#chapter 46

His hand moved without thinking, fingers drifting idly up and down her arm, tracing the soft rise and fall. She hummed, low in her throat, nuzzling closer. The sound loosened something in him, something he hadn’t realized had been locked away all this time.

For a moment, he thought he might still be dreaming. But then she stirred, rolling onto her side until her cheek pressed against his shoulder. Her hair tickled his collarbone, her voice a soft murmur against his skin.

“You’re awake.”

Lando smiled faintly. “Barely.” His voice was low, gravelly with sleep. “You should be asleep too.”

“I couldn’t,” she admitted, and he felt her lips curve into a small smile. “You were hogging the blanket.”

“Me? Never,” he teased, tugging the sheet higher over her shoulder.

It was so ordinary, so achingly simple, that he thought he might cry from the sheer relief of it. He’d never imagined he’d ever get to see her look at him with anything other than betrayal in those eyes ever again. 

Yet here she was – Y/N curled against him, hair loose, her breath soft against his bare chest. One of her hands rested lightly on his stomach, her fingers curled there like she’d forgotten she was touching him at all. He didn’t move, didn’t dare — only traced lazy patterns down her arm, over the smooth skin, memorizing her as if she’d vanish if he blinked too long.

“Tickles,” she mumbled airily, shifting closer, her body always seeking the warmth of his.

“Sorry,” Lando murmured back, mouth quirked smugly and most definitely not sorry at all. His nose grazed against hers as he brought his mouth just close enough to her ear for her to be able to feel the warmth of his breaths. He breathed her in – coffee and parchment  and that faint sweetness he could never name. “Go back to sleep.”

But she shook her head faintly, her words muffled against his chest. “Not tired anymore.”

Then, she lifted her head just enough to look at him, her cheek creasing against the pillow, her eyes hazy and soft. It was the kind of look that made him forget he’d ever been anyone other than hers.

The two of them allowed themselves to lay in silence for a while longer, her fingers tracing idle shapes against his chest, his hand drifting up and down the length of her arm, following the slope of her shoulder, the curve of her elbow. He hummed low in his throat, content just to feel her under his touch.

“You’re quiet,” she said eventually, tilting her head up to look at him, brown eyes meeting hazel ones.

Looking away, he swallowed, forcing his voice steady before setting his gaze just over the curve of her shoulder. Something about telling the truth made him feel too exposed to look her in the eye as he said it.

He never had been good at feelings.

 “Just thinking how much I missed this.”

Her smile softened, her expression brightening like those words alone had been enough to warm something in her. “Me too.”

Something in his chest loosened. He kissed the top of her head, let his hand trail lower, over the flat of her stomach, the dip of her waist, until his palm curved around her side. He traced lazy circles there, his fingertips brushing over her ribs. His thumb brushed across the space just under her breast, stroking gently, his mind quiet for once. She sighed like she could sleep here forever.

And then—

He froze.

Because there should have been something there. A scar, raised, rough. 

Instead, his hand smoothed over unbroken skin.

Perfect. Untouched.

He flinched back before he could stop himself.

She tilted her head up to him, blinking drowsily, confusion knitting her brows. “What’s wrong?” she asked softly, the question carrying all the sincerity and gentleness he remembered — the kind of softness that could only exist in dreams.

Her voice was so soft, so painfully sincere, it broke something in him.

He couldn’t answer. He opened his mouth, but his breath caught. 

And that’s when the flashes hit him.

Her body on the café floor.Blood soaking through her shirt. The gurgle in her throat as she tried to breathe. His hands pressing down, desperate, frantic.The way her eyes had dimmed as he screamed her name.

The room around them seemed to waver.

Lando pulled his hand back like he’d been burned, heart pounding. His mouth opened once again — to tell her, to admit it, to say you died, I lost you, I can’t lose you again.

“What is it?” she asked worriedly, blinking up at him. Her voice was warm, sincere, almost unbearably so.

He shook his head too quickly. “Nothing.”

“Lando?” she called out, gently, like the name wasn’t foreign, like it was hers to use all along.

The sound of it made his stomach drop.

She’d never called him that. Sure, she knew now – but he’d never heard that name from her lips with anything other than disdain spilling from her mouth. Never had he heard it with such familiarity, such reverence, such softness that he didn’t deserve.

But she was smiling, so sure, so soft, like she couldn’t imagine ever saying anything else.

