he truly believed it might be best for her too.

Harry hardly got to speak a word to her after Mason left. She was needed at the station. Then needed to go gather all the reports she had that gave her the feeling in the pit of her stomach for the last few months. He only got to hear bits and pieces as Davis and she walked back down. I was doing some research… about different combinations... It’s an old party drug… Mason was talking… he said fade and… then Brooke…

It didn’t matter. Not really. When they got to the main entrance, Davis headed to his car, and she and Harry stood at the door awkwardly. He opened his mouth to say something, but she crossed her arms around herself and then looked at the floor. “Sorry about the mess,” she mumbled to Harry.

“Darling—”

“I’ve gotta go,” she jerked her thumb toward the door. “Have a nice night, Harry.”

So, Harry bit his tongue and kept his thoughts to himself. Mostly because it was really necessary that she had to leave to deal with all the legal things.

It worked out alright for the time being. But he was anxiously awaiting her turn before she even left the curbside.

Harry had to clean Mason’s watery mess. Then, even though he really didn’t want to, he went to check on the ceiling (and technically the girls) in the apartment below. It was a couple hours before Harry could go to the office and take mental stock of what happened. He placed the paperwork he would need to file later on and wrote down a new list that Niall would have to tackle. By the time he finished all of that she still hadn’t returned.

Harry scrolled uselessly on his phone for another hour before the battery percentage mocked him. He was terrified to leave the lobby for a moment and miss her, but he ran down to his place to grab his phone charger and then left it in the office. After that he stared at the ceiling, the floor, the paint that was chipping in the corner of the lobby, the plants that needed more water, and few burnt out lightbulbs in the chandelier over the center of the room. He tapped his foot impatiently as another hour passed.

Finally, the main door opened. She had her bag on her shoulder. Her keys dangled in her hand. Harry overheard Davis tell her on their way out with the medics that her car was being brought to the station by one of the other cops. Davis cashed in a favor to their on-call mechanic for the station’s vehicles to get the tire replaced.

“Darling,” he stood as she approached the elevator.

“Harry, I’m exhausted. I just want to go to bed,” she murmured. They both stepped on the elevator and Harry pressed the bottom floor before she could hit the twelfth. “Stop it,” her voice cracked.

“Kitten,” he grabbed her arm gently as she reached for the open-door button.

“Harry.”

“Please,” he begged. “I don’t know what happened.”

“I’ve had a really long day.”

“I know—”

“So, I just want to go to sleep.”

The elevator descended and then she hit the twelfth floor. He closed his eyes.

“Darling, please,” he whispered, not moving as the door opened then closed again once they were in the basement and neither of them made a move to get off.

As it started to ascend for her floor, he pressed the button for the basement again.

“Harry,” she sighed heavily.

Was he really going to prevent her from getting off the lift when they arrived? He wasn’t really sure. It was very possible. He was a little unsure of his own thought process but knew he had to talk to her. No matter what it took. She pressed the button for the fifth floor.

Was she going to walk up the rest of the way just so she wouldn’t have to talk to him?

He put his hand on the door-close button so it wouldn’t let her off and he stood in front of the door.

So yes, apparently, he really wasn’t going to let her off.

“Harry!”

“Jus’ talk t’me, darling. Please,” he begged.

She pressed the open-door button and kept pressing it as they approached the fifth floor and the gears shifted behind the metal to open. But apparently, Harry had the magic touch and it didn’t open. She tapped the button repeatedly and she practically whimpered as the machinery protested. “Harry, I can’t—”

The elevator jolted hard, knocking their hands away from the button panel. She nearly tripped into the wall, but Harry grabbed her arm gently. A buzzer sounded from inside the walls of the elevator and she pressed her lips into a line. “You have got to be kidding me,” she whined and didn’t care how melodramatic she sounded or looked (for which Harry was very grateful—she deserved it).

She slid against the wall and sat on the floor. She pressed her forehead to her knees tucked up to her chest. “My phone’s still in the stairwell,” she mumbled into the knee of her scrubs.

Harry thought about his phone charging in the office in the lobby. He bit the inside of his cheek and pressed the button for emergencies on the button panel. He gave an explanation and details to the little speaker. They assured him someone would be there soon.

He sat back against the wall beside her, so together they formed a corner. For a few moments they sat in silence. But she sniffled a little too loudly, and it simply broke Harry’s heart. “Darling,” Harry whispered.

“You shouldn’t be with me, Harry…” she sniffled again.

His frown deepened and he tilted his head. “Darling—”

“No,” she shook her head and wiped her eyes. “You shouldn’t call me that, it’s… I don’t…” she took a heaving breath. “I’m so much work Harry. And I never stop and you don’t need that and I’m so tired. I just want to sleep in my own bed.”

