#they all have loss and trauma that they need to move on from and needs they need to acknowledge and AH.

[avengxrz]

what the sky didn't say ; robert "bob" floyd [part 2]

pairing: robert "bob" floyd

word count: 20.3k words (omg)

summary: you were sent to the other side of the world, reassigned to a year-long black zone deployment with no contact, no guarantees, and no promises of return. you left behind your squad, your skies, and the boy who held your heart without ever having to say a word. but how do you hold onto something you can’t reach? how do you stay grounded when the world keeps pulling you further away? and when the silence stretches too long—will there still be someone listening on the other end?

warnings: angst, emotional hurt/comfort, near-death experiences, memory loss (brief), hallucinations, mentions of injury and trauma, isolation, long-distance tension, slow burn, found family vibes, happy tears, mild language, bittersweet themes, eventual comfort and healing, soft boy bob floyd being your anchor in a storm.

note: i honestly didn’t expect anyone to ask for a part two — this was supposed to be a one-shot and then suddenly y’all appeared in my inbox with feelings and chaos, so here we are. thank you for screaming with me, crying with me, and letting me write blitz’s story all the way through. you have no idea how much it means.

part one

masterlist

your call sign in blitz.

It was strange, the way your body kept forgetting he wasn’t there.

The first week on base at Kadena felt like a fever dream. Long days, longer briefings, a new rhythm you couldn’t quite fall into. You moved through it all like muscle memory gone wrong — reaching for things that weren’t there, waiting for voices that would never crackle through your comms. The humidity clung to everything, from your flight suit to your eyelashes, but even the oppressive heat couldn’t chase away the cold you felt at night. A kind of emptiness that started at the sternum and worked its way out.

You kept turning your head like you expected someone at your shoulder. Someone with a calm voice and steady hands. Someone who had always been there, in one way or another — through drills, through downtime, through every quiet moment when you didn’t even know you needed him. Bob Floyd had been your constant, your tether, your lighthouse when the skies got rough. But here? On the other side of the world? There was no tether. Just static.

It wasn’t just the distance that hurt. It was the silence.

Because this mission — Operation Sable Crest — was sealed tight. Classified. No phone calls. No letters. No coded emails. No harmless check-ins. Nothing. Not even a voice over a scrambled line to remind you that the world you came from was still there. That he was still there. You had signed papers. You had nodded at risks. You had sworn yourself to silence. But you hadn’t realized until now that the real danger wasn’t death — it was the forgetting.

Forgetting the way he leaned in when he talked to you. Forgetting the sound of your name in his mouth. Forgetting how it felt to sit beside him on the tarmac, shoulders brushing, warmth lingering long after you both stood. That was the part no one warned you about — the cruel way memory starts to blur when it has nothing left to hold on to.

The squad here wasn’t Dagger. They didn’t know the inside jokes. They didn’t tease you like brothers or challenge you like Phoenix did when she was trying not to cry. They weren’t family. They were professional, efficient, and impossibly distant — soldiers, not squadmates. You answered to new names, sat at new tables, flew with new shadows behind you. Every moment felt like a test you hadn’t studied for, and no one was going to grade on a curve.

But the worst was the night.

The nights were too still, too quiet, too full of ghosts. You used to fall asleep with his hand brushing yours on the couch, or his laugh still ringing in your ears from some dumb story Fanboy told. Now, the only sound in your quarters was the buzz of the overhead fan and the soft crackle of a base radio three rooms down. You woke up more than once thinking you'd heard his voice, and every time it wasn’t real, it cut a little deeper.

You stopped wearing the hoodie he gave you after a week. It smelled like home. And that just made everything worse.

You didn’t cry. Not because you didn’t want to. But because the second you let it out, it would all become real. Final. You weren’t ready for that yet. You weren’t ready for this mission to become your whole identity — not when you’d just barely learned what it felt like to be his.

And you were. His.

You just couldn’t tell anyone. Especially not him.

By the second month, it became painfully clear: the captain wasn’t Maverick.

He didn’t smirk at you from behind his sunglasses after a long flight. He didn’t tell stories with too much detail and not enough truth. He didn’t challenge you like he wanted to see you fall — just to see if you’d rise again. No, this captain — Captain Elias Ward — was precise. Sharp. Efficient. He ran briefings like courtroom interrogations and missions like chess games, eyes always scanning for weakness, even in his own squad. You respected him. You had to. He was good at what he did.

But he wasn’t Maverick.

And this wasn’t Dagger.

You were the team lead now. The one everyone looked to. The voice on the comms they followed without hesitation. And you did your job. Every mission, every formation, every inch of airspace you carved through — you led them. You played the part well enough to earn your silence. No one questioned you. No one doubted you. But sometimes, you wished they would.

Because this team? They took everything too seriously.

They triple-checked checklists that didn’t need checking. They talked in tactical brief instead of banter. They didn’t laugh. Not really. Not the way Yale used to when Harvard flubbed his landing and blamed the wind. Not the way Phoenix leaned back in her chair with a beer and dared you to outfly her. They didn’t know how to relax. How to trust. How to fail and still be family.

You understood it, of course. This wasn’t Top Gun. This wasn’t a training exercise or a contest of pride. This was real. Dangerous. Classified. Every mission report came with the potential for a body count. So yeah — you understood why they were the way they were.

But that didn’t make it any easier.

There were no callsigns here. No stories about stupid bets or who could run push-ups drunk. Here, they called you “Lieutenant.” Even the ones who outranked you gave you that look — the one that said you were useful, not known. You were a tool. A resource. Not a person.

Sometimes you caught yourself talking like you used to — cracking a joke before a flight, tossing a grin over your shoulder — and all you’d get were puzzled looks. Like they didn’t know how to respond. Like joy had to be processed and filtered before it could be understood.

You missed the rhythm of chaos. Of imperfect, messy, loyal people. You missed Bob. God, you missed Bob.

But you didn’t have time for that. You were leading now. And leaders didn’t get to miss people. Leaders kept the pieces moving.

Still, some nights, you looked at the stars — Okinawa had clearer skies than North Island — and wondered if he was doing the same.

If he missed the way your voice used to crack when you were exhausted. If he missed the quiet between you. The kind that felt like peace, not absence.

You’d never felt more alone surrounded by a team.

And yet, when the mission alarm sounded — when boots hit the ground and engines started screaming — you moved like you were part of the machine. Because here, in the silence between who you were and who you had to be, that was all you could do.

Be the ghost of the girl who once made Bob Floyd smile like he’d found home.

By the third month, you stopped waiting to feel like yourself again.

It was subtle, at first — the way your voice dropped a register in briefings, the way your posture never relaxed even off-duty, the way your name sounded strange when someone said it without a callsign. You didn’t notice it until one morning, brushing your teeth in the dim mirror light, you caught your reflection and didn’t recognize the eyes looking back. Too quiet. Too sharp. Too tired.

Somewhere along the way, you stopped speaking unless you had to. You stopped trying to inject levity into the silence. You stopped laughing when the new guy on the squad tripped over his gear and swore like a cartoon character. You just offered him a nod and moved on.

Because by now, you’d learned: this wasn’t temporary. This wasn’t a phase.

This was the job. This was you. Now.

And part of you hated how easily you’d slipped into it.

You used to be loud. Not in volume — in presence. In chaos. You used to wear your sarcasm like armor and your recklessness like wings. But now? Now you moved with clinical precision. You ate what was given. You flew what was ordered. You reported what was required. You became exactly what this mission asked of you — obedient, efficient, and quiet.

Because that’s how ghosts stay alive.

You told yourself it wouldn’t be forever. That it couldn’t be. That black zone ops didn’t last longer than necessary, and eventually, someone would sign the paper that sent you home.

But even that word — “home” — started to feel theoretical.

Because if home was a person, then Bob was it. And you hadn’t heard his voice in ninety-two days.

Not once.

No letters. No calls. No stolen seconds over a secure line. The mission was too deep. The risk was too high. You weren’t even allowed to know if he’d tried.

So you carried him in silence.

Some nights, you lay awake under the buzz of fluorescent light, hand flat over your chest like you were trying to press the memory of him deeper into your ribs. Some mornings, you woke with his name on your lips and bit down hard, swallowing it like it might poison the day if you said it out loud.

You missed him in small, cruel ways. In the way no one walked beside you with perfect sync. In the way no one filled the coffee pot after taking the last cup. In the way no one called you on your bullshit with that patient, careful tone — the kind that cut through you without ever raising its voice.

You wondered if he’d started forgetting. Not on purpose, but just… slowly. Naturally. The way time does. The way it wears away at memory until the shape of someone fades, leaving behind just a feeling you can’t quite name.

You didn’t blame him if he had. You knew how grief worked. Even when no one had died.

So you did what you always did — you buried it. All of it. The longing. The ache. The fear. You tucked it away behind mission reports and briefings and flight prep. Because if you stopped long enough to feel it all, you weren’t sure you’d survive it.

You weren’t yourself anymore. But at least you were still alive.

And for now, that would have to be enough.

Five months.

A hundred and fifty-three days.

And you were still breathing, still flying, still leading. But somewhere between Kadena airspace and the last classified run over contested waters, something inside you had gone quiet.

It wasn’t burnout — not yet. Burnout meant you had something left to burn. This felt more like erosion. Like you’d been sanded down into something smooth and sharp and unrecognizable. A blade instead of a person.

Your team followed you without question now. You gave orders, and they listened. You gave silence, and they never dared to fill it. In the field, they moved like a single unit behind you — surgical, professional, clean. And when they spoke of you behind your back, they used words like “disciplined” and “precise” and “cold as hell.”

You didn’t mind.

Respect was efficient. Emotion wasn’t.

You didn’t joke anymore. You didn’t flinch when the new recruits whispered about you like you were a myth wrapped in a uniform. You didn’t argue when the captain — not Maverick, never Maverick — called you the most stable leader they’d seen in the Pacific theater in years.

And maybe that should’ve made you proud.

But it didn’t.

Because pride was something you used to feel back when you were still a person. Back when you were sitting at the Hard Deck with Bob and the Dagger Squad, feet kicked up on the table, sunlight warm on your face and salt air curling in your hair. Back when your victories came with laughter and your failures came with someone waiting to pick you up off the floor.

Now your victories were silent. Now your failures were fatal.

You started avoiding mirrors. You didn’t like how hollow your eyes had gotten. How tight your jaw always looked. How even your posture had changed — straighter, harder, like the tension had fused into your spine and refused to leave.

Five months without Bob.

Five months of silence where his voice used to live. You stopped expecting him to break protocol. You stopped hoping there’d be a letter hidden in your locker or a message slipped through secure comms. He wouldn’t risk it. You knew him too well.

And it hurt more because of that.

You still thought about him every night, though. Not always consciously. Not always clearly. But in flashes. In half-dreams. In the moments right before sleep where your brain stopped obeying your orders and your body remembered how it felt to be touched like you mattered.

You missed his voice. His steadiness. His warmth. You missed the way he looked at you — like you weren’t a weapon, but something worth saving.

No one looked at you like that anymore.

And maybe you didn’t deserve it.

Because five months in, you weren’t sure who you were anymore.

You were effective. Unshakable. Commanding.

But you were also tired. Angry. Lonely.

And underneath it all — somewhere deep, buried so far it barely had a voice — you were scared. Scared that when this mission ended, there’d be nothing left of you to go home.

Because how do you go back to being human after being a ghost this long?

You didn’t know.

And the worst part was... no one was asking.

By the sixth month, the ghosts started talking back.

Not the ones in your head. The ones around you. The ones you were stationed with — the eleven pilots and WSOs who made up the current rotation of Sable Crest’s classified deployment, buried so deep in the Pacific theater you weren’t sure if you belonged to the world anymore. You’d led them for months now, and for months, they had treated you like what you were: a legend, a shadow, a tactical specter who never joked and never cracked. Blitz.

But eventually, even ghosts have to breathe.

It started with the small things. A WSO named Splice started leaving an extra protein bar by your locker. Marrow, one of the quieter pilots, offered you the front seat in the ready room once without comment. Echo, the youngest in the squad, asked what your first kill felt like, eyes wide with something between fear and reverence.

You didn’t answer at first. Just gave them a tight nod and moved on.

But that was the thing about teams — real ones. They didn’t let silence last forever.

Twelve total. You’d memorized their files before you’d even touched down in Kadena, but you hadn’t really seen them until now.

The WSOs were sharp — precise. Splice, Grin, and Mako. Splice was older than the others, had been in Korea before the blackout pulled him south. Grin was fast with comms and faster with sarcasm, the only one brave enough to poke fun at you early on (you hadn’t smiled, but you remembered it). Mako was fresh out of advanced, nerves like wires, but clever — calculating. She sat beside you often in the command room, eyes scanning the maps even when she wasn’t on rotation. She reminded you of yourself. Or at least, who you used to be.

The pilots were a mixed bag of brilliance and chaos.

Marrow flew like a scalpel, all angles and clean cuts. Ash was temperamental but effective — always first in the air, last to land. Riot and Spanner worked best as a pair; they were textbook dogfighters, symbiotic in the sky but always arguing on the ground. Echo had potential, though he second-guessed everything, and Tusk — the biggest, loudest, boldest of the bunch — made it his mission to get under your skin from the day he realized who you reminded him of.

"You're like him," Tusk had said one night, unprompted, as the two of you sat on the barracks roof in the dark. "Hangman. That cocky bastard Maverick trained. You got the same fire in your blood."

You almost laughed — almost. “He’s a showboat.”

“Yeah,” Tusk grinned. “And so are you. Just quieter about it.”

He was the first one to say your name like it meant something personal. Not just a callsign. Not just Blitz, the Captain. But Blitz, the pilot. Blitz, the person.

Tusk started hovering after that. Not in an annoying way — not really. He’d fall into step with you on the way to morning briefings. Ask dumb questions he already knew the answers to just so you’d talk. He kept trying to make you laugh — stupid jokes, half-impressions of Cyclone, dramatic reenactments of your first mission like he hadn’t nearly blacked out from Gs. He looked up to you, plain and simple. Wanted to be like you.

And you didn’t hate it.

It was dangerous, letting your guard down. You knew that. But maybe — just maybe — it was more dangerous to keep pretending you didn’t need them. Because at some point, these strangers had become yours. Your team. Your people. You still held yourself apart, yes. You still kept things close. But you found yourself listening more. Watching more. Caring, even when it hurt.

You started correcting Marrow mid-briefing and got a half-smile in return. You let Riot and Spanner pull you into a card game during a thunderstorm lockdown and didn’t even pretend to be annoyed when they cheated. You ran drills with Mako and complimented her turn radius. You sat beside Echo at dinner once and watched his shoulders straighten when you didn’t move away.

You never talked about home. You never said Bob’s name out loud. But he was everywhere in your silences. Every time your hand hovered too long over your dog tags. Every time you watched Tusk grin and remembered how Bob used to tilt his head when he laughed. Every time someone handed you coffee and you remembered the exact way Bob liked his — two sugars, no cream.

Six months without him, and it was starting to hurt differently.

It wasn’t sharp anymore. Not the kind of grief that cut like a broken bottle. It was duller now — deeper. Like pressure under the surface. Like being underwater for too long, lungs starting to forget how to expand.

You’d stopped dreaming about him. That scared you most of all.

Because the longer you stayed here — in Kadena, in the Pacific, in the dark — the more the edges of your old life blurred. You were still you. But not completely. You moved with a weight you hadn’t earned before. You spoke like a soldier who didn’t expect to be heard.

You were proud of your team. And they trusted you now — more than they had any right to.

But that didn’t stop the ache.

The ache for something soft. Something simple. Something that smelled like engine grease and old leather jackets and that damn soap Bob always used.

The ache for a name whispered in the dark. For a hand at your back.

You were still leading. Still flying. Still surviving.

But God, you missed him.

And that part? That hadn’t dulled at all.

By month seven, your body knew the Kadena airspace better than it knew rest.

You flew every morning. Not because anyone ordered it. Not because command demanded drills. But because flight was the only place you still felt real. Because the cockpit was the only place your silence didn’t echo.

You trained them hard. Not out of cruelty — but because you knew what waited outside the borders of briefings and maps and base lines. You knew the weight of a lock tone in your ears, the split-second decision between climb and dive, the nightmare geometry of heat-seekers and human breath. You knew what it cost to hesitate.

So you made them better. Every last one of them.

Tusk was reckless, so you gave him structure. Forced him to fly low-level terrain maps at sunrise, hugging the jungle line just shy of stall. Over and over again until his wildness burned into control.