He wanted to believe it, wanted to ignore the wrongness pressing in at the edges of his perception. Lando wanted so badly to sink into the illusion of her skin smooth under his hand, her voice steady, her eyes still looking at him like he was still worth something.

And for a moment, he let himself. He opened his mouth to say something – to reassure her, to brush it off – but before he could speak, the shrill ring of his phone split through the air.

Instantly, the view before his eyes disintegrated, his eyes snapping open to darkness. 

His bed was empty. His sheets were cold.

To his side, his phone vibrated against the nightstand, its screen lighting the room in brief pulses.

He jolted upright. The bed was empty, the beams of sunlight gone. His chest heaved, his unruly curls damp with sweat. The room before him now was his, but colder, darker. 

And just like that, she was gone again.

The phone kept ringing.

Lando blinked against the dark, still trying to catch his breath, the last scraps of the dream clinging to him like cobwebs. He scrubbed his hand down his face, blinked against the bleariness of sleep and the weight of the dream still clinging to him. His chest was tight, heart jackhammering. Grabbed the phone off the nightstand, Lando didn’t even look at the caller ID before answering.

“Yeah? What is it?” His voice was raw, still hoarse from sleep. 

There was no preamble. Just Logan’s voice, quiet but tight, like he’d every word was a careful step further on already-thin ice.

“Boss, she… it’s gotten worse.”

“What d’you mean worse?” His voice was too calm, too flat, the edge of something dangerous.

“The docto said something about how her lung collapsed again. They had to rush her back into the ICU. She’s not, uh, stabilizing like she should. The doctor says—” Logan’s words faltered, tripping over themselves. “It’s just– I just think you should be here.”

The rest of what he meant to say echoed in the silence anyway.

Just in case.

The phone went hot against Lando’s ear. Lando sat upright, the sheets tangled around his waist. His stomach hollowed out, his chest crushing in on itself..

“No. No, no, no—” He shook his head like the denial alone could undo it. “I should’ve—fuck. I knew it wasn’t right.” His voice broke. “I should’ve been there. I should’ve—”

This was why.

This was exactly fucking why.

He’d told Carlos he wasn’t going to leave. He knew it wasn’t right. He knew the second he let her out of his sight something would happen. 

I should’ve been there. I should’ve been there.

But Carlos had forced his hand. “You look like shit, mate,” the man had tried to tell him. “You cannot keep living in that hospital chair, ay? You are not eating. You are not sleeping. If you are already like this, what good are you to her?”

So they’d dragged him out. His men had personally ensured that Max drove him back to his house, his bed, where the sheets were too clean and too empty. For the first time in weeks, he wasn’t by her side.

This was why he hadn’t wanted to leave. This was why his chest had ached the second he stepped foot out of her hospital room. He knew.

“Where?” Lando demanded, already on his feet, pulling on yesterday’s clothes that still smelled like antiseptic.

“ICU, second wing. I’m here. Just—hurry.”

He hung up before Logan could say another word.

The silence that followed was unbearable. In a blur of motions, he hastily pulled on the first pair of shoes he could find, his phone clutched in his hand like a lifeline. His reflection in the mirror by the door caught him mid-motion, and for a moment he almost didn’t recognize himself.

The person looking back at him was thinner than he remembered, jaw sharper, eyes sunken, rimmed dark. That version of him looked like he hadn’t eaten properly in days – weeks, maybe. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept more than an hour at a time.

Where there was once fury in his gaze, an ember of fire that kept him moving, there was nothing now. Just a hollow space where rage had burned itself out. Truth be told, he looked nothing like the man who ran a city. 

Weeks spent in that hospital chair had left him bare, exposed. 

He hadn’t left her side in weeks – not until last night. He’d lived in that hospital room, breathing her breaths, pacing to the rhythm of her monitors, ignoring the world outside. Max Fewtrell had been covering his business, stepping into meetings, snapping at the Circle to stay in line. Even his enemies had started to circle, smelling blood in the water. Monte Carlo could sense the shift.

They always did.

But Lando didn’t care. None of it mattered.All that mattered was that she had gotten worse, and he hadn’t been there.

Couldn’ even do that right.

The man grabbed his keys, his phone, his gun out of habit. He didn’t even notice the tremor in his hands until he dropped the keys twice trying to lock the door behind him. Lando pressed his forehead to the doorframe for half a second, his breath ragged, smacking the wood out of frustration before he finally succeeded in getting the lock to click into place..