“You’re not too much work,” he murmured. He put his hand on her knee slowly—a little like she was a wild animal, and he wasn’t sure if she’d bite him. Fortunately, she didn’t. And she didn’t pull away either.

“I really didn’t know Uncle Henry that well. He left me this apartment without explanation. I have no idea why. I’m so grateful. I just want to help as much as I can. I don’t know how else to repay it.”

“You don’t owe anybody anything,” Harry murmured.

“But I do. This place is so fancy and I don’t deserve it. You should have it Harry, really. You work so incredibly hard and you make everyone’s life easier. All I do is bring about bad news after bad news. I suck. I’m a waste. I have all these brains and for what? To tell people that their loved one died of old age? Or a disease that I have no way to cure took them away too soon? That a gunshot wound made them bleed out? A car accident broke their neck? I’m a monster, Harry. A scary monster that children would beg their parents to check under the bed before going to sleep. I ruin people’s days. It’s why I can’t talk about my job, and I just feel like there’s this part of me that I hide all the time. I shouldn’t be called a doctor. Hailey’s right. Doctors help and swear to bring no harm. I don’t even see the people that get the news I deliver. I hide in a morgue and let someone else tell them the bad news. I’m a monster.”

Harry didn’t know how to fix all of that. He didn’t know how she could believe all that after what she did for Mason this evening. “You don’t ruin mine,” he reminded her very quietly.

She sniffled. “I’ve made your life hell since I moved in.”

He shook his head. He couldn’t listen to her like this. “Darling, stop. No, you haven’t.”

“I have. I made you move boxes. I ruined my floors. Mrs. Wentworth—”

“Kitten, Mrs. Wentworth is not the bar you should be comparing yourself to. Please stop.”

“I stayed in the lobby too long. I inserted myself into your office and your apartment. I’m a creepy lonely woman. I basically stalked you.”

He snorted at her exaggeration. “M’honored, darling. Are you done yet?”

“I have done nothing but make your life hell, Harry Styles. Your life was so much better when I wasn’t around.”

“Are you done now?”

“We’re stuck on this elevator because of me. And you can’t even escape my breakdown because we’re trapped and there’s a really good chance no one would look for me because I have done such a good job at making sure people don’t worry about me my entire life. I went to school and worked. I was a pleasure to have in class, and I was used as a physical barrier to separate the bad kids’ seats in elementary school. My parents had me help my siblings with everything. No one ever worried about me because I was going to be fine. Because I’m always fine.”

“Darling, are you done, now?” He asked again.

She swallowed, nodded and pressed her lips together. Harry gently pushed her knees down so he could straddle her legs. He kept most of his weight off her legs but wanted a good look into her eyes. He gently cupped either side of her face and brushed his thumbs on her red-swollen cheeks. She tried to look anywhere but Harry but given the position, it was just about impossible.

He kissed her forehead softly, letting his lips press gently into her skin like all the adoration he had for her would permeate through her skin and skull and into that beautiful brain of hers that had no idea how ridiculous she sounded. After he pulled away, her lower lip quivered and more tears filled her pretty eyes. He brushed his thumb over her lower lip trying to stop it from shaking. “You’d be the first person I’d call if I was downstairs on duty right now.”

She snorted.

“I don’t think you understand,” he stared deeply into her eyes. Harry was so in awe of her, it felt like a horrible time to do all this, but when would there be a good time? He should have told her a hundred times by now. He just hoped that in that beautifully dense brain of hers, she would understand what he was saying because it seemed awfully hard for this beautiful, intelligent woman to understand something so very simple.

“I love you, darling. I loved you from the moment y’told Mrs. Wentworth off that first day and told her I didn’t steal money from her. I’ve loved you every single morning when you brought me coffee or a treat. I’ve loved you while y’sat in the lobby and did nothing. I love that y’feed Leech and y’don’t mind that my apartment is small. I love that y’try t’fix stuff on your own even though y’could have Niall do it. I love that y’treat everyone so nicely—people who don’t deserve your niceness. I love that you’re you. I love your job and I don’t think you’re a monster. I think y’give people closure even though y’never speak t’them. I love that you’re brilliant. I love that you saved Aurelia’s life. I love that you saved Mason’s life. I love that you love Arthur and you even gave Mrs. Wentworth those shoe inserts. I’m sorry you’re having a bad day. But you’re not a monster. You’ve made my days so nice every single day since you’ve been here. There's no way y’could be a monster.”

For several seconds, she was silent, her lip still wobbled and Harry thought she was adorably sweet. “You… you love me?” She whispered.

He smirked at her sadly. “Was it something I said that made you think that?”

She closed her eyes and turned slightly from his gaze. “But…”

“But what, darling? You’re…” he shook his head, turning her face back to look at her. “You’re the coolest person I know.”

