it’s feminine intuition

At first you assumed construction or flooding because of the weather, but then smoke curled upward through the rain and your stomach dropped immediately.

Cars sat mangled across three lanes of traffic at impossible angles. One SUV had spun into the median while another sedan looked almost folded around the back of a delivery truck, its front end crushed so badly it barely resembled a vehicle anymore. Hazard lights blinked weakly through the storm while people stumbled across the interstate in shock.

Your body moved before your brain fully caught up.

“Oh my God.”

You were already unbuckling your seatbelt before the car completely stopped.

Adrenaline sliced straight through your exhaustion hard enough to make your hands shake as you reached for the trauma bag in the passenger seat. Rain hit you instantly the second you shoved the door open, cold water soaking through your clothes within seconds while distant screaming echoed somewhere through the storm.

Someone yelled that a driver was trapped.

Another voice screamed for a medic.

A woman near the shoulder sobbed hard enough she could barely breathe, blood running down the side of her forehead while a man beside her stood completely frozen, staring blankly at the wreckage like his brain had stopped processing reality altogether.

You were already running.

“I’m a doctor,” you shouted over the rain. “Move back and give me some room.”

People listened immediately.

The trapped driver looked somewhere in his forties, pinned awkwardly behind the wheel of the crushed sedan. Blood streamed from a scalp laceration down the side of his face while the airbags hung deflated around him. His breathing came too fast beneath the sound of rain hammering against twisted metal, panic beginning to sharpen around the edges of every inhale.

You crouched carefully beside the shattered driver’s side window, ignoring the glass biting through your scrub pants into your knees.

“Hey,” you said, forcing calmness into your voice despite the adrenaline roaring through your chest. “Can you hear me?”

The man blinked slowly toward you, dazed. “Think so.”

“Good. That’s good.” You adjusted the flashlight between your fingers while quickly checking his pupils. “What’s your name?”

“Leon.”

“Okay, Leon. I’m Dr. Y/L/N.” Your voice stayed steady automatically, years of emergency medicine taking over before panic had a chance to settle in. “Don’t move your neck for me, alright?”

A shaky breath of laughter escaped him. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

Despite everything, you smiled a little.

“You’re doing great,” you assured him quietly. “Stay with me.”

And he did.

His eyes kept finding yours every few seconds like you were the only stable thing left in the middle of the chaos.

Your hands moved automatically after that.

Pressure against the head wound. Monitoring responsiveness. Keeping him conscious and talking while you assessed what you could from outside the vehicle. Rainwater mixed with blood beneath your fingers while traffic backed up for what looked like miles behind you, headlights glowing dimly through the storm.

Leon kept looking at you every few seconds like you were the only stable thing left in the middle of the chaos.

“You work at the PTMC?” he asked weakly after spotting the hospital logo embroidered onto your soaked jacket.

“Unfortunately.”

That got a real laugh out of him, brief and pained but enough that relief loosened slightly in your chest.

“You always this calm when you see a car crash?”

You let out a tired breath through your nose. “No. I’m panicking beautifully internally.”

That made him laugh again.

Patients relaxed faster once they laughed. It was something you learned early in residency, fear loosened the second people felt human again instead of helpless.

So you stayed with him.

Even after the paramedics arrived.

Even after they started finishing the extrication, peeling back what remained of the driver’s side door while rain poured endlessly over the wreckage.

You stayed crouched beside him talking him through every step because shock was already creeping in around the edges of his expression, and every time panic threatened to overwhelm him again, his eyes found yours immediately.

“You’re okay,” you kept saying quietly. “Stay with me. You’re okay.”

The interstate blurred around you in streaks of red brake lights and flashing hazards. Rain soaked through your jacket and scrubs completely now, damp fabric clinging uncomfortably to your skin while your hair stuck to the back of your neck. The adrenaline that had carried you through the crash scene was already fading, leaving behind an exhaustion so heavy it felt physical.

An EMT looked up from the stretcher and did a double take.

“Dr. Y/L/N?”

You snapped back into focus automatically.

“Male, approximately forty-two. Restrained driver. Brief LOC reported by witnesses. GCS fifteen currently. Complaining of left-sided rib pain. Possible concussion. Neuro status intact for now, but keep an eye on him.”

The EMT nodded once while adjusting the cervical collar. “Got it.”

They moved quickly after that, securing straps, checking vitals, loading equipment through the rain while Leon tracked every movement with the wide-eyed focus of someone trying very hard not to think too much about what had almost happened.

Your knees ached from kneeling on broken glass. Your hands had started trembling slightly now that nobody urgently needed anything from you anymore.

But you stayed beside him anyway.

Leon caught your wrist weakly just before the paramedics closed the ambulance doors.

“Hey.”

You looked up immediately.

His face looked pale beneath the blood and rainwater, eyes glassy with pain and adrenaline, but there was something steadier there too.

Gratitude maybe.

“Thank you for taking care of me.”

The words landed somewhere deeper than they should have.

You swallowed hard before giving his hand one quick squeeze.

“Yeah,” you said softly. “Of course.”

For a second, you just stood there breathing.

The interstate still smelled like gasoline and smoke. Somewhere farther down the road another paramedic shouted instructions while tow trucks crawled through the rain toward the wreckage. Traffic in the opposite lanes slowed almost to a stop as people stared through fogged windows at what was left of the crash.

“You riding in with us?” one of the EMTs asked.

You glanced once toward your abandoned car still trapped in unmoving traffic nearly half a mile behind the accident scene. The thought of trying to get back to it right now felt impossible.

“Yeah,” you answered tiredly.

The ambulance doors shut behind you a second later, sealing you inside with the sharp smell of antiseptic, wet clothing, and adrenaline.

Leon talked for almost the entire ride to the hospital.

Nervous talking.

The kind trauma patients did when they were scared enough to fill every silence because silence meant thinking too hard about how close they came to dying. You’d seen it hundreds of times before. Some people cried. Some got angry. Some went terrifyingly quiet.

Leon talked.

So you let him.

He rambled about his job, about his daughter’s soccer game this weekend, about how his wife was going to kill him for wrecking the car because they still hadn’t finished paying it off. Every few sentences his voice shook slightly before he forced another joke out anyway.

You stayed beside him the whole ride, monitoring pupils and vitals while keeping him talking just enough to assess mental status without making it obvious you were doing it.

“You always pick up patients on the highway on your day off?” he asked weakly at one point.

You let out a tired breath of laughter. “Only the lucky ones.”

That earned another shaky smile from him.

The ambulance doors burst open, paramedics already rolling the stretcher down the bay entrance while rainwater dripped steadily from the wheels onto the floor.

By the time the ambulance rolled through the bay doors at The Pitt, you were freezing hard enough your teeth almost hurt. Your scrubs were soaked completely through, your shoes squelching against the floor while trauma staff moved around you in organized chaos.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Santos called across the ER the second she spotted you climbing out of the ambulance bay. “Always a pleasure seeing you this early, Iron Woman.”

You groaned immediately.

You earned the nickname after accidentally mistaking a patient for Robert Downey Jr. during a twenty-hour shift.

To be fair, the goatee had been identical.

“Dana,” you called immediately, falling into step beside the stretcher. “What’s open?”

Dana barely looked up from the nurses’ station. “Trauma Two’s clear.”

“Perfect.” You pushed damp hair back from your face before glancing toward the department. “Whitaker, Javadi, you’re with me. Perlah, can you help set up Two?”

Perlah nodded immediately and disappeared ahead of the group while Whitaker grabbed gloves from the wall dispenser on his way past.

“You look cold,” Whitaker informed you conversationally.

“Thank you,” you replied flatly.

Javadi appeared beside the stretcher while all of you pushed through the trauma bay doors together. “What happened?”

“Restrained driver, approximately forty-two,” you answered automatically. “High-speed MVA during the storm. Brief LOC reported by witnesses. GCS fifteen on arrival, complaining of left-sided rib pain and worsening headache. Possible concussion.”

“Vitals stable en route,” one of the paramedics added while helping transfer Leon onto the trauma bed.

Whitaker immediately started attaching monitors while Javadi pulled supplies from cabinets with the frantic efficiency of someone still trying very hard to look calmer than she actually felt.

Then Jack looked up from the computer station.

And somehow, in the middle of the packed emergency department, everything softened slightly around the edges.

You caught the exact moment recognition crossed his face. The exhaustion behind his eyes shifted immediately into concern as his gaze moved slowly over you. Soaked scrubs, blood smeared across your gloves, rainwater dripping steadily from your hair onto the floor beneath you.

Jack crossed the trauma bay almost immediately.

“You okay?” he asked quietly. “What happened? I thought you went home.”

His voice grounded you in a way almost nothing else could anymore.

Maybe it was because he always sounded calm even during chaos. Maybe it was because after years together your body recognized him before your brain consciously caught up. Or maybe it was simply that exhaustion hit harder the second somebody else arrived to help carry it.

“I’m fine,” you answered automatically while stripping off your soaked gloves and replacing them with clean ones. “Probably need a head CT.”

Jack’s expression tightened instantly.

“For you?”

You blinked at him before realizing what you’d said. “What? No. For the patient.”

Behind you, Perlah had already started cutting away Leon’s soaked shirt while Whitaker attached cardiac leads to his chest.

“BP’s holding,” Whitaker called.

“Sinus tach at one-ten,” Javadi added while checking another monitor. “Probably pain and adrenaline.”

“Good,” you answered automatically before stepping back beside the bed.

“Where’s Robby?”

“Overdose in Four,” Dana answered from the doorway.

You nodded once and reached for your penlight again, checking Leon’s pupils carefully while rain continued tapping faintly against the ambulance bay doors behind you.

Santos wandered into Trauma Two looking personally offended. “Why does huckleberry and crash get invited? I can help.”

“You can stand there and look pretty while actual doctors save lives,” you shot back immediately.

Santos gasped dramatically. “Dr. Abbot, your girlfriend is bullying me again.”

“She bullies everybody,” Jack muttered.

But there was no heat behind it.

His eyes lingered on you a second too long.

You knew that look by now.

Jack had spent years in emergency medicine learning how to bury concern beneath sarcasm and exhaustion, but you still caught it every time. He noticed the dark circles under your eyes. The slight tremor beginning in your hands now that the adrenaline was wearing off. The way your shoulders sagged whenever you thought nobody was looking.

“You’re freezing,” he said quietly.

“You are correct. I am freezing.”

Without another word, Jack pulled his hoodie off the back of the nurses’ station chair and draped it carefully around your shoulders before you could protest. It was still warm from him, smelling faintly like coffee, antiseptic, and the cologne he only remembered to wear maybe twice a month.

Something in your chest tightened stupidly at the gesture.

Behind him, Santos gagged theatrically. “Oh my God. Romance in the trauma bay. I’m going to throw up.”

“Go chart something,” Jack said flatly.

Whitaker looked up from the monitor leads. “Actually, I think it's very sweet."

“You’re all miserable,” you informed them while pulling the hoodie tighter around yourself.

“No,” Javadi corrected while checking Leon’s blood pressure. “You two are just aggressively in love in public.”

Jack looked genuinely offended. “Aggressively? I don't get it."

Despite yourself, you laughed softly while stepping back toward Leon’s bedside.

Leon noticed the interaction immediately.

“That your boyfriend?” he asked weakly from the trauma bed.

“Husband to the emergency department,” you corrected while snapping fresh gloves on. “Boyfriend in real life.”

Jack rolled his eyes while typing orders into the computer. “Don’t encourage her, Leon.”

Leon grinned despite the pain. “You guys are disgustingly cute.”

Under the brighter trauma lights, bruising had already started blooming dark purple across his ribs beneath the rain-soaked skin.

“Headache worse?” you asked while checking his pupils again.

“A little.”

“You nauseous?”

“Not yet.”

“Good,” you answered. “Let’s keep it that way.”

Javadi palpated carefully along his left side while Whitaker adjusted the blood pressure cuff.

“There’s something strangely comforting about you people,” Leon admitted weakly after a moment.

“You say that now,” Javadi muttered.

That earned another tired laugh from him before he winced sharply afterward.

“There it is,” you said softly. “Still joking. Good sign, buddy.”

There was something oddly comforting about patients who stayed conversational. After years in emergency medicine, you learned to appreciate moments where humanity still existed between procedures and bloodwork and trauma assessments.

Sometimes those tiny conversations mattered almost as much as the medicine itself.

Jack stepped beside you while reviewing Leon’s vitals, his shoulder brushing yours briefly in the cramped trauma bay. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic, damp fabric, and rainwater now that Leon’s soaked clothing had finally been cut away.

“You should change,” Jack murmured quietly while adjusting one of the monitor leads. “I got this, baby.”

You barely glanced at him, still focused on the chart. “Don’t worry. I’ll survive.”

A tired look crossed his face immediately.

“That’s usually what people say right before passing out.”

You shot him a look over your shoulder, though exhaustion dulled most of the energy behind it. “You’re dramatic.”

“You’ve been awake how long now?”

“Eighteen hours.”

Jack stared at you flatly. “That’s not comforting.”

“You stopped at a major accident scene after an eighteen-hour shift?” Javadi asked incredulously.

You shrugged slightly.

And that alone made Jack’s jaw tighten, because that was exactly the kind of thing you always did.

The adrenaline carrying you through the crash scene had almost completely faded now, leaving behind exhaustion so heavy it felt physical. Your wet clothes clung coldly to your skin beneath Jack’s hoodie while every muscle in your body ached now that the immediate crisis had passed.

Jack exhaled softly through his nose before lowering his voice.

“You don’t always have to run yourself into the ground trying to save everybody.”

The words landed harder than they should have.

You focused instead on adjusting Leon’s blanket over his chest, smoothing the fabric carefully just to give your hands something else to do.

Jack knew you too well by now to push after saying something like that.

That was part of what made loving him dangerous sometimes. He noticed things you worked very hard to hide from everybody else.

He noticed the way your hands trembled after bad trauma calls once the adrenaline wore off. How you skipped meals without realizing it during difficult shifts. How every patient death stayed with you longer than you ever admitted aloud.

Jack had spent years in emergency medicine learning how to compartmentalize just enough to survive it, which somehow only made him better at recognizing when you weren’t doing the same.

His hand brushed briefly against the small of your back as he moved toward the monitors again.

“Don’t worry, Leon,” Jack said easily while checking the cardiac tracing. “You’re in good hands.”

Leon looked toward him before his gaze drifted back to you.

“I figured that out already,” he said softly. “She stopped on the interstate for me.”

You glanced up from the chart, slightly surprised by how steady his voice sounded now despite everything.

“You didn’t have to do all that,” Leon continued quietly.

You shrugged lightly, pushing damp hair away from your face. “Part of the job.”

“Maybe,” he answered softly, still watching you carefully. “But most people would’ve kept driving.”

Something warm and uncomfortable settled low in your chest at that.

Most patients never saw the moments in between all of this. They saw calm voices and steady hands. They saw competence because that was what they needed from you in moments like these.

They never saw the aftermath.

The exhaustion. The panic doctors swallowed in real time just to keep functioning. The way people occasionally locked themselves in supply closets for thirty seconds after bad cases just to breathe before walking back out like nothing happened.

But Leon had seen you kneeling beside twisted metal in freezing rain with blood on your hands while traffic screamed past only feet away.

He’d seen the human part too.

And somehow that felt far more exposing than expected.

Before you could answer, something shifted.

Subtle.

Small enough most people in the room probably would have missed it entirely.

But after years in emergency medicine, your body noticed changes before your brain consciously caught up.

Leon’s breathing changed.

One second it was slow and uneven with postictal exhaustion.

The next it caught strangely in his chest.

His eyes lost focus somewhere over your shoulder while every muscle in his body tightened beneath the blankets all at once.

Your stomach dropped instantly.

“Leon?”

Jack looked up from the monitor station at the exact same moment Leon’s entire body stiffened violently against the mattress.

“He’s seizing!”

Everything exploded into motion.

The seizure hit hard and fast, violent enough that the entire trauma bed rattled beneath him. His back arched sharply while his arms convulsed uncontrollably, knocking equipment sideways as monitors erupted into sharp screaming alarms throughout the room.

“Clock started,” Perlah called immediately.

“Two minutes on the seizure pads,” Whitaker added while grabbing suction.

“Turn him,” you ordered.

You and Javadi moved together automatically, carefully rolling Leon onto his side while his body continued jerking violently beneath your hands. Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth where he’d bitten through his tongue while every breath came in horrible choking gasps between convulsions.

“Airway’s clear,” Javadi said quickly, though her voice still sounded tight with adrenaline.

Across the room Jack was already pulling medication from the crash cart while Dana called CT from the doorway ahead of transport.

Then finally, slowly, the seizure broke.

Leon’s body slumped heavily back against the mattress drenched in sweat while ragged breaths tore unevenly from his chest. The room fell briefly into that strange silence that always followed emergencies, where everybody still moved quickly even though the worst part had passed.

For now.

“Let’s get a CT stat,” Jack said immediately.

You nodded once, trying to ignore the tremor beginning in your hands now that the adrenaline spike was crashing again.

“I’ll stay with him until transport.”

Jack hesitated.

Only briefly, but long enough for you to notice.

Something unreadable crossed his expression while his eyes flicked from Leon back toward you.

Concern maybe.

The same quiet tension he always carried after particularly violent trauma cases.

“You sure?” he asked softly.

You frowned slightly. “Yeah.”

Whitaker glanced briefly between both of you like he noticed something too, but before he could say anything Dana appeared in the doorway again.

“Trauma Three needs help now.”

Jack’s jaw tightened.

His fingers brushed briefly against your wrist before he stepped away toward the hallway, disappearing almost immediately back into the noise and chaos outside the trauma bay.

The room quieted afterward.

Machines beeped steadily while rain tapped faintly against distant ER windows somewhere down the hall. Whitaker and Javadi had already been pulled into another room, leaving you alone beside Leon while he lay motionless in exhausted postictal confusion.

You dimmed the overhead light slightly before adjusting the blanket higher over his chest.

“Hey,” you said gently when you noticed him beginning to stir. “You’re okay. You had a seizure.”

No response.

His eyes stayed fixed upward, unfocused and confused.

Postictal.

You had seen it hundreds of times before. Disorientation. Confusion. Agitation sometimes. Patients waking terrified because their brains had not fully caught up to reality yet.

Your shoulder ached dully now that exhaustion was settling deeper into your body again. You reached absentmindedly for the chart at the foot of the bed, mentally running through differentials and imaging priorities while waiting for CT to call back.

You missed the shift in him by less than a second.

One moment Leon lay motionless against the mattress, the next his eyes sharpened violently.

Not recognition.

Fear.

Pure terrified instinct.

Your stomach dropped.

“Leon—”

He surged upright before you could finish the sentence.

His hand closed around your throat with terrifying force, slamming you backward into the cabinet hard enough to knock the air violently from your lungs. Pain exploded across the back of your skull as your head cracked sharply against metal.

“Leon!”

The sound came out broken and strangled.

But he wasn’t seeing you.

That was the horrifying part.

His eyes looked completely wild now—unfocused, terrified, empty all at once. Pure neurological panic stripped entirely of recognition.

For one terrible second, training overrode fear.

“Leon,” you gasped desperately, grabbing his wrists instinctively instead of striking him. “Listen to me. You’re in the hospital. You’re safe.”

Nothing reached him.

His grip tightened harder around your throat.

Air stopped.

Panic slammed through you instantly now, sharp and animal and overwhelming in a way you almost never allowed yourself to feel. Your vision flickered violently while you clawed uselessly at his hands, trying desperately to drag in even one full breath.

You needed help.

Safe word.

Your mouth opened automatically.

“H—”

Nothing came out except a rasp.

Leon shoved you backward harder, your skull slamming against the cabinet again hard enough that white exploded across your vision.

The hospital safe word.

You just needed to say it.

“Hula—”

The sound collapsed into another strangled gasp as his fingers crushed tighter against your airway.

Your lungs burned.

Tears blurred your vision from pain and lack of oxygen while movement echoed faintly somewhere outside the trauma bay. People were still moving through the ER completely unaware of what was happening behind the curtain.

Your body was weakening fast.

You forced one shredded breath into your lungs and screamed:

“HULA HOOP!”

The entire department reacted instantly.

The trauma bay doors burst open hard enough to slam against the wall while voices shouted over each other.

Hands grabbed Leon, trying to drag him backward while he fought wildly in blind confusion and terror.

But before anyone could fully pull him away, he shoved you violently across the room.

Your shoulder struck the edge of the cabinetry with a horrible crack before the rest of your body collapsed hard onto the tile floor.

Pain tore through your arm instantly, sharp and wrong enough it barely felt real.

You couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t think.

The room blurred violently while alarms screamed overhead and people shouted your name somewhere nearby.

And through all of it, through the pain and chaos splitting apart around you, your brain found one thing instinctively.

Jack.

You thought about the way he always found you in crowded trauma bays without even trying. The way his hoodie still smelled faintly like coffee and antiseptic around your shoulders. The quiet brush of his hand against your back only minutes earlier.

You wondered irrationally if he was going to blame himself for leaving the room.

That thought hurt almost as badly as the pain itself.

Your eyes slipped closed just as the world dissolved completely into noise.

Jack was halfway through finishing a chart when he realized he had not seen you in several minutes.

He looked up automatically, scanning the department for you out of habit more than anything else. Usually he could spot you immediately no matter how crowded the ER became. You moved quickly when you worked, sharp and focused and impossible to miss once he knew what to look for.

But you were nowhere.

“Hey, Javadi,” he called while signing off medication orders. “Have you seen Dr. Y/L/N?”

Javadi looked up so quickly, like she was a deer caught in headlights. “Uh… no,” she answered quickly. Too quickly. “I haven’t seen her since I left Leon. Sorry.”

Then she disappeared almost immediately toward another patient before he could ask anything else.

He pushed himself upright from the workstation, the familiar ache radiating faintly through his prosthetic. Long shifts always made it worse. The socket rubbed raw after enough hours on his feet, especially during busy trauma nights when he barely sat down.

Normally he ignored it.

Right now he barely felt it at all.

“Dana,” he called, already moving toward the nurses’ station. “Have you seen Y/N?”

Dana barely looked up from the chart she was reviewing. “Pretty sure she’s still with Leon. Why?”

Jack turned the iPad slightly toward her. “They haven’t gone to CT.”

That got her attention.

Her eyes flicked quickly toward the tracking board before settling back on him. “They’re probably backed up upstairs.”

“Maybe.”

But something still felt wrong.

Dana sighed softly. “Jack, she’s a big girl. She can handle herself.”

He knew that.

God, he knew that better than anybody.

You were one of the strongest people he had ever met. Smarter than most attendings twice your age. Calm during trauma activations that made residents freeze completely. You handled combative patients, pediatric codes, catastrophic MVCs, and grieving families with a steadiness that still amazed him after all these years.

But that feeling in his chest would not go away.

Dana pointed down the hallway. “I actually need you in Central Fourteen. Chest pain rule-out and Dr. Garcia wants another set of eyes before she calls cards.”

Jack exhaled through his nose, still staring at the tracking board.

“Right,” he muttered distractedly. “Yeah. Okay.”

He turned reluctantly toward the direction of Central Fourteen, adjusting his pace automatically as the prosthetic clicked softly against tile beneath his scrub pants. Fatigue had settled deep into the joint hours ago, making his gait slightly uneven now that the adrenaline from earlier trauma activations had worn off.

Then he heard it.

“HULA HOOP!”

Everything in his body stopped instantly.

The voice was barely recognizable.

Raw. Ragged. Strangled around obvious pain and panic in a way that made every hair on the back of his neck stand upright immediately. For one horrible second his brain refused to process it properly because it did not make sense. Not your voice. Not like that.

And then recognition hit him all at once.

The hospital safe word.

Trauma Two.

Jack’s heart dropped so violently it almost hurt.

No.

The thought hit him before anything else.

No no no.

Adrenaline detonated through his bloodstream hard enough to make him dizzy.

Then instinct took over completely.

“No,” he breathed aloud, already moving before the word fully left his mouth.

He pivoted so sharply pain shot violently through his prosthetic, the sudden turn grinding pressure through the socket hard enough that under normal circumstances it would have staggered him. But right now he barely felt it beneath the sheer overwhelming panic flooding his system.

Fear swallowed everything else whole.

Not the controlled fear he knew from trauma medicine. Not the clinical kind that sharpened your focus during codes and mass casualty calls.

This was different.

This was personal.

Jack shoved past a stretcher hard enough that the wheels screeched across tile while people all around him started reacting at the exact same time. Nurses turned toward Trauma Two instantly at the sound of the safe word. Dana’s head snapped upward from the nurses’ station. Santos was already running before half the department fully understood what was happening.

But Jack got there first.

The curtain outside Trauma Two jerked violently as shouting erupted from inside the room. Monitors screamed overhead loud enough to echo through the entire department while equipment crashed hard against the floor somewhere beyond the drapes.

“Get him off her!”