Then the next moment, he was gone, sprinting for the car, his chest hollowed out by the one thought he couldn’t stop repeating:

He should’ve been there.

The ICU doors swung open with a hiss, cold fluorescent light spilling over the tile. Lando stalked inside like a storm barely contained, eyes wild, hair still damp with sweat from how fast he’d driven here. He didn’t even feel his legs moving—just the force of something propelling him forward, faster, harder, until he nearly crashed into the wall outside her room.

Logan was the first to meet him, expression uncharacteristically solemn, shoulders drawn in like he’d been bracing himself for impact.

“I didn’t want to wake you—” Logan started, voice low, cautious. “But then they were talking about how we should be prepared, so then I–”

The words hit like a match to gasoline.

Prepared?

Prepared for her to—

No.

“Prepared?” Lando spat, the syllables burning his throat. His head snapped toward Carlos, who was standing a few paces back, arms folded. Lando didn’t even have to say it — Carlos was thinking it too. Carlos had been the one to drag him out. Carlos had told him to go home. Carlos had insisted.

The rage came like a flood. It lit through him so fast his chest burned, his hands clenched so tight his nails bit his palms. There was Carlos, standing just behind Logan, looking at the ground like he was carrying the guilt of it all on his shoulders.

In his mind, that expression of guilt was confirmation enough.

Lando lunged.

In an instant, his hands were in Carlos’s shirt, shoving him back against the wall with a violence that had nothing to do with strategy, nothing to do with control. It was raw, frothing, animal.

“This is on you!” Lando roared, spit flying, voice cracking with fury. “I told you—I told you I couldn’t leave her! But no, you had to play the rational one, didn’t you? You had to drag me away, and now look what’s happened!”

“Lando—” Carlos gritted, looking genuinely apologetic, but it didn’t matter.

“The fuck did you make me leave for, huh?” His voice was ragged, breaking, furious. “You told me she’d be fine, that I should sleep, that it was under control—” His hands slammed into Carlos’ chest, shoving him back so hard it rattled the wall. “Well, she’s dying, Carlos! She’s—” His throat gave out, words shredding apart as his teeth bared, animal-like. For a moment, his expressions flickered between rage and pure devastation, before settling into fury once again.

He shoved harder, shaking with the effort, his words breaking apart like glass in his throat. “I should’ve been here. I should’ve been here—”

Carlos didn’t answer. He just stood there, taking it, letting Lando pour every ounce of rage and heartbreak into the force of his grip. The Spaniard didn’t even lift his hands. He took it, jaw tight, his own eyes wet knowing the weight of the mistake he might've made tonight.

But Lando wasn’t done. He shoved his friend again, fists curled like he’d put them through bone if he had to. “If she dies,  I’ll never forgive you. It’s on you. Do you hear me? On you!”

“Boss—” Logan’s arms came around him, iron-strong, pulling Lando back before he could do any real damage. “Enough! Lando, enough.”

But Lando fought against him like a rabid thing, straining, snarling, trying to claw his way forward. His grief had no place to go, so it burned out of him as rage, teeth bared, every breath a curse against the fact that he’d let himself be pulled away from her for even a second.

“Stop it! Stop!” Logan’s voice cracked like a whip, straining with the effort of keeping him contained. Lando thrashed, his rage blistering into something unrecognizable — pain made violent, fear given teeth.

Logan grunted, holding him tight against his chest. “Stop— it’s not him. This isn’t on Carlos. You know it’s not.”

“You think I can just be prepared?” Lando bellowed, twisting in Logan’s hold, his face wet and furious. “You think I can just accept this? She’s everything—everything—and you want me to be prepared?”

Logan’s grip only tightened, but his voice softened, like he knew exactly what was sitting under all that fury. “You’re just scared, mate. That’s all it is. Don’t take it out on him. It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

But Lando didn’t hear it. He couldn’t. His breathing was jagged, his vision hot, his throat closing in on itself. He was a man unhinged, a man gutted, a man staring down the possibility of losing the only thing tethering him to this life.

Prepared?

No.

Not for this.

Never for this.

The room hummed with its regular whirring of machines when he stepped inside. 

For weeks, that sound had been his constant companion — the beeping monitors, the low whoosh of the ventilator — but somehow, tonight, it sounded different. It sounded heavier, like each note carried a countdown.

Lando stopped just inside the doorway, his throat closing around the sight of her. He thought he’d prepared himself, thought he’d braced for this. But nothing could have.