“But I have a really weird job and I…” she took a deep breath. “I think I’m invisible.”

“How could you possibly think you’re invisible when m’around, darling? You’re all I see. M’constantly waiting for you t’come back or come down and I think ‘bout you every second you’re gone. M’an absolute mess over you.”

The expression on her face crumpled into a frown and tears. She turned her face away from him and tears spilled rapidly over her lash line and down her cheeks. Harry moved beside her, gently tugged her until she was sitting in his lap and he cradled her because it felt like no one had ever cared for her the way she cared for others. “No one’s ever looked for me,” she whispered.

“M’not sure how that’s possible, darling. But it could never be me,” he kissed her temple and gently rocked her. He could faintly hear sirens and could hear some banging below coming from the elevator control room.

“I love you too, Harry,” she whispered after a few minutes of crying into his chest. “So much.”

He smiled, his heart pounding and spreading warmth throughout his body, “Good,” he nosed softly at her cheek. “Was beginning to think it was in m’head.”

She giggled tearily and lifted her face from his chest to meet his gaze. “I think you’re stuck with me,” she warned, her eyebrows pulling inward just a bit; like she was embarrassed by the fact.

He chuckled, brushed his thumb across her lip. “There is no one I’d rather be stuck with, darling,” he assured her and kissed her softly, finally. After what felt like ages. “Will you please sleep in m’bed tonight?” He asked. He couldn’t take another night without her, but perhaps more importantly, worrying about her neck and back.

She grinned. “Only if you want me to,” she giggled.

He chuckled. “Darling, please,” he shook his head in semi-disbelief. Then softer, with a sad smile on his face, he pushed a piece of her hair behind her ear. “M’sorry y’didn’t have a good day,” he whispered.

“All my days with you are quite nice, Harry,” she nodded gently, inching closer to his lips until they kissed again. 

If they kissed until the firemen arrived to retrieve them, then that was between them and the elevator walls. 

--

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Yn is standing in the doorway of the kitchen, one hand braced against the wall, the other pressed to her side. Her work clothes are torn. Her blouse is ripped at the shoulder, dark with something that isn't water. Her face is pale—too pale, the kind of pale that makes his stomach drop—and there's a cut above her eyebrow, blood dripping down her cheek in a slow, lazy line.

She's not wearing shoes.

"Harry," she says, and her voice is wrong. Slurred. Too quiet. "I think I—I think something happened."

She takes one step forward. Two.

And then her knees buckle.

Harry moves before he thinks.

He crosses the kitchen in three strides, catching her under the arms before she hits the ground, lowering her carefully onto the tile. His hands are already running over her—a reflex, years of training, a lifetime of muscle memory—and his brain is screaming at him in a language he knows too well.

ABC. Airway, breathing, circulation. Airway first.

"Yn. Look at me." He cups her face, tilts her chin up, checks her pupils. Her left pupil is sluggish. Slower than the right. His heart seizes. "Baby, I need you to stay awake. Can you do that for me?"

"'M awake," she mumbles. Her eyes are glassy. She blinks too slowly. "Just tired. 'M so tired, Harry."

"I know. I know you are." He runs his hands down her neck, her collarbones, checking for deformity, for step-offs. "Did you drive? Were you in the car?"

"Tree." Her brow furrows, like she's trying to remember. "There was a—a dog. Or something. In the road. I swerved."

"Where's the car?"

"Don't... don't remember. Close. I walked."

She walked. Jesus Christ. She walked home after crashing at seventy miles per hour. The adrenaline must have been astronomical—and now it's wearing off, and her body is starting to realize what happened, and Harry is kneeling on his kitchen floor with his fiancée bleeding in his arms and he doesn't know how bad it is yet.

But he's about to find out.

"Yn, I need to check you over. It's going to hurt." He presses his palm to her cheek, and she leans into it, her eyes fluttering. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, baby. But I need you to stay still and stay awake. Can you do that?"

"Don't wanna go to the hospital," she whispers.

"We'll talk about that later. Right now, I need you to breathe for me. Deep as you can."

He unbuttons her blouse with shaking hands—steady, Styles, you've done this a thousand times—and pushes the fabric aside. His breath catches.

Her left side is already bruising. A deep, angry purple spreading from her ribs down to her hip. He presses gently along the curve of her ribs, and she screams.

Not a gasp. Not a whimper. A full, throat-tearing scream that makes him want to throw up.

"I know," he says, and his voice cracks. "I know, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I have to check."

Her ribs are unstable. Floating. He can feel the crepitus under his fingers—the horrible grinding of bone against bone—and he knows what that means. Broken ribs. Multiple. Probably flail segment, which means—

"Take another breath for me, Yn. As deep as you can."

She tries. He watches her chest rise, and on the left side, it doesn't move right. It caves in. Paradoxical movement. Flail chest.