The words barely registered through the roaring in Jack’s ears.

His pulse was so loud now it drowned everything else out.

He hit the doorway hard enough that the curtain ripped halfway off the track as he shoved inside.

And then he saw you.

Lying on the floor.

Motionless.

For one horrifying second his brain simply stopped functioning.

You were crumpled unnaturally against the tile beside the cabinets, one arm twisted wrong beneath you while blood streaked across the side of your face from where your head had struck something hard enough to split skin open. Jack noticed everything all at once in the brutal hyperclarity trauma doctors developed after years in emergency medicine.

The bruising already forming around your throat.

The abnormal angle of your shoulder.

The way your chest barely moved.

And somehow that was the part that terrified him most.

You were not moving enough.

Leon was still screaming somewhere nearby while Ahmed and two nurses fought to restrain him against the opposite wall, his face wild with postictal confusion and terror. Somebody was yelling for sedation meds. The entire trauma bay had dissolved into complete chaos.

But Jack barely registered any of it.

Because you were on the floor.

And you were not getting up.

Something inside his chest seemed to cave inward violently.

“Oh, honey.”

Then he said your name, and the sound that came out barely resembled the steady, composed voice Jack used during traumas and codes and every impossible shift the hospital threw at him.

This was different.

There was no clinical calm left in him now.

Only fear.

Pure terrified fear.

He dropped beside you so fast pain tore sharply through his prosthetic as his knee hit tile, but he ignored it instantly. His hands shook hard enough he almost missed your carotid pulse the first time he checked.

Then finally.

There. Weak, but there.

Relief hit so hard it almost made him nauseous.

“Oh my God,” he whispered shakily, one bloodstained hand cradling the side of your face carefully while the other pressed against your neck searching for injuries. “Hey. Hey, stay with me. Come on.”

You did not respond.

Jack’s stomach turned violently.

Training forced itself back online in fragmented pieces despite the panic threatening to choke him alive. Airway. Breathing. Circulation. Neuro. He assessed automatically even while his brain screamed at him that this was you beneath his hands.

Not a patient.

You.

Blood pressure crash from trauma? Concussion? Cervical injury? Shoulder dislocation? Fracture? Internal bleed?

His eyes flicked instantly toward your throat again and rage flooded him so suddenly it nearly stole his breath.

Finger-shaped bruises were already darkening against your skin.

He hurt you.

The realization nearly made Jack physically sick.

“Jack,” Dana’s voice cut sharply through the chaos as she dropped beside him. “We need to move.”

But Jack could barely hear her.

Your eyelashes fluttered faintly for half a second before falling closed again and something inside him broke completely at the sight.

“No no no,” he whispered frantically, brushing damp hair away from your face with shaking fingers. “Stay awake. Baby, stay awake for me.”

His voice cracked hard on the last word.

That terrified him almost as much as the sight of you bleeding on the floor.

Because Jack Abbot did not lose composure.

Not during traumas, not during mass casualties, not while pronouncing deaths.

But right now panic was tearing straight through him so violently he could barely breathe around it.

And for the first time in years, he had absolutely no idea how to separate being a doctor from being the man who loved you.

“What the hell happened?”

Robby’s voice cut sharply through the chaos as he pushed into Trauma Two with Mohan directly behind him, but for half a second, both of them stopped cold.

The room looked catastrophic. Leon was still fighting violently against security near the far wall, his movements frantic and disorganized while Santos shouted for more sedation. Equipment littered the floor around the trauma bay, overturned trays and scattered supplies crunching beneath people’s shoes as alarms screamed overhead loudly enough to make the entire room feel claustrophobic.

And in the middle of all of it, you were lying motionless on the floor with Jack kneeling beside you.

Blood streaked down the side of your face and disappeared beneath the collar of his hoodie still hanging around your shoulders. Bruising had already started darkening visibly around your throat, ugly fingerprints blooming beneath the fluorescent trauma lights, while your left arm rested at an angle that made Mohan’s stomach immediately drop.

“Jesus Christ,” Mohan breathed.

“Security’s got the patient,” Dana snapped, already dropping beside you with Santos. “Probably postictal aggression after the seizure. He went after her.”

Robby moved instantly after that, years of trauma medicine overriding shock the second he reached your side. “Get her on a gurney now. C-spine precautions. Santos, I need vitals. Dana, page CT and tell them we’re coming immediately. Mohan, get me neuro and ortho on standby.”

Everybody moved except Jack.

He stayed frozen beside you on the tile floor, one hand still cradling the side of your face like he physically could not force himself to let go.

“Jack,” Robby said.

No response.

Jack was staring at you with an expression Robby had never seen on him before. Not panic exactly. Worse than panic. Helplessness, maybe, like his brain had short-circuited somewhere between doctor and boyfriend and now could not figure out how to function as either.

“Jack,” Robby repeated more firmly.

That finally seemed to pull him back enough to blink.

“She isn’t breathing right,” he said hoarsely, voice rough enough it barely sounded like him anymore. “He had her by the throat. Her head hit the cabinet, probably. Possible LOC. Shoulder’s definitely dislocated, maybe fractured too.”

The words came out clipped and automatic, pure trauma assessment forced through panic, but his hands were still shaking.

Dana and Santos carefully slid a backboard beneath you while Mohan cut away the remains of the hoodie around your shoulder to assess the injury better. The second the fabric moved, Jack saw the full extent of the bruising spreading across your throat, dark purple already beneath your skin.

“He squeezed hard enough to leave petechiae,” Santos muttered quietly while examining your neck. “Shit.”

Robby’s jaw tightened immediately. “We need airway monitoring. Neck trauma protocol.”

You stirred weakly then, letting out a broken sound somewhere between a gasp and a whimper as Dana stabilized your shoulder. Jack moved instantly at the sound.

“Hey,” he said, voice softening so fast it almost hurt to hear. “Hey, don’t move. You’re okay.”

Your eyes fluttered halfway open for barely a second before unfocusing again.

“She’s awake,” Jack breathed.

“For now,” Robby answered grimly while checking your pupils with a penlight. “Possible concussion. We’re not ruling anything out yet.”

Jack knew that tone. It was the same one they all used when things might be much worse than they looked initially.

Around them, the room was finally beginning to settle into controlled chaos instead of outright panic. Security had Leon restrained now while Santos pushed sedatives through an IV line with tight, controlled movements. Leon’s terrified shouting dissolved into confused, exhausted mumbling as the medication began taking effect.

“He didn’t know what he was doing,” Mohan said quietly, mostly to fill the horrible silence hanging over the room.

Jack did not answer. Rationally, he already knew that. Postictal aggression, neurological confusion, severe agitation after seizure activity. They had all seen it before. But none of it mattered right now, because every time Jack blinked, he saw your body hitting the floor again.

“On my count,” Santos said firmly while positioning herself near your head. “One, two, three.”

They lifted you carefully onto the gurney, and the second they moved your shoulder, a sharp cry tore from your throat despite your barely conscious state.

Jack physically flinched.

Robby looked at him immediately. “Jack, I need you with me here.”

But Jack still looked frozen. His prosthetic locked slightly as he stood too quickly, pain shooting sharply through the joint while exhaustion and adrenaline crashed violently together inside his body. Normally, he compensated automatically for it. Years of physical therapy had taught him exactly how to move through pain without thinking.

Right now, he barely noticed it. All he could see was you strapped to a trauma gurney instead of standing beside one, and somehow that felt profoundly wrong in a way his brain could not fully process yet.

Dana squeezed his arm briefly as she passed him. “She’s alive,” she said quietly, firmly enough that it sounded almost like an order. “So stay with us.”

Jack swallowed hard, then finally nodded once.

The second the gurney locked into place beside the trauma bed, the room shifted fully into trauma mode. Controlled chaos. Fast hands. Sharply clipped orders. Monitor alarms blending into the constant noise of the ER outside while everybody moved around you with the kind of practiced coordination that only came from years of emergency medicine.

“BP dropping,” Santos called from the monitor station. “Ninety-two over fifty-six. Heart rate one-forty. Pulse ox ninety-four.”

Robby swore quietly under his breath before stepping beside the gurney. “Dana, I need another large bore IV. CBC, CMP, coags, type and screen, lactate. Full trauma panel.”

Dana was already moving before he finished speaking.

Mohan carefully stabilized your cervical spine while Perlah adjusted the collar more securely around your neck. Blood stained the side of your face now, dark against pale skin beneath the fluorescent trauma lights, while bruising continued spreading visibly across your throat.

“She’s tachycardic from pain and adrenaline,” Mohan said quickly while palpating carefully along your ribs and clavicle. “Left shoulder deformity obvious. Could be anterior dislocation, maybe proximal humerus fracture too.”

“She hit hard,” Dana added grimly while cutting away the sleeve of your scrub top completely. “Look at the swelling already, poor baby.”

Jack forced himself closer finally, though every instinct in his body screamed at him to stop looking entirely.

Your shoulder looked wrong. Not subtly wrong, catastrophically wrong. The joint sat visibly displaced beneath skin already darkening with bruising while your arm rested protectively against your torso in unconscious guarding. Even barely responsive, your body was trying to protect the injury.

“Y/N?” Robby called firmly while shining the penlight into your eyes again. “Hey, stay with me.”

Your eyelids fluttered weakly, and your lips parted slightly before a small broken sound escaped you, more pain than words.

“There you go,” Dana said softly. “That’s good, hey sweetie.”

“She’s responsive,” Mohan confirmed. “Pupils reactive bilaterally.”

“Any obvious neuro deficits?”

“Hard to assess until she’s more alert.”

Jack swallowed hard. Normally those words would have sounded clinical. Routine. Hearing them about you made him feel sick.

Robby’s fingers moved carefully along your scalp before stopping near the back of your head. “She’s got a laceration here. Probably where she hit the cabinet.”

“How bad?” Jack asked immediately.

Robby looked up briefly. “Needs staples. I’m more concerned about intracranial bleed.”

Jack felt the room narrow sharply around him as his brain supplied every possibility instantly. Subdural. Epidural. Contusion. Diffuse axonal injury. Years of trauma medicine suddenly felt less like a skill and more like torture because now he knew exactly how bad this could become.

“BP’s still dropping,” Santos called sharply.

“Hang another liter.”

Dana connected fluids immediately while Mohan checked your abdomen carefully for rigidity and tenderness.

“She guarding?”

“Little bit.”

“Could just be pain response.”

“Or internal injury,” Robby answered grimly.

Jack closed his eyes briefly. Only twenty minutes ago, he had been teasing you for refusing to change out of wet scrubs. Twenty minutes ago, you had been standing beside him alive and exhausted and rolling your eyes at him. Now you were strapped to a trauma gurney while your coworkers discussed possible brain bleeds.

The trauma bay doors pushed open again.

“What do we have?”

Garcia entered already pulling gloves on, clearly expecting another routine consult before her eyes landed on the gurney. Then she froze.

“Is that...?”

Nobody answered immediately because suddenly saying it aloud made everything feel horrifyingly real.

Garcia moved closer automatically, surgical instincts taking over even while shock still flickered visibly across her face. Her eyes swept quickly across your injuries, taking in the bruising around your throat, the unstable shoulder, and the blood matted into your hair.

“Oh my God.”

Jack looked away sharply at the sound in her voice. He could handle panic, trauma, blood, failed resuscitations, and catastrophic injuries. But he could not handle hearing pity directed at you.

“What happened?” Garcia asked quietly.

“Postictal assault,” Robby answered while reviewing your vitals. “Patient seized after MVC. Became combative during recovery.”

Garcia’s jaw tightened immediately. Her eyes flicked briefly toward Jack, and somehow that made everything worse. Everybody in the hospital knew about the two of you. Not because either of you talked about it much, but because some things became obvious after enough years working together. The way Jack unconsciously searched for you in crowded rooms. The way your voice softened around him even during impossible shifts. The way both of you somehow always ended up side by side during difficult traumas without discussing it first.

And now everybody was watching him try not to fall apart while you lay bleeding in front of him.

“Y/N,” Garcia said gently while stepping closer to assess your airway. “Can you hear me?”

Your brow twitched faintly at the sound of your name.

“Good,” she murmured softly. “Stay with us.”

Jack finally moved closer again until he stood directly beside the gurney. For a second, he just stared at you. Really stared. At the bruises darkening beneath your jaw, at the trembling rise and fall of your breathing, at the blood drying against your temple.

Then very carefully, he reached down and took your hand.

Your fingers twitched weakly against his palm almost immediately.

Tiny movement. Huge relief.

“Okay,” Robby said firmly, forcing the room back into focus. “Let’s move. I want CT angio head and neck immediately. We’re ruling out intracranial bleed and carotid injury.”

Garcia nodded once beside him, already assessing your airway with practiced hands. “Neck swelling’s getting worse.”

Jack saw it too now that she said it aloud. The bruising around your throat had spread darker beneath the fluorescent lights while swelling gathered visibly beneath your jawline. Every breath you took sounded wrong now. Wet. Shallow. Strained enough to make every survival instinct in his body start screaming.

“Pulse ox is dipping,” Santos called sharply. “Ninety-one.”

“Jaw thrust,” Garcia ordered immediately.

Dana repositioned carefully at your head while Garcia leaned closer, studying the bruising around your airway with growing concern. “She may need to be intubated before CT if the swelling progresses.”

The word hit Jack like a physical blow. Intubated. His brain immediately supplied images he did not want. Ventilator settings. Sedation drips. ICU monitors. Neurological checks every hour.

“No,” he said automatically before he could stop himself.

Everybody looked at him.

Jack swallowed hard immediately, realizing too late he had said it aloud.

Robby’s expression softened slightly. “Jack.”

He hated the way Robby said his name right now. Carefully. Like he was one bad second away from falling apart completely.

“I know,” Jack muttered quickly, dragging a shaky hand down his face. “I know.”

But he didn’t. Not really. Because his brain kept splitting violently between two impossible realities. One side of him catalogued injuries automatically. Airway trauma after strangulation. Possible cervical instability. Hypoxia. Concussion. Internal bleeding. Shoulder fracture-dislocation. The other side could barely process the fact that you were lying here at all.

Your breathing suddenly hitched sharply.

Jack’s head snapped toward you instantly.

Your eyes fluttered weakly before opening. Confusion crossed your face immediately while you tried weakly to move, but pain flashed across your expression so fast it made Jack physically tense.

“Don’t,” he said immediately, stepping closer. “Baby, don’t move.”

Your gaze drifted slowly around the trauma bay like you were trying to understand where you were. The bright lights. The people surrounding you. The monitors beeping overhead. Then finally, your eyes landed on Jack.

Relief flickered there instantly. Small. Barely there. Enough to nearly destroy him.

“Hey,” he said softly, gripping your hand tighter without realizing it. “Hey, I’m right here.”

Your lips parted slightly, but nothing came out at first except a weak breath.

Jack leaned closer immediately. “What?”

Your brow pinched faintly in confusion.

“...Leon?”

The room went quiet for half a second.

Even now, barely conscious and injured and terrified, your first instinct was still the patient. Something inside Jack cracked painfully at that.

“He’s restrained,” Robby answered gently before Jack could. “You’re safe.”

Your eyes shifted again, slower this time.

“Hurts,” you whispered faintly.

Jack looked immediately toward your shoulder. “I know,” he said quietly, voice finally cracking despite how hard he tried to control it. “I know, sweetheart.”

Garcia’s eyes flicked sharply toward him at the sound. Jack almost never lost composure at work. Not like this.

You tried to swallow and immediately winced.

Garcia noticed too. “Throat pain?”

A tiny nod.

“Difficulty breathing?”

Another weak nod.

Garcia looked immediately toward Robby. “Airway’s worsening.”

Robby swore quietly under his breath. “We tube here or risk losing it in CT.”

The room shifted instantly again. More movement. More urgency. Dana reached for airway equipment while Santos prepared sedation meds with visibly tighter movements now. Mohan adjusted oxygen flow quickly while Garcia moved toward the head of the bed.

Jack felt suddenly frozen all over again.

Your eyes moved back toward him weakly, panic beginning to flicker beneath the pain now that you were awake enough to understand pieces of the conversation around you.

“Jack,” you whispered hoarsely.

His chest tightened violently. “I’m here.”

Your fingers curled weakly against his hand.

“Don’t...” Your breathing hitched painfully. “Don’t leave.”

That finally broke him.

Because you sounded scared. You, the person who stayed calm during pediatric arrests and mass casualty incidents and catastrophic traumas that made residents physically sick afterward.

Jack leaned down immediately, pressing his forehead briefly against yours despite the blood and chaos surrounding both of you. “I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered shakily. “Okay? I’m right here.”

Then your heart rate spiked sharply.

“One-fifty,” Santos warned.

Your oxygen dipped again.

“Eighty-eight.”

Garcia looked up instantly. “That’s it. We’re securing the airway.”

Panic flashed visibly across your face, and Jack felt your hand tighten weakly around his.

“Hey,” he said immediately, brushing damp hair carefully away from your forehead. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

Your unfocused eyes found his again.

“You’re okay,” he whispered, even though his own heart was pounding hard enough to make him nauseous. “Just keep breathing for me.”

Garcia stepped beside him carefully. “Jack,” she said quietly. “I need room.”

And suddenly he realized there was nothing else he could do. No medication to order. No procedure capable of fixing this himself. No trauma protocol separating him from the overwhelming terror flooding his chest.

All he could do was let go of your hand and watch other people try to save you, and somehow that felt worse than anything he had seen in his entire career.

And somehow that felt infinitely worse than any injury he had seen in his entire career.

The intubation blurred together afterward in fragments Jack knew would probably stay with him for the rest of his life.

Garcia’s voice turned sharp and clinical the second she stepped fully into procedure mode. “Etomidate ready?”

“Ready.”

“Succinylcholine?”

“Ready.”

“Pulse ox?”

“Eighty-seven and dropping.”

The room moved quickly around you after that. Packaging tore open, monitors screamed softly overhead, and Santos pushed medications through your IV with controlled precision while Dana stabilized your cervical spine at the head of the bed.

Jack stood rooted beside the wall, feeling completely fucking useless.

He had watched hundreds of intubations in his career. He had performed them himself during impossible traumas, with blood filling airways and families screaming outside the room. Usually, the procedure grounded him. Medicine always grounded him because medicine made sense. Algorithms. Protocols. Airway, breathing, circulation. Find the problem and fix it.

But this was you, and suddenly none of it felt clinical anymore.

Your eyes found his one last time before the sedatives fully took effect. Fear still flickered there beneath the exhaustion and pain, but so did trust. Complete trust. The kind that made his chest ache violently because you were still looking at him like he could somehow fix this.

Then your body relaxed beneath the medication.

Garcia moved immediately. “Going in.”

The room fell quieter for a second except for the ventilator alarms and the sound of Jack’s own pulse hammering violently in his ears. He watched Garcia guide the laryngoscope carefully while Robby monitored your vitals from beside the bed.

“Visualized.”

“Tube.”

“Advancing.”

Jack swallowed hard enough that it hurt.

You looked so small suddenly. That was the thought that kept repeating in his head while he stared at your motionless body beneath trauma lights that suddenly felt much too bright. You had always seemed larger than life somehow. Loud when you wanted to be. Brilliant. Sharp-edged. Impossible to intimidate. The kind of doctor residents followed instinctively because even during disasters, you carried yourself like you could handle anything thrown at you.

Now you were lying completely still while somebody else breathed for you.

“Tube’s in,” Garcia confirmed.

Relief swept through the room instantly, subtle but collective.

“End tidal color change confirmed.”

“Breath sounds bilateral.”

“Secure it.”

Dana taped the ET tube carefully into place while the ventilator connected with a soft mechanical hiss. Your chest finally began rising in slow, controlled breaths afterward, steady and artificial and horrifyingly impersonal.

Jack hated the sound immediately.

The ventilator transformed you from injured into critical in a way his brain could no longer avoid.

Robby was already moving again. “Okay, we transport now. I want CTA head and neck, cervical spine imaging, chest CT, trauma series. Somebody call ortho and tell them she’s likely got a fracture-dislocation.”

“She’s still hypotensive,” Santos warned while adjusting fluids.

“Pressure?”

“Ninety systolic.”

“Hang another liter.”

Everything continued moving around him after that, but Jack could barely process any of it fully anymore. The room had narrowed into snapshots burned violently into his memory. Blood staining the collar of your scrub top. Finger-shaped bruises spreading darker around your throat. Your hand slipping weakly from his when they rolled the gurney toward the doors.

He followed automatically beside the bed while they rushed you toward imaging. His prosthetic protested immediately beneath the sudden pace, sharp pain radiating through the socket with every uneven step, but he barely registered it now. His entire body had narrowed itself into one singular instinct.

Stay close. Do not lose sight of her.

Hallway lights blurred overhead while the gurney rattled violently across tile. Nurses moved aside instantly when they recognized who was lying on the stretcher, and somehow that silence hurt worse than panic would have.

People stopped talking when they saw you.

A respiratory therapist physically froze near the elevators before whispering, “Oh my God.”

Jack looked away immediately. He could not handle watching other people realize how bad this was.

Then suddenly, he was left standing alone in the hallway.

The silence hit him all at once.

He stared numbly at the closed doors for several long seconds before finally turning back toward Trauma Two because he genuinely did not know what else to do with himself.

By the time he returned, the room was mostly empty again. The chaos was over. Only the aftermath remained.

One overturned tray still sat abandoned near the wall where it had been kicked over during the struggle. Wrappers and syringes littered the floor beside shattered plastic packaging while a monitor continued beeping pointlessly beside an empty bed.

And blood.

Your blood was still everywhere.

Jack stopped walking.

For a second he just stood there staring at it. Tiny streaks across the tile floor. Smears against the cabinets where your head had hit. Dark fingerprints dried against the bedrail.

His stomach twisted so violently he thought he might actually throw up.

Because the only thing left of you in this room now was blood.

Not your laugh echoing across the nurses’ station during overnight shifts. Not your sarcasm when Santos annoyed you on purpose. Not the warmth of your body curled against his after impossible shifts when both of you were too exhausted to even speak properly anymore.

Just blood.

Jack looked down slowly at his own hands. There was still dried blood caught beneath his fingernails from where he had held your face trying to keep you conscious. More stained the sleeves of his scrub top in dark rust-colored smears that made his chest tighten painfully every time he looked at them.

You were intubated upstairs while trauma surgeons searched your brain for bleeding.

The thought cracked something open inside him.

If he had stayed. If he had trusted his instincts. If he had checked sooner.

“Jack.”

Dana’s voice came softly from the doorway behind him.

He did not turn around immediately. For a second, neither of them spoke while she took in the scene around him. Dana had worked in emergency medicine long enough to understand what trauma aftermath looked like, not just physically, but emotionally too.

Jack looked wrecked. Not outwardly hysterical. That almost would have been easier. Instead, he looked hollowed out from the inside.

“You should sit down,” she said gently.

“I’m fine.”

The answer came automatically, immediate and empty.

Dana almost sighed because they both knew it was complete bullshit. She stepped further into the room slowly, careful with him now in the same way people approached trauma patients who had not realized how badly they were injured yet.

“You’re shaking.”

His hands were trembling badly now that the adrenaline had started wearing off, small uncontrollable tremors moving through his fingers no matter how tightly he clenched them into fists.

“I left her,” he said quietly.

Dana’s expression softened immediately. “Jack.”

“I left her alone with him.”

The guilt in his voice nearly hurt to hear.

Dana moved closer. “You could not have predicted postictal aggression escalating like that.”

“But I should’ve checked sooner.”

Jack laughed once under his breath, but there was absolutely no humor in it. Just panic and exhaustion and guilt twisting together so tightly he could barely breathe around it anymore.

“She sounded scared,” he whispered roughly. “Do you know how bad it has to be for her to sound scared?”

Dana’s chest tightened painfully because she did know. Everybody in that hospital knew how terrifyingly calm you usually were under pressure. You were the person comforting other people during disasters. The doctor residents looked for during bad traumas because your voice never shook.

But tonight it had.

Dana stepped directly in front of him then and reached up without hesitation, gripping the back of his neck firmly enough to ground him.

“Listen to me,” she said softly but seriously. “She is alive.”

Jack swallowed hard. “She squeezed my hand before CT.”

“Then hold onto that.”

His eyes burned immediately at the words.

For a second, he looked terrifyingly close to falling apart completely.

“She was looking at me like she thought she was dying.”

Dana’s face crumpled slightly at the crack in his voice because Jack Abbot almost never sounded fragile. Not after everything life had already put him through.

But this was different.

This was you.

“You know her,” Dana said quietly. “You know how hard she fights.”

Jack closed his eyes briefly because somehow that made this hurt even worse. He did know. He knew the exact stubborn determination living inside you, the way you worked through exhaustion and grief and pain because your body physically did not know how to stop caring about people.

And suddenly, the idea of losing you felt so catastrophic he genuinely could not imagine surviving it.

When you woke up, the first thing you felt was pain.

Not sharp at first. Not localized enough to understand. Just heavy.