Echo hesitated — too afraid to call plays, to trust his own gut. So you pushed him into lead, over and over, shadowing his wing but never correcting him mid-air. He messed up plenty. But he learned. He started banking harder, trusting angles, trusting you. One day, he cleared a canyon run with a time nearly matching yours. He didn’t say anything when he landed — but you saw the way his fingers trembled, the way he looked at his hands like they belonged to someone else. Someone braver.

Spanner and Riot were already solid, but cocky. They relied too much on each other’s patterns. So you split them. Put one with Mako, the other with Grin. Forced them to adapt. The results were jagged, messy. But eventually, they figured it out. And when you finally put them back together, they flew tighter than before. Sharper. Like iron that’d been snapped and reforged.

You didn’t spare yourself. You trained with them, on the ground and in the sky. You led canyon runs through rain, orchestrated night intercepts with zero visibility, ran scramble drills where the goal was to lose you in under three minutes.

No one could do it.

Not yet.

“You’re impossible,” Marrow grunted one day, pulling off his helmet after a mock engagement that ended with your nose-to-tail lock in under twenty seconds.

“No,” you said, stepping onto the tarmac beside him. “I’m practiced.”

You didn’t smile — but he did. And somehow, that meant more.

Grin kept a tally board in the ready room now. “Kills by Blitz” versus “All of Us Combined.” They’d started writing your number in red just to make it worse. You never corrected them. But you did start marking their progress in the debriefs. Short notes. Honest praise. Quiet encouragement that made Splice’s eyebrows raise more than once.

Mako finally spoke up in a post-flight one evening. “You don’t let us win.”

You looked up from your clipboard. “You haven’t earned it yet.”

“But you think we will?” she asked, arms crossed. Defiant, but not hostile.

You met her eyes. “I know you will.”

That was the first time she nodded back.

Flying felt different now. Not easier. Not lighter. But fuller. The formations started syncing. Echo stopped doubting. Marrow flew closer, cleaner. Riot stopped rolling out early. Grin learned to read your silence. Tusk… still pushed buttons. Still grinned like the sky belonged to him. But when you pulled into a vertical loop on a training run, he didn’t just follow — he anticipated it. Beat for beat. For once, he didn’t try to race you. He tried to match you.

And it worked.

Your team was starting to fly like a unit. Not twelve solo pilots. Not misfits. Not numbers on a board.

A team.

In the sky, you didn’t talk much. But they started to. Chatter filled the comms during flights. Short jokes. Status checks. “On your six.” “Covering you.” “Missile lock, dive now!” And it wasn’t just noise. It was communication. It was connection.

They were talking to you now, too.

“Nice break, Blitz.”

“You’re faster today.”

“Tell me you trained Maverick like this — ‘cause damn.”

And sometimes, you respond. Not much. But enough. A clipped “Good run.” A rare “Clean dive.” One time — just once — you told Echo “Nice work, Lieutenant,” and the kid didn’t speak for the rest of the flight, probably because he was having an emotional breakdown behind his oxygen mask.

You didn’t mention it. But you saw it. And for the first time in months, you felt… proud.

Not of yourself.

Of them.

You still missed Bob. That hadn’t changed. Every afterburner roar still echoed like a memory. Every time someone called you “Skipper,” your heart twitched toward San Diego. You still dreamed in static. Still woke sometimes half-sure his hand would be on your back, steady and warm and quiet like his voice always was when you needed anchoring.

But your soul had stopped bleeding.

And somehow, your heart was learning to beat without bruising itself against the absence.

They weren’t your old team.

But they were yours now.

And maybe that was enough.

For now.

The eighth month arrives not with a thunderclap or a warning—but with a shift. Subtle, slow, almost invisible at first. But you feel it in your bones. In the way the air tastes different. In the silence between comms transmissions. In the way the stars over Kadena seem colder now, more distant than before. Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s you.

You don’t notice it right away. Not until you sit in the briefing room with your team one morning and realize no one’s laughing. The usual banter is gone. Riot is studying the mission slate like it’s a death sentence. Tusk’s cocky grin doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Even Grin has stopped humming while she straps into her gear. Something’s changed. And you know better than to ignore it.

The missions are longer now. Not just recon or flyovers, but escorts and silent intercepts along coastlines that have gone from “unfriendly” to “increasingly hostile” in the space of two weeks. The black zone has shifted. They don’t say it aloud—command never does—but you’ve seen it in the briefings. The words change: escalation, territorial friction, satellite losses. They don’t say “conflict,” not yet. But the edge is sharper. Everyone feels it.

Your squad looks to you more often now. Not for praise, not even for orders. For certainty. And you give it. Because you have to. Because it’s your voice in their headsets, your signature at the bottom of the flight logs, your name on the top of the casualty forms if this ever goes wrong. You’ve never carried command like this before. Not really. Maverick was always the final wall back home. But here? Here, it’s you.

And you don’t sleep anymore.

Not really.

Nights have turned into simulations. You spend hours reviewing flight data, checking weather streams, rewriting route projections until your eyes blur. You run through every possible malfunction scenario in your head until your dreams echo with engine failures and weapon lock warnings. You think about Tusk. About how he pulls up too late when he’s tired. About Marrow, who second-guesses every target confirmation. You think about them all. Over and over. Because you have to be two steps ahead. Because you’re the one who keeps them alive now.

You still haven’t heard from Bob.

Seven months of silence, and it never got easier. But now? Now the ache is sharper. Lonelier. You used to pretend he was just on the other side of a message, waiting for the right window. But even those illusions have started to feel brittle. You stopped expecting a letter weeks ago. You deleted the unsent messages from your tablet. You don’t let yourself say his name anymore—not even in your head. Because saying it feels dangerous. It opens a door you can’t afford to walk through.

But you still think about him.

God, you still think about him.

Sometimes, after a mission, you’ll step into the locker room and catch yourself expecting to hear his voice—soft and steady, asking if you’re okay, if the sortie went clean. You’ll turn around too fast, half hoping he’ll be there, leaned against the doorframe with that look in his eyes—the one that meant he saw all of you, even the parts you kept hidden. But he’s never there. Just shadows. Just ghosts.

It rains more this month. Okinawa’s skies open in thick sheets, drenching the tarmac until the whole base smells like wet metal and oil. Your boots are always soaked. Your flightsuits never quite dry. The whole world feels damp and grey and suffocating. And somehow, it suits the mood.

The first real close call comes on a Tuesday.

You’re running a patrol sweep with Spanner and Mako when the tone hits your headset—short, shrill, unmistakable. Lock. Unfriendly jet, zeroed in, trailing heat. You bank hard, pull into cloud cover, but the bastard follows. You call a scatter. Mako peels. Spanner flares. You dive. It works. You lose him. But the ride back is silent. No one says a word. Not even you.

That night, Mako comes to your quarters, her voice low, her knuckles white.

“I thought I was gonna die up there.”

You don’t lie to her. You just nod. And when she leaves, you stay by the window, watching the storm roll over the sea. You press your fingers to the glass like it’s a lifeline. And in the silence, you whisper one word into the dark. Not a prayer. Not a plea. Just a name.

“Bob.”

No one hears you.

But maybe the ocean does.

And maybe that’s enough.

For now.

You stop counting the days sometime in the ninth month. Not because you’ve forgotten—but because it starts to feel like time no longer obeys the rules you once knew. Some days stretch like lifetimes. Others vanish before you’ve even realized they began. You wake up disoriented, your body moving before your mind catches up, every motion muscle memory, every breath a demand instead of a choice. The base feels smaller. The sky feels lower. And everything—every mission, every hour of sleep you don’t get, every smirk you fake in the mess hall—is beginning to scrape away at something inside you that used to feel strong.

You used to be the fastest pilot in your squadron. Back at Top Gun, you danced through the air like you belonged there—like the sky was yours, and everyone else was just borrowing space. But now, your flying is sharp. Controlled. Dangerous. There’s no poetry in it anymore. No edge-of-your-seat thrill. Just math and muscle and a clenched jaw behind the mask. You don’t soar—you execute. Your team notices. You can see it in the way Tusk flinches when you snap an order mid-air, or how Riot has stopped cracking jokes even after a clean landing. They’re still with you, still loyal—but the awe has bled into caution. They trust you with their lives. But you don’t know if they like you anymore.

You’ve stopped caring about being liked.

You fly clean. You hit your marks. You bring them home.

That’s all that matters now.

You don’t have time for softness. Not when the black zone is lighting up more frequently. Not when the encrypted maps shift twice a week and two of your pilots—Gale and Monarch—narrowly dodge a lock-on that never makes it into the official report. You get the memo, though. Things are worse than command wants to admit. They brief you on new protocol in the dark of a half-empty conference room, eyes darting, voices low. You nod, absorb, never ask questions. They like that about you now. You don’t ask. You act.

But at night?

Night is when it hits.

The silence after a mission. The way your bunk feels too big, too cold, like it’s waiting for someone who never got the coordinates. The way you wake up at 0300, heart pounding, hand reaching for a comms panel that won’t ever light up—not for him. Not for Bob. Not for the boy with the steady voice and the blue eyes and the promise he whispered against your skin the night before you left.

You try not to think about it. You try harder not to need it. Because needing hurts. Needing opens the wound that hasn’t closed since Okinawa swallowed you whole.

But you still see him.

Not really. But in flashes. In the silhouette of a maintenance tech walking past the hangar. In the way Wrench tilts his head when he asks you a question mid-flight. In the color of the ocean on a rare day when the sun breaks through the clouds and lights up the water like melted steel.

You see him in everything, and it breaks you just enough to remind you that you’re not made of stone, no matter how many layers of armor you wear. You haven’t cried since month four. You haven’t smiled without effort since five. But in month nine, something gives.

It happens on a training mission. You’re in the air with Tempest and Juno, running a drill through simulated hostile airspace. Standard stuff. Clean run. Good weather. But then Juno misjudges a turn—barely—and clips your tail with his jetwash. Nothing catastrophic. But it shakes your frame, rattles your nerves, and for the briefest second, your body freezes. Not your hands. Not your voice. Those keep moving. But you, inside your skin—you freeze.

And you hear him.

Not in your ears. In your memory.

“Breathe through it, Blitz. One second at a time.”

You breathe. You land. You debrief. You don’t say a word to anyone.

But when you get back to your room, you sit on the edge of your bunk, fingers gripping the edge like it’s the only thing holding you in this world, and you feel it. That fracture. That break.

You don’t cry. But you almost do. And that scares you more than any mission ever could.

The worst part?

You’re getting used to it.

This version of you. The quiet one. The razor-edged one. The pilot who doesn’t laugh anymore. Who doesn’t speak unless it’s mission-critical. Who walks past mirrors and barely recognizes the person staring back. This is who you are now. Blitz, the ghost. The shadow in the sky.

You miss Bob like a phantom limb.

But you don’t let yourself reach for him anymore.

Because ghosts don’t get to ask for love.

They just remember it.

And fly on.

By the tenth month, it isn’t just the silence that claws at you—it’s the noise. The grinding edge of voices that never stop. The sharp bite of footsteps behind you when you just want to be alone. The constant barrage of reports, updates, briefings, drills. They come faster now, back-to-back, shadowed by the increasing volatility in your mission range. The maps change again. Your airspace window tightens. There’s another close call with an unidentified aircraft that doesn’t answer hails and disappears before you can intercept. Command calls it a ghost signature. You call it a warning.

And your squad?

They’re getting sloppy.

Riot and Spanner bicker so loudly in the hangar that it echoes into your quarters. Echo hesitates during a flight sim and nearly crashes into Grin’s wing. Ash takes a calculated risk in a training loop and cuts it too close to Tusk, who laughs it off—but you don’t. You don’t laugh at anything anymore.

You try to correct them, over and over, calm and clear at first. But it’s like shouting into the wind. They're still good. They're still yours. But they don't get it.

They don’t know what it costs to be you.

And Tusk?

Tusk has decided he’s the unofficial morale officer. Which, in his head, apparently means poking you until you explode.

“C’mon, Blitz,” he drawls after a post-flight review, leaning on the edge of the table like he owns the room. “You fly like a legend but lead like a ghost. Lighten up, huh? We’re not in a warzone. Yet.”

You stare at him. Your jaw clenches so tightly it aches.

“We’re close enough.”

“Oh, come on,” he says, louder now. “Even Hangman cracked a joke now and then. Don’t tell me he was more fun than you.”

And just like that—everything inside you snaps.

You don’t yell. Not at first. But you stand, slow and deliberate, the chair scraping back with a shriek that cuts through the room. Everyone freezes. The table full of banter, noise, and lazy grins goes dead silent. Tusk’s smirk falters—but only slightly.

You take a step forward, your voice cold and sharp enough to draw blood.

“You think this is a game?”

Tusk blinks. “I—”

“You think because we haven’t buried someone yet, it means we’re safe? You think because the air’s quiet today, it won’t be screaming tomorrow?” Your voice rises now, fury barely caged. “I’m the one who signs the reports. I’m the one who gets the briefings they don’t want you to see. You want to play Hangman, Tusk? Fine. But remember how many times that cocky bastard almost died.”

Nobody moves.

“I am not your cheerleader,” you spit. “I am not your friend. I am your captain. And every single one of you is alive because I’ve been too exhausted to let you die.”

Spanner shifts. Riot swallows hard. Even Ash—who’s never flinched in her life—stares at the floor.

Tusk opens his mouth again, but you’re not finished.

“You don’t get to mock what you don’t understand. You didn’t see what I saw. You weren’t there when we lost two jets in the black zone and command scrubbed it from the record. You weren’t there when I watched an op go sideways and had to lie to the squad about it because they couldn’t handle the truth. So if you’ve got something smart to say—don’t.”

The air is heavy. Thick with everything they didn’t know you were holding in.

You’re breathing hard now. Shoulders tight, fists clenched. And your squad—your squad of twelve reckless, brilliant, frustrating pilots—stares at you like they’ve never really seen you before.

Because maybe they haven’t.

Maybe you’ve been so good at wearing the mask, they never realized what it was costing you.

You don’t apologize. You don’t explain.

You turn on your heel and walk out.

The door slams behind you.

Outside, the sky is dimming. Dusk in Kadena. And for the first time in months, your hands are shaking.

Not from fear.

From fury.

And from the loneliness of knowing that even after ten months, even with a squad who follows your every order, no one here understands the weight you carry.

Not like Bob did.

And the ache of missing him feels sharp again—razor-sharp. Like maybe this deployment isn’t turning you into a ghost.

Maybe it’s just stripping you down to what was always under the surface.

Fire.

And fractures.

It’s November in Okinawa, and the rains come harder now. Typhoons skirt the edges of the coast. The sea churns like it knows what you’re feeling, like it’s trying to reflect you back at yourself. You wake up most days before dawn, not because you have to, but because the dreams won’t let you sleep. Not anymore.

Month Eleven hits you in the softest places—the ones you thought you’d armored up. You don’t break this month. You unravel, quietly. The thread doesn’t snap. It frays. And what’s worse is how normal everything looks while it happens.

The squad’s better now—tighter. Tusk keeps his comments to himself. Spanner and Riot save their bickering for when they think you’re out of earshot. Marrow’s started stepping up more, helping Echo through his doubt spiral. Ash is still reckless, but she waits for your nod now. And Splice? She flies like she’s auditioning for a legend. You’re proud of them. You’re furious that you’re proud of them. Because they are not your home.

You take to the skies to remember who you are.

The jets are sleeker here, stripped of frill, every inch built for speed and silence. There’s something brutal in the way they handle, the way the yoke responds to every twitch of your hand. It’s like flying a weapon made of your own thoughts. You run drills until you’re dizzy, refuel in mid-air just for the challenge, pull vertical climbs until the edges of your vision start to blur.

Because the sky still listens to you.

Because it’s the only thing that does.

Somewhere over the South China Sea, you fly so high the world goes quiet. You cut the comms. No chatter. No reports. Just the scream of the engine and your breath in your helmet. And for a second, you can almost pretend that Bob is flying on your wing. You picture him there. Can almost see the tilt of his jet. The way he used to watch your six without needing to be asked.

You talk to him sometimes now. Not out loud. Just in your head. Missed you today. Told Tusk he’s nothing like Hangman—he looked genuinely offended. You’d have laughed.

You don’t get responses.

But you do it anyway.

Some nights, you sit outside the hangar after lockdown. Just you, a cracked thermos of instant coffee, and the planes. You stare at the stars until your eyes blur. You wonder if Bob’s looking at the same sky. If he still thinks about you. If he’s flying at all, or if they grounded him again. You wonder if he’s mad. If he’s moved on. You hope he hasn’t.

You don’t cry. You just get quieter.

You send a single message to Cyclone—through an encrypted line, through the right channels. You ask if you can send a comm back to Top Gun. A message for Bob Floyd. Something simple. Just so he knows you’re alive.