And her breathing is fast. Too fast. Shallow.

Tension pneumothorax. The thought hits him like a freight train. Air leaking from her lung into her chest cavity, pushing her trachea, collapsing everything. If he doesn't decompress it, she'll—

No. He's not going there.

"Harry." Her voice is small. Scared. "Hurts to breathe."

"I know. I know it does, angel." He presses two fingers to her neck, counting her pulse. Tachycardic. Thready. She's losing blood somewhere. "I need to call an ambulance."

"No."

"Yn—"

"No hospital." She grabs his wrist, and her grip is weaker than it should be. "Just—just give me something. Painkillers. I'll rest. I'll be fine."

"You have broken ribs, Yn. You might have a collapsed lung. You might be bleeding internally." He keeps his voice level, even, the way he does with scared families in the trauma bay. But this is different. This is her. "You are not fine. And you are not staying here."

"Harry, please—"

"No." His voice sharpens. "This is non-negotiable. You are going to the hospital, even if I have to carry you there myself."

He's already pulling out his phone, dialing 911, giving their address in a voice that doesn't sound like his own. The operator asks questions—is she conscious, is she breathing, is there severe bleeding—and he answers on autopilot while his other hand holds hers, his thumb tracing circles on her knuckles.

"Harry," she whispers again, and there are tears in her eyes now. "I'm scared."

He hangs up. Drops the phone. Leans down so his forehead touches hers.

"I know you are. But I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere." He kisses her temple, gentle, avoiding the cut. "The ambulance is five minutes out. You're going to stay awake for me until they get here, and then you're going to let them take care of you, and I'm going to be with you the whole time. Okay?"

"'Kay."

"Say it back."

"I'll stay awake."

"Good girl."

The ambulance ride is a blur of sirens and fluorescent lights and hands that aren't Harry's. He rides in the back with her, holding her hand, telling her names of stars and the capital of every country he can think of just to keep her talking.

"Tell me about the wedding," he says, when her eyes start to droop. "You picked out flowers last week. What color?"

"White," she murmurs. "And... and eucalyptus."

"What kind of white? There's a million kinds of white. You told me that. You were very passionate about it."

A ghost of a smile. "Peony. Garden rose. Something called... 'Quicksand.'"

"Quicksand? That's a flower?"

"It's a... it's a rose. It's blush. But mostly white." Her grip on his hand tightens. "Harry, it hurts."

"I know, sweetheart. I know." He looks at the paramedic, who's already hanging a bag of fluids. "Can you give her something for the pain?"

"Already on board," the paramedic says. "Morphine, four milligrams. Should be kicking in soon."

Harry watches her face. Watches the way her brow slowly unclenches, the way her breathing stays too fast but her eyes get a little softer.

"There you go," he murmurs. "That's better, isn't it?"

"Mmm." She blinks up at him. "You're pretty."

He laughs, and it comes out wet. "You're on drugs."

"Still true."

The ambulance hits a pothole, and she gasps, and he stops laughing.

The trauma bay is chaos.

Harry steps back when they wheel her in—he has to, he's not on shift, he's not a doctor here, he's just a man in jeans and a sweater with his fiancée's blood on his hands—but he doesn't leave. He stands in the corner, arms crossed, watching as the team swarms around her.

"Female, thirty-two, high-speed MVC, walked home post-accident, found down by fiancé," the paramedic rattles off. "GCS 14, unequal pupils, obvious chest wall trauma with respiratory distress, suspected tension pneumothorax, multiple lacerations, hypotensive in the field—"

Harry tunes out the rest. He's watching her face. She's looking for him in the crowd of scrubs and stethoscopes, and when she finds him, her eyes fill with tears.

"Harry," she says, and her voice breaks.

He moves.

He doesn't think about protocols or visitor policies or the fact that he's technically not supposed to be in the trauma bay. He walks to her side, takes her hand, and presses a kiss to her knuckles.

"I'm here. I'm right here."

"Don't leave."

"Never."

The trauma surgeon—a woman with kind eyes and steady hands—introduces herself as Dr. Chen. She looks at Harry, recognizes him from a conference last year, and doesn't tell him to leave. She just nods once and gets to work.

"Let's get a chest X-ray," she says. "And page surgery. I want a FAST scan and a head CT."

Harry watches them cut off her clothes. Watches them expose the bruising on her ribs, the swelling on her abdomen, the laceration on her scalp that's still oozing blood. He watches Dr. Chen listen to her lungs, her expression going tight.

"Diminished breath sounds on the left," Dr. Chen says. "Harry, you're a trauma surgeon. You want to do the honors or should I?"

He's not supposed to. He's not on her case. But Harry looks at YN—at the way she's gripping his hand like he's the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth—and he makes a decision.