A crushing ache spread through your entire body like every bone had shattered somewhere deep beneath your skin. Awareness dragged itself slowly upward through layers of medication and exhaustion while fluorescent hospital light glowed faintly red through your eyelids. For one blissfully empty second, your brain stayed blank enough that you did not remember anything at all.

Then your chest tightened violently around the ventilator tube lodged in your throat.

Panic hit instantly.

Your eyes snapped open as your body reacted on pure instinct, trying desperately to fight the foreign object forcing air into your lungs. The movement sent agony ripping through your throat and jaw so violently it nearly knocked you unconscious again. A horrible choking sound escaped around the tube while pain exploded across the side of your head hard enough to blur your vision immediately.

The monitors beside your bed erupted into sharp alarms.

Then suddenly Jack was there.

He moved so quickly the chair beside your ICU bed nearly tipped backward onto the floor. One second the room felt empty and terrifying and unfamiliar, and the next his hands were hovering carefully near your face like he wanted to touch you everywhere at once but was terrified of hurting you more.

“Hey, hey, don’t fight it,” he said immediately, voice low and urgent. “You’re okay. Breathe with it.”

You could see his mouth moving. Could see panic written all over his face.

But you could not hear him properly.

Everything sounded distorted beneath the ringing in your ears, voices muffled and warped together like you were trapped underwater. The ventilator hissed rhythmically beside you while your chest rose mechanically against your will, and the sensation was horrifying enough to send another wave of panic crashing violently through your body.

Jack kept talking anyway.

You recognized the cadence of his voice more than the words themselves. Calm. Steady. But underneath it there was something rawer now, something desperate he usually hid much better than this.

Your entire body hurt.

Your throat burned every time the ventilator pushed another breath into your lungs. Your jaw ached violently from the intubation while your left shoulder throbbed with deep nauseating pain that radiated all the way down your arm. Even breathing hurt despite the machine doing most of the work for you.

Then memory came back all at once.

The trauma bay. Leon seizing. Hands crushing around your throat. Your head slamming violently against the cabinet. The floor.

You started crying before you even realized it was happening.

Tears slipped silently sideways into your hair while panic clawed straight up your chest hard enough to blur your vision again. You could not stop shaking. Every instinct in your body still screamed danger even though logically you knew you were safe now.

Jack’s entire expression broke the second he realized you were crying.

“Oh, baby,” he whispered hoarsely.

At least you thought that was what he said.

He sat carefully on the edge of the chair beside your bed before reaching for your hand, avoiding IV lines and bruises with practiced gentleness. The second his fingers touched yours, you grabbed onto him desperately enough that pain shot violently through your injured shoulder again.

You did not care.

Jack was here.

And somehow that meant alive. Safe.

Your grip tightened harder around his hand while your breathing turned ragged around the tube again. Jack immediately leaned closer, his thumb brushing shakily across your knuckles while he tried to calm you before you exhausted yourself further.

“It’s okay,” he murmured softly. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Only then did you really look at him.

And God.

He looked awful.

Dark bruising sat beneath his eyes like he had not slept once since this happened. His hair looked messy in a way that suggested he had spent hours dragging anxious hands through it, and there was something hollowed out in his expression now that made your chest tighten painfully.

You mouthed the question anyway despite the ventilator.

What happened to you?

Jack watched your lips carefully before understanding finally crossed his face. His throat worked once visibly while emotion flashed so openly across his expression it almost scared you more than the pain itself.

He still looked terrified.

Even now.

Instead of speaking, he carefully turned your hand over in his and began tracing slow letters against your palm with his thumb.

Patient attacked you.

The memory crashed back completely after that.

The pressure around your throat. Leon’s empty unfocused eyes. Your body hitting the wall. The terrifying realization that he genuinely did not recognize you anymore.

You jerked violently on instinct before you could stop yourself, panic surging through your bloodstream so fast your vision blurred instantly while the cardiac monitor erupted into another wave of alarms beside the bed.

Jack reacted immediately.

“Hey, hey, look at me.”

You could not fully hear the words, but you knew his voice. Knew the shape of it. The desperation underneath it.

Your breathing turned frantic around the ventilator while terror clawed violently through your chest again. You remembered thinking you were going to die. Not abstractly. Not distantly.

Really die.

And for one horrifying second, lying in this ICU bed unable to speak or breathe on your own, that feeling came rushing back all over again.

Jack kept one hand wrapped tightly around yours while the other hovered uncertainly near your face. He looked like he wanted to pull you against him and protect you from everything all at once but knew touching you too much would only hurt you further.

“You’re safe now,” he kept saying quietly. “He can’t hurt you. You’re safe.”

Safe.

Your eyes darted weakly around the ICU room instead. Machines. IV poles. Bandages. Your leg elevated and immobilized beneath blankets. Soft restraints loosely secured around your wrists so you would not accidentally pull the ventilator tube out while disoriented.

You felt trapped inside your own body.

The panic became unbearable.

Then your eyes landed on the PCA pump beside the bed.

Jack noticed immediately.

His entire face fell.

“Baby…”

You reached weakly toward the button anyway with trembling fingers.

Jack looked absolutely shattered watching you press it. Not angry. Not disappointed.

Heartbroken.

Because he understood immediately what you were doing.

You could not stop the fear. Could not stop the pain.

So you were choosing unconsciousness instead.

Medication flooded slowly through your bloodstream almost immediately afterward. Warmth spread outward in gradual waves, softening the sharp edges of panic first before the pain finally began loosening its grip around your body. The terror still lingered somewhere deep beneath everything else, but it no longer felt sharp enough to suffocate you alive.

Your grip weakened slightly around Jack’s hand as exhaustion dragged heavily at your eyelids again.

Jack stayed exactly where he was.

You could barely keep your eyes open anymore, but you still saw the way he looked at you while the medication slowly pulled you back under.

Completely devastated.

Like watching you choose sedation over consciousness hurt him almost as much as the attack itself.

Your fingers twitched weakly against his palm before your eyes finally slipped closed again.

The last thing you felt before unconsciousness dragged you under completely was Jack lifting your hand carefully toward his mouth and pressing one shaking kiss against your bruised knuckles.

The second time you woke up was somehow worse because this time you stayed conscious long enough to understand what had happened to you.

Pain existed everywhere now.

Not sharp anymore. Not even severe enough in one specific place to focus on. It had settled deeper than that, heavy and constant, wrapping itself around your entire body until even breathing felt exhausting. Every inhale pulled painfully against bruised ribs while your jaw throbbed in slow aching pulses that spread all the way into your skull. The medication dulled the edges enough to keep panic from swallowing you whole again, but not enough to make you forget.

Nothing let you forget for very long.

Garcia stood beside your ICU bed when your eyes finally opened again, flashlight moving carefully across your pupils while monitors hummed steadily around the room. The overhead lights had been dimmed sometime while you slept, leaving everything washed in pale blue-gray shadows that made the hospital feel strangely unreal.

“Hey,” Garcia said softly the second she noticed you were awake. “Welcome back.”

Your hearing still came and went in fractured bursts after the concussion. Some sounds arrived painfully sharp while others disappeared completely beneath the relentless ringing inside your ears. Voices felt warped and distant, like everybody speaking stood underwater somewhere far away from you.

You blinked slowly toward the doorway and spotted Santos hovering there awkwardly holding a bouquet of flowers that looked aggressively stolen from the hospital gift shop. Half the stems bent sideways beneath crinkled plastic wrap while one of the price tags still dangled visibly from the bouquet.

You stared at them for a second before a weak breath of laughter escaped you despite the pain immediately punishing the movement.

Santos looked so relieved at the sound she nearly seemed close to crying herself.

“You scared the absolute shit out of us,” she said quickly, like humor was the only thing keeping her from saying something genuinely emotional instead.

The ghost of a smile tugged weakly at your mouth.

Garcia stepped back after finishing the neuro assessment while Santos moved a little closer to the bed, still clutching the flowers awkwardly against her chest.

“Abbott threatened like six people,” she muttered after clearing her throat.

Your eyes shifted toward her slowly.

“He almost went through security trying to get back to Leon.”

Your stomach twisted instantly.

Leon.

For one horrible second you saw him again exactly as he looked before the attack happened. Pale and exhausted beneath ambulance lights while rain hammered against the windows around both of you. Laughing weakly through pain. Asking if you were always that calm. Looking at you like you were safe.

You swallowed hard against the sudden nausea crawling into your throat.

“What happened to him?” you asked quietly, each word dragging painfully through the ache in your fractured jaw.

Santos’ expression changed immediately. The sarcasm disappeared first. Then the humor.

“He’s okay,” she answered after a moment, voice softer now. “Physically, I mean.”

You closed your eyes briefly.

Santos hesitated before continuing more carefully. “He doesn’t remember anything after the seizure started. Robby thinks it’s the postictal state mixed with the head trauma.”

The room fell quiet after that.

Not awkward quiet.

Heavy quiet.

The kind that settled directly into your ribs and stayed there.

Because the worst part was that you believed her completely.

You knew exactly what postictal violence looked like. You understood the neurological confusion, the blind panic, the total loss of recognition that sometimes followed severe seizures. Rationally and medically, every part of your brain understood exactly what had happened inside Trauma Two.

But emotionally, it still hurt in ways you did not know how to untangle yet.

A strange grief wrapped itself around the fear sitting inside your chest because less than an hour before the attack, Leon had been sitting beside you in the back of an ambulance talking about his daughter and his wife and soccer games and stupid jokes while rain pounded against the windows. You remembered thinking he seemed kind, the sort of patient who apologized too much for being in pain.

You had liked him.

And then suddenly he became the person who nearly killed you.

Emergency medicine was cruel like that sometimes. One second somebody was human to you. The next they became trauma.

Santos stepped closer quietly before squeezing your foot gently through the blanket. “We’ll come back later, okay?”

You nodded weakly.

After they left, the ICU room felt unbearably quiet again. Machines hummed softly around you while rain tapped faintly against distant windows somewhere beyond the hallway. Pittsburgh looked gray outside the narrow ICU window, the city blurred beneath another storm rolling slowly across the skyline.

You drifted in and out for hours after that.

Sometimes nurses came in to check vitals and neuro responses. Sometimes transport arrived to wheel you toward imaging. Sometimes you only woke long enough to register pain before medication dragged you under again.

Then sometime deep into the night, consciousness returned slowly enough that you realized somebody was sitting beside your bed.

Jack.

At first you thought he was asleep.

His head rested bowed carefully against your hand where it lay on top of the blanket, broad shoulders slumped forward like exhaustion had physically crushed him downward into the chair. The dim ICU lighting softened the edges of him enough that for one brief second he looked strangely fragile.

Then you noticed he was shaking.

Your heart cracked instantly.

Jack was crying.

Quietly. Almost silently. But hard enough that his shoulders trembled every few seconds beneath the dim blue ICU lights.

The sight hurt worse than any fracture in your body.

You had seen Jack exhausted before. Angry. Burned out after impossible shifts and mass casualty nights and pediatric codes that left entire departments emotionally gutted afterward.

But you had never seen him like this.

Very slowly, ignoring the pain shooting through your ribs and shoulder, you lifted your fingers weakly toward his hair.

The movement alone was enough.

Jack lifted his head immediately.

His eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed beneath exhaustion so deep it looked painful. There was stubble shadowing his jaw now like he had not even thought about himself since this happened, and the healing cut near his cheekbone stood out harshly beneath fluorescent light.

Destroyed.

That was the only word your exhausted brain could find for the way he looked.

Jack Abbott was always the steady one. The person everybody else leaned on during disasters because he never seemed to break no matter how catastrophic things became around him.

Until now.

“I should’ve stayed.”

The words came out rough enough they barely sounded like him at all. Raw. Torn open somewhere deep inside.

You frowned weakly despite the pain. “No.”

“I knew something was wrong.”

“You couldn’t know.”

“I did.”

Jack stood abruptly then, pacing once across the small ICU room before turning back toward you like he physically could not force himself to stay still anymore. His prosthetic clicked sharply against the tile beneath his scrub pants while one trembling hand dragged hard through his hair again.

“I left you alone in there.”

“Jack.”

His face crumpled so suddenly it stole what little breath your bruised ribs could manage.

“When they pulled him off you...” His voice broke completely for one horrible second before he forced himself to continue anyway. “You weren’t moving.”

Your own eyes filled instantly.

Jack pressed shaking fingers hard against his mouth, trying desperately to regain control of himself and failing anyway.

“There was so much blood,” he whispered finally.

The confession hollowed the entire room out around both of you.

You reached toward him carefully despite the pain.

Jack moved back to your bedside immediately this time, like he physically could not tolerate distance from you anymore, and leaned down slowly until his forehead rested carefully against yours.

For a long time neither of you spoke.

Machines hummed softly around the room while rain tapped gently against the windows again. Jack’s breathing still shook every few seconds no matter how hard he tried controlling it, and you realized with sudden aching clarity that he had been holding himself together by force ever since the attack happened.

Probably for everyone else.

For the department.

For you.

Until now.

Finally, through the ache in your jaw and throat, you whispered softly, “You saved me.”

Jack closed his eyes immediately like the words hurt almost as much as the memory itself.

For a long moment he did not say anything at all. His forehead stayed pressed carefully against yours while his breathing shook unevenly every few seconds, and you realized suddenly that he was trying very hard not to completely fall apart in front of you. The effort of it sat visibly in every tense line of his body, in the way his fingers curled tightly around yours like letting go might physically destroy him, in the way his shoulders remained rigid even now like some part of him still expected another disaster to happen the second he stopped bracing for it.

“You almost died.”

The words came out so quietly you nearly missed them beneath the hum of machines surrounding both of you.

Jack pulled back just enough to look at you again, and the expression on his face made something ache deep inside your chest because he looked terrified still.

Not panicked anymore. Not frantic.

Just deeply, genuinely terrified in a way you had never seen before.

“I couldn’t get to you fast enough,” he admitted roughly, eyes fixed on your face like he needed constant proof you were still here. “I heard the safe word and I ran, but by the time I got there...” His throat tightened visibly. “You were on the floor.”

You swallowed painfully.

Bits and pieces still came back in flashes more than complete memories. Leon’s hands around your throat. The cabinet slamming against the back of your skull. The overwhelming certainty that your body was beginning to give out beneath you.

Then Jack.

Your eyes drifted slowly across his face now, taking him in properly for the first time since waking up. The exhaustion. The fear. The sleepless hollowing beneath his eyes. He looked like somebody who had been surviving on adrenaline alone for far too long.

“You did get to me,” you whispered carefully.

Jack laughed once under his breath, but the sound cracked painfully in the middle. “Barely.”

“That’s not true.”

His jaw tightened immediately.

You knew that look. The same one he got after bad outcomes. After losses he carried around long after everybody else moved on. Jack had always been harder on himself than anyone else could ever be, especially when the people he loved were involved.

And God, he loved deeply.

Even when he pretended not to.

You shifted your hand weakly against his, ignoring the ache radiating through your shoulder and ribs.

“Jack.”

His eyes lifted back to yours instantly.

“I’m here.”

Something inside him seemed to break completely at those words.

Jack lowered his head again, pressing one trembling kiss carefully against your bruised knuckles before holding your hand against his chest. His heartbeat pounded hard and uneven beneath your fingers, fast enough that you could still feel the leftover adrenaline vibrating through him.

For a while neither of you spoke again.

The ICU remained dim and quiet around you while rain continued tapping softly against the windows outside. Nurses’ footsteps echoed faintly somewhere down the hallway, distant enough that it almost felt like the rest of the world existed somewhere very far away from this room.

Your eyelids had started growing heavy again by the time Jack finally spoke.

“You scared me,” he admitted quietly.

The confession sounded small somehow. Honest in a way that made your chest ache more than the injuries did.

You looked at him for a second before squeezing his hand as tightly as your exhausted body would allow.

“I know,” you whispered.

Jack nodded once, eyes never leaving your face.

Then very carefully, like he was handling something impossibly fragile, he leaned closer and pressed a kiss against your forehead while exhaustion slowly began pulling you back under again.

This time, when sleep finally took you, Jack’s hand never left yours.

“Of course we did,” you say, shaking your head. “We remembered the coffee maker but not paper towels.”

He winces slightly. “That’s on me.”

“No, it’s on us, baby,” you say. “This is a shared failure.”

He laughs softly, relief easing his shoulders. “I’ll be back in five minutes,” he promises, already reaching for his jacket. “Ten, max. I’ll just run downstairs.”

He hesitates before leaving, eyes lingering on you in a way that feels deliberate. Like he’s committing the image to memory, your hair pulled back messily, one of his old t-shirts hanging loose on you, surrounded by boxes labeled Kitchen and Bedroom and Our Stuff in his careful handwriting.

He steps closer, crouches down in front of you.

Before you can say anything, he leans in and presses a kiss to your forehead. It’s soft. Unhurried. The kind of kiss that doesn’t ask for anything, doesn’t rush toward the next moment. Just affection, given freely.

Like he has nowhere else he’d rather be.

“Don’t unpack anything suspicious without me,” he murmurs, lips brushing your skin.

You snort. “No promises.”

That earns you a grin—fond, hopelessly in love—and then he’s standing again, slipping on his jacket, glancing back one more time before opening the door.

The lock clicks behind him.

The apartment goes quiet.

Not empty, but peaceful. The kind of quiet that exists only when you’re building something with someone. When silence isn’t absence, but comfort.

You sit there for a moment longer than necessary, just taking it in. The light filtering through the windows. The way the space already feels shaped around him. Around you.

Then you turn back to unpacking.

Clark’s boxes are… exactly what you expect.

Neat. Carefully taped. Every one labeled in that slightly slanted handwriting you know so well. You open a box marked Kitchen and find everything wrapped meticulously, towels folded evenly, utensils bundled together with rubber bands.

You smile to yourself. Of course he did this.

The next box reads Books (Misc.).

That one draws your attention immediately.

You open it and begin lifting out familiar spines—journalism textbooks from college, thick hardcovers with cracked spines, novels he insists he only read once but you’ve caught him rereading late at night more times than you can count. There’s a battered paperback with a folded corner you recognize; he’s had that one since before you met.

Each book feels like a quiet reminder: I know you. I know this life.

Then your fingers brush against something that doesn’t feel like the others.

Smooth. Cool. Leather.

You pause.

Nestled between two hardcovers is a notebook. Dark blue. Leather-bound. The edges are worn, the spine softened like it’s been opened and closed many times. Cherished.

You lift it carefully, like it might be fragile.

Your brow furrows.

You’ve been dating Clark for a while now. Long enough to know his habits. His routines. Long enough to know he’s not the kind of man who leaves things unexplained—not intentionally, anyway.

And he doesn’t keep a diary.

You’ve never seen him write in anything like this. Never noticed a notebook tucked away. Never seen him carry it, never heard him mention it in passing. For someone who’s otherwise so transparent with you, this feels… different.

Private.

Your thumb rests against the edge of the cover.

A small voice in your head speaks up, gentle but firm.

This is private.

You hesitate, the weight of the notebook suddenly heavier in your hands. You imagine Clark’s careful way of holding things he values. The way he looks at you when he thinks you aren’t paying attention. The trust between you—earned, mutual, precious.

You should put it back.

But curiosity slips in—not sharp or invasive, just confused. Tender. The kind that comes from closeness, not entitlement.

Why has he never mentioned this?

You glance once toward the door, as if he might somehow already be back, watching.

Your fingers tremble slightly as you open the cover.

Just a peek, you tell yourself. Just the first page.

The paper inside is thick, slightly yellowed with age.

And then you see the handwriting.

Clark’s.

Careful. Earnest. Familiar.

Your breath catches in your throat as you read the first line.

For my wife, Y/N.

Your heart stutters so hard you actually have to put a hand to your chest.

For a second, you think you’ve misread it. That your eyes are playing tricks on you. You blink once. Twice.

The words don’t change.

Wife.

The room tilts, just slightly—not enough to knock you over, but enough to make everything feel unreal, like the ground has shifted beneath your feet. You sink back onto your heels, the notebook heavy in your hands, heavier than any box you’ve lifted all day.

Wife.

He hasn’t proposed.

You’ve talked about the future—carefully at first, like people do when they’re afraid to hope too much. Conversations that started with someday and maybe and eventually grew into when and we. You’ve talked about living together, about places you might want to travel, about growing old in ways that felt half-joking and half-serious.

But this?

This feels like peeking behind a curtain you weren’t meant to see yet. Like stepping into a moment that was supposed to belong to another day. Another version of you—dressed up, heart racing, standing across from him while he asks the question out loud.

Your hands tremble as you turn the page.

The paper whispers softly, like it knows it’s holding something sacred.

I’ve held this diary since the moment I met you in the Daily Planet lunchroom. November 30th, 2021. The day my world changed color, suddenly brighter, like a rainbow I didn’t know I’d been missing.

Your breath catches painfully in your throat.

November 30th, 2021.

You remember that day. The awful salad. The broken microwave. The sandwich he offered you like it was the most natural thing in the world. You remember thinking he was kind in a way that felt rare, disarming.

You didn’t know you’d changed his world.

Tears blur the ink almost immediately. You swipe at your eyes with the back of your hand, then stop—afraid of smudging the words, as if they might disappear if you’re not careful enough with them.

I’m giving you this on our wedding day. I don’t know what our lives will look like then, or how many ordinary, beautiful days will have passed between now and that moment, but I know this much with absolute certainty.

If one day, any day, you ever feel like I don’t love you, like I’ve grown distant or the world has tried to convince you otherwise, I want you to open these pages and see how completely, how endlessly, you are wrong.

Every word here is proof of how I fell in love with you and how I kept falling, again and again, without ever meaning to stop. I loved you then. I love you now. I will love you for the rest of my life.

Yours forever,

Kal-El

Your chest aches in the best, most devastating way.

It’s not the sharp kind of pain. It’s warm and overwhelming, like your heart has grown too big for your body. Like something is blooming inside you without asking permission.

Never stopped falling for you.

You press the notebook to your chest for a moment, breathing around the emotion, trying to steady yourself. The apartment feels impossibly quiet, like it’s holding its breath with you.

Then, slowly, reverently, you keep reading.

Every page is dated.

Every entry is a memory you recognize.

11/30/2021

I think I met the love of my life today.

I don’t know if that’s ridiculous. I don’t know if it’s too soon to even write that sentence. But if I don’t write it down, I’m afraid I’ll convince myself later that I imagined how it felt.

Daily Planet lunchroom. Same cracked tile floor. The microwave was broken again. Someone burned popcorn. Perry was arguing with someone down the hall. It was just… another day.

And then she was there.

She was sitting by herself at one of the small tables near the window, shoulders slightly hunched, staring at a salad like it had personally wronged her. She looked exhausted. Not just physically, like the world had asked too much of her lately. There was something about the way she sighed that made my chest tighten.

I don’t usually act on impulse. I think too much. I hesitate. I measure consequences.

But today I didn’t.

I walked over and held out half my sandwich before my brain could stop me. I didn’t even introduce myself first. Just said something awkward about how the salad looked like it needed backup.

She looked up at me, like really looked, and for half a second I thought I’d made a mistake.

Then she smiled.

Not polite. Not small. A real smile that reached her eyes. She laughed and said I was “brave but misguided,” and suddenly the noise of the room faded into nothing. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was like the air changed density. Like the world sharpened into focus around her.

We talked. About nothing important. About everything. She teased me gently. Asked questions that showed she was actually listening to the answers. When I told her my name, she repeated it like it mattered. When she told me her name, I repeated it because it did matter.

When she went back to work, I stood there for a second too long, holding the empty plate, feeling… undone.

My hands were shaking.

I’ve lifted mountains. I’ve stopped trains mid-crash. I’ve flown through storms without fear.

I have never, ever felt like this.

If this is love, then it’s quieter than I expected. Steadier. Like something ancient settling into place.

I don’t know what will happen next.

I just know I don’t want to forget how today felt.

12/14/2021

First date.

Coffee was supposed to be an hour. That’s what I told myself before I left my apartment. That’s what I told her when we sat down. I even checked the time at the start, like that would somehow keep things contained.

It didn’t.

It lasted almost four hours, and I didn’t notice the time passing until my cup had gone cold and the café started emptying around us. I don’t think either of us wanted to be the one to say it first, that it should probably end, like saying it out loud would break something fragile.

She talks with her hands when she’s excited. I noticed that almost immediately. Little movements at first, then bigger ones when she got passionate about a story. She smiles before she finishes her sentences, like she already knows how they’ll land. And when she listens, really listens, she tilts her head just slightly, eyes focused, like she’s saving every word somewhere important.

No one has ever listened to me like that before.

I found myself talking more than I usually do. About work. About Kansas. About things I don’t normally share. It felt natural, like my mouth was ahead of my caution for once. She never rushed me. Never looked bored. Every response made me want to tell her more.