Cyclone replies the next day: “Request denied. Maintain radio silence.”

You don’t reply. You just close your laptop and sit on the edge of your bunk with the kind of silence that tastes like metal.

At the end of Month Eleven, you log another twelve flight hours into the system. They call it flawless. They give you a commendation for leadership.

And that night, you sit in your bunk with the lights off and whisper one sentence into the dark:

"I don’t know who I’m going to be when I get back."

Because you’re not Blitz anymore. Not really.

You’re something else now.

Something harder. Something quieter.

And God, you just hope Bob will still know you when you come home. If you come home.

The Mission

It begins at 0430.

You’re already awake when the alert sounds—strapped into your flight suit, lacing your boots with the kind of calm that only comes when you’ve already imagined every way the day could go wrong. Outside, the air smells like salt and ozone. The typhoon season’s been relentless, but this morning the clouds hang just high enough to give you a window. One shot. That’s all you get.

Mission brief: covert intercept near contested airspace. An unauthorized drone convoy’s been rerouted toward allied waters, masked under civilian codes. Command wants proof, not war—visual recon, live comms, no hard engagement unless absolutely necessary. You don’t believe that part. Neither do your pilots.

You go wheels up at 0523.

Tusk and Ash take point. Spanner and Riot fly left wing, you on the right. Splice rides shotgun behind you—her eyes sharp, her voice steady in your ear. Below, the sea stretches out in all directions, endless and blue-black and glassy. You fly low, fast, under radar, watching the altimeter like it owes you something. Every move is rehearsed. You’ve run this op in the sim six times this week. But real air doesn’t forgive hesitation. And today, something’s already off.

Mako’s voice cuts in first. "Movement at three o’clock. Fast. Not tagged." Spanner confirms it a second later. "That’s not one of ours."

Then it starts.

The convoy isn’t unarmed. Two drones break off formation and engage without warning—maneuvering fast, military-fast. The kind of AI that doesn’t wait for confirmation before lighting up a target. Riot takes the first hit—non-fatal, but enough to cripple their stabilizer. She drops altitude hard, trailing smoke. You shout commands, banking sharp to draw fire, making yourself a better target.

Splice swears behind you. “Blitz, we’ve got lock-on.” “Deploy flares. Stay sharp.”

Echo pulls out wide to cover Riot’s descent, but it leaves you exposed. You take a hit to the tail—minor, barely a scratch—but it rocks you enough to make your teeth click. Your jet screams in protest. Systems blink. You keep flying.

“Tusk,” you bark, “cover Echo. Spanner, push left. Mako, you're with me.” You cut up, hard and fast, into the belly of the chaos.

It’s thirty minutes of pure hell. Dogfighting against drones means no emotion. No fear. No hesitation. They don’t back down. They don’t miss. But you do what you do best—you adapt. You outfly. You survive. You always have.

Until something goes wrong.

Ash gets clipped trying to shield Marrow. Their wing tears mid-roll. You watch the tail spin out, the jet losing altitude faster than the backup chute can deploy. There’s no time. None.

You don’t hesitate.

You dive.

Nose-first. Into the slipstream of Ash’s descent. Warnings flash across your HUD—altitude, velocity, structural integrity. You ignore them all. You push your jet so hard the frame shudders around you, metal groaning like it might give way. You force the nose under her tailspin, use the lift to tilt her just enough for the chute to catch.

"Blitz, PULL UP!" Splice is screaming. "YOU’RE GOING TOO FAST—"

But you’re not listening. The Gs slam into you like fists. Blood rushes to your head. Vision narrows. You whisper a curse, something half-prayer, half-swear, and pull.

The world rips sideways. The horizon vanishes. Your jet levels just above sea level, skimming the ocean like a skipping stone. Your control stick jerks in your hand—rudder’s gone. Left wing bleeding. You’re flying a dying bird now.

You cough. Taste copper.

You hear Splice’s breath hitch. “Blitz—are you hit?”

You can’t lie. Not now.

“Yeah,” you say, voice raw. “But she’s safe. Get her out.”

You don’t know how long you’ll stay in the air. You don’t know if you’ll make it back. Systems are failing one by one—electrical, pressure, nav. You’re flying blind. And the ocean’s rising.

“Blitz, copy—do you copy—” “I’ve got it,” you whisper. “Get them home.”

The last thing you see is the endless blue beneath you. The last thing you hear is Splice calling your name.

And then—

Silence.

Top Gun, North Island

The room had been loud five minutes ago—chaotic, even. Phoenix and Hangman were arguing over call sign stats again, something about who had the higher confirmed intercept rate, while Fanboy was mid-rant about a sandwich he’d lost to Payback’s “accidental theft.” Rooster had been leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, playing referee with minimal effort. And Bob? Bob had been quiet, like always, chewing the end of his pen and pretending to be interested in the logistics map Warlock was pointing at.

Then the door opened.

Maverick walked in. Or started to. He barely made it two steps past the threshold before Warlock appeared in his wake and said, voice tight and low, “Captain Mitchell, with me. Now.”

No one questioned the tone—not even Maverick, who simply stiffened, turned on his heel, and followed.

No explanation. No detour. Just… gone.

The door clicked shut behind them, and silence bloomed in their absence. Heavy, like fog on the runway.

Phoenix was the first to speak. "What the hell was that?" Her voice was sharp, but her eyes didn’t leave the door.

Hangman shrugged, but the gesture lacked its usual flair. “Maybe he’s in trouble. What’d he do this time—steal another F-18 for a joyride?”

No one laughed.

Payback frowned. “That didn’t feel like trouble. That felt like something else.”

Bob hadn’t moved. His pen was still between his fingers, hovering over the page of scribbles he hadn’t updated in five minutes. “Something’s wrong,” he said quietly.

Rooster sat forward, hands resting on his knees. “Yeah. I felt it too. You see Mav’s face? That wasn’t his usual guilty smirk. That was… different.”

Fanboy tapped his fingers against the table, fast and jittery. “Warlock looked spooked. He doesn’t get spooked. I don’t like this. I officially don’t like this.”

Coyote, who hadn’t said a word since the interruption, leaned back and exhaled slowly. “No one else is getting called in. That was for Mav. Whatever it is—it’s high up. Real high.”

Phoenix stood, pacing now, arms crossed tight over her chest. “You think it’s about her?”

No one had to ask who her was.

Blitz.

The ghost in the room. The absence they’d all been dancing around for months now.

The briefings still had her chair. No one sat in it. It wasn’t even a rule. Just instinct. And no one ever mentioned the empty spot on the tarmac during warm-ups, or the silence that fell whenever someone said the word “Kadena.”

Hangman rubbed the back of his neck, jaw tense. “She’s still out there. We’d know if she wasn’t.”

“But we don’t,” Bob said, voice quiet, almost too quiet. “We haven’t heard anything since the day she left. And now they’re dragging Maverick out of a briefing like the building’s on fire?”

Phoenix turned to look at him, something unreadable flickering in her eyes. “You think she’s hurt?”

Bob didn’t answer.

Didn’t have to.

Because even the thought of her—of Blitz—going down, of something happening to her out there with no one around but call signs they didn’t know and a war they weren’t allowed to talk about… it twisted in his chest like a blade.

Rooster stood up too. “Look. We can’t jump to conclusions. It could be anything. Could be some other op. Hell, maybe someone higher-up found out about Mav’s little low-altitude stunt last month.”

“You don’t believe that,” Fanboy said.

“No,” Rooster admitted. “I don’t.”

They waited another minute. Another five. No Maverick. No Warlock. No Cyclone.

Outside, jets took off like nothing was wrong. The walls didn’t shake. The lights didn’t flicker. But the Dagger Squad sat in that briefing room like they were in a bunker waiting for impact.

No one cracked a joke. Not even Hangman.

Bob sat back in his chair, gaze fixed on the door, knuckles white against the pen in his hand. He hadn’t blinked in a while. He didn’t move when Phoenix gently nudged his arm.

“Hey,” she said.

He blinked. Turned to her.

She didn’t say anything else. Just held his stare. He nodded once, the smallest motion, but it was enough.

Because the silence was back again.

And this time, it felt like the beginning of a storm.

Secure Conference Room, Top Gun – North Island

The door didn’t slam open. It clicked. Soft. Deliberate. The kind of sound you don’t hear unless you’re listening. But they all heard it. Because they'd been waiting for too long, in that thick, awful stillness that comes after a gut-punch with no explanation.

Maverick walked back in first. His face was unreadable—stone. Cold eyes, clenched jaw, the kind of look he only wore when something hurt. Not pain he could talk about. The kind you had to carry.

Behind him, Warlock. Just as tight-lipped.

Still no word. No answers.

Bob stood before he realized it. Chair screeching behind him, boots scuffing the floor, heart in his throat.

“Where is she?”

No one had said her name. Not once. But he did now. Didn’t care how reckless it sounded. Didn’t care if he got chewed out.

Maverick’s eyes flicked toward him. And for a second—just a second—something shifted behind the wall.

“She’s alive,” he said.

Every pilot in the room inhaled like they'd just broken the surface of deep water.

Rooster let out a low breath. “Jesus Christ.”

“She’s alive,” Bob repeated, but quieter. Not relief, not yet. More like… disbelief. A hope he’d been starving so long he forgot how it tasted.

“Why the cloak and dagger, then?” Phoenix asked, stepping forward. “Why call you out like someone died?”

Maverick hesitated. Warlock didn’t.

“Because Lieutenant Callahan has gone completely off-comm. Her last scheduled report was missed. The unit she was stationed with last logged a return to Okinawa air base without her.”

The silence this time hit like an avalanche.

“What do you mean without her?” Hangman snapped. “You just said she’s alive.”

Warlock’s face didn’t move. “We intercepted a rogue transmission. Off-grid. Not from Kadena. Not from any known base. Low-frequency signal, encrypted. Authenticated with her callsign. Her voice.”

Bob's heart dropped into his shoes.

“What did she say?”

Maverick answered this time, voice low. “Just five words: ‘I’m alive. Tell Floyd everything.’”

Something like a punch hit Bob in the chest. Everything? Everything? What did that mean? What the hell had she been doing out there?

Phoenix stepped closer to Warlock, eyes narrowed. “So where is she?”

“We don’t know.” Warlock’s answer was ice. “The signal bounced three times before we caught it. But it didn’t come from Japan. It came from somewhere deeper.”

“Deeper where?” Fanboy asked.

Maverick shook his head. “That’s classified. What matters is: she’s not dead. But she’s in deep. She went dark for a reason. And now? She wants someone to know she’s still out there.”

Bob’s breath was shaky. He sat down hard, hands in his lap. “Why me?” he asked no one in particular. “Why not you? Why not command?”

Rooster looked at him. Soft. Quiet. “You know why.”

Because it was always him.

Because even when they didn’t talk, even when she pushed him away, even when the distance became unbearable—he was still the one who knew how she flew, how she thought, how she bled.

“Are we going after her?” Coyote asked, standing now too. “Please tell me we’re not just sitting here.”

Maverick’s jaw clenched. “We’ve requested intel clearance. But if she’s where we think she is, this isn’t a standard retrieval.”

“Then make it nonstandard,” Hangman snapped. “She’s one of us.”

Warlock looked at him evenly. “She’s also not under Dagger jurisdiction anymore. She was operating in black zone airspace under direct DoD contract. That means her location, her mission, and her extraction plan are all above your clearance.”

“That’s bullshit,” Phoenix muttered.

“No,” Maverick said quietly. “That’s war.”

Bob didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

He could still hear her voice. Five words. That was it. Not “I’m safe.” Not “I need help.” Just: “I’m alive. Tell Floyd everything.”

Everything.

He didn’t know if that meant love or guilt or a goodbye she never got to say.

But one thing was clear.

She wasn’t done fighting.

And neither was he.

Cyclone entered like a storm that had forgotten how to thunder—no loud steps, no orders barked, just that heavy weight of authority that settled over the room like a curtain being drawn. The Dagger Squad stood a little straighter as he crossed into the space, but no one saluted. Not this time. Not when all their hearts were still lodged in their throats and their skin felt one word away from splitting.

He stood beside Warlock and Maverick at the front of the room, glancing once over the gathered pilots. His expression was unreadable. Sharp, measured, and cold—not cruel, but clipped with that familiar, sterile control only commanders learned to master. The kind of tone that didn’t entertain emotions because it couldn’t afford to.

“I know you’ve all been waiting for answers,” Cyclone began, his voice cutting clean through the tension. “Lieutenant Callahan has not been declared KIA. But she has violated protocol by going dark without authorization or scheduled check-in. We do not know her current location. We do not have visual confirmation of her condition. The last ping came from outside any U.S.-controlled region, and her current status remains non-operational.”

“She’s not a goddamn laptop,” Phoenix muttered under her breath.

Cyclone didn’t flinch. “No. She’s a highly skilled pilot who made a conscious choice to engage in a mission classified above even Top Gun’s pay grade. That means retrieval is not an option. Not yet. Not for any of you.”

The silence that followed was a different kind now—not fear, not even confusion. It was rage. It was betrayal.

Bob stood slowly. His voice, when it came, was calm. Respectful. But behind the words, every syllable cracked under the weight of the storm swelling in his chest.

“Sir, I understand that you’re following protocol,” he said, eyes locked on Cyclone. “But with all due respect, she’s one of us. She’s not a ghost, she’s not a name on a briefing folder, she’s Blitz. And she’s out there, sending signals. Asking to be heard. And I don’t think she did that just so command could file it under ‘inconclusive intel’ and wait for a report that may never come.”

Cyclone met his gaze without blinking. “Lieutenant Floyd, I understand your concern—”

“No, sir,” Bob cut in, carefully. “With respect, I don’t think you do. She didn’t send that message for you. She sent it for me. And I can’t just sit here knowing that while we’re sipping coffee and running drills, she’s somewhere out there with no backup and no way home.”

The room held its breath.

Cyclone’s shoulders shifted, just barely. And for the first time since he walked in, his tone softened—not much, but enough to let something real flicker underneath.

“You think she didn’t know what she was walking into?” he asked. “She knew, Lieutenant. She knew better than anyone. That mission was volunteer-only. No one forced her. She took it because she knew she could handle it.”

“She shouldn’t have had to handle it alone,” Bob said, voice quiet again, but raw.

“Maybe not,” Cyclone replied. “But she chose to. And I will not risk a team, an entire squadron, or an international incident trying to chase after a pilot who knew the rules before she broke them.”

The air in the room dropped ten degrees. Hangman looked like he was one second away from throwing something. Rooster sat with clenched fists, knuckles white against the table. Phoenix had her arms folded across her chest, like she was trying to physically hold herself together. Coyote just shook his head slowly, jaw clenched.

Bob didn’t sit back down. He couldn’t. His hands curled into fists at his sides, his jaw locked like it was the only thing keeping him from saying something reckless.

“She’s not just another pilot,” he said quietly.

Cyclone nodded once. “No. She’s not. That’s why she was chosen. That’s why she’s still alive.”

And then he turned toward the door again. Just like that. Statement closed. Mission ended. Silence left in his wake.

When the door shut behind him, the room didn’t move. No one said a word. They just sat—or stood—in a silence that wasn’t confused anymore. It wasn’t grief. It wasn’t even helplessness.

It was fury.

Because somewhere out there, Blitz was alive.

And no one would let them bring her home.

The cold woke you before your eyes even opened. It wasn't the kind of cold you were trained for—the calculated kind in air-controlled environments or the chill that bit through your flight suit at high altitudes. No. This was bone-deep, vicious cold. The kind that reached in and coiled around your lungs, greedy and cruel. Snow drifted over your face, settling into your hair, and for a moment, you couldn’t remember where you were.

And then your body reminded you.

Pain came rushing in like a wave. Your ribs ached with every shallow breath. Your shoulder screamed when you tried to move. And your left leg—somewhere between numb and shattered. Your tongue tasted copper. There was a ringing in your ears that could’ve been memory, concussion, or maybe just the wind screaming across the mountainside.

You opened your eyes.

White. Blinding, endless white. A snowstorm was sweeping across the terrain, flurries thick as smoke, swallowing the trees that towered in crooked silhouettes around you. The sky above was a sheet of dull gray, and the sun was nowhere to be found.

The crash site lay just behind you—your jet, or what was left of it, split in two like a broken spine. Smoke curled faintly from the twisted wreckage, heat struggling against the storm. Your hands, bare and trembling, were scraped raw. Your helmet was gone. Probably in the trees. Your earpiece? Dead. Comms? Buried, crushed, or fried. There was no signal here anyway. You were in the middle of an enemy-controlled island somewhere north of hell, and no one knew where you were.