Oh, Angel. Look at you.

She wasn’t herself — not the girl who used to greet him at her door with tired but stubbornly bright eyes, not the woman who used to laugh against his shoulder while scolding him for stealing sips of her tea. She looked like someone who’d been stripped down to the last thread of her body’s will to keep going. Her skin — once warm, flushed from laughing too hard or from leaning too close to the café’s ovens — was waxen, pallor where warmth used to be. The bruises along her arms told their own story — weeks of needles, of fluids, of machines trying to do the job her body couldn’t. Her lips, cracked and ashen, parted around each shallow wheeze, every one a battle.

Y/N lay still beneath the thin hospital sheets, a ghost of herself. The flush of life he remembered so vividly — was gone, replaced by a pallor that made her look carved out of marble. 

He’d thought he was prepared for this. He wasn’t.

This isn’t her. This isn’t her.

But it was.

“Christ,” he whispered, the word catching in his throat. He moved closer, each step leaden, like gravity was trying to keep him away. But he couldn’t stop himself. He had to see her, had to memorize every inch of this version of her — because what if it was the last?

His feet moved before his brain caught up, dragging him to the chair at her bedside, where he sat heavily, elbows braced on his knees, staring at the ghost of the girl who used to curl into him like she belonged there.

For a long while, he said nothing – just listened, counting each breath like it might be the last. He bent forward, pressing his forehead into the side of her bed like a man at an altar.

Then his hand was reaching for hers — instinct, compulsion. He took it carefully, almost afraid to touch her, careful not to disturb the wires. 

Cold. Too cold. 

His thumb rubbed over her knuckles like he could coax the warmth back.

“Why are you so cold, sweetheart?” he mumbled, asking as if she could actually answer him. His larger, warmer hands cocooned hers, trying desperately to coax some warmth back into her.

He remembered how she used to tuck her hand into his in the mornings, fingers curling like she meant to keep him there forever. Now she couldn’t even hold him back.

“Hey, Angel,” he greeted softly, trying to muster a smile, his words already trembling at the edges. “I don’t even know if you can hear me right now. But I need you to, alright? Just… listen to me, yeah?”

When no answer came, his vision blurred. He blinked hard.

“You know, I used to think I could survive anything,” he began. “Didn’t matter what it was. I thought—I thought I was untouchable. But then you walked in and made me realize m’not. That I’m nothing without you.”

When he finally lifted his head, his eyes burned, but he forced himself to look at her, to really look. Her lashes lay against her cheeks, unmoving. Her chest rose and fell with effort. And all he could think was—this is my fault. All of it. Every bruise, every scar, every ragged breath. Mine.

“Y’know what’s mad?” he laughed quietly, trying for levity but failing. “I used to think I had time. Thought I had time to make it right, to tell you everything I couldn’t before. And now m’sitting here n’ all I can think about is how fucking stupid I’ve been. Every day I thought I had… I wasted it. I wasted them lying to you”

Hastily, he wiped away the stray tear that had managed to fall, like it was unexpected, merely a nuisance. His hand immediately found hers again, unable to stay apart.

“I thought– I thought, maybe if I kept it hidden, I could keep you safe, y'know? But all I’ve done is drag you into the fire with me. And I’d give anything— anything, to take it back. To give you back your smile, your warmth.”

To give you back everything I stole from you, he thought to himself.

With his thumb, he traced over the outline of her fingers absentmindedly, his eyes downcast. His throat burned, the words raw, dragged from somewhere he’d locked them away. 

“I don’t know how to love. I don’t. But I tried with you. God, I tried. And I think—if you never wake up, you’ll never know that.”

The words spilled out of him then, low and raw, like they’d been waiting years to crawl free. “I’m sorry, okay? M’so fucking sorry. For all of it. For lying, for dragging you into my world, for being too selfish to let you go when I should’ve. You deserved better. You deserve better. And I don’t—” His voice faltered, swallowed by the sound of her fragile breathing. “I don’t know who I am without you. I don’t want to know.”

His thumb traced the line of her knuckles, as if he could memorize them, etch them into himself.

“You think I’m this– this bad guy. And.. I am. But with you…” He swallowed hard, forcing the words past his own disbelief. “With you, I wanted to be something else. Someone who could make you laugh in the morning, who could keep you warm at night. Someone who could give you forever.” His jaw clenched, eyes burning. “I wanted forever.”

The machine beeped steadily, indifferent to his confession. His voice broke again, lower now, harsher. 