When we finally left, neither of us wanted to go straight home, so we walked. No destination. Just side by side, letting the city unfold around us. The air was cold, and she tucked her hands into her coat sleeves. I kept noticing small things, the way she matched her pace to mine without realizing it, the way she pointed out things she liked as if she wanted me to see the world through her eyes.

The city felt different with her there. Smaller. Kinder. Like it was giving us space. Letting us borrow it for a while.

I kept thinking I should impress her. Say something clever. Something charming. Something worthy of the way she looked at me. But every time our eyes met, my chest felt too full for pretense. Every rehearsed line disappeared. All I could do was be honest.

And she seemed to like that.

I felt safe.

That word keeps circling back. Safe. Not because I’m strong, not because I could protect her if I had to, but because I didn’t feel like I had to be anything other than myself. I didn’t feel watched. Or measured. Or like I was hiding parts of who I am.

I walked her home and stopped outside her building. I told myself not to linger.

I lingered anyway.

When she said goodbye, smiled at me one last time, and turned toward the door, I felt it, physically, like something tugged inside my chest, like part of me wanted to follow her without question.

I stood there longer than necessary after she went inside, just breathing, memorizing the feeling.

I replayed her laugh the entire way home.

I still am.

01/22/2022

Dinner with her.

We went somewhere small tonight. Nothing fancy. One of those places that smells like oil and salt and warmth the moment you open the door. The kind where the tables wobble slightly and the menu hasn’t changed in years.

She ordered before me because she already knew what she wanted. I liked that. I ordered fries, intending to share them, but I didn’t say it out loud. I just assumed. That probably says something.

They came out hot, steam curling into the air between us. We talked while they cooled, about work, about something she’d read, about nothing important. I was halfway through a story when she reached over.

No asking. No hesitation. Just gently, like it was understood.

She took one fry, careful not to brush my hand, and went right back to listening like she hadn’t just done something quietly significant.

She didn’t even look guilty.

A few seconds later, she noticed me staring.

“What?” she asked, smiling around the bite.

The corner of her mouth curved up like she already knew the answer. I felt my face ache from smiling back before I even realized I was doing it.

Anyone else, I would’ve said something. Joked. Pretended to be annoyed.

Instead, I felt… calm.

Something settled into place inside me. Not a spark. Not a rush. Something steadier. Like my body recognized her before my mind caught up. Like some part of me had already decided: this is where you’re supposed to be.

I didn’t mind losing the fry.

I didn’t mind anything at all.

Oh.

This is it.

This is how it starts, not fireworks or drama or some grand moment you tell people about.

Just a shared table. Warm food. Easy silence.

Belonging.

03/05/2022

Fifth date.

I told her.

I knew I was going to tonight. I’d known all day, maybe longer. The thought sat in my chest like a weight—heavy, necessary. I kept telling myself that if this was going to be real, if she was going to be real to me, then she deserved the truth. All of it.

Still, my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

We were sitting close, closer than before. The lights were low. The city outside the window hummed softly, distant and unaware that my entire world was about to split open. I could hear my own heartbeat. I kept rehearsing the words in my head, terrified that if I didn’t say them perfectly, I’d lose her.

Superman. Krypton. The truth.

I’ve faced down enemies without fear. I’ve stood between the world and destruction without hesitation. But tonight, my palms were damp, my throat tight, my voice almost too small to trust.

I told her anyway.

I told her who I am. Where I come from. What I can do. What I can’t. I told her about the loneliness. About the responsibility. About how sometimes it feels like I’m made of glass despite being unbreakable.

I watched her face the entire time.

I was ready, so ready for her to pull away. To stiffen. To look at me like I was something dangerous or unknowable. I was ready for disbelief, fear, distance. Ready for the sound of my own heart breaking quietly while I pretended I understood.

She didn’t do any of that.

She didn’t interrupt. She didn’t stare at me like I was a spectacle. She didn’t flinch when I said the word Superman. She didn’t look for the door.

She listened.

The same way she always does. Head tilted slightly, eyes steady, hands folded together like this mattered. Like I mattered.

When I finished, the silence stretched. I could barely breathe. I felt exposed in a way I never have before. Like I’d peeled myself open and handed her everything unguarded.

Then she reached for me.

She took my hand—warm, grounding, real—and said, “Thank you for trusting me.”

That was it.

Not I need time. Not I’m scared. Not I don’t know what to say.

Just gratitude.

Trust meeting trust.

Something inside me broke open then. Something old and carefully guarded. I didn’t realize how much of myself I’d been holding back until that moment, how alone I’d been even when surrounded by people.

I don’t think she knows what that moment did to me.

I don’t think she knows she became my safe place tonight. That for the first time in my life, the truth didn’t feel like a burden, it felt like a bridge.

I fell in love with her again. Deeper than before. Permanently. In a way that doesn’t fade or loosen or ask permission.

If she ever doubts how much she means to me, I want her to remember this night.

I want me to remember it.

06/18/2022

She fell asleep on my shoulder.

We were supposed to watch the movie all the way through. She picked it. I remember that, she was excited about it, insisted it was better than I thought it would be. She curled up beside me like she always does, close enough that our arms touched, close enough that I could feel her warmth even before she leaned into me.

About halfway through, her head tipped just slightly toward my shoulder. I felt it before I saw it, the gentle weight of her settling, like she was testing whether it was okay.

I didn’t move.

A few minutes later, she tucked herself in properly, her head resting just under my chin, her hair brushing my jaw. Her breathing changed slowly, quietly, until it evened out into something soft and steady. The kind of breathing that only happens when someone feels completely safe.

I could feel everything. Every small shift of her weight. Every tiny exhale. The way her fingers twitched once, then relaxed, trusting I was there.

The movie kept playing. The plot resolved. The credits rolled.

I didn’t move.

Forty-two minutes passed. I know because I counted, not because I was bored, but because I wanted to remember how long I’d been allowed to hold this moment. My arm started to ache. My shoulder went numb.

I didn’t care.

I’ve stopped disasters. I’ve lifted impossible things. I’ve been praised for saving the world more times than I can count.

Tonight, the most important thing I did was stay perfectly still so she could rest.

I watched the rise and fall of her chest. I memorized the way she fit against me, like she had always been meant to. I thought—very quietly—that if this was all love ever asked of me, I would give it gladly.

I would do it forever if she asked.

And if she never did, I think I still would.

09/02/2022

Work.

Nothing remarkable was supposed to happen today.

Just another morning at the Planet. I was standing by my desk pretending to read an article when I felt it.

That gentle pull. That awareness.

I looked up without thinking.

She was across the newsroom, half-hidden behind a monitor, focused on her screen. And then—like she felt me looking—she glanced up.

Just a second. Maybe less.

Our eyes met.

She smiled.

Not big. Not obvious. Just enough. Just for me.

My heart did something ridiculous. The kind of thing I’d laugh at if it were anyone else. I felt it in my chest, in my hands, all the way down to my feet like I’d forgotten how gravity worked for a moment.

We didn’t speak. We didn’t wave. We didn’t need to.

It felt like a secret we were sharing in plain sight, something small and precious tucked between deadlines and coffee cups.

I looked back down at my desk, fully aware that my smile was impossible to hide.

I still get nervous when she looks at me like that.

I’ve faced impossible odds. I’ve stood against things that should have terrified me. But that quiet smile across the newsroom still makes my pulse stumble like I’m fifteen and hopelessly obvious about it.

She makes me feel young. Not careless, but alive. Like someone who’s still discovering what love can be, who hasn’t reached the end of the feeling yet.

Lois noticed. Of course she did. She smirked when she passed my desk. Jimmy noticed, he raised his eyebrows and whispered “cute.” Cat noticed. Steve noticed. I think Perry noticed too, though he pretended not to.

I don’t care.

They can notice all they want.

All I want—all I will ever want—is for her eyes to keep finding mine. In crowded rooms. In quiet mornings. Across every place life puts us.

For the rest of my life.

11/30/2022

One year.

I don’t think I really understood what today would feel like until it was already happening. I knew it mattered. I knew it was important. But I didn’t expect the weight of it, the way it would sit in my chest all evening, heavy and warm and almost too much to hold all at once.

A year.

That sounds so small when you say it out loud. Twelve months. Three hundred sixty-five ordinary days stacked gently on top of each other. Days that didn’t look remarkable from the outside. Days filled with work and quiet dinners and laughter over nothing.

But when I looked at her tonight, really looked at her, I felt the miracle of it.

The fact that she’s chosen me. Every day. For an entire year.

Not the idea of me. Not the parts that are easy or impressive. Me. The quiet mornings. The long nights. The truths she learned early and never turned away from.

She gave me her gift first.

She didn’t hand it to me right away. She asked me to sit down, her voice careful, almost shy. I noticed her hands shaking as she set it on the table between us, wrapped in brown paper, the edges taped too neatly. Like she’d redone it more than once. Like she’d worried about it.

“I need you to know,” she said quietly, eyes fixed on the package instead of me, “I tried my best.”

That alone made my chest tighten.

When I unwrapped it, I understood why she’d been nervous.

It was a painting.

Not small. Not casual. Not something done in an afternoon. This was time. Intention. Patience. The kind of work you only do when you’re willing to put your heart somewhere visible and vulnerable.

It was the farm.

My parents’ farm.

She’d painted it in late-afternoon light, the kind that turns everything golden and soft, the kind that always made me feel safe growing up. The house stood steady and familiar, the porch just right, the fields stretching out behind it the way they always do. Endless. Open. Like they belong to anyone who needs space to breathe.

And in the center—

All of us.

Ma and Pa. Me. And them.

My birth parents.

All of us standing together, arms around one another, no distance between us. No time separating what was lost from what was found. No planets. No years. No absence.

Just together.

Like it was always meant to be that way.

For a second, I couldn’t breathe.

She rushed to explain, words tumbling over each other as if she were afraid the silence meant she’d done something wrong.

She told me she used pictures to paint the farm I have hanging in my apartment since she hasn’t been there yet. Told me she watched the video again—the one that came with me when I was sent to Earth—paused it, rewound it, studied my birth parents’ faces so she wouldn’t get them wrong.

She told me she didn’t want to mess it up. That she just kept thinking—

Her voice softened then.

—that they’d want to see me happy. That my parents—all of them—belong together in my life. Even if it never looked like this in real life.

My hands were shaking when I held the frame.

She painted Ma’s smile exactly right. The gentleness in my Pa's eyes. That quiet pride he never needs to announce. And my birth parents—hopeful, loving, looking at me like I was everything.

She gave me something I didn’t even know how to ask for.

A world where nothing was lost.

I didn’t cry right away. I think I was too overwhelmed. I just stared, memorizing every brushstroke, every careful decision she’d made with love. Trying to understand how someone could see me so clearly.

“I didn’t know if it was okay,” she whispered. “But it felt important.”

I pulled her into my chest without thinking. I couldn’t help it. I needed to feel her there, solid and real.

It was the most understood I have ever felt in my life.

Then it was my turn.

I won’t pretend I didn’t agonize over her gift. I did. For weeks. I wanted it to be something beautiful. Something lasting. Something that carried meaning even if the words failed me.

Inside the small velvet box was a necklace.

Gold. Delicate. The chain thin and warm. And at its center, a butterfly—crafted so carefully it looked like it might lift off at any second if the light caught it just right.

She went very still when she saw it.

I remembered something she told me once—quietly, almost like she didn’t want to make it important. That butterflies were her mother’s favorite. That they reminded her of gentleness. Of transformation. Of staying, even after someone leaves.

I chose it because of that.

Because I wanted her to have something close to her heart. Something that carried love forward instead of marking loss. Something that said she is held—by memory, by love, by me.

It cost more than I usually allow myself to spend on anything. More than was practical. More than was reasonable.

But she’s worth it.

All of it.

She cried then.

Not loudly. Just leaned into me, clutching the necklace like it was something fragile and sacred. My hands weren’t steady when I fastened it around her neck. I don’t think I trusted myself to be.

It looked like it belonged there.

We didn’t say much after that.

We just sat together, her painting propped carefully against the wall, the butterfly warm against her skin, the quiet settling around us like a promise.

A year.

One year of choosing each other. Of learning each other. Of loving in ways that still surprise me.

I still can’t believe she’s with me.

I still wake up amazed that someone so thoughtful, so kind, so deeply human, has chosen to share her life with mine.

If this is what one year feels like, I want all the years.

Every single one.

With her.

02/11/2023

She had a bad day.

I knew the moment I saw her.

She tried to hide it, smiled when she walked in, asked how my day was—but her shoulders were too tight, her voice just a little too careful. I didn’t call it out right away. I’ve learned that sometimes she needs space to land before she can let go.

Later, when the apartment had gone quiet, she finally sat beside me on the couch and exhaled like she’d been holding her breath all day.

She didn’t want fixing. She didn’t want answers. She didn’t want me to make it better.

She just wanted someone to sit with her.

So I did.

I stayed exactly where I was. Close enough that our knees touched. Close enough that she could lean if she wanted to—but I didn’t pull her in until she chose it herself. When she finally rested her head against my shoulder, it felt like permission.

I wrapped an arm around her slowly, carefully, like she was something precious.

We didn’t talk much. A few quiet words. Long stretches of silence. I could feel the tension leaving her shoulders little by little, like she was setting something heavy down piece by piece. Like she trusted me to hold the weight with her, even if I couldn’t take it away.

I watched her breathe. I watched her relax.

I wished—again—that she could see herself the way I do.

Strong, even when she’s tired. Kind, even when the world hasn’t been. Brilliant in ways she never gives herself credit for. Braver than she knows, simply for showing up every day and trying.

She thinks strength looks loud. Unbreakable.

But this—this quiet endurance, this softness she allows only with me—this is the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.

Loving her feels like standing in sunlight. Not blinding. Not overwhelming. Just steady and warm and certain. Like something you can build a life in.

I finally understand what “home” means.

It isn’t a place.

It’s this moment, her leaning into me, the world quiet for a while, knowing I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

With her.

07/29/2023

She met my parents today.

I’ve been nervous about a lot of things in my life. I’ve faced fear head-on more times than I can count. But today, today my stomach was in knots in a way that surprised me.

I brought her home.

Not just to Kansas. Not just to the farm.

Home.

I didn’t warn her much beforehand. Maybe I should have. I only said that my parents would love her, and that was true—but it didn’t feel like enough. I don’t think I realized until today how much it mattered to me that they see her the way I do.

She wore something simple. Comfortable. Herself. She was polite without being stiff, warm without trying too hard. When Ma hugged her, I watched her melt into it like she’d been waiting for that kind of welcome without knowing it.

Ma loved her instantly. I could tell by the way she touched her arm when she laughed, by how quickly she started asking questions—not the polite kind, but the ones you ask when you want to know someone. Pa watched quietly at first, like he always does, measuring more than he speaks.

Then she offered to help in the kitchen.

She didn’t have to. She just did. Like she belonged there.

I stood in the doorway for a while, pretending not to watch as she laughed with Ma, as flour dusted her hands, as she listened to stories about me growing up with the same attention she always gives me. I saw something in Pa's expression then. Something soft, approving, settled.

At dinner, she asked them about their lives. Their history. She listened when Pa talked about the land. She thanked Pa for the meal like it meant something to her.

When Pa finally said, “We’re glad you’re here,” I felt something loosen in my chest that I didn’t know I’d been holding.

Later, when she stepped outside with me and the cicadas filled the evening air, she slipped her hand into mine like it was second nature. Like she’d always known how to find me.

I realized then that this wasn’t just me bringing her into my world.

She was already part of it.

If there ever comes a day when she doubts—when the world feels loud or unkind or she wonders where she belongs—I want her to remember this. The way my mother smiled at her like she was already family. The way my father looked at her like she was someone worth trusting with what matters most.

I don’t know when I’ll say it out loud.

But today made something very clear to me.

She isn’t just someone I love.

She’s someone I’m building a life with.

Every single day.

10/26/2023

Tonight reminded me why I survive.

I came home barely holding myself together.

I don’t usually let it get that bad. I tell myself I won’t, that I’ll pull back sooner, that I’ll know my limits. But tonight I misjudged things. Strength. Timing. My own belief that I can always take one more hit if it means someone else doesn’t have to.

By the time I made it back to my apartment, my ribs felt like glass. Every breath was shallow and sharp, like my lungs were cutting against something broken inside me. My shoulder burned, deep, angry pain that wouldn’t quiet no matter how I shifted my weight. I could feel blood drying along my side, stiffening my suit, pulling at my skin every time I moved.

I didn’t knock.

I couldn’t risk standing upright long enough to do it.

I just leaned against the doorframe for a second, forehead pressed to the cool wood, wondering how much she’d see the moment I stepped inside. Wondering if I could make it to the couch without worrying her too much. Wondering—selfishly—if I could keep this from being one of the nights that lives in her fear.

She heard me anyway.

She always does.

The door opened before I could decide anything, and there she was.

Not panicked. Not shouting my name. Not frozen in shock.

Just there.

Her eyes found me instantly, sharp and assessing, taking everything in at once—the blood, the way I was favoring my right side, the way my shoulders were held too stiff, like they were bracing against pain I didn’t want to admit to yet.

I could hear her heart.

It was racing. Fast. Uneven. Terrified.

And still—her voice was calm.

“Hey,” she said softly, like she wasn’t looking at someone who’d barely made it home. Like she wasn’t scared out of her mind. “Come sit down. Slowly. I’ve got you.”

Those words, 'I’ve got you', did something to me. I felt my knees weaken the moment she said them, like my body finally believed it was allowed to stop fighting.

She moved with such care. Every step deliberate. Every touch gentle and precise, like she was handling something precious instead of broken. She didn’t rush me. Didn’t bombard me with questions or try to assess everything at once.

She knew (somehow) that her calm was the thing keeping me upright.

That her fear, however loud it was inside her, wasn’t what would help me heal.

I watched her swallow it down for me.

I watched her steady her hands before she touched me, watched her breathe slowly on purpose, watched her make herself quiet so I could finally exhale.

She helped me sit, eased my weight down inch by inch, murmuring small reassurances the whole time. Nothing dramatic. Nothing heroic. Just constant presence. Proof that I wasn’t alone in the room with the pain.

When she cleaned the blood from my hands, she did it like she’d done it a hundred times. Cloth warm, pressure careful, movements practiced. But I could hear her heart the entire time, still racing, still afraid.

It never slowed.

And still, she stayed steady.

She talked while she worked—not about what happened, not about what could have gone wrong. Just small things. The grocery list. Something funny she’d read earlier. The way the neighbor’s dog barked all afternoon.

Grounding sounds. Anchors.

I realized then how much effort it must take. How much strength it takes to choose calm when fear is screaming in your chest. How brave you have to be to love someone like me and still soften your hands when they come home hurt.

That’s when it hit me. Again.

Anyone can love the invincible part of me. The symbol. The strength. The idea of safety.

But she loves the part of me that limps home at midnight, trying not to bleed on the floor. The part of me that miscalculates. The part of me that hurts. The part of me that needs someone else to be strong for a moment.

She didn’t ask me to be Superman tonight.

She let me just be Clark.

The way she held me—careful, unafraid, unwavering—did something to me. It settled somewhere deep and permanent, like a truth clicking into place.

I fell in love with her again tonight.

Not loudly. Not all at once.

Just deeper.

And I don’t think there’s an end to how far that goes.

04/10/2025

We talked about moving in together.

It wasn’t supposed to be a big conversation.

We were sitting on the couch, legs tangled, the TV on low in the background. I don’t even remember what we were watching. She said it casually, almost offhand—something about how much time we already spend together, how it might just make sense.

My heart immediately started racing.

I tried to play it cool. I nodded. I said something reasonable. I even managed to keep my voice steady for a few seconds.

I failed.

I felt my smile give me away before I could stop it. I felt the warmth spread through my chest, that light, buoyant feeling that only she gives me. I don’t think I realized how much I’d been hoping for this until she said it out loud.

We talked about logistics—closets, commutes, who has the better couch—but underneath it all was something quieter and deeper. Certainty. Not excitement that burns out fast, but the kind that settles in and stays.

Ever since that conversation, my mind hasn’t stopped wandering.

I keep imagining mornings.

Her hair messy, sleep still clinging to her voice when she says my name. Sunlight spilling through the window, dust floating in the air like it’s been waiting just for us. The sound of her moving around the kitchen while I pretend not to watch, the comfort of knowing that no matter how the day unfolds, we’ll come back to each other at night.

I imagine shared spaces—books mixing on shelves, her things slowly finding their way into every corner. Little arguments about nothing. Quiet routines that become sacred simply because they’re ours.

I’ve already imagined a ring.

Not just the ring itself, but the way her eyes will widen when she realizes what I’m asking. The way her hands will shake just a little when I take hers. The way saying her name followed by my wife will feel like the most natural truth I’ve ever known.

I don’t know when I’ll ask.

I want it to be right. I want it to feel like us—honest, unhurried, full of love.

But I do know this: the answer has lived in me for a long time. Longer than I realized. Since the day I offered her half my sandwich in a noisy lunchroom and felt my world shift in a way I couldn’t name yet.

Everything since then has just been catching up.

If love is choosing someone every day, then I’ve already made my choice.

I’m just finally ready to say it out loud.

11/11/2025

Lois asked me today why I haven’t proposed yet.

She didn’t mean it unkindly. Lois rarely does, even when she pretends otherwise. We were finishing up a story, the newsroom mostly empty, and she leaned back in her chair, studied me for a long moment, then said it like it was obvious.

“So,” she said, “are you ever going to put a ring on her finger, or are you just going to keep pretending she’s not wildly out of your league?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

Because she’s right.

I know she is.

I’ve always known.

Lois kept going, softer this time. “You love her. Anyone with eyes can see that. So what are you waiting for? You scared?”

I thought about that long after she turned back to her screen.

Am I scared?

Yes. But not in the way she meant.

I’m not waiting because I’m unsure. I’m not hesitating because I don’t know what I want. I don’t wake up questioning whether she’s the one. That answer has lived in me for years now, steady and unmovable.

I’m waiting because I’ve never been this sure before in my life.

Everything else I’ve ever faced—every fight, every impossible choice—has always come with certainty baked in. I knew what had to be done. I knew I could endure it. I knew the risk.

This is different.

This isn’t about survival. It’s about forever.

I want it to be right. I want it to feel like us—unrushed, honest, full of intention. I don’t want to trip over my own eagerness and risk losing something this precious by moving too fast, by letting the moment feel careless instead of considered.

She deserves a proposal that feels like a promise kept, not a step taken too quickly.

I want the timing to be gentle. The kind that says I chose you every day before this, and I will every day after.

I know she’s out of my league.

She always has been.

But she chose me anyway. She keeps choosing me. And that still humbles me more than I know how to say.

So no Lois, I’m not waiting because I’m afraid to commit.

I’m waiting because this is the most important question I will ever ask.

And when I ask it, I want my hands steady, my heart open, and the certainty she’s given me reflected back to her without doubt or hesitation.

I already know the answer.

I’m just making sure the moment honors how much she means to me.

Always.

Your tears fall freely now, blurring the words, splashing onto the pages of a love story written quietly, faithfully, just for you. You don’t try to stop them. There’s no point. This is what it feels like to be seen so completely it almost hurts.

The notebook trembles in your hands.

Then—

The soft jingle of keys at the door.

You gasp, sharp and startled, like you’ve been caught somewhere you weren’t supposed to be. Your head snaps up, heart slamming against your ribs. Panic flares—not guilt exactly, but something close enough to make your chest tighten. You scrub hastily at your cheeks with the heel of your hand, trying to erase the evidence, trying to breathe like your world hasn’t just quietly, irrevocably shifted.

The door opens.

Clark steps inside, paper towels tucked under his arm, jacket half-unzipped, hair slightly mussed from the breeze outside. He looks relaxed—content in that soft, domestic way he’s been wearing all day.

Happy.

Then his eyes find you.

Sitting on the floor. Diary open in your hands. Eyes red. Face flushed.

He freezes.

Not just still—suspended. Like time has paused mid-breath.

“…Hey,” he says carefully, voice gentle but alert, like he’s approaching something fragile. “What’s wrong?”

Your throat tightens painfully.

You push yourself to your feet slowly, the movement unsteady, like gravity has changed without warning. You clutch the notebook to your chest instinctively, fingers curling into the leather as if it might vanish if you don’t hold on tight enough.

“I—” Your voice breaks immediately. You swallow, try again. “I’m so sorry.”

That stops him.

He blinks, confusion flickering across his face. “Sorry?”

“I didn’t mean to,” you say quickly, the words tumbling out now that they’ve started. “I was unpacking and I found it and I didn’t know what it was and I shouldn’t have opened it, I know that, I just—” You shake your head, tears spilling again. “I’m really sorry, Clark. I never wanted to invade your privacy.”

For a heartbeat, he just looks at you.

Then realization dawns.

You watch it ripple across his face: the widening of his eyes, the sharp inhale, the way his shoulders tense as understanding crashes in. Horror. Embarrassment. Tender, helpless panic.