You blinked through the snow, trying to focus, but everything felt distant. Slow. You remembered the moment it happened—the hard lock tone in your ear, the evasive maneuver that came a second too late, the way the world turned sideways as your jet took the hit and plummeted into hostile territory. You remembered the G-force stealing your breath, the scream of metal, the canopy ripping free just before you ejected.

And then?

Nothing.

Just cold and dark and falling.

You forced yourself upright with a ragged breath, gasping as pain flared through your ribs. You needed to move. You had no idea how long you'd been unconscious. Hours? A day? Long enough for the storm to bury half your jet and make you feel like a corpse waking up in a grave.

You scanned the horizon. No patrols. No movement. Just woods, wind, and the sharp howl of winter. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you thought of Bob. Just a flash of him—laughing at some dumb joke, nodding across the hangar, brushing his fingers against yours like it was muscle memory. The memory hurt worse than the crash.

You were alone. For real this time.

No comms. No teammates. No orders. Just you, your training, and whatever willpower you hadn’t burned through in the last eleven months.

Your fingers fumbled at your harness, digging out the emergency pack—what was left of it. A flare. A knife. One energy bar half crushed beneath a busted med kit. You gritted your teeth and pulled the straps tighter around your waist, using a scrap of your parachute to wrap your bleeding hand. The snow had no intention of letting up, and neither did you.

You were going to survive this.

You didn’t survive eleven months in a black zone op to die face-down in the dirt of a nameless island.

You thought of the last thing Bob ever said to you—his forehead pressed to yours, voice low, trembling.

You come back to me.

You clenched your jaw.

Yeah, well.

You were going to try like hell.

It didn’t take long for the adrenaline to wear off. Maybe it was an hour. Maybe less. The pain was patient, relentless. The kind that didn’t scream—it just sat there, grinding its teeth against your bones, whispering every few minutes that this was how people froze to death.

You kept moving. Because you had to. You dragged your body from the wreckage, boots crunching through the snow like your own death march, every step a negotiation between your will to live and the sharp, nauseating pain in your leg. You had no idea where the hell you were going. Just away from the crash. That was Rule One. Enemy tech would be scanning for the wreckage. Rule Two was don’t bleed out. You weren’t doing great on that one either.

The storm made everything worse. Snow fell in angry bursts, the wind turning sideways and slicing through the fabric of your flight suit like it wasn’t even there. Your teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. Your fingers were going stiff, your breath a ragged steam cloud you could barely keep up with.

And yet—you kept going.

Somewhere between the broken trees and the slope of the ridge, your legs finally gave out. The snow cushioned your fall, but not by much. You didn’t even have the strength to cry out. You just... laid there, blinking up at the storm. You wanted to curse. To scream. But all that came out was a bitter puff of air that immediately froze against your lips.

The dark started creeping in around the edges, slow and quiet. You knew what that meant. You weren’t stupid. Hypothermia wasn’t cinematic. It was silent, disorienting. Like slipping beneath a frozen lake with your eyes open.

But you weren’t dead yet.

Your eyes fluttered, half-lidded. Snow gathered in your lashes. And then—just as the dark pulled a little closer—you saw him.

Bob.

Not in uniform. Not in his flight suit. Just him. A hoodie, jeans, bare hands shoved into his pockets. He knelt beside you like it was the most natural thing in the world and tilted his head, that quiet concern in his eyes.

“You’re freezing,” he said softly.

You wanted to speak, but your lips were numb. Still, your heart lurched painfully at the sound of his voice.

“You can’t sleep yet,” he told you gently, brushing snow from your cheek. “You promised me, remember?”

You blinked at him, tears freezing at the corners of your eyes. His face was so clear, so real—right down to the little scar near his temple. His breath fogged the air as he leaned closer.

“Come back to me.”

You opened your mouth to answer, but the words weren’t working. Your body wasn’t listening anymore. Your chest rose and fell in short, panicked stutters. You couldn’t feel your hands.

“You’re not done yet,” he said, voice cracking now. “Don’t give up. Not like this.”

You tried to nod. You really did. But the cold had threaded its way through your spine, through your lungs. You wanted to scream. To beg him not to go. But your vision swam, your heart slowing like it had forgotten how to beat. The hallucination—his image—began to fade, blurred by the snow.

Still, you held on. Because somewhere, deep in the ruined mess of your mind, you believed he was coming. Not the ghost version. The real one. You clung to that hope with the rawest part of you. That stubborn, reckless, Blitz-core part that didn’t know how to die quietly.

You didn’t remember passing out. The world just... stopped.

But two days later, it started again.

Voices in the wind. A shout. The mechanical whirr of a drone. The unmistakable thud of boots breaking through snow and the low static of a field comms unit crackling to life. Hands—real ones this time—tugging you up, checking your pulse, wrapping you in thermal blankets. You couldn’t see them clearly. The snow hadn’t let up. But someone was yelling coordinates. Someone else was calling for evac.

“Pilot’s alive! She’s alive!”

You couldn’t respond. Not even as your body was lifted, loaded into a carrier, the heat lamps blasting your frozen skin until it burned. The pain was unreal. But it meant you were still breathing.

They didn’t know who you were at first. Just that a downed jet matched the signature of an off-grid black zone op. That a captain had gone dark. And then, the callsign—Blitz—painted in chipped letters on what was left of your wing.

As the rescue team lifted off, the island growing smaller below, you stirred once. Just enough to open your cracked lips and whisper through the haze.

“I told you,” you said to no one. To Bob. To yourself. “I’m coming back.”

And then everything went black again.

The hangar doors hissed open as the Dagger Squad coasted to a stop, canopies lifting in slow succession. Sunlight bounced off the jets, the salt air thick and humid, the kind of afternoon where the heat clung to your flight suit and exhaustion settled behind your ribs. Engines whined low before fading into silence, the after-hum of adrenaline still buzzing in Bob Floyd’s veins.

It had been a routine test flight. Clean. Technical. Precise. But none of that mattered now.

Because the moment he stepped down from the ladder, boots hitting the tarmac with a hollow thud, he saw them.

Cyclone and Warlock, standing just beyond the yellow safety line. Not inside the hangar. Not in the control tower. Out here. Waiting.

Bob’s chest tightened instantly.

They weren’t speaking. Weren’t waving. Just standing, still as statues, their faces unreadable under the midday sun. Cyclone’s arms were crossed; Warlock’s hands were clasped behind his back, his expression the calm kind of solemn that never meant anything good. They weren’t just here for show.

Bob’s heart started to pound.

He swallowed hard and adjusted his helmet under one arm, falling into step beside Rooster and Hangman as the squad moved toward them. Every inch of him screamed to turn around. To stop walking. To not hear what was about to be said. But he couldn’t slow down. Couldn't stop the ache rising in his throat like a tide.

He watched Cyclone’s gaze sweep over the group, sharp and clipped, then land—solid—on him.

Oh God.

Something was wrong. Something was really wrong.

He glanced at Phoenix. She was frowning. Payback’s jaw was set. Rooster’s brow creased deeper with every step. Even Hangman had gone uncharacteristically quiet, his usual swagger dulled into something heavier.

Bob’s mouth felt dry. His lungs fought to expand.

They reached the two admirals and stopped, forming a loose semicircle, boots scuffing against concrete. Warlock looked between them with that calm, unreadable gaze, but it was Cyclone who spoke first.

“Stand down, lieutenants,” he said. “We’ve got news.”

Bob braced himself. It felt like someone had hooked a wire behind his ribs and yanked.

“We recovered the wreckage of a downed jet off the grid two days ago,” Cyclone continued. “The signature matched a black zone pilot.”

The world slowed. Blurred. Bob could barely hear anything else.

“A recovery team found the pilot alive. She was in critical condition, suffering from exposure and blunt trauma. No ID initially. But after confirming the call sign—”

His knees nearly gave.

“—the jet belonged to Captain Callahan.”

Phoenix let out a shaky breath. Hangman cursed under his breath. Rooster’s head snapped toward Bob so fast it was a blur.

But Bob—he didn’t move.

He couldn’t. He just stared at Cyclone, a roaring in his ears drowning out everything but the name. Callahan. Blitz. The woman he’d dreamed about every night for eleven months. The one he’d seen in every quiet moment, heard in every silence.

She was alive.

She was alive.

But Cyclone wasn’t finished. “She’s being airlifted to a secure base for stabilization. She hasn’t regained full consciousness yet. We’ll keep you updated when we know more.”

Warlock finally spoke, voice low. “You can’t contact her. Not yet. She’s still considered classified until she’s fully cleared for intel debrief.”

And then he looked directly at Bob.

“We know this hits harder for some of you. But she knew what she signed up for.”

Bob’s breath caught in his throat. Something sharp bloomed in his chest—pain or rage, he couldn’t tell. It clawed up his spine and pressed hard against his ribs, but he forced it down. Swallowed it whole. He didn’t speak. Not yet.

He was shaking. Not from fear this time, but from the brutal, unbearable pressure of holding everything in for nearly a year. Of imagining the worst. Of never knowing. Of waiting.

“She’s alive,” Phoenix said, barely above a whisper.

Bob finally found his voice. “Where is she?”

Cyclone raised an eyebrow. “I just told you—”

“Where?” Bob’s voice didn’t crack, but it was damn close. Still respectful. Still controlled. But underneath it was a tremble that could have shattered steel.

Cyclone looked at him for a long second. Then, quietly: “Somewhere safe.”

Bob nodded. Just once. It was the only thing he could manage without falling apart.

She was alive. She wasn’t here. But she was alive.

That had to be enough.

For now.

The first few days after they told him you were alive passed in a blur, like someone had hit pause on the rest of the world while Bob was still stuck in motion. He walked through the hangar like a ghost, hearing conversations he couldn’t hold onto, answering questions he couldn’t remember being asked. You were alive. But no one would say where. No one would say when you’d be back. If you’d be back. Just “classified,” “under observation,” and “secure location.” Words that meant nothing and everything. Words that told him she was somewhere on the other side of the damn planet, alone, recovering from a crash that almost killed her, and he couldn't even hear her voice.

He flew harder. Cleaner. Like the sky was the only place he could breathe. The moment he stepped off the tarmac, though, everything caved in. He found himself staring at the lockers too long, lingering by the seat she used to claim in the briefing room. Her callsign, Blitz, still scratched into the chalkboard. The coffee she liked still stocked in the breakroom fridge. No one dared touch it. Not because they were waiting for her—but because they couldn’t admit she might not come back to drink it.

Some days, he hated her for going. Not really. Not in his soul. But in the raw, bitter parts of him that hadn’t healed right since she left. She went without saying goodbye. Not properly. And when the reports came back after her jet crashed, detailing everything from exposure injuries to frostbite and blood loss, all he could think about was how close it had been. Minutes. Maybe less. The idea of her bleeding out in snow, hallucinating alone on enemy soil, made him physically sick.

He dreamed of her almost every night. Not always soft dreams. Not always peaceful. Sometimes she was falling, and he couldn’t catch her. Other times she stood in front of him, face pale, eyes wide, and she asked, “Why didn’t you come for me?” And he never had an answer. He’d wake up in a sweat, jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.

He never said any of it out loud.

Phoenix asked once, quietly, after a debriefing. “How are you holding up?”

He just nodded. Said, “Fine.” Didn’t even try to fake a smile. She didn’t push.

Even Hangman stopped joking. That was how Bob knew they were all waiting too. Waiting for word. Waiting for a miracle. And day after day, it didn’t come.

The worst part wasn’t not knowing where she was.

The worst part was knowing she was out there and still unreachable. It was worse than mourning. With mourning, you could grieve. You could move forward. This? This was purgatory. A waiting room with no windows, no clocks, no light. Just silence and the memory of her hands, her voice, the fire in her eyes when she challenged him, the softness in them when no one else was looking.

Every time Warlock stepped into the hangar, Bob’s heart stopped. Every time Cyclone walked past with a file in his hand, Bob’s pulse stuttered. Hope was a cruel, sharp-edged thing, and he clutched it so tightly it might as well have drawn blood.

You were alive. That was the only sentence that mattered.

But you weren’t home. You weren’t his. Not yet.

And some days, he wasn’t sure which one of those truths hurt more.

It had been seventeen days since they told him you were alive. Seventeen days since the words "she’s stable" were tossed out like a life raft and Bob had grabbed it with both hands, knuckles white, heart hollowed out from everything that came before. But seventeen days without seeing your face or hearing your voice? It felt worse than the silence before. At least then, grief had structure. Now all he had was the jagged, restless ache of hope.

He kept checking the damn flight schedule, like your name might magically appear on the arrivals list. He'd never been that guy before—waiting by a phone, staring at a clock—but here he was, pacing the hangar like a dog waiting at the door, ears pricked for footsteps that never came. And every time someone mentioned Kadena, or ghost missions, or the word “debrief,” he tensed like it might mean something. It never did.

Even Hondo gave him a look the other day. Not pitying—no one on base had the nerve to pity Bob Floyd—but quiet. Knowing. Like maybe Hondo had seen too many pilots wait for someone who didn’t come home in time.

The squad felt it, too. The shift. Everyone had tightened around Bob without saying it out loud. Hangman didn’t needle him. Rooster offered to fly his route when Bob stayed late, checking the diagnostics for the fourth time. Phoenix started lingering in the ready room just a little longer. They never said it, but they were bracing for something. Either the return or the collapse.

Bob wasn’t collapsing. Not yet.

He spent more time in the air than anywhere else now. The cockpit was the only place he didn’t feel like he might unravel. Up there, he could breathe without thinking. Without remembering the way your laugh used to echo in his headset, or how you always bumped his shoulder before takeoff, like it was your version of a hug.

He missed you so fiercely it was starting to hurt in his bones.

They said you'd crashed on an island no one could name. Said you hallucinated. Said you'd spoken to the snow like it could answer back. Bob knew what that meant. He’d studied trauma responses. Knew what the cold did to the mind. But he also knew you. And if you’d held on that long—if you survived snow and silence and the twisted remains of a jet—you hadn’t let go of him. Not entirely.

Still. It haunted him. The thought of you curled up in the wreckage, whispering to a ghost of him you hoped would save you. And he hadn’t. Not really. He’d been grounded. Helpless. Another pilot with clipped wings.

He’d kill to be able to say something to you now. Anything.

Even just, “Hey, you’re not alone anymore.”

But he couldn’t.

All he could do was wait. And hope that wherever you were, you were healing. Breathing. Remembering the sky. Remembering him.

Because Bob Floyd didn’t pray often. But lately?

He prayed every night for your return.

And not just to the base.

To him.

The twenty-third day hit him like turbulence he hadn’t seen coming.

There was no announcement. No coded alert. No page across the base. Just a whisper from a passing technician near maintenance, low and urgent: “She’s inbound.” Bob had been reviewing diagnostics on a training sim, half-tuned out, barely listening—until those two words crashed through his system like an emergency alarm. His pen dropped. His knees nearly buckled.

She’s inbound.

He didn’t ask who. He didn’t need to. He knew.

He was already out the door, sprinting down the corridor like his boots were on fire, mind racing faster than his feet. The tarmac was silver under late afternoon haze, the hangar humming, but all Bob saw was the pale blur of a medevac jet landing on the secondary strip, too small to be routine, too quiet to be for show. His lungs burned. His chest ached. And still he ran.

The rest of the Dagger Squad was already there—Phoenix, Rooster, Hangman, Yale, everyone. All of them hovering near the fence line like ghosts too afraid to hope out loud. Cyclone and Warlock stood farther back, watching in silence as the jet doors opened and the ramp descended.

And then—

Then he saw you.

You weren’t standing. Couldn’t. They wheeled you down on a stretcher, IV clipped beside you, blanket tucked tight around your frame like you’d been carved from snow and couldn’t risk melting. Your skin was too pale. Your hair stuck to your forehead. And yet—your eyes opened, just enough to see the crowd, just enough to search for him.

He didn’t breathe again until they landed on his face.

Even then, it didn’t feel real.

He didn’t push forward. Didn’t run to you. That wasn’t what you needed right now. But God, everything in him screamed to close the distance. Instead, he stood just outside the boundary, fists clenched so tight his fingers ached, watching as you blinked—slow, sleepy—and your lips moved around a word that might’ve been his name.

The medics moved fast. Your stretcher disappeared through the base doors. They didn’t stop. Didn’t offer explanation. They didn’t need to. She was home. That was all Bob could hear, pounding in his brain like a second heartbeat. She’s home. She’s home. She’s home.

He didn’t realize he was crying until Phoenix touched his arm.