“So wake the fuck up. Because if you don’t, I’ll never forgive you. And you’ll never forgive me.”

His head shook, small, helpless. “Hell, I don’ even care if you never forgive me. I don’t care if you hate me for– for the rest of your life. Just– Just give me that life, yeah? I’ll take it. I’ll take it even if I’m on the outside of it. Just as long as you’re still here.”

His free hand brushed a loose lock of her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. He smiled at her, even though he knew in his heart that even if she did wake up, there was a chance she'd never want to see him again.

“If you go… if you leave me here… I don’t know who I’ll be. I don’t know if I can—” He cut himself off, swallowing the sob threatening to break him apart. “You can’t leave me. You—you can’t. I know I don’t deserve to ask this of you, but please. Please don’t leave me. Don’t– Don’t leave me here alone.”

Not you. Not you. Not you too.

His hand tightened around hers, desperate for any sign, any twitch, anything to tell him she was still fighting.

His voice softened, a whisper echoing into the vast empty of the room. 

“I love you.” 

It came out ragged, broken. 

“I love you more than I’ve loved anything in my whole  life. And if you go—” His voice cracked so sharply he had to stop, pressing his forehead down against their joined hands. “If you go, I won’t come back from it. I know myself too well. That– That’ll be it for me.”

The machines went on beeping. She went on breathing, shallow and uneven.

He sat there, trembling, waiting for her to prove him wrong.

At some point, exhaustion won. His head sank down onto the edge of the mattress, still clutching her hand like a lifeline. He drifted to the uneven rhythm of her breathing — shallow, rattling pulls of air that never sounded like enough. Each inhale set his teeth on edge, each exhale made him fear it would be the last. But he clung to it anyway, because it was all he had left of her.

He must’ve slipped under without realizing, lulled into half-sleep by the machines.

When he woke, it wasn’t to quiet. 

It was to chaos.

The beeping had turned shrill, flat, then violent — alarms piercing through the fog in his head. The kind of sound that made his heart seize before his body even caught up.

“No, no, no—” His voice cracked as he shot up, stumbling back just as the door flew open. Nurses rushed in like a tidal wave, pushing carts, pulling gloves on, barking orders that blurred together.

Her monitors screamed. Her body arched under compressions.

“Sir, we are sorry, but you cannot be here right now.”

Hands were on him, shoving, dragging him away from the bed. They could’ve been Verstappen’s, maybe Carlos’s, he couldn’t tell. Whoever it was, he fought them at first, snarling, thrashing like an animal because no, no, not now, not her—

“Y/N! Y/N!”

Someone shoved him back against the wall, out of the way, but he fought it. “What’s happening? What the fuck is happening—” His voice broke with panic, raw and furious and terrified. “Do something! Save her!”

A doctor snapped something about a code blue, another called for epi, for a crash cart. He couldn’t hear them over the thunder of his own pulse. He heard words he couldn’t process. 

Epinephrine ready.Get the paddles. Charging to two hundred.Pulseless. 

Lando slammed his fist against the wall, his voice raw, shattering. “No! No, she’s not—she’s not gone, don’t you fucking dare!”

The monitor screamed. The oxygen hissed. Someone counted, one, two, three—clear! and her body jolted under the defibrillator.

Lando’s breath came in sharp, uneven gasps, like his own chest might cave in. He felt Carlos’s hand on his shoulder, Logan somewhere nearby, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t hearing them. He wasn’t seeing anything except the glimpse of her pale face between frantic nurses and the mechanical violence of a body being forced to stay alive. 

His hands shook violently, palms pressed flat against the cold glass. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, could only watch.

“Please—” It was a whisper this time, a plea. He couldn’t tell if it was to her or to God or to no one at all. “Please don’t do this.”

Not again. Not again.

Her vitals had already crashed once. He’d lived that hell, watched her nearly vanish in front of him. But a second time in forty-eight hours—he didn’t know if she had anything left in her to keep fighting.

And he didn’t know if he did either.

The sounds blurred together: the barked orders, the beeping monitors, the violent hiss of machines trying to coax life back into a body that didn’t seem to want it anymore. Lando stood frozen in the doorway, every muscle coiled like a spring, watching them fight for her the way he wished he could.

Then, finally, “Got her. We’ve got her back.”