“Oh,” he breathes. “Oh—Y/N, I—”

The paper towels slip from his arm as he sets the bag down too fast, hands fumbling like his body can’t quite keep up with his thoughts. “No—hey, no, you didn’t do anything wrong. I swear, I wasn’t hiding it from you. I just—I wanted it to be for later. For the right moment.”

His voice falters, vulnerability bare on his face. “I was waiting. I didn’t want to rush it. I wanted everything to be… right.”

You shake your head, tears blurring your vision. “I know. I know. I just—reading it felt like stepping into something I wasn’t meant to see yet.”

His expression softens instantly.

Before either of you can say anything else, you cross the space between you in three quick steps and throw your arms around him.

Clark stiffens in surprise for half a second—pure reflex—before he melts into you completely. His arms wrap around you strong and sure, one hand pressing gently between your shoulder blades, the other cradling the back of your head like he’s afraid to let go.

He holds you like you’re something precious. Like you’re fragile. Like you’re endlessly, irrevocably loved.

You bury your face in his chest, breathing him in—home, warmth, safety—and your voice shakes when you speak.

“It’s the most beautiful thing anyone has ever written about me,” you whisper. “About us.”

He exhales, long and unsteady, like he’s been holding that breath for years. His forehead rests against yours, eyes closing briefly as if to steady himself. When he pulls back just enough to look at you, his eyes are glossy, shining with emotion he isn’t trying to hide.

“You weren’t supposed to read it yet,” he murmurs softly, thumb brushing beneath your eye, wiping away a tear with reverent care. “I was waiting for the right moment to propose. After we settled in. After this felt like home.”

Your breath catches.

“But,” he continues quietly, a small, almost bashful smile tugging at his mouth, “everything in there is true. Every word. I’ve loved you since the moment you smiled at me over a sad microwave lunch.”

A wet laugh slips out of you despite everything. “You really wrote it all down.”

He nods, almost shy now. “I wanted proof,” he admits. “For you. For forever. In case the world ever got loud. In case you ever doubted how sure I am.”

You lift your hands to his face, cradling him the way he always cradles you, thumbs brushing his cheeks. Your heart feels too full, like it might burst if you don’t say this out loud.

“I don’t need proof,” you say softly. “But I’m really glad I have it.”

He smiles then.

Wide. Radiant. Hopelessly, undeniably in love.

And in that moment—standing barefoot in a half-unpacked apartment, surrounded by boxes and cardboard and the life you’re still building—you know.

Even without a ring. Without a question asked out loud.

You know.

You’re already home.

You hated how long everything took now. Something as simple as sitting upright in bed became a carefully planned event involving medication timing, strategically placed pillows, and enough determination to make your physical therapist visibly concerned. Showering exhausted you. Walking exhausted you. Sometimes even holding a conversation for too long left you needing a nap afterward because the concussion still lingered stubbornly in the background, stealing pieces of your energy whenever you weren't paying attention.

You hated needing help more than anything else.

More than the pain. More than the restrictions. More than the endless parade of specialists, surgeons, therapists, and follow-up appointments that seemed determined to remind you how badly injured you had been.

You hated reaching for a glass of water and realizing your shoulder couldn't manage the movement. Hated waking up in the middle of the night and having to ask for assistance instead of simply getting up yourself. Hated the way people watched you now, always a little too carefully, as if they expected you to break apart in front of them.

For the first week after surgery, getting out of bed required someone nearby.

The realization humiliated you more than it should have.

You were used to being the person helping. The person lifting stretchers and running trauma activations and staying three hours past the end of a shift because somebody else's emergency mattered more than your own exhaustion. You were the person people called when things got difficult, the one who always figured out a solution, always kept moving, always managed to carry a little more than everyone thought possible.

Now people looked at you the way you usually looked at patients.

With concern.

With patience.

With that careful gentleness reserved for people who were hurt badly enough that nobody wanted to make things worse.

It made your skin crawl.

The bruising around your throat lingered for weeks afterward.

Dark fingerprints faded slowly enough that every accidental glance in a mirror felt like being punched directly in the chest. Sometimes you would catch sight of them while brushing your teeth or washing your face and suddenly find yourself back inside Trauma Two again. Back beneath fluorescent lights. Back on the floor.

Hands around your throat.

Air disappearing.

The cabinet slamming into the back of your skull.

The overwhelming certainty that your body was beginning to fail you.

You never stayed in front of mirrors very long anymore.

Mostly, though, you hated being a patient.

You spent nearly three weeks in the hospital altogether, long enough to memorize the overnight ICU staff by voice alone. Long enough for nurses to start sneaking you extra pudding cups because apparently near-strangulation combined with jaw fractures meant surviving almost entirely on soft foods for a while. Long enough to become familiar with the strange rhythm of hospitalization.

The four a.m. lab draws.

The endless vital sign checks.

The quiet conversations nurses thought patients couldn't hear from the hallway.

The way sunlight crawled slowly across the floor every afternoon before disappearing again.

Long enough to watch Pittsburgh weather change endlessly through narrow hospital windows while your own department continued functioning without you somewhere several floors below.

That part bothered you more than expected.

The emergency department was still open. Traumas still arrived. Residents still complained. Patients still needed help. Life continued moving forward whether you were there or not, and for the first time in years you were stuck watching from the outside.

Rationally, you knew the department would survive without you.

Emotionally, it felt different.

You had spent so much of your life inside those walls that part of you had started believing your place there was permanent. Necessary. The thought of everyone continuing without you left a strange hollow feeling in your chest that you couldn't quite explain.

Sometimes you found yourself staring at the tracking board app on your phone just to feel connected to something familiar.

Sometimes you missed it so badly your chest physically hurt.

Jack practically moved into your hospital room by the third day.

Not officially, but everyone knew.

His hoodie stayed permanently draped across the back of the chair beside your bed. Empty coffee cups accumulated along the windowsill no matter how many times nurses threw them away. Half the overnight staff stopped questioning why Dr. Abbot somehow appeared in your room at two in the morning every single night.

Sometimes you woke up to find him asleep beside your bed, neck bent at an angle guaranteed to cause problems later, one hand still wrapped loosely around yours like he needed physical proof you were breathing. Other nights he didn't sleep at all.

You would wake sometime around three in the morning and find him sitting quietly in the darkness, laptop forgotten beside him, staring out the window with an expression that always made something uncomfortable twist inside your chest.

Whenever he noticed you awake, he smiled immediately.

Every single time.

The smile never quite reached his eyes.

That scared you more than you wanted to admit.

Because Jack had always been good at hiding things. Better than most people. Years of emergency medicine had taught him how to compartmentalize fear and grief and exhaustion until nobody could tell what was happening beneath the surface.

The fact that he wasn't hiding this meant it was bigger than either of you wanted to acknowledge.

You tried returning to work conversations by day six.

Jack shut that down immediately.

"I'm serious," you argued from the hospital bed while attempting to maneuver yourself upright one-handed. "I can do consults at least."

Jack looked up from the chair beside your bed with an expression so deeply unimpressed it almost offended you.

"You got strangled, fractured your jaw, dislocated your shoulder, cracked two ribs, and had a concussion severe enough to put you in the ICU for three days."

You frowned.

"When you say it like that, it sounds dramatic."

"It was dramatic."

"I’m just saying that it sounds worse when you list everything."

"Because the list is bad."

You opened your mouth to argue and immediately regretted it when pain shot sharply through your jaw.

Jack noticed, of course he noticed. He always noticed.

Without another word, he stood and crossed the room. By the time you managed to formulate a protest, he was already adjusting the pillows behind your back, carefully supporting your injured shoulder before helping you settle into a more comfortable position.

The movement was practiced now, almost natural.

Weeks ago you would have hated needing the help. Now you hated how grateful it made you feel.

"You are not stepping foot back into the ER until you're fully cleared," he said firmly. "And before you argue with me, Robby agrees."

"That's because Robby enjoys ruining my life."

"No," Jack answered flatly. "That's because Robby watched you almost die."

The words landed heavily between both of you.

"I did too, by the way."

Silence settled over the room immediately.

Jack's hands slowed against the blanket before becoming still altogether.

You felt your chest tighten.

Because there it was again. The thing neither of you had figured out how to talk about yet.

The attack wasn't over. Not really.

Neither of you talked about the nightmares much either, even though they started almost immediately after the ICU. Yours usually involved hands around your throat and the horrible realization that Leon did not recognize you anymore. Jack’s were quieter. You noticed them mostly because he stopped sleeping deeply afterward. Some nights you woke up and found him sitting awake at the edge of the bed staring at absolutely nothing while his prosthetic rested beside him on the floor.

Neither of you knew how to fix the other.

So instead you stayed close.

After discharge, recovery became its own strange routine. Orthopedic follow-ups. Neurology appointments. Speech therapy for the lingering jaw pain and throat damage. Physical therapy twice a week where a woman named Denise slowly taught your shoulder how to function properly again while you swore creatively enough to make her laugh almost every session.

And therapy.

Real therapy.

Therapy turned out to be harder than physical therapy.

At least with physical therapy there was a clear objective. Denise bent your shoulder until it hurt, assigned exercises you hated, and measured progress in degrees of motion and strength. There was a finish line somewhere. A point where the joint would function again, where the muscles would remember what they were supposed to do, where the pain would eventually become manageable.

Therapy with Dr. Feldman didn't work like that.

There were no measurements. No imaging results. No charts proving you were improving. Just a quiet office with soft lighting, a bookshelf full of psychology texts, and a woman who somehow managed to see directly through every defense mechanism you had spent years perfecting.

You hated her almost immediately.

Not because she was unkind. The problem was that she was patient.

The first appointment consisted mostly of you sitting rigidly in your chair with your arms crossed while answering questions with as few words as possible. You approached the entire thing the same way you approached difficult conversations with patients' family members in the emergency department: polite, cooperative, and emotionally unavailable.

Dr. Feldman noticed within fifteen minutes.

"How have you been sleeping?" she asked.

"Fine."

She looked down at her notes briefly before looking back up.

"You were hospitalized for nearly three weeks after a violent assault. Most people aren't sleeping fine."

You shrugged.

"I've had worse schedules during residency."

A small smile tugged at her mouth.

"That's not what I asked."

You hated that answer.

The second session wasn't much better. Every time she asked about your emotions, you redirected toward medicine. Every time she asked how something felt, you explained the physiology behind it instead. You could discuss post-traumatic stress responses, hypervigilance, sleep disruption, conditioned fear responses, and trauma recovery pathways in meticulous detail. You could explain exactly what was happening inside your brain.

What you couldn't do was admit how any of it actually affected you.

Halfway through the appointment, Dr. Feldman finally set her notebook aside.

"You keep describing trauma," she said.

"Because we're discussing trauma."

"No," she replied gently. "You're describing symptoms. You're explaining mechanisms. You're talking about yourself the same way you'd talk about a patient."

The observation irritated you immediately because it was true.

"I'm a doctor."

"I know."

"It's how I think."

Dr. Feldman smiled slightly. "I know that too."

For a moment, neither of you spoke. The room settled into a comfortable silence that immediately made you uncomfortable. Years in emergency medicine had trained you to fill silence quickly. Silence usually meant somebody was waiting for an answer, waiting for bad news, waiting for a conversation to become more painful than either person wanted it to be. Dr. Feldman, however, seemed perfectly content to sit inside it.

Eventually she leaned forward slightly in her chair.

"But you're not my doctor."

The words landed harder than they should have. You looked away immediately.

"You don't have to explain this to me clinically," she continued gently. "You don't have to convince me that you understand trauma. I already know you do."

A humorless laugh escaped you.

"That's easier."

Of course it was easier. Explaining symptoms was safer than feeling them. Discussing hypervigilance was safer than admitting you were afraid. Turning yourself into a case study allowed you to keep a comfortable distance between yourself and what had actually happened. If you could reduce the attack to diagnoses and recovery statistics and neurological responses, then maybe it felt less personal.

Dr. Feldman's expression softened.

"Of course it is."

Something about the kindness in her voice made your chest ache unexpectedly.

The sessions continued after that. Week after week, you showed up and slowly learned that recovery was a lot harder when someone refused to let you hide behind medical terminology. Sometimes you left feeling angry. Sometimes exhausted. Occasionally embarrassed by how much energy it took simply to sit in that office and answer questions honestly. There were appointments where you spent nearly the entire session arguing with her, and others where you spent the drive home replaying a single observation because it had landed uncomfortably close to something you weren't ready to examine.

The breakthrough happened during your fourth appointment, though neither of you recognized it immediately.

The conversation had shifted toward work, which should have felt safe. Work was familiar. Work was predictable. Work was the one area of your life where you still understood exactly who you were.

"Have you thought about going back?" Dr. Feldman asked.

"Obviously."

"You miss it."

The answer came instantly.

"Every day."

She nodded thoughtfully.

"What do you miss?"

You didn't even have to think about it.

"The pace. The people. The chaos. Being useful."

As soon as the words left your mouth, you realized how much truth was hiding inside them. You missed the noise of trauma activations. You missed residents interrupting each other during presentations. You missed arguing with consultants and complaining about impossible patient loads. You missed the organized insanity of the emergency department. You even missed things you used to hate.

Most of all, you missed feeling like yourself.

Dr. Feldman watched you quietly for a moment before asking, "And what worries you about going back?"

The question should have been simple.

Instead, something tightened immediately in your chest.

You looked down at your hands.

"I don't know."

Dr. Feldman didn't respond.

The silence stretched.

You hated that she knew exactly how effective silence was.

Eventually you sighed heavily and rubbed a hand across your face.

"I know what you're trying to ask."

"Then answer it."

The response almost made you laugh.

Almost.

Instead, you stared at the floor and tried not to think too hard about why your pulse had suddenly picked up. Images surfaced anyway. Hospital curtains closing. Empty treatment rooms. The sharp beep of a monitor. A patient moving unexpectedly. A hand reaching toward you.

Your stomach twisted.

And suddenly you understood exactly why you had spent weeks avoiding this conversation.

"Sometimes I think about being alone with a patient," you admitted quietly. "Sometimes I think about walking into an exam room and closing the curtain behind me, and immediately I start planning exits. I start calculating how quickly I could get out if something happened."

The confession felt awful. Humiliating, even.

You couldn't bring yourself to look at her.

Because suddenly this wasn't about trauma responses or coping mechanisms or anything clinical at all. It was about fear. Real fear. The kind you had spent years helping other people survive.

Your fingers tightened together in your lap.

"I'm afraid of being alone with patients."

The words hung heavily between you.

For years, you had been the person other people relied on when they were afraid. You were the doctor walking into emergencies, not the person avoiding them. The calm one. The capable one. The person who always seemed to know what to do when everyone else was panicking. Building a career in emergency medicine had required a certain level of confidence in your ability to function under pressure, and somewhere along the way that confidence had quietly become part of your identity.

Now the thought of being alone with a patient made your heart race.

The contradiction sat heavily inside your chest. It wasn't just fear that bothered you. It was what the fear seemed to say about you. Every time your pulse spiked walking into an exam room, every time you found yourself unconsciously identifying exits, some stubborn part of your brain interpreted it as weakness. You knew that wasn't fair. You would never judge a patient that harshly. You would never expect someone who had survived what you survived to simply get over it.

For some reason, you expected it from yourself anyway.

Dr. Feldman seemed to recognize that immediately.

"Why does that feel embarrassing?" she asked.

The question caught you off guard. You frowned slightly, searching for an answer that made sense.

"Because I know better."

"Know better than what?"

You gestured vaguely, frustration already building.

"Than this. Than being afraid all the time. Than having panic responses I can literally explain from a neurological perspective."

Dr. Feldman remained quiet for a moment before responding.

"You were strangled. You suffered a traumatic brain injury. You genuinely believed you might die."

The words settled heavily between you.

Hearing the facts presented that plainly made something uncomfortable twist inside your chest. You spent so much time viewing the attack through a clinical lens that it was easy to forget how terrifying it had actually been. In your own mind, the event had gradually become a collection of injuries and recovery milestones. Fractured jaw. Concussion. Shoulder dislocation. ICU admission. Physical therapy. Follow-up appointments.

Medical facts.

Medical facts were easier to live with than memories.

"And now you're judging yourself for being afraid," Dr. Feldman continued gently.

You looked away.

The worst part was that she was right.

When she phrased it that way, the cruelty of it became obvious. Not cruelty from anyone else. Not from your coworkers or Jack or your friends. Nobody in your life expected you to recover faster than you already were.

The pressure was entirely your own.

"I know the psychology behind trauma," you said quietly.

"I know."

"I know why my brain is reacting this way."

"I know."

The frustration finally surfaced.

"Then why does it still feel like this?" You rubbed a hand across your face, suddenly exhausted. "Why do I understand exactly what's happening and still feel like I'm losing my mind sometimes?"

For the first time since sitting down in her office, your voice wavered.

Not dramatically.

Just enough.

Enough that you heard it. Enough that she heard it.

Dr. Feldman didn't answer immediately. She let the question exist for a moment before speaking.

"Because understanding pain isn't the same thing as healing from it."

You stared down at your hands.

The answer should have been obvious, instead it felt devastating.

For months you had approached recovery the same way you approached every problem in medicine. Gather information. Understand the mechanism. Create a treatment plan. Follow the evidence. Somewhere deep down, part of you had believed that if you understood trauma well enough, you could control it.

As if knowledge could somehow exempt you from being human.

"You've spent years helping other people survive terrible things," Dr. Feldman said softly. "You've sat with grieving families. You've treated victims of violence. You've helped patients through experiences most people can't even imagine. But throughout all of those situations, you were standing beside the trauma."

Your throat tightened.

"This time, you were the one living through it."

The words landed harder than anything else she had said.

Suddenly you weren't sitting in a quiet office anymore.

You were back in Trauma Two, staring up at fluorescent lights while your lungs desperately searched for air. You remembered the growing certainty that something was terribly wrong. The helplessness. The fear. The horrifying realization that all of your training, all of your experience, and all of your medical knowledge couldn't change what was happening.

For the first time, you remembered the attack not as a physician but as the person who had survived it.

The memory hit hard enough that tears blurred your vision before you could stop them.

At first you felt embarrassed. Then tired. Then overwhelmingly sad.

Not only because of the attack itself, but because of everything that followed. The surgeries. The nightmares. The panic attacks. The months spent measuring your recovery against impossible expectations. The constant belief that you should somehow be handling all of this better because you were a doctor and doctors were supposed to understand these things.

Dr. Feldman didn't interrupt. She didn't hand you a tissue or rush to make you feel better. She simply sat there with you while the reality finally settled into place.

For months, you had been describing the attack the same way you described everything else in medicine—clinically, objectively, through symptoms and recovery timelines. You had translated the most frightening experience of your life into a language that felt safer, convincing yourself that understanding it might somehow make it easier to carry.

But trauma wasn't a chart.

It wasn't a diagnosis.

And it wasn't something you could analyze until it stopped hurting.

For the first time since waking up in the ICU, you stopped trying to explain it away. You stopped trying to justify your reactions or convince yourself that understanding the psychology behind trauma should somehow make you immune to it.

The truth was much simpler than that.

It hurt.

Doctors made terrible patients because knowing the science behind something did not magically stop it from hurting. Understanding trauma responses did not prevent nightmares. Being able to explain hypervigilance did not stop your pulse from spiking whenever somebody approached too quickly from behind. Knowing exactly which parts of your brain were responsible for fear and survival instincts did absolutely nothing when those same instincts decided a harmless moment was dangerous.

Some days were easier than others after that. Some mornings almost felt normal until a mirror, a monitor alarm, or an unexpected reminder dragged the memory back to the surface. The bad nights were harder, especially when nightmares left you gasping awake before reality had a chance to catch up.

On those nights, Jack would reach for you almost immediately, often before either of you fully opened your eyes. Somewhere along the way, he had learned the difference between you shifting in your sleep and you waking from a nightmare. He would pull you closer without a word, one hand settling against your back while both of you waited for your breathing to slow again.

Slowly, though almost painfully slowly, life began stitching itself back together around the damage. The nightmares became less frequent. The panic lasted minutes instead of hours. Physical therapy hurt a little less each week. Recovery never arrived all at once; it came in tiny pieces that were easy to miss until you looked back and realized how far you had come.

By the time nearly three months had passed, most of the visible evidence of the attack had finally faded. The bruising around your throat disappeared first, though sometimes you still caught yourself staring too long at your reflection, expecting to see fingerprints there anyway. Your jaw had mostly healed, leaving behind only occasional pain when you talked too much or forgot yourself and laughed too hard. Physical therapy slowly returned strength to your shoulder until Denise finally cleared you to stop glaring at resistance bands like they had personally offended you.

Physically, you were doing well.

Emotionally was harder to measure.

Because no amount of therapy fully prepared you for walking back into the emergency department for the first time.

The second the automatic hospital doors opened that morning, your body betrayed you instantly.

Your heartbeat spiked so suddenly it almost made you stop walking. Your chest tightened. Every sound felt too loud all at once. Ambulance radios crackled overhead somewhere down the hallway. Stretchers rattled across tile floors. Somebody laughed in the distance. A monitor alarm sounded briefly before being silenced.

The familiar chaos of the emergency department wrapped around you immediately.

For years, these sounds had meant comfort. Work. Purpose. Routine. The constant noise of ambulance radios, ringing phones, overhead pages, and monitor alarms had become so familiar that your brain barely registered them anymore. They were part of the rhythm of the place. Part of home.

Now, your body reacted differently.

Before your brain could catch up, every muscle had already tightened. Your chest felt too small. It was as though some deeply buried part of you had mistaken familiarity for danger.

You slowed without meaning to.

Jack noticed immediately.

His hand tightened around yours before you had even fully stopped walking.

"Hey."

The word was quiet and gentle. When you looked up, you found him watching you carefully. Not because he thought you were about to fall apart, and not because he was panicking. He was simply paying attention. Somewhere over the past few months, Jack had become remarkably good at noticing the things you tried not to show anyone else.

"You okay?"

The question wasn't casual.

You could hear the concern beneath it immediately. The concern had softened over the months, but it had never fully disappeared. Even now, Jack seemed capable of noticing the things you tried not to show anyone else long before you admitted them yourself.

You took a slow breath.

"Yeah."

Jack's eyebrow lifted immediately.

The look alone told you he didn't believe that answer for a second.

Despite yourself, a small laugh escaped.

"Okay," you admitted, exhaling heavily. "Maybe not completely."

"That's a more believable answer."

The corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

What struck you wasn't the teasing so much as the absence of everything else. There was no judgment in his voice, no frustration, and no expectation that you should somehow be over this by now. Months had passed since the attack, but Jack had never once acted as though recovery came with a deadline.

His fingers tightened around yours.

"You don't have to be okay immediately."

The words settled somewhere deep inside your chest because they felt less like reassurance and more like permission.

For months, you had been quietly frustrated with yourself for not recovering faster.

Jack never seemed to share that frustration.

Not once.

You looked at him for a moment before nodding.

This time, when you took a breath, it came a little easier.

And when the two of you started walking again, you realized you weren't quite as afraid as you had been thirty seconds earlier.

Jack stood beside you in black scrubs, one hand still wrapped around yours while the other adjusted the strap of his bag. He looked calmer than he had in weeks, but not entirely relaxed. Some part of him still carried the memory of what happened here, even if neither of you talked about it very often.

Without saying anything else, he squeezed your hand once more before guiding you further inside.

The emergency department looked exactly the same.

Monitors still beeped overhead. Residents still rushed through presentations too quickly. Dana was already arguing with somebody in radiology over the phone near the nurses' station. Santos appeared to be stealing crackers from somewhere while simultaneously talking over three different people.

Life had continued here without you.

Standing there again, that realization hit harder than you expected. After everything that had happened, some irrational part of you had expected the place to feel different. Instead, the department had done what it always did.

It kept going.

Then somebody noticed you.

The shift moved through the department almost immediately. Conversations slowed. Heads turned. Even Santos stopped talking for a full second, which honestly felt medically concerning on its own.

"There she is."

Dana's voice carried across the nurses' station before you could fully prepare yourself. Something about hearing it made your stomach tighten unexpectedly.

You smiled awkwardly.

"Hi."

The word came out far more nervous than you intended.

God.

You had handled mass casualty incidents with steadier composure than this.

Santos recovered first.

Before you could react, she was already crossing the department toward you. A second later, she wrapped you in a careful hug, avoiding your shoulder with surprising precision while somehow still managing to squeeze hard enough to make your eyes sting unexpectedly.

"You look significantly less dead."

A surprised laugh escaped you.

"Thank you."

"No, seriously."

She stepped back and looked you over carefully, her eyes moving across your face as if she were unconsciously searching for evidence that you were actually okay.

"I'm glad you're back," she said quietly. "It sucked here without you."

The words landed harder than you expected.

Because you knew Santos.

You knew how much effort it took for her to say something sincere without immediately burying it beneath sarcasm.

The department seemed quieter after that.

Not because anyone felt awkward.

Because everyone remembered.