He didn’t even look at her. Couldn’t. His eyes were still locked on the hangar doors where you’d vanished.

“She looked at you,” she said quietly, voice tight.

“I know,” he whispered.

His voice cracked around it.

They didn’t let him see you the first night.

Too many things still had to be monitored. Your vitals were steady but your oxygen levels were inconsistent, and your system was still flushed with the last traces of whatever you’d been given by the local med team before the Navy found you. He’d argued—politely, but firmly—and Warlock had pulled him aside.

“Floyd,” he said, quiet but sharp, “you want to be the first face she sees when she wakes up for real, right? Then give her one more night. Let her body do the work.”

Bob didn’t sleep that night. Not really. He laid on the rec room couch with a blanket over his legs and your dog tags wrapped in his fist like a rosary. He kept hearing the snow in his head. Seeing your blood-slicked boots, your frostbitten fingers, your cracked lips murmuring into wind that didn’t answer.

He could imagine it too clearly. He had imagined it—on the worst nights, the ones where the stars felt colder and the hangar lights buzzed a little too loud.

But you were here now. That should’ve been enough to let him rest.

It wasn’t.

The next morning came in slow layers of grey. The sun barely broke through the clouds when Warlock gave him the nod. No words. Just a look. Bob was up before the door closed.

The walk down the corridor to the medical wing was the longest damn walk of his life.

Every step felt like it echoed. Every sterile white tile reminded him that this wasn’t just a dream you got to wake up from. This wasn’t one of those nights where he could roll over and convince himself your laugh would be waiting on the comms tomorrow.

You were here.

But broken.

And he didn’t know what version of you would be left when he opened that door.

The nurse smiled gently at him and stepped aside. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. They all knew who he was. Who you were to him.

And there you were.

Lying in the hospital bed like something out of a war poem—fragile, beautiful, and weather-worn. You had more color in your cheeks today. Your hand twitched when you heard the door. There were no machines breathing for you anymore. Just you, tucked under too many blankets, with your face turned slightly toward the window, watching the sky like it held secrets.

His voice caught. For a second, he couldn’t even say your name.

Then, finally—soft. Barely above a breath.

“Hey.”

You turned your head.

It was slow, like the effort still cost you something. But your eyes met his and widened—barely. Just enough to burn him alive.

“Bob,” you rasped. Your voice cracked like ice under pressure.

He stepped closer, barely keeping his hands at his sides. “Yeah. It’s me. You’re home now.”

You tried to smile, but it faltered. Your chin trembled. “I saw you,” you whispered. “Out there… in the snow. I thought it was real.”

He let out a shaky breath. Sat down at the edge of the bed. He didn’t touch you yet. He wanted you to lead. “It wasn’t. But I wish it had been. I wish I’d found you sooner.”

Your hand reached out, slow and trembling. He caught it in both of his.

And that was it.

You didn’t sob. He didn’t crumble.

You just held on.

Longer than necessary. Tighter than before.

“I thought I’d never get back to you,” you murmured, eyes closing.

“You did,” he said, voice low and hoarse. “That’s all that matters.”

And for the first time in over a year, something in Bob Floyd finally let go.

You didn’t let go of his hand.

Even when your fingers shook. Even when the IV line tugged slightly as you shifted to see him better. Your grip was weak, but it was yours — real, alive, warm — and Bob held it like a lifeline, like if he let go for even a second, you might disappear back into the snow that still haunted his sleep.

“I kept thinking of you,” you whispered, eyes half-lidded with exhaustion but open just enough to let the truth bleed through. “Even when it hurt to stay awake. Even when I wasn’t sure if I was still alive. I just… I kept hearing your voice. Kept seeing your face.”

He swallowed hard. “I should’ve been there.”

“No,” you said immediately, firm in the way that cost energy. “Don’t do that. Don’t carry that. You weren’t supposed to be there, Bob. That wasn’t your mission.”

He looked away, jaw clenched. “But you were mine.”

Silence fell, soft and heavy.

“I thought I lost you,” he said quietly, voice cracking at the edges. “And the worst part wasn’t not knowing where you were. It was thinking I’d never get the chance to tell you what I should’ve said months ago.”

Your eyes flickered to his, soft with something you hadn’t let yourself feel in too long. “Then say it.”

He took a breath, held your hand tighter, and leaned closer — like he couldn’t bear even the space of air between you. “I love you.”

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t polished.

But it was true.

Your chest hitched, the first real breath you’d taken in days. “Bob…”

“I was so damn scared,” he whispered, voice raw. “You left and I was mad, but really I was just afraid. I thought maybe if I stayed quiet, it wouldn’t hurt as much when you didn’t come back. But it didn’t help. It just made it worse.”

You blinked quickly. The tears came slow, but once they started, they didn’t stop. They trailed down your temples, caught in your hairline. You didn’t sob. You just cried like someone who finally felt safe enough to.

“I was scared too,” you admitted. “Not of the mission. Not even of dying. I was scared of leaving and never knowing how you really felt. I thought maybe it was just me. That maybe we were almost, and that’s all we’d ever be.”

Bob brushed his thumb over your knuckles gently, reverent. “No. Not almost. Never almost.”

He leaned in, kissed your forehead like a promise.

“I’m here now,” he murmured, lips pressed to your skin. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

Your eyes fluttered shut. You were still exhausted. Your body needed rest. Your mind was still clawing its way back from survival mode. But his presence — his hand, his breath, his words — they felt like a weight you didn’t know you’d been carrying finally being set down.

“I don’t want almost anymore,” you whispered. “I want us. Whatever that looks like.”

Bob smiled, soft and breaking. “Then we’ll figure it out.”

He stayed there until you fell asleep — your fingers still wrapped around his, his head resting on the edge of the bed like he couldn’t stand to be more than inches away. He watched your chest rise and fall and swore, right then, that he’d never take another moment for granted.

Not another laugh.

Not another fight.

Not another day.

You came back to him.

And now, finally, he could start coming back to himself.

He didn’t move for a long time after you fell asleep.

His hand stayed in yours, his thumb brushing gentle arcs across your knuckles like he was tracing constellations. You looked peaceful — more peaceful than he'd ever seen you, even before the mission. Even back when you were all laughter and reckless charm and biting wit, before you’d vanished into the shadows of black ops, there had always been something behind your eyes. A weight. A watchfulness. A kind of quiet you wore like armor.

Now, even in sleep, you looked softer.

But it broke him a little, too.

Because he knew the softness came from exhaustion. From nearly bleeding out into snow. From dragging your body through enemy territory, waiting for help that came too late and just soon enough. From being alone in a way most people could never comprehend. He hated that you had to do that. Hated that he wasn’t there. Hated that it changed you, even though it had always been a risk.

He shifted slightly in the chair, careful not to wake you, and looked at your face like it held answers to questions he never had the courage to ask. How many times had he stared at your side of the ready room after you left, telling himself it was fine? That this was your job. That you could handle yourself.

You had handled yourself.

But you shouldn’t have had to do it alone.

Bob exhaled slowly, dropping his forehead to your joined hands. He stayed like that, curled into the edge of your bed like a man anchoring himself to something real. He could still feel the cold of your absence in his chest — the months where every flight felt wrong, every mission too quiet without your voice crackling over comms. He'd memorized the echo of your laugh and the way you tapped your boot against the hangar floor when you were impatient. He hadn’t let himself forget.

Now, here you were. Breathing. Warm. Yours.

And still, somehow, out of reach.

You stirred in your sleep, a small whimper escaping your lips — not loud, not desperate, just broken enough to make his stomach twist. He sat up instantly, squeezing your hand, whispering your name like a grounding thread.

“Hey. I’m here. You’re safe.”

You didn’t wake. But your breathing evened out again, and your fingers twitched tighter around his.

He stayed like that for hours.

At some point, a nurse knocked softly and offered to bring him a blanket, a cup of coffee. He declined both. Nothing mattered more than being here.

Eventually, you woke again — not with a start, not in a panic, but slow and disoriented. Your eyes found his face, and for a second, they lit up like they always used to. Like the world had rearranged itself into something familiar.

“You’re still here,” you whispered, voice hoarse with sleep and healing.

Bob smiled, small and raw. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You swallowed. “Good.”

And then, without hesitation, you lifted his hand and pressed it to your cheek. You closed your eyes and just breathed.

“I missed this,” you said.

He didn’t ask what you meant. He knew.

The quiet moments. The safety. The feeling of not having to be the strong one all the time. Of being seen, not just watched. Of being loved, not just followed into battle.

Bob leaned forward, his forehead brushing yours. “I missed you.”

Your nose brushed his. Your breath hitched. “I didn’t think I’d ever get this again.”

“I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to say it,” he murmured.

Your eyes met his, and for a moment, neither of you spoke. It was too big, too heavy. There were still things between you — walls built out of grief and time and stubborn fear — but they were starting to crack. You could feel it. Every second you were near him chipped something away.

“You can say it now,” you said, soft. “If you mean it.”

He didn’t hesitate.

“I love you.”

You closed your eyes.

It wasn’t new. Not really. But hearing it out loud — hearing it here, in this room that smelled like antiseptic and survival and the faintest trace of snowfall on his jacket — it cracked something wide open.

“I love you, too,” you breathed.

And that was it.

No dramatic swell of music. No declarations shouted from rooftops.

Just the slow, unflinching return of a love that had never left.

Just you and Bob — two broken people learning to be whole again, one heartbeat at a time.

It started with the unmistakable sound of someone arguing with hospital security.

It was loud, unapologetic, and definitely Texan.

“I know she’s not technically accepting visitors,” Hangman barked, voice unmistakable even through the wall. “But I didn’t fly halfway across the damn planet to wave through the window like a sad divorcé!”

“Jake,” a very exasperated Phoenix hissed, “let the poor man live.”

“Stand down, Hoss,” Rooster added, muffled through what sounded like a scuffle. “You can’t just charm your way into the ICU!”

“I’m not charming— I’m insisting.”

Bob barely had time to glance at you before the door slammed open so hard it nearly bounced off the stopper.

There they were.

The whole damn squad, spilling into the room like a pack of badly behaved puppies who’d been kept too long in the crate. Hangman was in front, already halfway through a dramatic point-and-accuse gesture. Phoenix trailed behind him, rubbing her temples like this wasn’t even the worst thing he’d done this week. Rooster looked tired but relieved. Coyote had tears in his eyes and a protein bar in one hand. Payback was muttering “I told you she’d be okay” while Fanboy filmed on his phone and tried not to cry. Omaha and Fritz were shoving each other out of the doorway like they weren’t full-grown men, and Harvard and Yale were already sniffling.

Halo entered last, sunglasses indoors, visibly shaking, trying very hard to play it cool and absolutely failing.

“Okay,” you croaked, blinking at them all. “Are you crying?”

“I’M NOT CRYING,” Hangman barked, already halfway to your bed, “YOU’RE—okay, I am crying, but I’m doing it hotly, so shut up.”

“Don’t yell at her!” Phoenix snapped, elbowing him aside as she leaned in. “Are you okay? You look like crap.”

“Thanks,” you rasped, smiling anyway. “You look like an unpaid intern at a dive bar.”

“That’s fair.”

“She’s joking,” Rooster said, laughing wetly as he stepped closer, knuckling at his eyes. “She’s joking, that means she’s fine. Jesus, Blitz.”

“You scared the hell out of us,” Coyote said softly. “They wouldn’t tell us anything.”

“Didn’t even know you were alive ‘til yesterday,” Fanboy added, lowering his phone and wiping his face with his sleeve. “This is the worst surprise party ever.”

“I made banana bread,” Fritz announced, holding up a Tupperware container like a trophy. “But we ate it. So… moral support?”

You couldn’t help it. You laughed — or tried to. It came out more like a wheeze, but they took it like gospel.

“I missed you guys,” you whispered.

“You better have,” Hangman muttered, wiping at his eyes aggressively. “After pulling that snow-crash-disappearing-act like you’re goddamn Maverick in the third act. Do you know what this did to Bob?!”

He gestured dramatically at Bob, who had not moved from your side.

Bob blinked. “I’m fine.”

“HE CRIED INTO HIS CEREAL.”

“It was oatmeal,” Bob corrected.

“Emotional oatmeal,” Fanboy whispered reverently.

Harvard and Yale were fully crying now. Together. Holding one tissue between them like it was a sacred relic.

“Okay, you guys need to leave,” the nurse said suddenly from the doorway, scandalized at the human traffic jam clogging up your IV drip line.

“No,” you croaked, grinning.

“Absolutely not,” Hangman said.

“We just got her back,” Rooster added.

“Yeah, and Blitz owes me like four bucks,” Payback said.

“You owe me therapy,” Fanboy said through a sniffle.

“You owe me an explanation for why I cried at a vending machine thinking about you,” Coyote added.

“You owe me a rematch,” Fritz grinned. “Also the banana bread I gave up for you.”

“And you owe me a hug,” Halo said simply, voice shaking.

They all fell quiet at that.

You blinked slowly at the chaos around you, your fingers still locked in Bob’s, your body aching, your heart full. They had come. All of them. Across the world, through the snow, across every barrier that should’ve kept them away.

You hadn’t realized just how much you needed them until they were here.

Until they were whole again.

Until it felt like home.

“I said I was going to sit next to her first,” Hangman growled, elbowing Payback not-so-gently in the ribs as he tried to wedge himself closer to your bedside.

“She’s not a carnival ride, Bagman,” Phoenix hissed, physically dragging him back by his collar. “You can wait your turn.”

“I brought her banana bread,” Fritz argued from the foot of the bed, voice rising indignantly. “That gets me VIP access.”

“You ate the banana bread,” Rooster countered, crossing his arms. “The only thing you brought is crumbs.”

“Yeah, well, at least I didn’t show up and immediately knock over her IV pole like some people,” Fritz snapped, glaring at Yale, who went scarlet.

“That was an accident!”

“You unplugged it from the wall,” Harvard whispered, scandalized. “It BEEPED.”

“Can everyone just shut up,” Coyote groaned, flopping dramatically into the only available chair, “before someone actually gets us kicked out?”

“I’m still trying to understand how Hangman ended up in my seat,” Bob said calmly, not even looking at Jake, who was somehow perched precariously on the edge of the bed like a smug cat.

Hangman blinked. “Well. I saw an opening—”

“You mean my lap,” Bob cut in, deadpan. “That was the opening.”

“I was being symbolic!”

“You were being heavy,” Phoenix muttered.

Fanboy, hovering near the window, held up his phone and muttered, “This is better than reality TV. We need subtitles.”

“You are the subtitle,” Payback shot back.

“Okay, okay,” Halo said loudly, wiping her nose with what had to be the fifth tissue. “Can we all please pretend to be emotionally stable for like two minutes? Blitz literally crashed into the Arctic and survived on sheer sass and hallucinations. She does not need to be parent-trapped by a bunch of unhinged Navy pilots.”

“Oh my God,” Yale whimpered. “She did crash into the Arctic. She’s basically Elsa.”

You sat there, quietly watching them all spiral — arguing, teasing, elbowing, bickering, tripping over each other like toddlers who’d been released from timeout — and something inside you broke.

Not in a bad way.

In the softest, most human way.

Because somehow, even after everything, they hadn’t changed. You were still Blitz. They were still your squad. And this... this ridiculous noise, this tangle of voices and chaos and care, was the sound of home.

A tear slipped down your cheek before you even realized it was coming.

Then another.

Then another.

And then—well, someone noticed.

“Oh my God,” Fanboy gasped, dropping his phone. “She’s crying.”

“Wait—wait, what?” Coyote scrambled to your side.

“Blitz?” Phoenix asked, suddenly hovering too. “Are you okay?”

“Did we—did we hurt you?” Yale asked, panicking.

“She’s in pain, I knew we were too loud—”

“No, no,” you said, voice barely above a whisper, trying to wave them off. “It’s not that. It’s just—”

You choked on the next word, unable to finish, and a sob caught in your throat — the kind that shook you, that you couldn’t hide even if you tried. But your face was wet with something else entirely. Joy. Relief. The feeling of being found after being lost.

“I just missed you,” you said finally, through a laugh that was half-cry. “I missed you so much.”

And then, like dominoes, the entire squad lost it.

“Oh no,” Phoenix sniffled. “Don’t do this, you can’t cry like that, it’s weaponized emotion.”

“Goddammit,” Rooster muttered, aggressively blinking. “Who’s cutting onions in the ICU?”

“I’m not crying,” Hangman said, voice wobbling. “You’re crying.”

“You are literally crying,” Bob said softly, arm already wrapping tighter around your shoulders, pulling you gently into him. “You big sap.”