Lando’s chest cracked open with a ragged inhale. Relief slammed into him, quick and brutal. But it wasn’t enough. Because the monitor didn’t smooth into anything steady; it stumbled, faltered, dipped dangerously low before flickering weakly back up. Her pulse was there, yes, but thready — so faint it looked like it could vanish with a strong gust of wind.

He forced himself to breathe, to believe. 

She’s still here. She’s still here.

But it wasn’t the miracle he wanted it to be.

Her chest rose in shallow, mechanical drags, each one sounding like it hurt. Her vitals ticked by in fragile, unsteady numbers, never climbing, never stabilizing. The doctor closest to her muttered something under his breath as he adjusted the ventilator. “She’s doing her best. But it’s… it’s barely enough.”

Barely enough.

Lando pressed the heel of his hand against his mouth, as if he could physically shove the words back in. His vision swam, but he didn’t blink, couldn’t blink. She was there. She was there. But she looked like she was suffering for it, like every faint flutter of her heart came at too high a cost.

He wanted to be grateful. He wanted to fall on his knees and thank the universe for giving him even one more second with her. But watching her chest rise and fall with the mechanical push of the ventilator, watching her body jerk under the strain of staying alive, it didn’t feel like mercy. It felt like cruelty.

“Her vitals aren’t stabilizing,” another doctor said, urgency cutting into the air. “We’ve bought her time, but…” He trailed off, and that silence said more than any prognosis ever could.

Lando’s hands shook violently at his sides. 

Time. That was all they’d bought. Minutes, maybe hours, strung together with wires and tubes. 

A fragile illusion of survival.

He wanted to scream – to break every piece of equipment in the room, to pull her out of that bed and carry her somewhere the world couldn’t touch her anymore. But all he could do was stand there, hollow, staring at the woman who had once felt like his only chance at something good, now hanging on by threads that were fraying faster than anyone could tie them back together.

He could see it in the way her chest heaved, in the way her brow furrowed faintly even under sedation. It was hurting her, and still she fought. 

For the first time, the thought crept in, cruel and undeniable:

What if the kindest thing was to stop asking her to fight?

They let him back in eventually.

When he stepped back into the room, the world shrank down again — to the hiss of machines, to the fragile rise and fall of her chest, to the pale shadow of the girl who had once been light itself.

After the endless blur of alarms, orders shouted down the hall, and white coats moving too fast to keep up with, the room fell into a quieter kind of violence — the machines doing the work her body couldn’t, every beep a reminder of how close it all was to stopping again.

A doctor touched his shoulder on the way out. He didn’t even look at their face. He didn’t want to see pity.

“She’s stable… for now,” he said carefully. The words tasted like platitudes before they were even finished. “You should be prepared for whatever happens next. Sometimes patients can hear, even when they seem unconscious. Talking to her might help.” 

A pause. 

“Just… try to spend as much time with her as you can.”

Prepared. Talk to her. Spend time with her. 

They all said the same thing when what they meant was say goodbye.

But when he sat back down at her bedside, the anger bled out of him, leaving only the hollow ache of a man out of options. He sank into the chair at her bedside, dragging it closer until his knees pressed against the mattress. He took her hand in both of his, clinging to it like it was the only tether keeping him alive.

For a long time, he just stared. Memorizing again, cataloging the details of what this fight had taken from her — the hollowness under her eyes, the bruises mapping her veins, the way every breath seemed to rattle through her like it was too heavy for her to bear.

“Love, I… I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted. His thumb traced lightly over her fingers. “You’ve been fighting so hard. I can see it. And I’ve been sitting here begging you not to stop, begging you to stay. But…” His voice broke, and he pressed his lips to her knuckles, holding them there until he could manage to speak again.

His chest shook, ragged with the effort of saying it. “I don’t want to live in a world without you. God, I don’t. But I’d rather you finally get to rest, than– than to be in pain because I can’t let go.”

His throat closed around the rest, but he forced it out.

“I never got to tell you when I fell in love with you.”

The silence made it sound insane, telling her this now, when she couldn’t really even hear him – not properly, at least. 

But he had to say it. He had to leave her with the truth.

“It wasn’t one moment. Not really. S’more like hundreds of them. The way you always tied your apron twice because once wasn’t good enough. You remembering how I like my coffee, even before I realized it myself. Fuck, I didn’t even like coffee until I met you.”