Nobody talked about it anymore, but the memory still existed beneath the surface of the room. They remembered the safe word over the intercom. They remembered Jack sprinting toward Trauma Two. They remembered the shouting, the blood, the uncertainty afterward.

Standing there surrounded by familiar faces, you suddenly realized that while you had been recovering, they had been carrying pieces of that experience too.

Whitaker approached next looking deeply uncomfortable.

"We missed you."

The words came out almost too quickly.

Your throat tightened immediately.

Not because the statement was dramatic.

Because it was honest.

The emergency department had always been dysfunctional and chaotic and emotionally repressed in exactly the way trauma departments usually were. Nobody openly talked about how much they cared about each other. Instead, they brought extra coffee. Covered shifts. Saved each other the last decent muffin in the break room and made fun of one another relentlessly.

That was how affection worked here.

But they had missed you.

And standing there looking at people you had worked beside for years, a realization settled heavily into your chest.

For weeks after the attack, these people hadn't known whether you were going to survive.

While you were unconscious in the ICU, they had still shown up for work. They had still walked past Trauma Two. They had still waited.

Somehow, understanding that hurt more than you expected.

Your eyes burned suddenly.

Immediately, Jack's hand settled against the small of your back.

Grounding.

Steady.

A reminder that you weren't standing here alone.

"You okay?" he asked quietly.

Only you could hear him.

You nodded a little too quickly.

Jack's expression made it abundantly clear he wasn't fooled for a second.

Before he could say anything else, Robby appeared.

"Alright. Enough vulnerability before somebody bursts into flames."

A few people laughed immediately.

The tension eased.

Robby pointed directly at you.

"Half shifts for the next two weeks. No trauma rooms alone. No heroics. No staying late. No pretending you're invincible."

You blinked.

"Robby—"

"That wasn't a suggestion."

"It sounded vaguely suggestive."

"It wasn't."

You crossed your arms as much as your shoulder currently allowed.

"I'm sensing hostility."

"I'm sensing paperwork if you reinjure yourself."

Several nurses immediately nodded in agreement.

Traitors.

"And if I catch you overworking yourself, I'm personally calling your physical therapist."

You gasped dramatically.

"That feels threatening."

"It is threatening."

Despite yourself, you laughed.

A real laugh this time.

The sound felt rusty after months away, but hearing it surprised you almost as much as feeling it. For a second, the knot that had been sitting in your chest all morning loosened.

And when you glanced toward Jack, you caught the expression that crossed his face before he could hide it.

Relief.

The realization hit you then with surprising force.

This morning hadn't only terrified you.

It had terrified him too.

Because returning to the emergency department meant more than walking back into work. For you, it meant facing the place where your life had nearly ended. For Jack, it meant returning to the place where he had found you bleeding on the floor and thought, for one horrifying moment, that he was already too late.

Your eyes drifted instinctively down the hallway toward Trauma Two before you could stop yourself.

The curtain was open now. The room sat empty beneath fluorescent lights, looking exactly like every other trauma bay in the department.

But your body remembered anyway.

The back of your neck tightened. Your breathing faltered.

Jack noticed immediately.

Without saying anything, his hand found yours again. His fingers threaded through your own with quiet certainty, grounding you before the panic had a chance to grow into something larger.

This time when he squeezed your hand, you squeezed back.

Life slowly started feeling like yours again after that.

Not all at once. Healing never happened dramatically the way movies liked pretending it did. There was no singular moment where everything stopped hurting and the fear disappeared. Recovery arrived quietly instead, through ordinary moments that barely seemed important at the time.

The first time you walked through the hospital parking garage alone without your pulse skyrocketing. The first night you slept six uninterrupted hours. The first time Jack touched your throat absentmindedly while kissing you and your body didn't flinch before your brain caught up.

Those moments mattered more than any clean CT scan ever could.

The victories that mattered most were often the ones you barely noticed at first. One day you realized an ordinary hallway no longer made your shoulders tense. Another day you found yourself laughing without pain or hesitation. Eventually, you stopped thinking about every breath, every movement, every reminder of what had happened and simply existed again.

Your body slowly began feeling like home.

The bruises faded completely after a while. Physical therapy eventually became frustrating instead of humiliating, which Denise informed you was actually progress.

A few weeks later, she watched you complete an exercise without compensating for pain for the first time since surgery.

"There she is," Denise said immediately.

For the first time in a very long time, you believed her.

The nightmares faded too.

Not entirely at first.

Some nights still dragged you backward into Trauma Two with terrifying clarity. You would wake with your heart hammering against your ribs while panic clawed briefly through your chest before reality slowly settled back into place around you.

Those moments used to feel endless.

Eventually they became manageable.

Partly because Jack was always there.

Sometimes he woke before you did, reaching for you automatically the second your breathing changed beside him. Other nights he simply pulled you closer without either of you speaking, one hand moving slowly along your spine while your heartbeat gradually returned to normal.

Neither of you talked much during those moments because you didn't need to. There was something strangely intimate about surviving trauma beside somebody who understood exactly what silence meant.

No explanations.

No reassurances.

Just the quiet certainty that neither of you had to carry it alone.

The attack had changed both of you.

There was no pretending otherwise.

Then one afternoon, almost five months after the attack, Leon reached out.

You had been sitting on the couch answering work emails when the notification appeared. At first, you barely paid attention to it. Over the past few months your inbox had filled with department updates, physical therapy reminders, scheduling changes, and occasional messages from coworkers checking in on you. It looked no different than any of the others until your eyes landed on the sender's name.

Leon Carter.

The reaction was immediate.

Your stomach dropped hard enough that you physically sat back against the couch, staring at the screen while your brain struggled to process what you were seeing. The name itself looked strangely ordinary sitting there in your inbox, which somehow made it worse. Nothing about it suggested surgeries or ICU stays or months of recovery. Nothing about it suggested panic attacks or nightmares or the long process of learning how to feel safe again.

It was just a name.

But it was attached to one of the worst days of your life.

You didn't open the email right away. Instead, you found yourself staring at it while memories surfaced faster than you could organize them. You remembered the rain and the interstate. You remembered climbing into the ambulance and finding a frightened man who talked about his daughter and thanked you for helping him. You remembered the trust he had placed in you simply because you were a doctor and doctors were supposed to know what to do.

Then the memories shifted.

You remembered Trauma Two. The confusion in his eyes. The moment recognition disappeared and something went terribly wrong. You remembered fear. You remembered pain. You remembered waking up in the ICU days later with only fragments of the attack and everybody else's horror to fill in the gaps.

The problem was that none of those memories existed separately anymore.

When you thought about Leon, you thought about all of it at once.

The patient.

The victim.

The man who nearly died in a car accident.

The man who nearly killed you afterward.

For several long seconds, you simply sat there looking at the email while your pulse climbed higher and higher.

Across the apartment, Jack looked up from where he was working on his laptop at the dining table. He noticed the change in your expression immediately.

Five months later, he still seemed capable of reading your mood before you spoke a single word.

"What happened?"

The question sounded casual, but you could already hear the concern underneath it.

You swallowed, glanced back at the screen, and slowly turned the laptop toward him.

Jack's eyes moved across the screen, and the change in him was immediate.

His entire body stiffened before he'd even finished reading.

"No."

The answer came so quickly it startled you.

"Jack—"

"No."

His voice wasn't loud. If anything, that made it worse. Every muscle in his jaw tightened, and something flashed across his face so quickly it was difficult to identify. Anger, certainly. But fear too. Fear disguised as anger. The kind that had become familiar over the past few months whenever conversations drifted too close to what happened in Trauma Two.

"You do not owe him anything."

The words settled heavily between you.

You knew that.

Nobody expected you to answer. Nobody expected forgiveness. Nobody expected anything from you at all. The problem wasn't obligation. The problem was that part of you already wanted to know what Leon had said.

That night, long after dinner and after the apartment had settled into its usual quiet rhythm, you finally opened the email. Jack didn't try to stop you. He simply sat beside you on the couch while you read.

The message wasn't long.

What struck you first was what it didn't contain. There were no excuses. No attempts to justify what happened. No requests for forgiveness. Leon explained that pieces of the attack had only recently been explained to him fully after months of neurology appointments and psychological rehabilitation. He remembered the accident. He remembered the rain and the ambulance ride. He remembered talking to you and trusting you to help him.

After that, there was nothing.

The seizure had fractured his memory completely.

The next thing he remembered was waking up days later and learning that he had violently assaulted the doctor who stopped on the interstate to save his life.

You felt your throat tighten as you continued reading.

Leon wrote that he was horrified by what happened. He wrote that he understood if you never wanted to hear from him again. He wrote that he thought about you every day and hoped you were healing. He explained that he was finally receiving treatment for both the neurological aftermath of the seizure and the psychological trauma surrounding the accident itself.

At the very end, there was a simple apology.

And somehow that made it harder.

By the time you reached the last line, several minutes had passed. The apartment felt unusually quiet around you. When you finally looked up, Jack was watching carefully from the other end of the couch. He wasn't pushing for an answer or trying to influence your reaction. He was simply waiting.

"What are you thinking?"

You looked back down at the screen.

For a moment, you weren't entirely sure yourself.

"I think he's telling the truth."

Jack's gaze dropped immediately. You could practically see the conflict moving across his face.

"He almost killed you."

The words came out rougher than he intended.

You shifted closer until your knee brushed his.

"I know."

Jack looked toward the apartment windows instead. The city lights reflected faintly against the glass while silence settled between both of you.

Eventually, Jack let out a quiet laugh and rubbed a hand across his face. There wasn't any humor in the sound. If anything, he looked exhausted. The kind of exhausted that had nothing to do with sleep and everything to do with carrying something for too long.

"You know what the worst part is?"

Your chest tightened immediately.

"What?"

For a moment, he didn't answer. He just stared out toward the apartment windows.

"I know it wasn't his fault," he said finally. "I know what postictal aggression is. I know what brain injuries do to people. I know he wasn't himself."

His jaw tightened as he spoke, and you could see the conflict written all over his face. Jack understood the medicine. He understood the neurology. He understood all the reasons why what happened wasn't really Leon's fault.

But understanding something and making peace with it were two very different things.

"I know all of that," he continued quietly. "But every time I hear his name, I still see you on that floor."

The honesty of it hit harder than you expected because there was no anger behind it. No blame. No attempt to argue with the facts. It was simply the truth.

You reached for his hand immediately.

His fingers closed around yours before you had fully touched him, as though some part of him still needed the reassurance. As though, despite the months that had passed, there were moments when his body still remembered the terror of almost losing you.

"He didn't remember hurting me," you said softly.

Jack nodded.

"I know."

"He wasn't trying to hurt me."

"I know."

His thumb moved slowly across your knuckles before his gaze dropped toward your joined hands.

"That doesn't make it hurt less."

Your eyes burned unexpectedly.

"No," you admitted. "It doesn't."

Silence settled between the two of you after that, not uncomfortable but heavy with the kind of truth neither of you could argue with. Leon had been a victim. You had been a victim too. One reality didn't erase the other, and accepting that was probably the hardest part of all.

Eventually, you answered the email.

Not because you were completely healed, and not because you had somehow stopped being afraid. There were still days when memories surfaced unexpectedly and moments when certain sounds made your pulse spike before your brain could catch up. There were still shifts where you caught yourself avoiding Trauma Two without consciously realizing it. Healing had never been linear, no matter how badly you wanted it to be.

But you also understood neurological trauma. You understood how quickly a person could stop being themselves inside catastrophic moments. More importantly, you understood what it felt like to wake up after trauma wishing desperately that something terrible had never happened.

So you accepted his apology.

Much to Jack's absolute dismay.

"You're too forgiving," he complained several days later while the two of you carried groceries up three flights of stairs.

You snorted.

"Says the emergency physician."

"That's different."

"It literally isn't."

"It is when it's you."

The answer arrived so quickly that it stole the rest of your argument.

Jack stopped halfway up the stairs, grocery bags hanging forgotten at his sides. For a moment he simply looked at you, and suddenly you could see all of it again: the fear, the exhaustion, the months he had spent pretending he was coping better than he actually was.

"You almost died."

His voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be.

The quiet certainty in it somehow made the words hit even harder.

"I don't think you understand what that did to me."

Emotion caught painfully in your throat before you could answer.

Because maybe, for the first time, you finally did understand.

Five months ago, you probably wouldn't have. A year ago, you might have called his fear irrational. Doctors saw trauma every day. People got hurt. People healed. Life moved on. That was the unspoken agreement everyone in emergency medicine made with themselves in order to keep functioning. If you stopped to consider how fragile everything really was, if you allowed yourself to think too hard about all the ways an ordinary day could become a catastrophe, you would never be able to walk back into work.

So you learned to accept uncertainty without dwelling on it. You learned to tell yourself that terrible things happened to other people.

Then it happened to you.

The attack forced you to confront something years of emergency medicine had never fully taught you. None of it was guaranteed. Not the next shift. Not next year. Not even the next ordinary Tuesday that began like every other day and ended with your entire life divided into a before and after.

Standing there on the staircase, looking at Jack, you finally understood what he had been carrying all those months. It wasn't just the memory of the attack. It was the memory of almost losing you. The memory of walking into Trauma Two and finding the person he loved lying on the floor. The memory of not knowing whether you were going to survive.

You stepped closer until the grocery bags bumped awkwardly against both of your legs and wrapped your arms around him.

Jack held on immediately.

Not desperately. Just instinctively.

Like he always did now. Like some small part of him still needed the reassurance that you were really there, standing in front of him, alive and breathing and stubborn enough to argue with him about everything.

For the first time since the attack, you didn't just recognize that instinct.

You understood it.

And somehow that realization hurt almost as much as it healed.

After a while, life settled again anyway.

Not because everything was suddenly fixed. Not because the memories disappeared or because the attack stopped being part of your story. Life simply did what it always did. It kept moving forward. Shifts accumulated. Seasons changed. New patients arrived. New crises demanded attention. The world refused to remain frozen around a single terrible day, no matter how much that day had changed the people who survived it.

Eventually, you returned to full shifts.

The first one felt impossible.

You remembered standing in the locker room beforehand staring at your reflection for longer than necessary, scrubs folded over one arm while anxiety twisted quietly beneath your ribs. Part of you had been convinced something would go wrong the moment you stepped back into the rhythm of a normal day. That you would panic. Freeze. Forget how to be yourself.

Instead, the shift began.

Then another patient arrived.

Then another.

Hours passed.

You assessed injuries. Ordered imaging. Argued with consultants. Drank coffee that had been sitting out too long. Somewhere around the middle of the afternoon, you realized you had gone nearly three hours without thinking about the attack at all.

The realization almost made you stop walking.

Because for the first time, the emergency department felt like work again instead of a place haunted by memory.

It wasn't immediate after that. There were still difficult moments. Days where entering certain rooms made your stomach tighten unexpectedly. Cases that lingered a little too long beneath your skin. But gradually, almost invisibly, the fear loosened its grip.

You stopped hesitating before entering trauma bays. Your hands stopped shaking after violent cases. The emergency department slowly became home again instead of the place where something terrible happened to you.

And through all of it, Jack remained exactly where he had always been.

Beside you.

Some nights after difficult shifts, the two of you still sat together in the parking garage for a few extra minutes before driving home. Neither of you usually spoke much during those moments. You simply sat in comfortable silence while the adrenaline of the shift slowly drained away.

Sometimes Jack still reached for your hand automatically in crowded hallways. Sometimes you caught him scanning rooms without realizing he was doing it. Occasionally you would glance across a trauma bay and find him already looking at you.

The expression never changed.

It wasn't worry anymore.

Not entirely.

It was something softer.

Something that looked suspiciously like gratitude.

Like some part of him remained quietly amazed every single day that you were still alive to look back at him at all.

One night, after an especially exhausting shift, the two of you found yourselves briefly alone at the nurses' station while the rest of the department dealt with varying levels of chaos farther down the hallway.

Jack was finishing a chart.

You were pretending to finish one.

Neither of you had enough remaining brain cells to be particularly successful.

Without looking up from the computer screen, Jack reached over and laced his fingers through yours beneath the desk. The movement was so absentminded that he probably didn't even realize he'd done it. You looked down at your joined hands and felt something settle quietly in your chest.

There was nothing remarkable about the gesture anymore. That was what made it matter.

Over the past year, that hand had reached for yours so many times that you had stopped noticing most of them. It had found yours in hospital rooms when you woke up disoriented and hurting. It had found yours in therapy office parking lots when neither of you really wanted to talk about what had been discussed inside. It had found yours in the middle of nightmares, in crowded hallways, during difficult shifts, and in countless ordinary moments that would never make it into any dramatic retelling of your recovery.

When you thought back to everything that had happened—the surgeries, the panic attacks, the nightmares, the endless appointments, and the exhausting process of slowly rebuilding yourself from the inside out—one truth remained painfully clear.

You would not have survived any of it without Jack.

Not because he fixed it. Nobody could have done that. He hadn't magically erased the pain or made the recovery easier than it was. The nightmares still happened. The fear still existed. The damage had still been real.

What Jack had done was stay.

Every time recovery became ugly or frustrating or unbearably difficult, he stayed. Every time you pushed people away, convinced yourself you were fine, or became angry at your own limitations, he stayed. He sat beside hospital beds and physical therapy offices and bad days without ever demanding that you become easier to love.

Sometimes, during the quietest parts of overnight shifts, you still found yourself thinking about the version of yourself that had existed before all of this happened. The woman standing beside a wrecked car on an interstate in the pouring rain. The woman who ran toward emergencies without hesitation. The woman who believed understanding trauma and surviving trauma were basically the same thing.

You missed her sometimes.

More than you usually admitted.

There were days when you missed how uncomplicated she had been. How certain. How convinced of her own resilience.

But not as much as you expected to.

Because surviving had changed you. Not dramatically. The changes had happened quietly instead, carving themselves into habits and instincts before you ever noticed them. They lived in the way your body still stiffened slightly at raised voices, in the way Jack checked your breathing in his sleep without realizing he was doing it, and in the way both of you had learned that silence could mean comfort instead of distance.

There were still difficult moments. Violent patients occasionally made your pulse spike before your brain could remind you that you were safe. Cold Pittsburgh mornings sometimes left your shoulder aching where scar tissue still lingered. There were nights when Jack woke from dreams he never fully explained and reached for you before he was even awake enough to realize what he was doing.

But there were good days now too.

Real ones.

Days where laughter came easily again and the emergency department felt like home instead of a crime scene. Days where you caught yourself standing inside Trauma Two without remembering to be afraid first. Days where entire hours passed without thinking about the attack at all.

Healing had happened quietly. Not through dramatic breakthroughs or grand victories, but through ordinary moments accumulating so gradually that one day you looked back and realized your life belonged to you again.

And maybe that was why you loved Jack so much in the end.

It wasn't because he had saved you, although in a lot of ways he probably had. It wasn't even because he stayed when things became painful and complicated, though that mattered too. You loved him because he never once asked you to heal faster for his comfort. He never treated your recovery like an inconvenience or your fear like something that needed to be fixed. He simply sat beside you through every ugly part of it with the same stubborn steadiness, loving you exactly as you were while you figured out how to become yourself again.

One night near the end of your shift, long after life had started feeling normal again, the two of you found yourselves standing outside the hospital watching snow drift softly across the parking lot.

Jack stood close enough that his shoulder brushed yours through both of your jackets.

For a while, neither of you said anything.

The air smelled like snow and cold pavement, and you simply stood together watching flakes drift through the glow of the parking lot lights. It was an ordinary moment. So ordinary, in fact, that a year ago you probably wouldn't have remembered it.

Now it felt important.

Without looking away from the snowfall, Jack reached for your hand automatically. The gesture was so familiar that neither of you really thought about it anymore. You simply threaded your fingers through his and felt his grip tighten instinctively around yours.

Somewhere along the way, that had become home.

Standing there beneath fluorescent lights with your hand wrapped safely inside his, you found yourself thinking about everything that had happened over the past year. The attack had changed your life. It had left scars, taken things from you, and forced both of you to rebuild parts of yourselves you never expected to lose.

But it hadn't taken everything.

Because when the fear finally stopped feeling so sharp and the dust settled enough for you to see clearly again, one truth remained.

The worst thing that had ever happened to you had also shown you exactly who would stay when everything else fell apart.

And somehow, standing beside Jack in the falling snow, that knowledge felt stronger than the fear ever had.

“Of course we did,” you say, shaking your head. “We remembered the coffee maker but not paper towels.”

He winces slightly. “That’s on me.”

“No, it’s on us, baby,” you say. “This is a shared failure.”

He laughs softly, relief easing his shoulders. “I’ll be back in five minutes,” he promises, already reaching for his jacket. “Ten, max. I’ll just run downstairs.”

He hesitates before leaving, eyes lingering on you in a way that feels deliberate. Like he’s committing the image to memory, your hair pulled back messily, one of his old t-shirts hanging loose on you, surrounded by boxes labeled Kitchen and Bedroom and Our Stuff in his careful handwriting.

He steps closer, crouches down in front of you.

Before you can say anything, he leans in and presses a kiss to your forehead. It’s soft. Unhurried. The kind of kiss that doesn’t ask for anything, doesn’t rush toward the next moment. Just affection, given freely.

Like he has nowhere else he’d rather be.

“Don’t unpack anything suspicious without me,” he murmurs, lips brushing your skin.

You snort. “No promises.”

That earns you a grin—fond, hopelessly in love—and then he’s standing again, slipping on his jacket, glancing back one more time before opening the door.

The lock clicks behind him.

The apartment goes quiet.

Not empty, but peaceful. The kind of quiet that exists only when you’re building something with someone. When silence isn’t absence, but comfort.

You sit there for a moment longer than necessary, just taking it in. The light filtering through the windows. The way the space already feels shaped around him. Around you.

Then you turn back to unpacking.

Clark’s boxes are… exactly what you expect.

Neat. Carefully taped. Every one labeled in that slightly slanted handwriting you know so well. You open a box marked Kitchen and find everything wrapped meticulously, towels folded evenly, utensils bundled together with rubber bands.

You smile to yourself. Of course he did this.

The next box reads Books (Misc.).

That one draws your attention immediately.

You open it and begin lifting out familiar spines—journalism textbooks from college, thick hardcovers with cracked spines, novels he insists he only read once but you’ve caught him rereading late at night more times than you can count. There’s a battered paperback with a folded corner you recognize; he’s had that one since before you met.

Each book feels like a quiet reminder: I know you. I know this life.

Then your fingers brush against something that doesn’t feel like the others.

Smooth. Cool. Leather.

You pause.

Nestled between two hardcovers is a notebook. Dark blue. Leather-bound. The edges are worn, the spine softened like it’s been opened and closed many times. Cherished.

You lift it carefully, like it might be fragile.

Your brow furrows.

You’ve been dating Clark for a while now. Long enough to know his habits. His routines. Long enough to know he’s not the kind of man who leaves things unexplained—not intentionally, anyway.

And he doesn’t keep a diary.

You’ve never seen him write in anything like this. Never noticed a notebook tucked away. Never seen him carry it, never heard him mention it in passing. For someone who’s otherwise so transparent with you, this feels… different.

Private.

Your thumb rests against the edge of the cover.

A small voice in your head speaks up, gentle but firm.

This is private.

You hesitate, the weight of the notebook suddenly heavier in your hands. You imagine Clark’s careful way of holding things he values. The way he looks at you when he thinks you aren’t paying attention. The trust between you—earned, mutual, precious.

You should put it back.

But curiosity slips in—not sharp or invasive, just confused. Tender. The kind that comes from closeness, not entitlement.

Why has he never mentioned this?

You glance once toward the door, as if he might somehow already be back, watching.

Your fingers tremble slightly as you open the cover.

Just a peek, you tell yourself. Just the first page.

The paper inside is thick, slightly yellowed with age.

And then you see the handwriting.

Clark’s.

Careful. Earnest. Familiar.

Your breath catches in your throat as you read the first line.

For my wife, Y/N.

Your heart stutters so hard you actually have to put a hand to your chest.

For a second, you think you’ve misread it. That your eyes are playing tricks on you. You blink once. Twice.

The words don’t change.

Wife.

The room tilts, just slightly—not enough to knock you over, but enough to make everything feel unreal, like the ground has shifted beneath your feet. You sink back onto your heels, the notebook heavy in your hands, heavier than any box you’ve lifted all day.

Wife.

He hasn’t proposed.

You’ve talked about the future—carefully at first, like people do when they’re afraid to hope too much. Conversations that started with someday and maybe and eventually grew into when and we. You’ve talked about living together, about places you might want to travel, about growing old in ways that felt half-joking and half-serious.

But this?

This feels like peeking behind a curtain you weren’t meant to see yet. Like stepping into a moment that was supposed to belong to another day. Another version of you—dressed up, heart racing, standing across from him while he asks the question out loud.

Your hands tremble as you turn the page.

The paper whispers softly, like it knows it’s holding something sacred.

I’ve held this diary since the moment I met you in the Daily Planet lunchroom. November 30th, 2021. The day my world changed color, suddenly brighter, like a rainbow I didn’t know I’d been missing.