"I'll do it."

He scrubs his hands in the sink, puts on gloves, and picks up the scalpel. The room goes quiet. Dr. Chen holds the ultrasound probe over YN's chest, confirming what he already knows—a massive pneumothorax, lung completely collapsed, everything shifting to the right.

"Yn, I need to put a tube in your chest," he says, keeping his voice soft. "It's going to hurt, but it's going to help you breathe. Do you understand?"

"Will you hold my hand?"

"I'll hold your hand with one hand and put the tube in with the other. I'm very talented."

She laughs weakly, and it hurts her, but she doesn't let go of him.

He positions himself at her side. Dr. Chen hands him the scalpel. And Harry—Harry who has done this procedure hundreds of times on strangers, on people whose names he never learns, on bodies that feel nothing—makes a small incision between her ribs and feels his own heart crack.

"Deep breath for me, sweetheart."

She breathes. He pushes the tube through the chest wall, into the pleural space, and there it is—the rush of air, the hiss of the lung re-expanding, the beautiful sound of her chest rising and falling the way it's supposed to.

"Good," he breathes. "That's so good, baby. You did so good."

The chest tube is secured. The drainage system bubbles quietly. And Yn is still looking at him, still holding his hand, still alive.

Dr. Chen orders a head CT and a pan-scan. Harry follows the gurney to radiology, still holding her hand, still whispering.

"You're doing so well. I'm so proud of you. Just a few more minutes, and then we'll get you fixed up, and you can rest."

"M'not doing anything," she slurs. "You're doing everything."

"That's my job."

"Your job is... saving people."

"Today, my job is saving you."

The CT results come back forty-five minutes later.

Harry is in the waiting room—they made him leave for the actual scan, something about radiation exposure, and he spent twenty-three minutes pacing a hole in the linoleum floor—when Dr. Chen finds him.

"We have a skull fracture," she says, holding the films up to the light. "Linear, non-depressed, temporal region. No active bleed, but she has a moderate concussion. We'll monitor her neuro status overnight."

Harry nods. He was expecting that. "What else?"

"Abdomen. She has free fluid in her peritoneal cavity. We're calling it a positive FAST—she's bleeding internally, and she needs a laparotomy. We're taking her to the OR in ten minutes."

Harry closes his eyes. A laparotomy means opening her abdomen, finding the bleed, stopping it. It means hours under anesthesia, hours of him waiting in a plastic chair with bad coffee and worse thoughts.

"Who's operating?" he asks.

"Chang. He's good. You know him."

Harry does know him. Michael Chang is one of the best trauma surgeons in the state. He's also a friend. And right now, Harry needs to trust him.

"Can I see her before they take her up?"

Dr. Chen hesitates. Then she nods. "Five minutes. She's in bay three."

Yn is awake when he gets there. Barely. Her eyes are half-closed, and there's an oxygen mask over her face, and someone has put a cervical collar around her neck even though her spine is fine. She looks small. She looks breakable. She looks like the person he's supposed to spend the rest of his life with, and she almost died tonight.

"Hey," he says, sitting on the edge of her bed. "They're going to take you to the OR in a few minutes. You have some bleeding in your belly, and they need to fix it."

Her eyes widen. "Surgery?"

"Just one surgery. A small one. And then you'll be done, I promise." He brushes her hair back from her forehead, careful of the laceration. "Dr. Chang is going to take care of you. He's very good. He once took out a gallstone the size of a golf ball."

"That's... gross."

"It was impressive." He presses his lips to her forehead. "I'm going to be right here when you wake up. I'm not leaving the hospital. Do you hear me?"

"'M scared."

"I know." He pulls back so she can see his face. "But I'm not scared. Because I know you're going to be fine. You're too stubborn to die on an operating table."

"Harry."

"I'm serious. You once argued with me for forty-five minutes about whether a hot dog is a sandwich. You're not going anywhere."

She laughs, and it hurts her, and he hates himself a little for making her laugh. But she's smiling. She's still smiling.

"I love you," she whispers.

"I love you too." He kisses her forehead again, her nose, the corner of her mouth. "Now go be the most dramatic patient Michael's ever had. I'll see you on the other side."

They wheel her away. Harry watches until the doors close. Then he puts his head in his hands and doesn't move for a very long time.

The surgery takes three hours.

Harry spends them in the waiting room, alternating between pacing, staring at his phone, and drinking vending machine coffee that tastes like burnt regret. He texts her mom—she's in surgery, she's going to be fine, I'll call you when she's out—and then turns his phone off because he can't handle any more questions.

He thinks about the last thing they argued about. It was stupid—something about where to hang a picture in the hallway, her wanting it higher, him wanting it lower. He thinks about how he'd let her hang every picture in the house at whatever height she wanted if it meant she'd come out of this okay.