His breath shook, his vision blurring all over again. “But the first time I knew? It was that night you fell asleep on me. Do you remember that? You’d been up for three days studying, and you kept insisting you’d get through another chapter, and then you were just—gone. Head on my shoulder, drooling on my jacket. And it was the most peace I’d ever felt in my entire life. And I thought—fuck, if this is what forever feels like, then I’d be lucky to have it with her.”

He bowed his head, pressing her hand against his lips. “That was it. That was the moment. And I’ve been yours ever since.”

He squeezed her hand, trembling. The monitors ticked on, indifferent. Her breaths rattled against the air they forced into her.

“I was so stupid to think I’d have forever.”

His head bowed, pressing his lips to her fingers, his voice breaking into her skin. “I don’t want to let you go. I swear to god, I don’t. Letting you go will fuckin’ kill me. But if this is too much— if this hurts too much…” he trailed off.

He swallowed, conjuring whatever strength he had left before he could say his next words.His chest heaved.

“If you need to go… if you’re too tired to fight anymore…” His voice shook, broke, reformed. “It’s okay. You’ve given me more than I ever deserved. You’ve given me enough.”

His next words nearly tore him in half.

“You don’t have to fight anymore. It’s okay.”

He stayed there, his words dissolving into her stillness, knowing that love was sometimes the cruelest mercy: telling the person you needed most that they were free to leave you. He rested his forehead against her arm, tears slipping freely now, dampening her skin.

“Let go, if you have to. I’ll love you still. Always.”

The machines hummed. She breathed, shallow and weak. And he sat there, hollowed out, waiting for her choice.

It took Max physically dragging him down the corridor to make him leave. Lando fought it the whole way, muttering curses, gripping doorframes, anything to keep from being pulled out of that room. But Max’s words finally cut through — “You’re no good to her dead. Eat something, for fuck’s sake. M’standing right here, yeah? She’ll be fine.”

The words felt like deja vu.

This time however, Fewtrell himself made it a point to stand at the door of her room, standing on alert like a guard. When Lando even thought of even going back inside, his friend shot him a sharp glare.

“Five minutes,” Max reminded him, his intentions warmer than his words. “World’s not gonna fall apart while you grab a bloody protein bar, you muppet.”

So here he was, stood in front of the vending machine far too long, staring at the options like he’d forgotten what food even was. His hands hovered over the buttons uselessly.

Peanut butter bar? 

No. He remembered the way Y/N used to wrinkle her nose and complain about the smell clinging to him after. 

Chocolate? 

She’d scoff, say there was only one kind worth eating, and it wasn’t this American knockoff. It had to be Kinder, always Kinder.

So, no to that too.

Eventually, he pressed the button for a sandwich instead.

The machine clattered and spat it out with a mechanical thud. Lando bent, picked it up, sat down heavily on one of the awful plastic chairs that dug into his back. He unwrapped it, the cold clingfilm crinkling loud in the silence, and stared at the sad excuse of bread and cheese and tomato slices.

The bread was stiff, the filling already cold-sweating under the plastic. He lifted one half and automatically slid the tomatoes out.

He froze, staring down at them in his hand.

He actually liked tomatoes. 

But somewhere along the way, he’d stopped eating them. Because she’d wrinkle her nose and say, God, who actually likes tomatoes? And she’d steal a bite of his food, always, without fail, and it was easier to just take them out than let her taste them by accident.

The realization hit his chest like a fist. It was sharp and stupid and so fucking tender it split him in half. His throat closed, and suddenly Lando Norris was laughing — not the good kind, but the broken, choking kind that cracked open into tears before he could stop them. Head bowed, shoulders shaking, he laughed and cried at the same time, a miserable echo in the empty hall.

It was pathetic. It was ridiculous. But it was the only sound his body could make.

All this, and he was still hers. Even down to his goddamn eating habits, apparently.

Now here he was, in a silent hallway with a shit sandwich in his hand, plucking out tomatoes she’d never see.

He took that first bite — small, pathetic, tasteless — chewing like his body had forgotten how food was meant to work. It caught in his throat, but he swallowed it down anyway. 

Lando had to force himself to take the next bite — barely managing to chew, his stomach recoiling — when the sudden rush of footsteps made him look up. The sound startled him upright. He blinked through wet lashes, sandwich still in his hands, heart already hammering before he even knew why.

Carlos was the first to reach him, breathless, Logan right behind him.

When he spoke, Lando’s world tilted.

“She’s awake.”

a/n: sorry if this isn't good, i roughly edited it bc i was way to excited to get this out, but hopefully it's not too bad...?

as for the plot...