Your breath catches painfully in your throat.

November 30th, 2021.

You remember that day. The awful salad. The broken microwave. The sandwich he offered you like it was the most natural thing in the world. You remember thinking he was kind in a way that felt rare, disarming.

You didn’t know you’d changed his world.

Tears blur the ink almost immediately. You swipe at your eyes with the back of your hand, then stop—afraid of smudging the words, as if they might disappear if you’re not careful enough with them.

I’m giving you this on our wedding day. I don’t know what our lives will look like then, or how many ordinary, beautiful days will have passed between now and that moment, but I know this much with absolute certainty.

If one day, any day, you ever feel like I don’t love you, like I’ve grown distant or the world has tried to convince you otherwise, I want you to open these pages and see how completely, how endlessly, you are wrong.

Every word here is proof of how I fell in love with you and how I kept falling, again and again, without ever meaning to stop. I loved you then. I love you now. I will love you for the rest of my life.

Yours forever,

Kal-El

Your chest aches in the best, most devastating way.

It’s not the sharp kind of pain. It’s warm and overwhelming, like your heart has grown too big for your body. Like something is blooming inside you without asking permission.

Never stopped falling for you.

You press the notebook to your chest for a moment, breathing around the emotion, trying to steady yourself. The apartment feels impossibly quiet, like it’s holding its breath with you.

Then, slowly, reverently, you keep reading.

Every page is dated.

Every entry is a memory you recognize.

11/30/2021

I think I met the love of my life today.

I don’t know if that’s ridiculous. I don’t know if it’s too soon to even write that sentence. But if I don’t write it down, I’m afraid I’ll convince myself later that I imagined how it felt.

Daily Planet lunchroom. Same cracked tile floor. The microwave was broken again. Someone burned popcorn. Perry was arguing with someone down the hall. It was just… another day.

And then she was there.

She was sitting by herself at one of the small tables near the window, shoulders slightly hunched, staring at a salad like it had personally wronged her. She looked exhausted. Not just physically, like the world had asked too much of her lately. There was something about the way she sighed that made my chest tighten.

I don’t usually act on impulse. I think too much. I hesitate. I measure consequences.

But today I didn’t.

I walked over and held out half my sandwich before my brain could stop me. I didn’t even introduce myself first. Just said something awkward about how the salad looked like it needed backup.

She looked up at me, like really looked, and for half a second I thought I’d made a mistake.

Then she smiled.

Not polite. Not small. A real smile that reached her eyes. She laughed and said I was “brave but misguided,” and suddenly the noise of the room faded into nothing. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was like the air changed density. Like the world sharpened into focus around her.

We talked. About nothing important. About everything. She teased me gently. Asked questions that showed she was actually listening to the answers. When I told her my name, she repeated it like it mattered. When she told me her name, I repeated it because it did matter.

When she went back to work, I stood there for a second too long, holding the empty plate, feeling… undone.

My hands were shaking.

I’ve lifted mountains. I’ve stopped trains mid-crash. I’ve flown through storms without fear.

I have never, ever felt like this.

If this is love, then it’s quieter than I expected. Steadier. Like something ancient settling into place.

I don’t know what will happen next.

I just know I don’t want to forget how today felt.

12/14/2021

First date.

Coffee was supposed to be an hour. That’s what I told myself before I left my apartment. That’s what I told her when we sat down. I even checked the time at the start, like that would somehow keep things contained.

It didn’t.

It lasted almost four hours, and I didn’t notice the time passing until my cup had gone cold and the café started emptying around us. I don’t think either of us wanted to be the one to say it first, that it should probably end, like saying it out loud would break something fragile.

She talks with her hands when she’s excited. I noticed that almost immediately. Little movements at first, then bigger ones when she got passionate about a story. She smiles before she finishes her sentences, like she already knows how they’ll land. And when she listens, really listens, she tilts her head just slightly, eyes focused, like she’s saving every word somewhere important.

No one has ever listened to me like that before.

I found myself talking more than I usually do. About work. About Kansas. About things I don’t normally share. It felt natural, like my mouth was ahead of my caution for once. She never rushed me. Never looked bored. Every response made me want to tell her more.

When we finally left, neither of us wanted to go straight home, so we walked. No destination. Just side by side, letting the city unfold around us. The air was cold, and she tucked her hands into her coat sleeves. I kept noticing small things, the way she matched her pace to mine without realizing it, the way she pointed out things she liked as if she wanted me to see the world through her eyes.

The city felt different with her there. Smaller. Kinder. Like it was giving us space. Letting us borrow it for a while.

I kept thinking I should impress her. Say something clever. Something charming. Something worthy of the way she looked at me. But every time our eyes met, my chest felt too full for pretense. Every rehearsed line disappeared. All I could do was be honest.

And she seemed to like that.

I felt safe.

That word keeps circling back. Safe. Not because I’m strong, not because I could protect her if I had to, but because I didn’t feel like I had to be anything other than myself. I didn’t feel watched. Or measured. Or like I was hiding parts of who I am.

I walked her home and stopped outside her building. I told myself not to linger.

I lingered anyway.

When she said goodbye, smiled at me one last time, and turned toward the door, I felt it, physically, like something tugged inside my chest, like part of me wanted to follow her without question.

I stood there longer than necessary after she went inside, just breathing, memorizing the feeling.

I replayed her laugh the entire way home.

I still am.

01/22/2022

Dinner with her.

We went somewhere small tonight. Nothing fancy. One of those places that smells like oil and salt and warmth the moment you open the door. The kind where the tables wobble slightly and the menu hasn’t changed in years.

She ordered before me because she already knew what she wanted. I liked that. I ordered fries, intending to share them, but I didn’t say it out loud. I just assumed. That probably says something.

They came out hot, steam curling into the air between us. We talked while they cooled, about work, about something she’d read, about nothing important. I was halfway through a story when she reached over.

No asking. No hesitation. Just gently, like it was understood.

She took one fry, careful not to brush my hand, and went right back to listening like she hadn’t just done something quietly significant.

She didn’t even look guilty.

A few seconds later, she noticed me staring.

“What?” she asked, smiling around the bite.

The corner of her mouth curved up like she already knew the answer. I felt my face ache from smiling back before I even realized I was doing it.

Anyone else, I would’ve said something. Joked. Pretended to be annoyed.

Instead, I felt… calm.

Something settled into place inside me. Not a spark. Not a rush. Something steadier. Like my body recognized her before my mind caught up. Like some part of me had already decided: this is where you’re supposed to be.

I didn’t mind losing the fry.

I didn’t mind anything at all.

Oh.

This is it.

This is how it starts, not fireworks or drama or some grand moment you tell people about.

Just a shared table. Warm food. Easy silence.

Belonging.

03/05/2022

Fifth date.

I told her.

I knew I was going to tonight. I’d known all day, maybe longer. The thought sat in my chest like a weight—heavy, necessary. I kept telling myself that if this was going to be real, if she was going to be real to me, then she deserved the truth. All of it.

Still, my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

We were sitting close, closer than before. The lights were low. The city outside the window hummed softly, distant and unaware that my entire world was about to split open. I could hear my own heartbeat. I kept rehearsing the words in my head, terrified that if I didn’t say them perfectly, I’d lose her.

Superman. Krypton. The truth.

I’ve faced down enemies without fear. I’ve stood between the world and destruction without hesitation. But tonight, my palms were damp, my throat tight, my voice almost too small to trust.

I told her anyway.

I told her who I am. Where I come from. What I can do. What I can’t. I told her about the loneliness. About the responsibility. About how sometimes it feels like I’m made of glass despite being unbreakable.

I watched her face the entire time.

I was ready, so ready for her to pull away. To stiffen. To look at me like I was something dangerous or unknowable. I was ready for disbelief, fear, distance. Ready for the sound of my own heart breaking quietly while I pretended I understood.

She didn’t do any of that.

She didn’t interrupt. She didn’t stare at me like I was a spectacle. She didn’t flinch when I said the word Superman. She didn’t look for the door.

She listened.

The same way she always does. Head tilted slightly, eyes steady, hands folded together like this mattered. Like I mattered.

When I finished, the silence stretched. I could barely breathe. I felt exposed in a way I never have before. Like I’d peeled myself open and handed her everything unguarded.

Then she reached for me.

She took my hand—warm, grounding, real—and said, “Thank you for trusting me.”

That was it.

Not I need time. Not I’m scared. Not I don’t know what to say.

Just gratitude.

Trust meeting trust.

Something inside me broke open then. Something old and carefully guarded. I didn’t realize how much of myself I’d been holding back until that moment, how alone I’d been even when surrounded by people.

I don’t think she knows what that moment did to me.

I don’t think she knows she became my safe place tonight. That for the first time in my life, the truth didn’t feel like a burden, it felt like a bridge.

I fell in love with her again. Deeper than before. Permanently. In a way that doesn’t fade or loosen or ask permission.

If she ever doubts how much she means to me, I want her to remember this night.

I want me to remember it.

06/18/2022

She fell asleep on my shoulder.

We were supposed to watch the movie all the way through. She picked it. I remember that, she was excited about it, insisted it was better than I thought it would be. She curled up beside me like she always does, close enough that our arms touched, close enough that I could feel her warmth even before she leaned into me.

About halfway through, her head tipped just slightly toward my shoulder. I felt it before I saw it, the gentle weight of her settling, like she was testing whether it was okay.

I didn’t move.

A few minutes later, she tucked herself in properly, her head resting just under my chin, her hair brushing my jaw. Her breathing changed slowly, quietly, until it evened out into something soft and steady. The kind of breathing that only happens when someone feels completely safe.

I could feel everything. Every small shift of her weight. Every tiny exhale. The way her fingers twitched once, then relaxed, trusting I was there.

The movie kept playing. The plot resolved. The credits rolled.

I didn’t move.

Forty-two minutes passed. I know because I counted, not because I was bored, but because I wanted to remember how long I’d been allowed to hold this moment. My arm started to ache. My shoulder went numb.

I didn’t care.

I’ve stopped disasters. I’ve lifted impossible things. I’ve been praised for saving the world more times than I can count.

Tonight, the most important thing I did was stay perfectly still so she could rest.

I watched the rise and fall of her chest. I memorized the way she fit against me, like she had always been meant to. I thought—very quietly—that if this was all love ever asked of me, I would give it gladly.

I would do it forever if she asked.

And if she never did, I think I still would.

09/02/2022

Work.

Nothing remarkable was supposed to happen today.

Just another morning at the Planet. I was standing by my desk pretending to read an article when I felt it.

That gentle pull. That awareness.

I looked up without thinking.

She was across the newsroom, half-hidden behind a monitor, focused on her screen. And then—like she felt me looking—she glanced up.

Just a second. Maybe less.

Our eyes met.

She smiled.

Not big. Not obvious. Just enough. Just for me.

My heart did something ridiculous. The kind of thing I’d laugh at if it were anyone else. I felt it in my chest, in my hands, all the way down to my feet like I’d forgotten how gravity worked for a moment.

We didn’t speak. We didn’t wave. We didn’t need to.

It felt like a secret we were sharing in plain sight, something small and precious tucked between deadlines and coffee cups.

I looked back down at my desk, fully aware that my smile was impossible to hide.

I still get nervous when she looks at me like that.

I’ve faced impossible odds. I’ve stood against things that should have terrified me. But that quiet smile across the newsroom still makes my pulse stumble like I’m fifteen and hopelessly obvious about it.

She makes me feel young. Not careless, but alive. Like someone who’s still discovering what love can be, who hasn’t reached the end of the feeling yet.

Lois noticed. Of course she did. She smirked when she passed my desk. Jimmy noticed, he raised his eyebrows and whispered “cute.” Cat noticed. Steve noticed. I think Perry noticed too, though he pretended not to.

I don’t care.

They can notice all they want.

All I want—all I will ever want—is for her eyes to keep finding mine. In crowded rooms. In quiet mornings. Across every place life puts us.

For the rest of my life.

11/30/2022

One year.

I don’t think I really understood what today would feel like until it was already happening. I knew it mattered. I knew it was important. But I didn’t expect the weight of it, the way it would sit in my chest all evening, heavy and warm and almost too much to hold all at once.

A year.

That sounds so small when you say it out loud. Twelve months. Three hundred sixty-five ordinary days stacked gently on top of each other. Days that didn’t look remarkable from the outside. Days filled with work and quiet dinners and laughter over nothing.

But when I looked at her tonight, really looked at her, I felt the miracle of it.

The fact that she’s chosen me. Every day. For an entire year.

Not the idea of me. Not the parts that are easy or impressive. Me. The quiet mornings. The long nights. The truths she learned early and never turned away from.

She gave me her gift first.

She didn’t hand it to me right away. She asked me to sit down, her voice careful, almost shy. I noticed her hands shaking as she set it on the table between us, wrapped in brown paper, the edges taped too neatly. Like she’d redone it more than once. Like she’d worried about it.

“I need you to know,” she said quietly, eyes fixed on the package instead of me, “I tried my best.”

That alone made my chest tighten.

When I unwrapped it, I understood why she’d been nervous.

It was a painting.

Not small. Not casual. Not something done in an afternoon. This was time. Intention. Patience. The kind of work you only do when you’re willing to put your heart somewhere visible and vulnerable.

It was the farm.

My parents’ farm.

She’d painted it in late-afternoon light, the kind that turns everything golden and soft, the kind that always made me feel safe growing up. The house stood steady and familiar, the porch just right, the fields stretching out behind it the way they always do. Endless. Open. Like they belong to anyone who needs space to breathe.

And in the center—

All of us.

Ma and Pa. Me. And them.

My birth parents.

All of us standing together, arms around one another, no distance between us. No time separating what was lost from what was found. No planets. No years. No absence.

Just together.

Like it was always meant to be that way.

For a second, I couldn’t breathe.

She rushed to explain, words tumbling over each other as if she were afraid the silence meant she’d done something wrong.

She told me she used pictures to paint the farm I have hanging in my apartment since she hasn’t been there yet. Told me she watched the video again—the one that came with me when I was sent to Earth—paused it, rewound it, studied my birth parents’ faces so she wouldn’t get them wrong.

She told me she didn’t want to mess it up. That she just kept thinking—

Her voice softened then.

—that they’d want to see me happy. That my parents—all of them—belong together in my life. Even if it never looked like this in real life.

My hands were shaking when I held the frame.

She painted Ma’s smile exactly right. The gentleness in my Pa's eyes. That quiet pride he never needs to announce. And my birth parents—hopeful, loving, looking at me like I was everything.

She gave me something I didn’t even know how to ask for.

A world where nothing was lost.

I didn’t cry right away. I think I was too overwhelmed. I just stared, memorizing every brushstroke, every careful decision she’d made with love. Trying to understand how someone could see me so clearly.

“I didn’t know if it was okay,” she whispered. “But it felt important.”

I pulled her into my chest without thinking. I couldn’t help it. I needed to feel her there, solid and real.

It was the most understood I have ever felt in my life.

Then it was my turn.

I won’t pretend I didn’t agonize over her gift. I did. For weeks. I wanted it to be something beautiful. Something lasting. Something that carried meaning even if the words failed me.

Inside the small velvet box was a necklace.

Gold. Delicate. The chain thin and warm. And at its center, a butterfly—crafted so carefully it looked like it might lift off at any second if the light caught it just right.

She went very still when she saw it.

I remembered something she told me once—quietly, almost like she didn’t want to make it important. That butterflies were her mother’s favorite. That they reminded her of gentleness. Of transformation. Of staying, even after someone leaves.

I chose it because of that.

Because I wanted her to have something close to her heart. Something that carried love forward instead of marking loss. Something that said she is held—by memory, by love, by me.

It cost more than I usually allow myself to spend on anything. More than was practical. More than was reasonable.

But she’s worth it.

All of it.

She cried then.

Not loudly. Just leaned into me, clutching the necklace like it was something fragile and sacred. My hands weren’t steady when I fastened it around her neck. I don’t think I trusted myself to be.

It looked like it belonged there.

We didn’t say much after that.

We just sat together, her painting propped carefully against the wall, the butterfly warm against her skin, the quiet settling around us like a promise.

A year.

One year of choosing each other. Of learning each other. Of loving in ways that still surprise me.

I still can’t believe she’s with me.

I still wake up amazed that someone so thoughtful, so kind, so deeply human, has chosen to share her life with mine.

If this is what one year feels like, I want all the years.

Every single one.

With her.

02/11/2023

She had a bad day.

I knew the moment I saw her.

She tried to hide it, smiled when she walked in, asked how my day was—but her shoulders were too tight, her voice just a little too careful. I didn’t call it out right away. I’ve learned that sometimes she needs space to land before she can let go.

Later, when the apartment had gone quiet, she finally sat beside me on the couch and exhaled like she’d been holding her breath all day.

She didn’t want fixing. She didn’t want answers. She didn’t want me to make it better.

She just wanted someone to sit with her.

So I did.

I stayed exactly where I was. Close enough that our knees touched. Close enough that she could lean if she wanted to—but I didn’t pull her in until she chose it herself. When she finally rested her head against my shoulder, it felt like permission.

I wrapped an arm around her slowly, carefully, like she was something precious.

We didn’t talk much. A few quiet words. Long stretches of silence. I could feel the tension leaving her shoulders little by little, like she was setting something heavy down piece by piece. Like she trusted me to hold the weight with her, even if I couldn’t take it away.

I watched her breathe. I watched her relax.

I wished—again—that she could see herself the way I do.

Strong, even when she’s tired. Kind, even when the world hasn’t been. Brilliant in ways she never gives herself credit for. Braver than she knows, simply for showing up every day and trying.

She thinks strength looks loud. Unbreakable.

But this—this quiet endurance, this softness she allows only with me—this is the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.

Loving her feels like standing in sunlight. Not blinding. Not overwhelming. Just steady and warm and certain. Like something you can build a life in.

I finally understand what “home” means.

It isn’t a place.

It’s this moment, her leaning into me, the world quiet for a while, knowing I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

With her.

07/29/2023

She met my parents today.

I’ve been nervous about a lot of things in my life. I’ve faced fear head-on more times than I can count. But today, today my stomach was in knots in a way that surprised me.

I brought her home.

Not just to Kansas. Not just to the farm.

Home.

I didn’t warn her much beforehand. Maybe I should have. I only said that my parents would love her, and that was true—but it didn’t feel like enough. I don’t think I realized until today how much it mattered to me that they see her the way I do.

She wore something simple. Comfortable. Herself. She was polite without being stiff, warm without trying too hard. When Ma hugged her, I watched her melt into it like she’d been waiting for that kind of welcome without knowing it.

Ma loved her instantly. I could tell by the way she touched her arm when she laughed, by how quickly she started asking questions—not the polite kind, but the ones you ask when you want to know someone. Pa watched quietly at first, like he always does, measuring more than he speaks.

Then she offered to help in the kitchen.

She didn’t have to. She just did. Like she belonged there.

I stood in the doorway for a while, pretending not to watch as she laughed with Ma, as flour dusted her hands, as she listened to stories about me growing up with the same attention she always gives me. I saw something in Pa's expression then. Something soft, approving, settled.

At dinner, she asked them about their lives. Their history. She listened when Pa talked about the land. She thanked Pa for the meal like it meant something to her.

When Pa finally said, “We’re glad you’re here,” I felt something loosen in my chest that I didn’t know I’d been holding.

Later, when she stepped outside with me and the cicadas filled the evening air, she slipped her hand into mine like it was second nature. Like she’d always known how to find me.

I realized then that this wasn’t just me bringing her into my world.

She was already part of it.

If there ever comes a day when she doubts—when the world feels loud or unkind or she wonders where she belongs—I want her to remember this. The way my mother smiled at her like she was already family. The way my father looked at her like she was someone worth trusting with what matters most.

I don’t know when I’ll say it out loud.

But today made something very clear to me.

She isn’t just someone I love.

She’s someone I’m building a life with.

Every single day.

10/26/2023

Tonight reminded me why I survive.

I came home barely holding myself together.

I don’t usually let it get that bad. I tell myself I won’t, that I’ll pull back sooner, that I’ll know my limits. But tonight I misjudged things. Strength. Timing. My own belief that I can always take one more hit if it means someone else doesn’t have to.

By the time I made it back to my apartment, my ribs felt like glass. Every breath was shallow and sharp, like my lungs were cutting against something broken inside me. My shoulder burned, deep, angry pain that wouldn’t quiet no matter how I shifted my weight. I could feel blood drying along my side, stiffening my suit, pulling at my skin every time I moved.

I didn’t knock.

I couldn’t risk standing upright long enough to do it.

I just leaned against the doorframe for a second, forehead pressed to the cool wood, wondering how much she’d see the moment I stepped inside. Wondering if I could make it to the couch without worrying her too much. Wondering—selfishly—if I could keep this from being one of the nights that lives in her fear.

She heard me anyway.

She always does.

The door opened before I could decide anything, and there she was.

Not panicked. Not shouting my name. Not frozen in shock.

Just there.

Her eyes found me instantly, sharp and assessing, taking everything in at once—the blood, the way I was favoring my right side, the way my shoulders were held too stiff, like they were bracing against pain I didn’t want to admit to yet.

I could hear her heart.

It was racing. Fast. Uneven. Terrified.

And still—her voice was calm.

“Hey,” she said softly, like she wasn’t looking at someone who’d barely made it home. Like she wasn’t scared out of her mind. “Come sit down. Slowly. I’ve got you.”

Those words, 'I’ve got you', did something to me. I felt my knees weaken the moment she said them, like my body finally believed it was allowed to stop fighting.

She moved with such care. Every step deliberate. Every touch gentle and precise, like she was handling something precious instead of broken. She didn’t rush me. Didn’t bombard me with questions or try to assess everything at once.

She knew (somehow) that her calm was the thing keeping me upright.

That her fear, however loud it was inside her, wasn’t what would help me heal.

I watched her swallow it down for me.

I watched her steady her hands before she touched me, watched her breathe slowly on purpose, watched her make herself quiet so I could finally exhale.

She helped me sit, eased my weight down inch by inch, murmuring small reassurances the whole time. Nothing dramatic. Nothing heroic. Just constant presence. Proof that I wasn’t alone in the room with the pain.

When she cleaned the blood from my hands, she did it like she’d done it a hundred times. Cloth warm, pressure careful, movements practiced. But I could hear her heart the entire time, still racing, still afraid.

It never slowed.

And still, she stayed steady.

She talked while she worked—not about what happened, not about what could have gone wrong. Just small things. The grocery list. Something funny she’d read earlier. The way the neighbor’s dog barked all afternoon.

Grounding sounds. Anchors.

I realized then how much effort it must take. How much strength it takes to choose calm when fear is screaming in your chest. How brave you have to be to love someone like me and still soften your hands when they come home hurt.

That’s when it hit me. Again.

Anyone can love the invincible part of me. The symbol. The strength. The idea of safety.

But she loves the part of me that limps home at midnight, trying not to bleed on the floor. The part of me that miscalculates. The part of me that hurts. The part of me that needs someone else to be strong for a moment.

She didn’t ask me to be Superman tonight.

She let me just be Clark.

The way she held me—careful, unafraid, unwavering—did something to me. It settled somewhere deep and permanent, like a truth clicking into place.

I fell in love with her again tonight.

Not loudly. Not all at once.

Just deeper.

And I don’t think there’s an end to how far that goes.

04/10/2025

We talked about moving in together.

It wasn’t supposed to be a big conversation.

We were sitting on the couch, legs tangled, the TV on low in the background. I don’t even remember what we were watching. She said it casually, almost offhand—something about how much time we already spend together, how it might just make sense.

My heart immediately started racing.

I tried to play it cool. I nodded. I said something reasonable. I even managed to keep my voice steady for a few seconds.

I failed.

I felt my smile give me away before I could stop it. I felt the warmth spread through my chest, that light, buoyant feeling that only she gives me. I don’t think I realized how much I’d been hoping for this until she said it out loud.

We talked about logistics—closets, commutes, who has the better couch—but underneath it all was something quieter and deeper. Certainty. Not excitement that burns out fast, but the kind that settles in and stays.

Ever since that conversation, my mind hasn’t stopped wandering.

I keep imagining mornings.

Her hair messy, sleep still clinging to her voice when she says my name. Sunlight spilling through the window, dust floating in the air like it’s been waiting just for us. The sound of her moving around the kitchen while I pretend not to watch, the comfort of knowing that no matter how the day unfolds, we’ll come back to each other at night.

I imagine shared spaces—books mixing on shelves, her things slowly finding their way into every corner. Little arguments about nothing. Quiet routines that become sacred simply because they’re ours.

I’ve already imagined a ring.

Not just the ring itself, but the way her eyes will widen when she realizes what I’m asking. The way her hands will shake just a little when I take hers. The way saying her name followed by my wife will feel like the most natural truth I’ve ever known.

I don’t know when I’ll ask.

I want it to be right. I want it to feel like us—honest, unhurried, full of love.