He thinks about the ring on her finger. The one he spent six months saving for, the one he hid in his sock drawer, the one he put on her hand last month in their living room while she was crying happy tears and saying "yes, yes, yes" over and over again.

He thinks about a world where she doesn't come out of this, and he has to stop thinking about it because he can't breathe.

At 11:47 PM, Dr. Chang comes out.

Harry is on his feet before the door finishes swinging.

"She's stable," Michael says, pulling off his scrub cap. "Lacerated spleen. We were able to repair it without removing it. She lost about a liter and a half of blood, but we transfused two units, and her vitals are solid. Chest tube is in place, lung is fully expanded. Skull fracture is non-operative—we'll just watch it."

Harry sags against the wall. "Thank you. Michael, thank you."

"She's a fighter." Michael claps him on the shoulder. "She's in the SICU. You can see her in about twenty minutes, once we get her settled."

Harry nods. He waits eighteen minutes—because he's never been good at waiting—and then he's walking into the SICU, past the beeping monitors and the hushed voices, to the bed in the corner.

Yn is asleep.

She looks pale against the white sheets. There's a tube coming out of her chest, connected to a bubbling drainage system. There's an IV in each arm, a pulse ox on her finger, leads on her chest. Her abdomen is bandaged from sternum to pelvis, the dressing clean and white. There's a small gauze pad taped above her eyebrow where they stitched the laceration.

Harry pulls up a chair. He sits. He takes her hand—the one without the IV—and holds it between both of his.

"Hi," he whispers. "I'm here."

She doesn't respond. She's sedated, intubated, her chest rising and falling with the rhythm of the ventilator. But her hand is warm. Her fingers curl around his, just a little, like even unconscious she knows he's there.

Harry lowers his head to the edge of the bed. And for the first time since he saw her standing in the doorway, he cries.

She wakes up twenty-six hours later.

The first thing she sees is Harry. He's in the chair next to her bed, head tipped back, mouth slightly open. He hasn't shaved in two days. There are dark circles under his eyes. His sweater is the same one he was wearing when she walked in the door—except now it has blood on it. Her blood.

She tries to say his name, but her throat is dry, and there's a tube in her mouth, and she can't—

"Easy, easy." Harry is awake instantly, leaning over her, his hand on her forehead. "You're intubated. Don't try to talk. Just squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

She squeezes.

"Good girl." His eyes are wet. "You're in the SICU. You had surgery on your spleen last night. Your lung collapsed, but we put a tube in, and it's healing. You have a concussion and a small fracture in your skull, but your brain is fine. You're going to be fine."

She squeezes his hand again. Harder.

"I know. I know you have questions. But you need to rest right now, okay? They're going to take the tube out in a few hours, and then you can talk my ear off as much as you want."

She doesn't want to talk. She wants to sleep. But she also wants to look at him—at his stupid beautiful face, at the worry etched into every line of it—and she wants to tell him she's sorry for scaring him, for swerving, for walking home instead of calling an ambulance, for all of it.

Instead, she just holds his hand and closes her eyes.

When she opens them again, the sun is up, and the tube is gone, and Harry is still there.

The next week is a blur of pain and sleep and Harry.

He doesn't leave. She's not sure if he's officially on leave or if he just stopped showing up to work, but every time she opens her eyes, he's there. Reading in the chair. Sleeping in the chair. Eating bad hospital food out of plastic containers. Holding her hand.

"You need to go home," she says, on day three. Her voice is still raspy from the tube, and her ribs ache every time she breathes, and she's so tired she can barely keep her eyes open. "You need a shower. And real food."

"I showered in the on-call room."

"That doesn't count."

"I used soap."

"Harry."

"Yn." He raises an eyebrow. "I'm not leaving. Stop asking."

She wants to argue, but she's too tired. So she just watches him rearrange her pillows for the fifth time, tucking the blanket around her legs, checking the chest tube drainage like he can't help himself.

"You're hovering," she says.

"I'm monitoring."

"You're hovering."

He sits on the edge of her bed, careful to avoid the tubes and wires, and cups her face in his hands. "I almost lost you. I'm allowed to hover."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You have a chest tube and a skull fracture and an incision that goes from here to here." He traces a line down her abdomen, light as a feather. "But you will be fine. Because I'm going to make sure of it."

She leans into his touch. "I love you."

"I love you too." He kisses her forehead. "Now go back to sleep. The nurses get grumpy when you're awake during shift change."

"How do you know that?"

"I've been here longer than they have."

Day five, she gets discharged.

Harry handles everything—the paperwork, the prescriptions, the follow-up appointments, the careful instructions about showering and lifting and driving. He carries her bag. He helps her into the car. He drives five miles under the speed limit the whole way home, and she doesn't tease him about it because she's pretty sure he'll cry if she does.