You clung to him without hesitation, your fingers curling into his shirt, your face pressed to the place just under his jaw. He smelled like soap and sunshine and safety, and when he kissed the side of your head, slow and reverent, you felt something in your chest click back into place.

He held you like you were still fragile, still coming back to earth in pieces. And maybe you were. But in that moment, with all of them around you — yelling and sniffling and absolutely failing to maintain any kind of military composure — you realized something else.

You weren’t just alive.

You were loved.

“I love you guys,” you said into Bob’s shoulder, laughter bubbling through your tears.

“Awwww,” Fanboy groaned, dropping to his knees dramatically. “She loves us.”

“Of course she does,” Hangman sniffed. “We’re delightful.”

“I love you too,” Phoenix added, leaning down to kiss your forehead. “You stubborn, stupid, snow-trapped legend.”

“You’re never flying alone again,” Rooster said, clapping a hand on Bob’s shoulder. “We’re chaining ourselves to your landing gear if we have to.”

“Yeah,” Payback added, “you try vanishing into a snowstorm again, and we’re staging a coup.”

Bob smiled softly, one hand still on your back. “Not happening,” he said. “She’s staying grounded. At least until I can breathe again.”

You looked up at him, breath hitching again, but this time it was different. Lighter. Real.

And behind you, the squad kept laughing, crying, shouting over each other like idiots who didn’t know how to say I love you except through banter and bad jokes and banana bread.

For the first time in almost a year, you didn’t feel far away anymore.

You felt home.

It took a team effort to drag the Dagger Squad out of your hospital room. Phoenix was the first to take charge, ushering everyone back with military precision and muttering something about personal space and “Blitz still needing actual oxygen.” Hangman refused to go quietly, clutching dramatically at the bedframe like he was being exorcised. “This is a violation of my emotional rights!” he declared as Bob calmly pried his fingers off the guard rail one by one. Fanboy shouted something about group therapy. Harvard tried to negotiate visitation hours. Yale was crying into Halo’s shoulder. Payback got distracted arguing with Fritz about who’d actually brought the banana bread.

“Guys,” Bob said firmly, hands raised in mock surrender, “let’s just give her a minute. She literally just rejoined the living.”

“Yeah,” you wheezed, laughing into your hospital pillow. “Let me enjoy the silence before you all bust in here with karaoke night and a Whiteboard War Plan to get me back in the air.”

“You joke,” Rooster said, pointing a dramatic finger as he backed out of the room, “but we will be back with a slideshow.”

“And cue cards,” Coyote added. “We’ve been practicing.”

“I love you all,” you said, grinning even as your voice cracked from the ache in your chest, “but get out.”

Phoenix blew you a kiss. Fanboy dabbed his eyes with a tissue he’d definitely stolen from the nurse’s station. And slowly—grudgingly—they retreated into the hallway like the world’s noisiest emotional hurricane.

Bob was the last one to leave. He lingered near the door, his eyes never leaving yours. He said nothing at first. Just gave you that look—the one that said everything he couldn’t say in front of everyone else. His hand brushed yours one last time, just long enough to steady you.

“I’ll be right outside,” he said softly. “Take your time.”

And then the door shut behind him, and the room was suddenly quiet again. Peaceful, even.

For a few long seconds, you let yourself breathe. In. Out. The hospital blanket scratched against your wrists. The IV beeped once. The silence filled the spaces they’d all left behind.

Then the door creaked open once more.

And there he was.

Captain Pete Mitchell.

Maverick.

He looked older than the last time you’d seen him, more lined around the eyes, but that grin—that unshakable, crooked grin—still hit like sunlight. He stepped into the room without a word at first, his boots soft on the tile, his face unreadable.

You sat up straighter, your voice catching in your throat. “Hey.”

“Hey, kid,” he said gently.

You didn’t expect the hug.

Maverick crossed the room in three long strides and folded you into him before you could blink. His arms wrapped around you, careful not to jostle the wires or tubes, and it was the kind of hug that said you scared the hell out of me.

Your chin trembled against his shoulder.

“I didn’t die,” you said quietly, your voice small in a way you hadn’t heard since you were nineteen and first met him.

“No,” he whispered, holding you tighter, “but God, you tried your best, huh?”

You laughed, and it broke open something in both of you.

He finally pulled back and looked you over, hands on your shoulders, studying you like a mechanic checking the frame of an old but beloved jet. “You’re skinnier. You look tired. You smell like engine oil and heartbreak.”

“You forgot the part where I crashed in a blizzard and hallucinated half of Dagger Squad,” you said.

“I figured that was just a Tuesday for you,” he replied.

The teasing helped. The warmth helped more. He pulled up the chair Bob had been sitting in and settled beside your bed, sighing heavily like he’d been holding his breath since the day you deployed.

“I thought I lost you,” he admitted after a long pause. “When Cyclone showed us the flight log… I thought I’d failed you.”

You shook your head slowly, your fingers twitching at your side, aching to reach for someone. “You didn’t. You saved me. You made me strong enough to survive.”

“Don’t give me that,” he muttered, brushing a thumb under his nose. “You’ve always been stronger than me.”

“Not true,” you said. “You stayed behind when Goose died. You went back up. You built this program. You built us.”

He let the compliment hang in the air between you, heavy but not unwelcome.

“And you?” he said softly. “You built your own legend.”

Your eyes stung again, and this time, you didn’t stop the tears.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me it would feel like this?” you whispered. “Coming back after nearly… after that? It’s not just relief. It’s guilt. It’s… it’s all of it, all at once.”

Maverick didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached for your hand and squeezed it, grounding you.

“Because there’s no right way to prepare someone for surviving something you weren’t supposed to,” he said finally. “You just… survive. And then you learn how to live again. One day at a time.”

You nodded slowly, voice caught somewhere behind your ribs. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” he said. “You scared the hell out of me, Blitz.”

You let the nickname settle over your heart like a blanket. Like coming home to the name that meant you were still here. Still alive.

Still his kid.

You leaned your head back against the pillow, eyes glassy but unblinking as you stared at the ceiling. The sterile white light above buzzed faintly, a sound that had gone unnoticed until now. You could feel it—the weight of everything unsaid pressing down on your chest, heavier than the crash, heavier than the snow, heavier than the months spent pretending you weren’t slowly unraveling.

Maverick didn’t rush you. He sat beside you like a sentinel, elbows on his knees, gaze soft and patient.

“I was so scared,” you whispered finally, your voice cracking down the middle like glass under pressure. “Out there… when the jet went down. When I realized I wasn’t dead yet.”

His brows furrowed, but he said nothing, waiting for you to go on.

“It was snowing so hard, I couldn’t see anything. Everything hurt. And I knew—I knew—if I didn’t crawl out of that cockpit fast enough, it would kill me. Not the enemy. Not a missile. Just the cold.” You blinked slowly, breath shallow. “And it was quiet. Not peaceful quiet. Not the kind we get up in the air. Just empty. Like the world forgot I was still breathing.”

Maverick’s jaw twitched. He reached out, his hand resting gently over yours, grounding you again. You didn’t flinch this time.

You swallowed hard. “I thought about you. About the squad. About Bob.” Your voice broke on his name, and you took a breath before continuing. “I started hallucinating. I saw him… I heard him, Mav. Telling me to hold on. I talked to him for hours and hours and I knew it wasn’t real, but I did it anyway because—because the alternative was silence.”

Maverick’s eyes were shining now, rimmed red with the kind of emotion he didn’t let many people see. He shifted closer, his grip on your hand tightening like he needed the contact as much as you did.

“It was so cold,” you said, your voice barely audible. “My hands were shaking so bad I couldn’t hold my emergency flare. And the worst part?” You turned to look at him now, your expression raw. “The worst part was that I wasn’t afraid of dying. I was afraid no one would know where I fell. That I’d just… disappear. No goodbyes. No names on logs. No one to say I mattered.”

Maverick exhaled like you’d just cracked his ribs open. “You do matter. You hear me?” His voice was thick now, and he blinked hard, like saying it out loud might hold him together. “You mattered before this mission, and you’ll matter long after. You’re not just one of my pilots, Blitz. You’re—” He stopped, cleared his throat. “You’re mine. My kid. You always have been. And I swear to God, if I hadn’t gotten that call, if Cyclone hadn’t said the words—”

He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” you whispered, eyes locked with his.

“I would’ve never stopped looking,” he whispered back. “Not in this life. Not in the next.”

You broke first, burying your face in your hands as your shoulders shook silently. Maverick reached for you, pulled you in without hesitation, and held you like only someone who understood that kind of terror ever could. His arms wrapped around your shaking frame, solid and steady and warm in a way that the snow never had been.

And for the first time since the crash, since the mission, since the moment everything went dark—

You finally let yourself cry.

Not from fear. Not from pain. But from the unbearable, indescribable relief of surviving.

And not surviving alone.

Bob stood at the edge of the hospital bed, barely breathing. His shoulders were tense, his eyes wide, and his hands had curled into cautious fists at his sides like he didn’t quite trust them not to reach for you too fast, too soon. The others had trickled out one by one, some awkwardly, some emotionally, none willing to stay in the room and intrude on what this was—on what you were to him. Now, it was just the two of you in the too-white hospital room, the air heavy with silence and the scent of antiseptic and snow still tangled in your hair.

You tried to sit up, grimacing as your ribs flared in protest, but you didn't let it stop you. You didn’t survive all that just to sit still now. Bob didn’t speak, didn’t move, didn’t blink. He just stared at you like you were a ghost. Not because he didn’t believe you were real, but because somewhere deep inside him, he still hadn’t caught up with the fact that he wasn’t grieving anymore. That you were here. Breathing. Hurt but alive.

“I thought I was gonna die out there,” you said quietly, the words barely making it past the tightness in your throat. It felt strange, saying it out loud. You hadn’t said it yet—not to the medics, not to Maverick, not to yourself. But it was the truth, and Bob deserved the truth more than anyone.

His mouth parted like he wanted to answer, but you kept going, the memories crawling up your spine like ice. “I woke up in the snow, Bob. My leg was wrecked. My shoulder—I don’t even know what I did to it. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even remember where I was. Everything hurt. And I thought that was it. That I was gonna freeze to death alone.”

His jaw clenched. You saw the flicker in his eyes, the way his body swayed forward like he wanted to pull you in but didn’t want to hurt you.

“But then I saw you,” you said, voice cracking. “I hallucinated you. I know it wasn’t real, but it felt like you were there. Kneeling beside me. Telling me I had to hold on. You told me I promised you.”

Bob’s hands twitched, then finally—finally—he reached for yours. He touched you like you were made of glass, like one wrong move might shatter the miracle in front of him.

“I held on because of that,” you whispered. “Because I couldn’t stand the thought of dying without seeing you again. Without—God, Bob—without telling you what you meant to me.”

You were shaking now, not from the cold, but from the sheer force of everything unspoken that had clung to you in that snowstorm. Your body might’ve been rescued, but your soul was still clawing its way out of that mountain.

“I thought of your voice, the way you say my name when you’re annoyed. The way you look at me when you think I’m not watching. That stupid soft smile that only shows up when I’m not trying to make you laugh. I thought of all of it. And it kept me alive.”

Bob’s lips parted, and then he was beside you, his forehead pressed to yours the same way it had been the night before you left. His breath was warm, shaking. He was holding you so gently, like you were still buried under all that snow, like he didn’t want to lose you to the dark again.

“You came back,” he murmured, voice rough and barely held together. “You actually came back.”

“I didn’t survive eleven months in a black zone op just to die without seeing you again,” you said with a broken laugh, tears slipping down your cheeks. “I love you, Bob. I don’t know when it started. Maybe it was always there. But I love you.”

Bob pulled back just enough to look into your eyes. And when he smiled, it was the kind of smile that hurt to see—because it held every emotion he’d buried in your absence. Every sleepless night. Every silent prayer. Every day spent pretending he wasn’t falling apart.

“I love you too,” he whispered. “Always have.”

His lips found yours, soft and reverent, a kiss that didn’t demand anything, only offered. And when he pulled away, his hand never left yours.

You exhaled slowly, sinking into the warmth of his touch, and for the first time in two days, you didn’t feel cold.

You were home.

It was strange, returning.

Not to Kadena, or any particular station, but to yourself. Whoever that was now. After a year in the shadows, after your body stitched itself back together with scars and stubborn will, you came home not as the pilot you were, but as someone who’d seen the other side of silence and still chose to speak.

The Dagger Squad treated you like you’d never left. Which was both a mercy and a miracle. Rooster still talked too loud. Hangman still winked too much. Phoenix stole your fries like she always had, and Fanboy cried at literally everything—even your clearance papers. They made space for you at the table like it had always been yours, even when the empty chair had ached. It didn’t matter that your laugh sounded different now. Or that you flinched at fireworks. They didn’t point it out. They just... stayed close.

Bob never left.

He’d made good on his promise. Every day. A small gesture. A look. A word. Sometimes, he just sat beside you, pinky brushing yours, eyes watching the sky like he could still hear your jet’s voice in the clouds. You didn’t talk about the hallucination in the snow, not really. But you both knew. Somewhere between the memory and the miracle, you’d found each other. In the dark. And in the return.

You stayed on the roster. Not for missions like before—God no. But for training. For mentoring. For teaching the kind of flying that doesn’t fit in a manual. You didn’t crave the adrenaline anymore. You craved stability. Quiet mornings. Hot coffee. The way Bob pressed kisses to your temple like he was afraid he’d forget the warmth of you.

Some nights, you still dreamed of the cold. The mountain. The silence. But when you reached out, his hand was always there.

You once told him that surviving the crash wasn’t the hardest part. It was surviving after. The days that blurred. The grief that crept in through the vents. The guilt that roosted in your chest like it paid rent. But he just nodded, brushed the hair from your face, and said, “I know. But you’re here. And so am I. So let’s start from there.”

And you did.

The sea was calm that night, as if the whole world had taken a breath and finally decided to let it out. The waves rolled in slow and sleepy, brushing up against the shoreline in quiet applause, moonlight tracing silver ribbons across the water. Okinawa was miles behind them, distant in both memory and geography. This was home now. Not a place, not a building—just this moment. Just him. Just you.

Your boots left a trail in the damp sand, your hand tucked securely in Bob’s like you’d never let go again. The beach was nearly empty, save for the sound of the tide and the soft shuffle of your steps. Every so often, he would glance at you, his eyes catching the starlight like they’d been built to hold constellations. You didn’t have to talk much. You never did with him. But something about tonight hummed with a kind of magic you couldn't quite name.

The moon sat low over the horizon, casting both of your shadows long and tall across the dunes. Bob’s thumb was stroking lazy circles on the back of your hand. His other one was buried in his pocket, nervous energy running through his shoulders, though his face gave none of it away. You'd gotten good at reading him—better than anyone else. You knew when his silence meant peace, and when it meant something was rattling around inside his chest, trying to find the courage to come out.

He stopped walking when the water reached his boots, and you turned to face him, letting the sea lap at your ankles. The breeze tugged at your hair, brought with it the faint scent of salt and sky, of memories left out too long in the sun. Bob looked at you then—not like he had something to say, but like he had something to keep. His lips parted, closed, then parted again. You reached up, brushing your fingers gently along the collar of his jacket, anchoring him to now.

“I almost lost you,” he said quietly.

You nodded. “I almost lost myself.”

Bob’s brows pulled together, his free hand finally leaving his pocket. He cupped your cheek, and you leaned into the warmth without hesitation. “You know,” he said softly, “when you were gone, I thought about all the things I’d never said. And it scared the hell out of me, because I realized how much of my heart was wrapped up in yours.”

You felt your throat tighten, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. “You kept me alive,” you whispered. “Even when I was alone out there. I saw you. I heard you. You were the only thing that made the cold bearable.”

He stepped closer. His forehead pressed to yours, and you closed your eyes as your hearts lined up again like stars returning to orbit. “I don’t want to go another day without saying the things that matter,” Bob murmured. “So here’s one.”

Then he kissed you.

Soft at first. Reverent. Like a breath held too long finally released. Then deeper—like the ocean had swallowed both of you and decided to spit you back out whole. When he pulled back, the world was quieter. Calmer. Like it, too, had been waiting for this.

“Be mine,” he said, the words low but steady. “Not in the rushed, desperate way. Not just because we survived. But because I love you. Because I choose you. Because every version of tomorrow I’ve ever imagined ends with you in it.”

Your breath hitched. You nodded once, then again, faster, like your heart needed your body to understand. “I already was,” you whispered. “Even when I was lost, I was yours.”

Bob smiled—really smiled—and kissed you again, like the promise of every beginning was sealed between your mouths. The waves sang soft around your feet, the stars blinked their quiet approval, and your fingers tangled into his jacket like they never planned to let go.