But I do know this: the answer has lived in me for a long time. Longer than I realized. Since the day I offered her half my sandwich in a noisy lunchroom and felt my world shift in a way I couldn’t name yet.

Everything since then has just been catching up.

If love is choosing someone every day, then I’ve already made my choice.

I’m just finally ready to say it out loud.

11/11/2025

Lois asked me today why I haven’t proposed yet.

She didn’t mean it unkindly. Lois rarely does, even when she pretends otherwise. We were finishing up a story, the newsroom mostly empty, and she leaned back in her chair, studied me for a long moment, then said it like it was obvious.

“So,” she said, “are you ever going to put a ring on her finger, or are you just going to keep pretending she’s not wildly out of your league?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

Because she’s right.

I know she is.

I’ve always known.

Lois kept going, softer this time. “You love her. Anyone with eyes can see that. So what are you waiting for? You scared?”

I thought about that long after she turned back to her screen.

Am I scared?

Yes. But not in the way she meant.

I’m not waiting because I’m unsure. I’m not hesitating because I don’t know what I want. I don’t wake up questioning whether she’s the one. That answer has lived in me for years now, steady and unmovable.

I’m waiting because I’ve never been this sure before in my life.

Everything else I’ve ever faced—every fight, every impossible choice—has always come with certainty baked in. I knew what had to be done. I knew I could endure it. I knew the risk.

This is different.

This isn’t about survival. It’s about forever.

I want it to be right. I want it to feel like us—unrushed, honest, full of intention. I don’t want to trip over my own eagerness and risk losing something this precious by moving too fast, by letting the moment feel careless instead of considered.

She deserves a proposal that feels like a promise kept, not a step taken too quickly.

I want the timing to be gentle. The kind that says I chose you every day before this, and I will every day after.

I know she’s out of my league.

She always has been.

But she chose me anyway. She keeps choosing me. And that still humbles me more than I know how to say.

So no Lois, I’m not waiting because I’m afraid to commit.

I’m waiting because this is the most important question I will ever ask.

And when I ask it, I want my hands steady, my heart open, and the certainty she’s given me reflected back to her without doubt or hesitation.

I already know the answer.

I’m just making sure the moment honors how much she means to me.

Always.

Your tears fall freely now, blurring the words, splashing onto the pages of a love story written quietly, faithfully, just for you. You don’t try to stop them. There’s no point. This is what it feels like to be seen so completely it almost hurts.

The notebook trembles in your hands.

Then—

The soft jingle of keys at the door.

You gasp, sharp and startled, like you’ve been caught somewhere you weren’t supposed to be. Your head snaps up, heart slamming against your ribs. Panic flares—not guilt exactly, but something close enough to make your chest tighten. You scrub hastily at your cheeks with the heel of your hand, trying to erase the evidence, trying to breathe like your world hasn’t just quietly, irrevocably shifted.

The door opens.

Clark steps inside, paper towels tucked under his arm, jacket half-unzipped, hair slightly mussed from the breeze outside. He looks relaxed—content in that soft, domestic way he’s been wearing all day.

Happy.

Then his eyes find you.

Sitting on the floor. Diary open in your hands. Eyes red. Face flushed.

He freezes.

Not just still—suspended. Like time has paused mid-breath.

“…Hey,” he says carefully, voice gentle but alert, like he’s approaching something fragile. “What’s wrong?”

Your throat tightens painfully.

You push yourself to your feet slowly, the movement unsteady, like gravity has changed without warning. You clutch the notebook to your chest instinctively, fingers curling into the leather as if it might vanish if you don’t hold on tight enough.

“I—” Your voice breaks immediately. You swallow, try again. “I’m so sorry.”

That stops him.

He blinks, confusion flickering across his face. “Sorry?”

“I didn’t mean to,” you say quickly, the words tumbling out now that they’ve started. “I was unpacking and I found it and I didn’t know what it was and I shouldn’t have opened it, I know that, I just—” You shake your head, tears spilling again. “I’m really sorry, Clark. I never wanted to invade your privacy.”

For a heartbeat, he just looks at you.

Then realization dawns.

You watch it ripple across his face: the widening of his eyes, the sharp inhale, the way his shoulders tense as understanding crashes in. Horror. Embarrassment. Tender, helpless panic.

“Oh,” he breathes. “Oh—Y/N, I—”

The paper towels slip from his arm as he sets the bag down too fast, hands fumbling like his body can’t quite keep up with his thoughts. “No—hey, no, you didn’t do anything wrong. I swear, I wasn’t hiding it from you. I just—I wanted it to be for later. For the right moment.”

His voice falters, vulnerability bare on his face. “I was waiting. I didn’t want to rush it. I wanted everything to be… right.”

You shake your head, tears blurring your vision. “I know. I know. I just—reading it felt like stepping into something I wasn’t meant to see yet.”

His expression softens instantly.

Before either of you can say anything else, you cross the space between you in three quick steps and throw your arms around him.

Clark stiffens in surprise for half a second—pure reflex—before he melts into you completely. His arms wrap around you strong and sure, one hand pressing gently between your shoulder blades, the other cradling the back of your head like he’s afraid to let go.

He holds you like you’re something precious. Like you’re fragile. Like you’re endlessly, irrevocably loved.

You bury your face in his chest, breathing him in—home, warmth, safety—and your voice shakes when you speak.

“It’s the most beautiful thing anyone has ever written about me,” you whisper. “About us.”

He exhales, long and unsteady, like he’s been holding that breath for years. His forehead rests against yours, eyes closing briefly as if to steady himself. When he pulls back just enough to look at you, his eyes are glossy, shining with emotion he isn’t trying to hide.

“You weren’t supposed to read it yet,” he murmurs softly, thumb brushing beneath your eye, wiping away a tear with reverent care. “I was waiting for the right moment to propose. After we settled in. After this felt like home.”

Your breath catches.

“But,” he continues quietly, a small, almost bashful smile tugging at his mouth, “everything in there is true. Every word. I’ve loved you since the moment you smiled at me over a sad microwave lunch.”

A wet laugh slips out of you despite everything. “You really wrote it all down.”

He nods, almost shy now. “I wanted proof,” he admits. “For you. For forever. In case the world ever got loud. In case you ever doubted how sure I am.”

You lift your hands to his face, cradling him the way he always cradles you, thumbs brushing his cheeks. Your heart feels too full, like it might burst if you don’t say this out loud.

“I don’t need proof,” you say softly. “But I’m really glad I have it.”

He smiles then.

Wide. Radiant. Hopelessly, undeniably in love.

And in that moment—standing barefoot in a half-unpacked apartment, surrounded by boxes and cardboard and the life you’re still building—you know.

Even without a ring. Without a question asked out loud.

You know.

You’re already home.

The cemetery had emptied hours ago. The mourners had gone home, the flowers left behind had begun to wilt beneath the downpour, and even the groundskeepers had disappeared. Only Clark remained, standing motionless before the grave as though if he stared at it long enough reality might finally lose its nerve and take everything back.

Your name was carved neatly into polished granite, and somehow that was the thing he hated most. Not the rain. Not the silence. Not even the crushing emptiness sitting in his chest. It was the fact that an entire life could be reduced to something so small. A name. Two dates. A line of text. Clark's eyes traced the letters over and over until they blurred together, and still he couldn't look away. The stone didn't tell people who you were.

It didn't tell them about the way you laughed when something genuinely surprised you, throwing your head back without caring who was watching. It didn't tell them about the way you stole food from his plate and then acted offended when he caught you. It didn't tell them about the way you always reached for him in your sleep, your hand searching for his even when you weren't awake enough to realize it. It didn't tell them about the future you'd spent years building together. The children whose names you'd argued about. The places you still wanted to visit. The tiny apartment you'd once shared before moving somewhere bigger. The old age you were supposed to reach. The wrinkles you were supposed to earn. None of it existed here. Everything that had made you you had been reduced to carved stone and cold earth.

A strangled breath escaped him. "You were supposed to grow old."

The words vanished into the rain almost immediately, but Clark kept staring at the headstone anyway. His own voice had sounded unfamiliar. Thin. Fragile. Like it belonged to somebody else.

"You were supposed to keep making fun of my cooking." A weak smile appeared despite himself, because you always complained about his cooking. Even when you liked it. Especially when you liked it. He could practically hear your voice now, teasing him about burning breakfast again, insisting that Ma was still the superior cook. The memory arrived with such clarity that it physically hurt.

That was the part nobody warned you about. People talked about grief as though it was sadness. As though it was crying and funerals and learning how to move on. Nobody talked about the violence of remembering. Nobody talked about how a perfectly ordinary memory could suddenly drive the air from your lungs. One second, you were standing still. The next you were remembering the exact sound of someone's laugh and wondering how it was possible for the world to continue turning when that laugh no longer existed inside it.

God, he missed you.

He missed you in ordinary moments. He missed turning around and expecting to find you there. He missed hearing his phone vibrate and hoping it was you. He missed having someone to tell about his day. He missed your toothbrush beside his. Your shoes near the door. The way you stole the blankets every night and denied it every morning.

Most of all, he missed being known. That was what nobody understood. People loved Superman. They loved symbols and legends and larger-than-life heroes. But you had never loved Superman. You had loved Clark. The awkward farm boy from Kansas who still called his mother when life became overwhelming. The man who burned pancakes because he got distracted. The man who worried too much, cared too much, and carried every failure like a stone in his chest.

You had known every imperfect part of him and somehow loved him anyway. And now the only person who had ever looked at all of him and chosen to stay was gone.

Clark squeezed his eyes shut. For a moment he could almost hear your voice. It was so vivid that his heart lurched painfully against his ribs. Some foolish part of him wanted to turn around, wanted to believe you'd be standing there behind him with that familiar smile, telling him he was being dramatic and that standing in the rain wasn't going to solve anything.

But reality returned quickly. It always did. Cruel and silent and completely indifferent to his grief. The worst part wasn't even that you were gone. The worst part was discovering that the world didn't care. Cars still drove down busy streets. Children still laughed in playgrounds. People still argued about meaningless things. Tomorrow the sun would rise exactly as it always had. The Earth would continue spinning. The city would wake up and move forward. The universe had lost the best thing Clark Kent had ever known, and somehow it kept going.

A hand settled gently on his shoulder.

Clark didn't have to turn around; he recognized Lois immediately.

She stood beside him beneath an umbrella, her eyes red-rimmed and exhausted. For several moments, she said nothing. She simply looked at the grave alongside him, and Clark found himself grateful for the silence. There was nothing either of them could say that would make this easier. Lois missed you, too.

Everyone did.

That had always been the problem with you. Loving you had been effortless. You had moved through people's lives, leaving pieces of yourself behind without even realizing it. Clark had watched strangers warm to you within minutes, watched friends seek you out whenever they needed comfort, watched entire rooms brighten whenever you walked into them. You made people feel seen. Important. Loved. And now every one of those people had to learn how to exist without you.

"Clark."

He didn't answer. His eyes remained fixed on the stone, on your name, on the unbearable proof that none of this was a nightmare.

"You need to stop doing this to yourself."

Still, he said nothing.

The rain continued to fall around them, drumming softly against Lois's umbrella while soaking through his clothes. He barely felt it anymore. The cold wasn't a problem for Superman. It should have bothered Clark Kent. It didn't. Nothing seemed capable of reaching him through the numbness that had settled over everything since the day he'd lost you.

Eventually Lois sighed. "You couldn't have saved her."

A bitter laugh escaped him before he could stop it. The sound was ugly. Broken.

"I save people every day."

His voice was barely above a whisper.

"I hear them, Lois. I hear people screaming from the other side of the world. I hear heartbeats through concrete. I hear accidents before they happen."

His gaze dropped to his hands. The same hands people trusted. The same hands that had pulled survivors from burning buildings and caught falling planes from the sky.

"So explain to me why I couldn't save the one heartbeat that mattered most."

Lois looked away immediately, and Clark hated himself for the relief that brought him. If she couldn't look at him, it meant she didn't have an answer. If she didn't have an answer, then maybe there simply wasn't one. Maybe there wasn't some mistake he'd missed. Maybe there wasn't a moment he could replay differently. Maybe there wasn't a version of events where he got to keep you.

The thought should have comforted him. Instead it made everything worse. Because if there was no answer, then there was nothing left to fix, nothing left to fight, nothing left but grief.

"I would've traded all of it," he said quietly. "The powers. The cape. The symbol. Every bit of it."

Rain dripped from his hair as he stared at your name carved into stone.

"I would've given it all away if it meant she stayed."

And he meant it. Every word. The world worshipped Superman. Entire cities slept easier because they believed he was out there watching over them. Children wore his symbol on their shirts. People looked at him and saw hope. Clark would've surrendered all of it without hesitation. Every ounce of strength. Every impossible ability. Every gift Krypton had given him. None of it had ever mattered as much as you.

The silence that followed stretched painfully between them.

Finally Lois spoke. "She wouldn't want you blaming yourself."

Clark shut his eyes.

"Don't."

"Clark..."

"Don't tell me what she would've wanted."

The words came out harsher than he intended. The instant they left his mouth, regret followed. Lois didn't deserve that. She was grieving too. He knew that.

But the truth was that nobody knew what you would've wanted anymore.

You weren't here to tell them.

That was the part he couldn't survive.

Not the funeral.

Not the grave.

The finality.

The realization that every conversation between the two of you had already happened. Every joke had already been told. Every argument had already ended. Every kiss, every embrace, every quiet evening spent together had come and gone without either of you realizing they were finite things. There would never be another one. Everything left between you would remain unfinished forever.

"She's not here anymore."

His voice broke completely.

For the first time since the funeral began, Clark looked exactly what he was. Not Superman. Not the strongest man in the world. Just a grieving man standing in the rain, staring at the grave of the woman he loved and realizing that all the strength in the universe couldn't change what was written on the stone in front of him.

Lois stood beside him for another moment, the steady rhythm of rain striking her umbrella filling the silence between them. Clark knew she wanted to say something else. He could hear it in the way she shifted her weight, in the hesitant breath she drew before letting it go again. She was searching for the right words, searching for something that might ease the grief carved into him. But there was nothing left to say. No combination of words could undo what had happened. No reassurance could make tomorrow easier. Tomorrow would still arrive without you in it, and the thought alone made his stomach twist.

After a while, Lois squeezed his shoulder gently. "You should go home."

Clark let out a quiet laugh that sounded more like a wounded exhale.

Home.

The word felt cruel now.

Home wasn't home anymore. It was your blanket draped over the couch because you were always cold. It was the mug with the tiny crack in the handle that he'd been trying to convince you to throw away for months. It was the half-finished novel still sitting on your nightstand with a bookmark tucked between pages you would never reach. Your jacket still hung by the front door. Your shampoo still sat in the shower. Little notes written in your handwriting still clung to the refrigerator. Every room contained evidence that you had existed, and every room reminded him that you didn't anymore.

He hadn't been able to sleep there since you died. The house felt wrong. Too quiet. Too still. As though it were waiting for you to walk through the front door at any moment. Sometimes he caught himself listening for your footsteps. Sometimes he found himself looking up whenever he heard a sound, expecting to see you rounding the corner with that familiar smile. Every single time reality returned, and every single time it hurt just as much.

"You need rest," Lois said softly.

Clark stared at the headstone.

At your name.

At the dates beneath it.

An entire life reduced to a few carved numbers.

How could he rest?

Every time he closed his eyes, he was back in the hospital. Back in that room. Back in that awful stretch of time where every second felt like an hour. He remembered the doctors' faces before they even spoke. Remembered the way the silence changed. Hope had disappeared before a single word was said, and some part of him had known it. There had been a version of Clark Kent that existed before that moment, a version that still believed everything would somehow be okay. That version was gone now. Buried alongside you.

When he didn't answer, Lois sighed quietly. "Okay."

Her voice cracked around the word.

"Call me if you need me."

Clark nodded once, not because he intended to, but because he couldn't bear to make her worry any more than she already did. Lois lingered for a few seconds longer before finally turning away. He listened to her footsteps grow fainter and fainter until they disappeared completely. Eventually even the sound of the umbrella vanished, leaving only the rain and the unbearable silence that followed.

Clark remained standing long after she was gone. Then, with a weariness that seemed to reach into his bones, he slowly lowered himself to the ground. The mud soaked through his clothes immediately. He didn't care. The earth was cold beneath him, damp and unforgiving, but none of it mattered. What was a little discomfort compared to this?

He shifted closer to the grave until he was lying beside it, resting his head against the wet grass. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend. Just for a second. Just long enough to imagine that you weren't really gone. His hand reached toward the headstone, fingertips brushing across the engraved letters of your name. He traced them slowly, carefully, memorizing the shape of every letter despite already knowing them by heart.

The ache inside him had become constant now. Not sharp enough to make him cry anymore. Not sudden enough to catch him by surprise. It was simply there, lodged somewhere deep inside his chest, woven so thoroughly into him that he no longer remembered what it felt like to exist without it. Grief wasn't something visiting him anymore. It wasn't a storm that arrived and passed. It lived here now. It woke up with him every morning and followed him to sleep every night. It sat beside him when he ate, when he worked, when he tried and failed to imagine a future that didn't hurt.

"I can't sleep without you."

The confession escaped before he could stop it.

A sad smile tugged weakly at his lips as he stared at your name carved into the stone.

"Of course you already know that."

You always fell asleep first. Usually halfway through a conversation. Your words would grow slower and softer until eventually they disappeared altogether, leaving him to smile at whatever unfinished thought you'd been trying to share. Yet even then, you always reached for him. Sometimes without waking up. Your hand would search blindly across the mattress until it found his, and the moment it did, your entire body relaxed. Like some small part of you needed that reassurance before you could truly rest.

Clark squeezed his eyes shut.

God, he missed that.

Not the grand moments people always talked about after someone died. Not the anniversaries or holidays or photographs. He missed the ordinary things. Holding your hand while watching television. Feeling your weight settle against his side when you were tired. Listening to your sleepy rambling at two in the morning when neither of you could fall asleep. The tiny, forgettable moments that had once seemed so insignificant now felt priceless. They had become the things he missed most because they were the things he could never get back.

"I never told you this," he whispered. "But sometimes I'd stay awake after you fell asleep."

A tear slipped from beneath his lashes.

"I'd just watch you."

His throat tightened painfully.

"Because I couldn't believe you were real."

The admission hurt more than he expected.

Clark had spent most of his life feeling separate from everyone around him. Different. Isolated. Like he was standing just outside a world he could see but never fully belong to. He had spent years pretending the loneliness didn't bother him. Then you had walked into his life and somehow made everything feel simple. Easy. Like belonging wasn't something he had to earn anymore. For the first time in his life, he had a place where he didn't have to be Superman. He didn't have to be a symbol. He didn't have to be anything except himself.

"You made everything quiet."

A broken laugh escaped him.

Not the world.

The world was never quiet for Clark. He heard everything. Every siren. Every cry for help. Every heartbeat. Every accident unfolding somewhere beyond the horizon. The noise never stopped. It never had.

But you had quieted something inside him.

The loneliness that had followed him since childhood.

The fear of never truly belonging.

The endless pressure of carrying the world on his shoulders.

You made it bearable.

You made him feel human.

His hand pressed harder against the wet earth, as though somehow being closer to you might lessen the ache. It didn't. Nothing ever did.

And now you were gone.

The realization struck with the same brutal force every single time. It didn't matter how often he thought it. It never became easier. It never became smaller. It remained enormous and impossible and world-ending.

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

His voice cracked completely.

"I don't know how to wake up tomorrow. I don't know how to walk back into our house. I don't know how to keep being Clark without you."

Silence answered him.

The rain continued to fall.

The world continued to turn.

And you remained heartbreakingly absent from both.

For the first time in his life, Clark felt truly powerless. Not because he couldn't stop an asteroid or lift a collapsing building or save a city. Those things had never frightened him. This did. Because there wasn't an enemy to fight. There wasn't a disaster to prevent. There wasn't a problem to solve.

There was only loss.

And for all his strength, for all the impossible things he could do, there wasn't a force in the universe powerful enough to bring back the person he loved.

Clark curled slightly against the grave, as close to you as he could possibly get, and closed his eyes. For just a moment, he allowed himself to want something impossible. Not world peace. Not an end to suffering. Not another miracle to save humanity.

Just you.

Only you.

Clark woke with a gasp so violent it felt like his lungs had forgotten how to work.

For several terrifying seconds, he couldn't breathe. His heart pounded wildly against his ribs, each beat painful and frantic, and the dream clung to him with such horrifying clarity that he couldn't immediately tell where it ended and reality began. He could still feel the rain soaking through his clothes. Still see your name carved into polished granite. Still remember the awful helplessness of lying beside your grave, knowing there was nothing left to save, nothing left to fight for, nothing left except learning how to survive without you.

The grief had felt real.

Not the strange, distant kind of sadness dreams usually carried. It had felt real enough to break him.

Clark sat frozen for a moment, staring into the darkness as panic climbed his throat. Then his eyes focused on the room around him. White walls. Dim overhead lights. Medical equipment humming softly in the background. The familiar shape of a hospital room slowly emerged from the haze of sleep, and relief hit him so suddenly it almost made him dizzy.

His head snapped toward the bed.

There you were.

Exactly where you'd been before he fell asleep.

Surrounded by machines and monitors, an oxygen tube resting beneath your nose, your body almost swallowed by white blankets, but there. Not buried. Not gone. Not reduced to a name on a stone.

There.

Clark felt something inside him crack.

A breath escaped him, shaky and uneven, and before he fully realized what he was doing, he was already on his feet. The chair scraped softly against the floor as he crossed the room in a matter of seconds. His hands were trembling when he reached for yours.

Warm.

Your hand was warm.

Such a simple thing. Such an ordinary thing. Yet after the nightmare he'd just had, it felt miraculous.

Clark wrapped both of his hands around yours and lowered his head. A strangled sound escaped him, halfway between a laugh and a sob, and suddenly he was fighting tears all over again.

"Oh God."

His forehead rested against your knuckles.

"Oh God, you scared me."

The words sounded pathetic the moment they left his mouth. Selfish, too. You were the one lying unconscious in a hospital bed. You were the one fighting through whatever darkness had taken you away from him. Yet he couldn't stop the tears from coming.

Because for a few horrible moments, he'd believed he had already lost you.

He had stood at your grave. He had spoken to a stone bearing your name and imagined a future stretched out endlessly before him, a future where every morning began without you and every night ended in an empty bed. But the part that still made his chest ache wasn't the grief itself. It was the realization that life would continue afterward. The city would still wake up every morning. People would still go to work. Children would still laugh in parks. Somewhere, someone would still need Superman. The world wouldn't stop simply because yours had ended, and somehow Clark would be expected to keep moving through it as though surviving such a loss was possible.

Another tear slipped down his cheek.

"I don't want to know what my life looks like without you."

The confession lingered in the quiet hospital room. The only response came from the monitor beside your bed, its steady rhythm filling the silence between them. It should have been an ordinary sound, the kind people stopped noticing after a while, but Clark found himself listening to every single beep. Each one felt precious. Reassuring. Proof that you were still here. Still fighting. Still holding on.

His thumb brushed softly across your hand before he carefully tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. The gesture was so familiar it made his throat tighten. He'd done it hundreds of times before while you were reading on the couch, while you laughed at something he didn't understand, while you dozed off during movie nights with your head resting against his shoulder. For a moment he simply looked at you, really looked at you, trying to memorize every detail as though he hadn't already done so a thousand times before. The curve of your face. The slow rise and fall of your breathing. The warmth of your skin beneath his fingertips. Some frightened part of him worried that if he looked away for too long, the nightmare would return and steal all of it from him.

"I dreamed about you."

His voice was barely audible.

"I can't even tell you what happened."

He swallowed hard and looked away briefly.

"Because if I say it out loud, it feels like I'm daring the universe to make it real."

A humorless smile flickered across his face before disappearing just as quickly. Clark leaned forward and pressed a kiss against your cheek, lingering there for a moment longer than necessary. When he finally pulled back, his hand remained cupping the side of your face.

He thought about everything he had survived in his life. The battles. The invasions. The disasters. Every impossible thing the world had ever thrown at him. None of them had frightened him like this. Not because they threatened him, but because none of them had ever threatened you.

"Out of all the dreams I've ever had about you," he whispered, his voice trembling despite his best efforts, "I hope this one never comes true."

The room fell quiet again.

He pulled his chair closer and intertwined his fingers with yours before settling beside the bed. He never let go. Not once.

For the rest of the night, Clark remained awake, watching over you. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the grave again. The rain. Your name carved into stone. A future without you.

And that was what terrified him most.

Not that he could imagine losing you.

That he could imagine surviving it.

The dream had shown him exactly what that future looked like: waking up every morning with grief sitting permanently in his chest and carrying it for the rest of his life. As Clark sat beside your hospital bed with your hand held tightly in his own, he found himself praying for the first time in a long while, asking for only one thing.

Please.

Don't make me learn how to live without her.