Home is strange.

It smells like garlic and rosemary, still, faintly—the sauce he was making when she walked in the door. She looks at the kitchen floor and sees the spot where she collapsed, scrubbed clean but somehow still there in her memory.

"Don't," Harry says softly, coming up behind her. "Don't think about it."

"How do you know what I'm thinking?"

"Because I'm thinking the same thing." He wraps an arm around her waist—carefully, so carefully—and guides her toward the stairs. "Bed. Now. You've been upright for twenty minutes, that's your limit."

"I'm not an infant."

"You're a trauma patient. Same thing."

He helps her up the stairs one step at a time, his hand on her back, his body blocking her from falling if her knees give out. She hates needing help. She hates the way her body feels foreign and fragile, held together with stitches and staples and prayers.

But she loves the way he holds her. The way he treats her like something precious.

He gets her settled in bed—their bed, the one with the soft sheets and the pillows she stole from his side—and then he disappears into the bathroom. She hears water running, cabinet doors opening, the sound of him organizing things on the counter.

When he comes back, he's carrying a blood pressure cuff, a pulse oximeter, and a small notebook.

"Harry."

"What?"

"Why do you have a notebook?"

"To track your vitals." He sits on the edge of the bed and reaches for her wrist. "I'm going to check you every four hours. BP, HR, O2 sat, temperature, and I'm going to look at your incisions."

"You're not a nurse."

"I'm a trauma surgeon. I'm overqualified to be a nurse."

"You're obsessed."

"I'm thorough." He wraps the cuff around her arm and starts pumping. "There's a difference."

She lets him do it. Lets him record the numbers in his little notebook, lets him lift her shirt to check the dressing on her abdomen, lets him listen to her chest with a stethoscope he apparently brought home from the hospital.

"Your lung sounds good," he murmurs, pressing the cold metal to her back. "No diminished breath sounds. Chest tube site looks clean."

"You're ridiculous."

"You're alive." He puts the stethoscope down and kisses her forehead. "I'm going to be ridiculous for as long as it takes."

The first three days at home are... intense.

Harry wakes her up every four hours, even at 2 AM, to check her vitals and give her pain medication. He hovers in the doorway when she uses the bathroom. He won't let her walk down the stairs by herself. He won't let her shower without him sitting on the toilet lid, reading aloud from a book to keep her company, ready to catch her if she slips.

"Harry, I can wash my own hair."

"You can't lift your arms above your shoulders. You have a skull fracture."

"It's a hairline fracture."

"It's still a fracture." He squeezes shampoo into his palm and starts working it through her hair, gentle, methodical. "Stop arguing and let me take care of you."

She closes her eyes. His fingers feel good—scratching her scalp, working out the tangles, massaging the tension from her neck. She leans back against the shower wall and lets him do it.

"You're good at this," she mumbles.

"I've had practice."

"On who?"

"On you. You're always getting into trouble." He rinses her hair, cupping his hand over her forehead to keep the water out of her eyes. "Remember when you fell off that ladder trying to change a lightbulb?"

"I was fine."

"You had a sprained wrist for three weeks."

"Fine."

He laughs, and the sound echoes off the tile, and she thinks maybe being taken care of isn't so bad.

Day four is when she almost ruins everything.

Harry is in the shower—his first real shower in days, because he's been too busy monitoring her to take care of himself. She can hear the water running, hear him humming something soft and low, and she looks at the clock and thinks: I have fifteen minutes.

She's hungry.

Not snack-hungry. Starving. The kind of hungry that comes from eating hospital food for a week and then sleeping through three meals because the pain meds knock her out. She wants a sandwich. A real sandwich. With bread and cheese and maybe that pesto from the fridge.

She shouldn't get up. She knows she shouldn't get up. Harry's rules are very clear: Do not get up without me. Do not walk down the stairs. Do not lift anything heavier than a book. Do not be a hero.

But she's so tired of being helpless.

So she swings her legs over the side of the bed. Stands up slowly, holding onto the nightstand. Waits for the dizziness to pass. Takes a step. Then another.

The stairs are harder.

She goes one step at a time, holding the railing with both hands, her abdomen screaming with every movement. The incision pulls. The chest tube site—still healing, still tender—throbs in protest. But she makes it. She makes it to the bottom of the stairs, makes it to the kitchen, makes it to the counter.

The bread is in the cabinet above the microwave.

She has to reach for it.

She stretches her arm up—too high, too fast—and feels something pull in her abdomen. A sharp, tearing pain that makes her gasp, makes her drop the bread, makes her double over with her hand pressed to her side.

"No no no no no," she whispers, looking down.

There's blood on her shirt. Just a little. Just a spot. But it's spreading.

"Yn?"

Harry's voice from the top of the stairs. She doesn't answer. She can't. She's too busy trying not to panic.

And then he's there.

He takes the stairs two at a time, still dripping wet, a towel around his waist, his hair soaking wet. He takes one look at her—bent over, hand pressed to her abdomen, blood on her shirt—and his face goes white.

"What did you do?"

"I just wanted a sandwich," she whispers.

He doesn't say anything. He picks her up—not carefully this time, not gentle, just picks her up and carries her to the couch, laying her down like she's made of glass. He pulls up her shirt, and she sees his expression shift from panic to anger to something worse: fear.

"You pulled a stitch."

"I'm sorry."

"You pulled a stitch, Yn. You could have torn the whole repair open. You could be bleeding internally again. You could—" He stops. Presses his palm to his forehead. Takes a breath. "What were you thinking?"

"I was hungry."

"You were hungry?" His voice rises, and she flinches. He sees her flinch, and something in his face cracks. "You almost died. You had a hole in your lung. Your spleen was in pieces, Yn. I watched them put you back together. I held your hand while they cut into your chest. And you—" He looks away, jaw tight. "You couldn't wait fifteen minutes for me to get out of the shower?"

"I didn't want to bother you."

"Bother me?" He laughs, and it's not a happy sound. "You are the love of my life. You are my fiancée. You are the person I have chosen to spend every single day of the rest of my life with. And you think asking me to make you a sandwich is bothering me?"

She doesn't know what to say. The blood on her shirt is still wet. Her abdomen is throbbing. And Harry is looking at her like his heart is breaking.

"I was so scared," he says, quieter now. "When you walked through that door, bleeding, not knowing where you were—I have never been that scared in my entire life. And I have seen people die on my table. I have told families that their loved ones didn't make it. And none of that—none of it—was as hard as seeing you fall in my kitchen."

"Harry—"

"No. Let me finish." He kneels in front of the couch, his hands on her knees, his eyes bright with unshed tears. "I need you to understand that you cannot do things like this. You cannot push yourself. You cannot be brave or stubborn or proud. Because if something happens to you—if you tear something open and I can't fix it in time—I will not survive it. Do you understand me?"

She nods. Her throat is too tight to speak.

"I need words, Yn."

"I understand."

"You can't do that again."

"I won't."

"You have to let me take care of you. Even when it's annoying. Even when you're bored. Even when you just want a stupid sandwich." He presses his forehead to her knee. "Please. I'm begging you."

She reaches down and touches his hair. It's still wet from the shower, curling against her fingers. "I'm sorry."

"I know." He looks up at her. "I'm sorry I yelled."

"You were scared."

"Terrified." He takes her hand and presses it to his chest, over his heart. It's pounding. "I love you so much. You can't do that to me again."

"I won't."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

He closes his eyes. Takes a breath. Opens them again, and he's still scared, but he's also Harry—her Harry, the one who catches her when she falls, the one who puts sun cream on her shoulders in Italy, the one who held her hand while they put a tube in her lung.

"Now," he says, standing up. "Let me look at that stitch."

He rechecks the incision. The bleeding is minor—one small torn suture, nothing deeper. He cleans it, tapes it closed, and puts a fresh dressing over it. Then he goes upstairs, puts on clothes, and comes back down to make her a sandwich.

She watches him from the couch, wrapped in a blanket, feeling stupid and loved in equal measure.

He brings her the sandwich on a plate, cut into triangles, with a pickle on the side and a glass of water with ice.

"You're not allowed to eat it in bed," he says. "But you're allowed to eat it on the couch. Baby steps."

"Thank you."

He sits next to her, close enough that their thighs touch, and watches her take the first bite.

"Good?" he asks.

"Good," she says.

He nods. Leans over and kisses her temple. Stays there for a long moment, his lips pressed to her skin, his hand finding hers under the blanket.

"I love you," he murmurs against her hair. "Even when you're an idiot."

"Especially when I'm an idiot."

"Especially then."

Six weeks later, she's cleared for normal activity.

Harry still checks her vitals every morning. Still hovers when she walks down the stairs. Still sleeps with his hand on her stomach, over the scar, like he's making sure it's still there.

She doesn't mind anymore.

She lets him take care of her. Lets him be overprotective. Lets him check her incisions and track her blood pressure and wake her up at 2 AM just to make sure she's breathing.

Because she knows, now, what it cost him. She knows what it means to be loved by someone who almost lost you.

And when he puts a ring on her finger for the second time—not an engagement ring this time, but a wedding band, simple and gold, on a beach in Maine with just their families and the sound of the waves—she looks at him and thinks:

I would survive it all again, just to end up here.

But she doesn't say that. She just kisses him, soft and slow, and lets him hold her like she's something precious.

Because she is.

To him, she always will be.