You stood there for a while longer, just the two of you and the sea. Talking in low murmurs, sometimes not talking at all. Just the sound of laughter in between kisses, of wind threading through hair, of peace. The kind you fought for. The kind you earned.

Later, when the sky had gone from navy to violet, and your legs were tucked over Bob’s lap as you sat tangled in a blanket on the beach, he said something you’d never forget.

“You know what I think?” he murmured, tracing his finger along your wrist.

You turned your face toward him, already smiling. “What?”

“I think the ocean heard all of it. Every word we said to each other without speaking. Every vow we didn’t know we were making.”

You rested your head on his shoulder, eyes fluttering closed. “Yeah,” you said softly. “But I think the sky didn’t say a damn thing. It just kept watching.”

His arm tightened around you. “Then let it watch. We’ll write the rest.”

And with the stars above you, the sea beside you, and his heart in your hands—

you let it.

Because this was what the ocean heard. And this… was what the sky didn’t say.

[onlyforsebastianstan]

Too Late

Summary: A mistake led the team to ignore you, making you feel invisible. And Bucky as your last hope, your last foundation to keep going, never opened the door.

📎Genre: Angst | Tragedy | Hurt/No Comfort

⚠️ Warnings: → Suicidal ideation → Blood → Character death → Self-inflicted injury (non-explicit) → Emotional neglect → Guilt → Isolation → Mentions of trauma → Depressive thoughts

! ! ! ! Please approach with caution if you are sensitive to themes of mental health crisis, emotional abuse via neglect, or depictions of suicide. This story is written with care and emotional depth but may be distressing for some readers.

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of self-harm or suicide, please reach out to a mental health professional or contact a support line in your country. You are not alone. 💛💛💛

You didn’t mean to ruin the mission.

You didn’t mean to lose control.

You didn’t mean to kill him.

But you did.

And even if it was an accident—an unintended blast of your energy, fractured by panic and fear—it didn’t matter. The target was gone. And so was one of your own.

Clint.

You remember the way his body fell. The look in his eyes when your power struck him. You remember his last breath, the way he whispered something like, “Tell them it’s not your fault,” but it didn’t matter.

Because when you came back to the compound… no one looked at you.

Not Natasha, not Wanda. Steve’s silence was steel, Bruce couldn’t meet your eyes, and Sam turned away whenever you entered a room. They didn’t say you killed him—they didn’t have to.

Their silence screamed it.

You tried. You tried so hard to explain, to apologize. You stood in the common room, your hands shaking, begging them.

“Please… please just listen—”

Nothing.

They wouldn’t even look at you.

You tried. God, you tried.

You cleaned the kitchen even when you didn’t make the mess. You refilled the coffee machine before Steve's morning routine. You asked Wanda if she wanted help with spellwork. You even laughed at one of Tony’s dumb jokes just to show him you could.

But no one forgave you.

And worst of all — you couldn't forgive yourself.

It was 1:47 AM. The corridor smelled faintly of eucalyptus from the ventilation system. Bucky’s door was dark. But you stood outside it anyway, fingers trembling, forehead resting against the cool wood.

“Please,” you whispered. “I know you hear me.”

Nothing.

“I need— I just need someone to tell me it’s okay to breathe.” Your voice broke. “I need to stop feeling like I’m already dead.”

Silence.

You tried again. Soft knock. A plea this time:

“I’m sorry.”

You waited another long minute. Your knees buckled, back sliding down the wall until you were sitting beside his door like a broken doll.

And then—

“I love you,” you said quietly, barely audible.

You stayed for a few more minutes. Just to give yourself time to believe he might open it. That he might hold you or scream at you or something. But when nothing came…

You got up. And walked away.

"Alert: Medical emergency detected in East Wing — Room 23-Bathroom. Vital signs dropping rapidly."

FRIDAY’s voice rang through the compound at 2:12 a.m.

But no one moved. Not at first.

Because that was your room. And no one cared what happened in your room anymore.

Until she spoke again — louder, more urgent.

"Agent is non-responsive. Severe blood loss. Immediate assistance required."

That's when the panic set in.

Steve bolted from his quarters, shield in hand.

Natasha and Bruce ran from opposite ends of the hall.

Wanda froze mid-step, her eyes glowing in fear.

And Bucky — Bucky ran like his world was ending again.

Because maybe it was.

They burst into your bathroom.

You were already half-gone.

Your body was submerged in red-tinted water, your veins glowing faintly as your supernatural form began to unravel. Your eyes fluttered open—not from surprise. From sadness.

You didn’t scream.

You just whispered.

“Why are you here?…You’re not supposed to see this.”

Bucky dropped to his knees beside the tub. “No—no, no, no, what did you do—!”

You looked at him like he was a memory. “I need you all to leave, You shouldn’t be here now.”

“No, no, please… I’m sorry…” 

“It’s okay,” you breathed. “No one blames you.”

Your voice was hollow, distant, like wind through a dying tree.

“But I do.”

And then you closed your eyes.

You didn’t vanish in a burst.

You dissolved slowly—like a soul slipping out of time. The bathwater turned clear. Your body turned pale and light. Like mist. Until there was nothing left but silence.

Not even your heartbeat remained.

The next morning, they found a note. Folded neatly on your pillow.

"To whoever sees this: I understand now. I was a danger. A mistake. I never belonged here. I tried to fix it. I tried to make it right.

But silence speaks louder than hate. And yours has been screaming.

I forgive you. But I can’t forgive myself.

Please don’t come looking for me. I’ve already left."

—Y/N

See my other stories here >>> Masterlist <<<

[wileycap]

Vi's journey broke my fucking heart and I do not see anyone talking about it, so I will.

The Writing In Arcane Was Very Good, Actually (SPOILERS)

The core of her character is that Vi lets herself be hurt. Again and again, and she asks nothing for herself. In S1E2 when she's talking to Vander, she says "I grew up knowing I'm less than them, that my place is down here. I want Powder to have more than that, and I'm willing to fight for it."

Not "I want more than that." She says "I grew up knowing I'm less" and even then, she's already accepted it. It's fine if it happens to her.

When Jinx blows up the council, again it's "I can do this alone, nobody else has to get hurt." She doesn't want the badge, but she takes it anyways because if she doesn't, Caitlyn will be hurt. So it's fine if it's her principles that get tossed out. It's fine if it happens to her.

When Caitlyn hurts her, again - she directs all the harm at herself. She doesn't grab Cait and beat the shit out of her for hurting her. She goes and becomes a pit fighting alcoholic so that she can keep the pain where it belongs, with her. It's fine if it happens to her.

And then... Jinx comes to get her, and they get Vander. She gets to see Jinx be a big sister, try to carry more so that Isha could carry less. And she sees Jinx lose what she lost. (I want you to hurt like you hurt me today and I want you to lose like I lose when I play.)

She tries to help Jinx again and she gets hit with another betrayal. Except this time... Jinx wants to make the same choice Vi always makes. "You don't need to feel guilty about being happy. You deserve to be with her." She's no longer judging Vi or resenting her, because after Isha, how could she? She understands Vi. She understands her too well.

When she's completely broken down, Caitlyn comes in. And Caitlyn isn't upset or angry, no, Caitlyn knew she'd go to her sister and planned for it. Caitlyn accepted her and her need and put aside her own need for revenge.

This is followed by the best sex scene I've ever seen. Now, you have to understand that sex scenes make me uncomfortable, so this is like, high praise from me.

Vi expects to be punished. "Say it. 'I told you so.'" She is literally imprisoned by her mind (wow, filmmaking 101!). And she expects to be taken out of there, to be put back into the fight (like the first time Cait set her free) so she can be hurt and be useful.

And instead, Caitlyn opens the door and steps inside. Into Vi's prison ("Walls of self-doubt and accepted limitation.") To give her understanding and love and most importantly, time. They have more important things to do. There's an invasion coming. And still, Caitlyn puts Vi first.

And Vi lets her. She initiates it, she leans into the comfort and intimacy being offered. It's actually beautiful.

(And then Jinx comes back to help, too, - healing that wound - and even though she loses her again... she can allow herself to move on and be happy. Like she never could before.)

(And we know Jinx survives, but she leaves because yes, sometimes you have to walk away. Sometimes meaningful healing can't happen if you're stuck in the same situation.)

(And Caitlyn figures it out, but doesn't tell anyone. She learned how to forgive and move on, and she's letting Vi do the same.)

"You've got a good heart. Don't ever lose it, no matter how the world tries to break you."

She didn't.

[visenyaism]

do you have any ideas about why so many students are struggling with literacy now? I know that illiteracy and reading comprehension have been issues for years and most americans read at like a 5th grade reading level but I’m curious why it seems to be worse now (pandemic? no child left behind?)

It is everything. There’s not one answer. I could talk about this forever so instead I set a five minute timer on my phone and wrote a list of as many of the many things that are causing this on a systemic level that I could think of:

It’s parents not reading with their kids (a privilege, but some parents have that privilege to be able to do this and don’t.)

It’s youtube from birth and never being bored.

It’s phasing out phonics for sight words (memorizing without understanding sounds or meaning) in elementary schools in the early aughts.

It’s defunding public libraries that do all the community and youth outreach.

It’s NCLB and mandating standardized tests which center reading short passages as opposed to longform texts so students don’t build up the endurance or comprehension skills.

It’s NCLB preventing schools from holding students back if they lack the literacy skills to move onto the next grade because they can’t be left behind so they’re passed on.

It’s the chronic underfunding of ESL and Special Ed programs for students who need extra literacy support.

It’s the cultural devaluing of the humanities in favor of stem and business because those make more money which leads to a lot of students to completely disregard reading and writing.

It’s the learning loss from covid.

It’s covid trauma manifesting in a lot of students as learned helplessness, or an inability to “figure things out” or push through adversity to complete challenging tasks independently, especially reading difficult texts.

It’s covid normalizing cheating and copying.

It’s increasing phone use.

It’s damage to attention span exacerbated by increased phone use that leaves you without an ability to sit and be bored ever without 2-3 forms of constant stimulation.

It’s shortform video becoming the predominant form of social media content as opposed to anything text-based.

It’s starting to also be generative AI.

It’s the book bans.

what did I miss.

[gaza-giving-tree]

Hossam Al-Qazzaz and his family were finally able to move into their newly rebuilt tent... And now, it looks likely they will be displaced yet again.

Images: Hossam Al-Quzzaz rebuilt his family's tent after it was destroyed in an airstrike on the night of March 17/18, 2025.

@hos-pal

@bashar-qazaz

@hane-qazaz

Written by @rumiandroses

In the early hours of March 17/18, 2025, the ceasefire in Gaza collapsed. Airstrikes lit up the dark night, killing over 400 people.

Sleeping in their tent in the Khan Kunis displacement camp, the Al-Quzzaz family had a nightmarish awakening: their tent collapsing on top of them, their belongings catching fire from the blast.

Hossam, his wife Hanan, and their four children—Bashar (9), Hani (8), Diana (4), and 4-month-old Habiba—managed to scramble out of the wreckage.

Video: Clip from a ten minute Al-Jazeera video, featuring Hossam, as he recounts the night his family's tent was destroyed in an airstrike.

Original Video: [LINK]

"Miraculously, we survived," Hossam wrote to us the next morning, assuring us he and his family were unharmed. The tent, however, was completely destroyed.

“By the grace of the Creator, we were not physically harmed, but we are psychologically and morally broken,” Hossam wrote in the March 19th update on the family's GoFundMe page. “... our hearts are still trembling until now, because we have lost everything. Our tent was completely destroyed, just as our house was destroyed before, and we are now homeless, without food, without clothes, without money…”

The devastating blow was softened a little by the kindness of others; thanks to everyone who donated to the Chuffed campaign our founder, Bethany Grace, created to help the family rebuild, we were able to send the Al-Qazzaz family $788 (€697.48 after conversion)—enough to start constructing another shelter out of sturdy materials.

Hossam, skilled in construction, has been hard at work for the past few weeks, clearing out the debris and reconstructing the family's shelter with materials he was able to obtain.

Every day, Hossam toiled to rebuild his family's shelter. And every long night, the family could barely sleep as brutal airstrikes continued to light up the night.

“The sounds of bombings are everywhere,” Hossam wrote to us one evening. “And the planes fly at a close distance. And fires everywhere.”

A few days ago, the family was able to move back into their shelter together.

But today, Hossam sent us a message that made our blood run cold:

“The tanks are approaching and are almost a kilometer* or a little more away. If [they] come any closer, we'll get out of there because we'll be within range of [their] fire.”

*Kilometer = 0.62 miles

This precious family, already displaced multiple times for over a year, now might be displaced again, under threat of fire. With no stable income and essential supplies priced beyond reach, the Al-Qazzaz family is fighting a daily battle just to keep their children warm, fed, and safe.

The Al-Qazzaz family is one of countless in Gaza enduring wave after wave of trauma, displacement, and loss. And yet, through it all, they have held onto their dignity, their love for each other, and their will to survive. The support of the online mutual aid community has been a lifeline for them—allowing them to feed their children, find temporary shelter, and begin again each time everything is taken from them.

If you are moved by their story and wish to help, the family has a GoFundMe campaign that directly supports their daily essentials—food, medicine, and immediate needs. Every donation, no matter the size, helps them meet the most basic requirements to keep going in impossible circumstances.

Additionally, a Chuffed campaign, organized by the founder of Gaza Giving Tree, is helping to raise funds specifically to aid the family in either rebuilding yet again or evacuating to safety if that becomes possible. This effort is aimed at long-term stability and survival—a future where the children can sleep without fear.

Please consider contributing to one or both campaigns. Your generosity can be the reason this family has a chance at life beyond war and rubble.

The Al-Qazzaz family's campaign has been vetted by @gazavetters and is (#287) on their list of verified campaigns.

[leejenowrld]

heart to heart

word count - 40k words 

genre - smut, fluff, angst, age gap (10 years)

pairing — surgeon!na jaemin x intern! mc 

synopsis — you, fumbling through your first day as an intern, are thrown into chaos the night a baby is left to die on the rooftop. dr. na, world-renowned chief resident and surgeon, is ten years older, impossibly mysterious, stoic and intimidating, his body all sharp muscle under blue scrubs, his face only ever softening when he bends over the tiny beds of his peds patients. you can’t help but be drawn to him, a gravitational pull of brilliance and something darker, desire threading through every glance, every clipped order, every midnight round where your heart stutters. together you orbit this miracle girl, each of you wounded and wanting in your own way; and as the days blur, your attachment to sunshine—and to him—grows fierce, tangled, undeniable. found family is built here in the hush of machines and sleepless nights: you, longing to be chosen; him, haunted and hiding; sunshine, the girl who remakes all your definitions of love. even in all this darkness, her yellow light breaks through, changing everything.

chapter warnings — explicit language, explicit sexual content(18+), explicit themes, early 2000s vibes, power play, dom jaemin/sub mc dynamics, rough sex, intimate sex, explicit language, this fic is deeply inspired by classic medical dramas—think grey’s anatomy—if you know lexie grey, you’ll recognize her in mc’s big heart, wild memory, and relentless optimism. this is an adult story, it explores mental illness, physical illness, trauma, life, death. at the center is a baby girl, fighting for her life with a grave congenital heart condition before she even turns one. the medical scenes are vivid, sometimes harrowing, and should be read with care if you’re sensitive to medical distress, illness, or the specter of child loss. expect medical jargon—lots of it. i don’t skim, i don’t sugarcoat, and while you don’t need to memorize every term, know that everything described is researched and, where possible, based on real knowledge and surgical realities. if you get lost in acronyms or anatomy, that’s okay: the emotional core will always pull you back to center. mc is shy, anxious, and deeply introverted, prone to nervous rambling, overthinking, and loving too much. she’s young, a mid-twenties intern thrown into the deep end, haunted by her need to do right, and defined by a photographic memory that sometimes feels more curse than gift. she attaches easily, cares too hard, and her inexperience is as much her shield as her wound. dr. na jaemin, on the other hand, is nothing like the version readers of back to you or love me back might know. he’s older—mid-thirties—cold, private, outright harsh, he’s not a friend or lover like he was in lmb and bty, he’s a boss, a world-renowned chief resident in pediatric surgery, cloaked in authority, control, and secrets. expect little familiar warmth: expect distance, mystery, and a slow, sometimes brutal thaw. this is a world away from lmb and bty, so it might feel unfamiliar at times but trust me, it will feel so good. crafting a new universe has been a blessing, and i haven’t even finished. also the baby is called ‘sunshine’ for the majority of this part, she won’t have a name … until something happens :)

a note about structure: the fic opens in third person for the first 8k words—deliberately, and for a reason that won’t be clear until you read it. trust the process. after that, you’ll move into second person (y/n), and the story’s true voice will bloom. this is a fic for those who love detail, emotional, medical, atmospheric. you’ll get immersive prose, complex imagery, and a tone that shifts from dreamy lyricism to clinical realism, then back again. this is a slow burn in every sense, with heavy angst and no easy comfort. be patient; everything unfurls in its own time. there’s a lot of world building balanced with action and time jumps. final warning: this fic contains adult relationships, sexual content, power imbalance, and references to trauma, abuse, and addiction. everything is handled with nuance and care, but please read responsibly and protect your peace. if you’re here for found family, desperate hope, messy healing, and the kind of love that feels impossible until it isn’t—welcome. i hope you find yourself in these pages. 

𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐋

this is part three in the ‘love and games universe’ but you don’t need to read lmb or bty to understand h2h, it can be read as a standalone, there’s just a lot of easter eggs and connections that readers familiar with all stories will make with will enrich reading experience

listen to 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 whilst reading <3

A mirror the size of a doorway hangs above the cracked porcelain sink, its glass splintered into a thousand tiny panels—each one a fractured home searching for a face to keep. This is where the night begins: in a reflection she barely owns, lashes clumpy like wet feathers, mouth stained the color of bruised petals, eyes already drifting toward a place without pulse. Outside, bass crawls through drywall, slow, predatory, and the ruby blink of a vacancy sign turns the room into a faulty heart. Mildewed air tastes of chlorine and old perfume; last-hour glitter flakes from her thighs like gold dust abandoned on a factory floor. This is routine, climb, kneel, take, leave—so practiced her body moves before thought. A plastic wristband from tonight’s club still circles her arm; the barcode scans pleasure by the hour.

He enters in scrubs that smell faintly of antiseptic, pockets heavy with bills folded to hide serial numbers. When he steps between her knees, he breathes as though he’s trespassing in a sanctuary. His fingertips hover at her jaw, asking, apologising, maybe praying, before settling on her hips. That soft caution marks him as dangerous; everyone else grabs without thinking. She plants her palms on the faucet, metal biting crescents into her skin, while red light flickers like a faulty ECG and varnishes sweat across their bodies. The first sound is a swallowed moan—his, surprised, torn loose when her nails skim the nape of his neck. He tries to stifle the next, fails, presses harder. She feels him shake once, the tremor of someone desperate to pretend this is still anonymous. Her own breath stays measured, practiced, detached. The mirror becomes a shattered proscenium, staging a dance of undoing, her spine arcs like a question the world refuses to answer, his shoulders bending in something too desperate to be worship, two fever-bright shadows strobing in arterial neon. Beneath them, a lace thong curls on the chipped tile like a snakeskin left behind, proof that this body has already shed more names than it can remember.

She’s had him before—after the night spun in fairy-light ribbon and champagne froth, when everyone talked of forever and traded it for rings that felt like handcuffs. He had followed her past catering crates, offered double to stay silent, whispered vows into her hair that weren’t meant for her. Since then he finds her in service corridors, staff elevators, car back seats that still smell of pine freshener. Never a name. Never a future. Only the question in his grasp, the answer in her compliance. Tonight he’s rougher, breath hotter, as if trying to brand something he can’t articulate. She rolls latex down him with steady fingers; he gasps as though the gesture is affection. When release hits he folds over her, spine shuddering, mouth against her throat like penance. A hiss of satin against porcelain, a stifled cry—hers or his, neither knows. She watches it all in the glass: two people superimposed, one already slipping beyond the frame. Money—creased once—lands by the tap like a counterfeit blessing. He lingers, lips parted with words he won’t risk, then leaves. The door soft-latches; the room exhales.

She doesn’t feel the moment the bruise-bright sun beneath her sternum begins to die, only the hush: a slow eclipse unfurling petal by petal through marrow, shadow nibbling light in silent millimetres until a filament snaps somewhere behind her ribs—no siren, just the soft pop of glass blowing out—and at once the corridors of her skull swell with static, voices she’d padlocked in childhood grinding their teeth against splintered doorframes, chanting lullabies backward, offering warmth with forked tongues, so she lifts a sound to smother them, a tremoring hum that once belonged to playground afternoons, and the note tastes of sunflower syrup—bright, sticky, strangely metallic—sweet on the first pass then curdling across her palate like spoiled nectar, the colour of jaundiced petals blooming where light should be, and inside that syrupy hush a seed spins open, small and scorching, a future already feverish and yellow burning its shape into the dark.

He doesn’t know that in the corridor—heart knocking an off-rhythm lullaby against his ribs—he’s already tethered to a life still twinned and unsevered; the sigh he leaves behind drifts like the first hum of a song he will someday murmur beside fluttering monitors. To him this feels like lapse, closure, maybe penance; but in the quiet ledger where futures are inked, it is conception—anointing in a whisper-thin halo of pale, sunflower-soft light. Tonight, a healer of children has, without knowing, kindled the one small heart he will chase through ward after ward, across rooms and hours and cities scattered like bright beads on an endless string—whatever distance it takes to keep that gentle yellow glow alive.

She rinses in a gas-station sink, chlorinated water stinging raw skin, watching diluted red spool toward a rusted drain. Fluorescent tubes flicker like dying stars. Her reflection wavers, split down the middle by a crack she never noticed, and for an instant she’s certain someone else stares back—a stranger with her face but hollowed from the inside. Then the bass of another club swallows the thought, and routine reclaims her. She slips the folded bills into a garter, reapplies lip gloss, and steps into the night—unaware the universe has already separated: on one side, the girl walking away; on the other, a seed of jaundiced sunflower light growing in the dark, and the man orbiting them both without knowing why.

A week slips by before she buys the test, plastic and cheap, wrapped in greasy paper that reeks of salt and fryer oil. Fluorescents in the fast-food bathroom buzz like an angry hive; the floor is sticky, tiles cracked open like hungry mouths. She balances the cup on a toilet-tank lid, watches pale yellow trickle, then lays the strip across the lid of a metal bin. Two lines bloom. Pink. Certain. She laughs—short, sharp, the noise of glass spider-webbing. A woman in the next stall says, “You okay?” She almost answers, Star’s coming, but the words turn to fizz behind her teeth. She drops the test into the toilet bowl, flushes once, twice, listens as it rattles before vanishing.

That night neon fists the walls of the club. Strobes stutter, music slams, sweat hammers. She lets men tuck bills into sweat-damp lace, grinds until her knees bruise, breathes smoke the way other people breathe prayer. Outside on break she lights a cigarette, inhales so deep her lungs scald. Somewhere inside her chest, the beat of the music echoes, not in rhythm, but out of step, as if another heart has started to drum and refuses to find the tempo. When her shift ends, she tells herself the lines were a trick of cheap dye, that someone else flushed them into the city’s veins.

Days yawn into weeks, and her sense of self widens like a crack in plaster. When the voices murmur, she hums to drown them—same half-remembered lullaby, gentle at first, then louder, frantic, as though pitching sugar over rotting meat. On the bus she fingers a stolen pacifier, mint-green plastic in her pocket, soft yellow bulb like infant sunlight. She rolls it between thumb and forefinger, whispering, “For you, Star.” The man across the aisle shifts away, eyes on the floor. Later, in a crowded station, she fishes for the pacifier and finds only lint. Panic spears her throat—she tears through her purse, tips its contents onto the tiles, lipstick clattering, condoms skidding, coins spinning wobbly circles. She shrieks, “Give her back!” to nobody. Security drags her outside, where she folds onto the curb, belly tightening with a cramp she refuses to name.

Sometimes at dawn she is lucid. She pads to a discount store lit like a morgue, trailing aisle to aisle with a shaky tenderness—tiny sunflower-yellow socks cupped in her palms, a carton of formula cradled against her chest. She tells the cashier the socks are for a niece. The cashier calls her “sweetheart,” and for a thimble of time she is. Then the store lights flare too bright—white needles behind her eyes—and the voices return, reminding her that babies are parasites, that light loves rot, that yellow means sickness when it stains the whites of eyes. She leaves the basket under a rack of clearance towels, rushes out chewing the inside of her cheek until iron floods her mouth.

She steps through the stage-door of the club that night—the only place that pretends to miss her when she’s gone—and the air greets her like a familiar haunting: sour cheap perfume, stale beer, bass that burrows into cartilage. Here, she can almost believe she belongs, because the walls don’t ask for a past. Outside there’s nothing: no mother’s number, no emergency contact, just a town where orphan records get misfiled and rent is a curse that comes monthly. The voices started in childhood, small at first, like wind worrying a window, but after her first foster home turned her away, they rooted deeper, grew teeth. Doctors wrote paranoid-type schizophrenia on papers she never saw; caseworkers scribbled noncompliant when she vanished between check-ins. 

The clubs didn’t care. They paid cash, and whispered that pretty girls with haunted eyes sell more drinks. So she learned to trade hours of her body for the roof over it, learned that men tip better when you laugh at jokes you don’t hear because static is fizzing in your skull. Every shift she pins on a sunflower-yellow badge that says Haneul—not her name, just a brightness someone thought would lure wallets—and pretends the colour means warmth, not jaundice. Some nights, after the lights die and the voices swell like orchestras beneath her skull, she dances until bone sparks against muscle, because motion is the last receipt that says she still owns this body, not just rents it; yet lately a muted yellow glimmer—sunflower bright and pulsing—flickers behind her sternum, prying at the seams of her mind, coaxing old selves to unpeel and whisper, so with every gyring beat, the seam between bone and spirit frays; the voices she once drowned in pills resurface, injecting the idea that the soft sunflower flare lodged beneath her ribs isn’t light at all but a bright, slow poison, a parasite sipping her hollow.

In the back room of the club, where the walls pulse with subwoofer tremors, she balances a benzodiazepine on her tongue and rolls it against the ridges of her molars, letting powder bleed bitter down her throat. The pill feels alive, a tiny white moon revolving under her teeth. She taps her belly, one-two, like knocking on a coffin lid—and whispers, “it’s for you, star.” In the flicker of the utility light the word star seems to hang in the air, an echo she can’t catch. She isn’t herself; she’s borrowed skin, watching from behind her own eyes while a stranger feeds the thing inside her. She imagines the pill dissolving through tissue, drifting into the amniotic dark where a damp heartbeat quivers, an uncut gemstone glimmering jaundice yellow. The voices croon that the heartbeat isn’t human at all; it’s a moth hammering its wings against the cage of her ribs, desperate to carve a way out with soft dust and frantic light.

Another night she stands barefoot on a fire escape, city steam curling around her ankles. She presses a cigarette ember to her stomach, not hard enough to scar, just enough to feel heat pass skin to the womb. “a little sunrise,” she tells the shape beneath the burn, voice syrup-sweet, eyes wide and glassy. She imagines the heartbeat as a swarm of bees caught in honey—soft buzzing, slow suffocation—and the ember is mercy, a flame to cauterize the hive before it splits her open. Somewhere below, sirens wail; she counts the pulses, hears them echo her own, then hears a third rhythm tucked between, the stubborn flutter she can’t outpace. She hums an off-key lullaby to drown it, each note sticky with nicotine, the sound curdling into a hiss when the wind rips it away.

On the late train she cradles a bottle of cough syrup like holy water, tilts it so the neon carriage lights refract in thick violet swirls. She unscrews the cap, dips a finger, smears a sticky cross over her navel. “for you,” she chants, “for the sun under my skin.” Her pupils blow wide; the carriage tilts. Every overhead bulb blooms a halo the color of sick daylight—sunflower petals gone rancid. Passengers retreat, eyes averted. In the reflection of the window she sees herself split: one half smiling serene, the other chewing her lip raw. For an instant the carriage is a tunnel of jaundiced sun. She feels the baby roll—a slow, deliberate bloom under her navel—and the voices rise in chorus, telling her it’s not a baby, it’s a wasp nest, it’s a tombstone, it’s light that will burn her hollow. She stands, claws at the emergency door, screams for air. A passenger pulls the alarm; the train bucks to a stop. She staggers onto the platform, shaking, palms slapped hard against her ears, humming until the noise buries the voices, until her throat sparks.

Hours before dawn, in a 24-hour laundromat that smells of bleach and burnt lint, she watches a tumble dryer spin someone else’s yellow bedsheets. The motion hypnotizes her—cyclical, inescapable. She palms two prenatal vitamins she lifted from a pharmacy display, grinds them to dust against the machine’s hot metal rim, and blows the powder into the whirring drum. The yellow sheets blur into a storm of pale gold, a miniature star collapsing inward. She presses her ear to the plexiglass door, listening for the heartbeat inside her to sync with the mechanical thud. For a breath it does—and the harmony terrifies her. She jerks away, stumbling, clutching her belly as if it might leap free. “you’re too bright,” she croaks, tears streaking mascara. “Too bright. you’ll burn me hollow.” The lights overhead flicker as if agreeing, and the hum of dryers becomes insect wings scraping bone. She bolts through the sliding doors before the cycle ends, leaving the sheets spinning into dawn, haloed in the dust she offered like ash.

Nights grow stranger. She wakes on city benches, coat draped over her lap, convinced there’s a bird trapped beneath her ribs. She digs fingernails into skin, mumbling, “get out, get out!” while commuters scuttle past. Other times she forgets she’s pregnant at all: dances too hard, drinks too much, flirts with a stranger in a parking lot until dizziness folds her knees. She vomits bile and half-chewed sunflower seeds, smells decay in her sweat, swears something crawls beneath her flesh. In the mirror of a gas-station restroom steam refuses to clear; her reflection swims, double-exposed—one face slack with exhaustion, the other grinning too wide. She slaps the glass. It grins back.

He sends her a dozen voicemails every single night—his gravelly apology strangled by static, each message more desperate than the last. Then the texts follow, pinging in the dark: Hey, call me. We need to talk. I miss you. He shows up outside the club where she’s taken refuge, shadowing her exit like a stray cat that refuses to leave, pressing a folded note into her hand that smells of cheap cologne and broken promises. He doesn’t see the tremor in her glove­-clad fingers or the wild flicker in her eyes—only the once-familiar shape of her silhouette against the yellow street lamps. He stalks into the bar just after last call, the neon sign flickering overhead like a wounded heartbeat. His leather jacket is still stained with last night’s aftershave and regret. He threads through the tables—patrons half-drunk on whiskey and dance-floor haze—until he finds her behind the counter, slipping shots and checking IDs with the weary grace of someone born for this night. He slides onto a stool beside her and jangles his keys, leaning in apologetic. “Just one drink,” he rasps, eyes watering under bar lights. She stiffens, voice lost in the whirl of jazz and clinking glass. From her mitten’s edge, she watches the yellow glow of the overhead lamp pool across the scarred wood—reminding her of the night he scattered his stardust inside her, a single sperm igniting a constellation where a baby star now burns against the dark.

He traces the pendant at his throat before slipping it into her palm: a small silver wasp, its abdomen inked with a honey-gold stripe. She holds it for a breath, feeling the sting of every message echo in her gut. “This isn’t a trap,” he pleads, voice tight with something like fear.

She feels the brood he planted squirm and scratch, testing their prison, and in that moment, half-ghost, half-woman, she hisses, “Get out. You don’t belong here.” She slips off the stool and ducks past the neon-lit mirrors, the bar’s music warping in her ears. voices overlapping voices until she can’t tell which is real. Behind her, he shouts her name, but she’s already swaying in a back-alley shadow, wiping sweat and decay from her skin. Somewhere beneath her ribs a thousand tiny wings beat in rebellion, drowning out the shrill insistence of his apology. She presses her cheek to the brick wall, nodding, “I hear you,” though it’s the chorus in her mind, not his, that demands tribute. The wasp-pendant slips from her fingers, clattering to the grate beneath her boot, and she steps away—each footfall a promise that she will not let him harvest this life. Silence blooms around her like a bruise, and the bar’s warmth recedes, leaving only the hard knowledge that some parasites are born of regret, but she will be the one to claim survival.

He has no idea she’s pregnant. What he thought was a fleeting spark—a match struck for a moment’s warmth—has buried itself deep in the darkness of her womb and blossomed into a roaring inferno. In her mind, he is the unwitting invader, a host who unleashed a brood of mad whispers she once kept caged with pills and late-night study marathons. Before that night, her own voice was the only one in her head—steady, familiar, the sound of herself—no cacophony of demons shouting in technicolor. But now, hormones surge like a tidal wave, peeling back the barriers she built with antipsychotics and self-control, and the voices return after years caged away, ravenous and legion, circling her core self until she can’t locate the person she used to be. She presses trembling fingers to her abdomen, as if she could squeeze those voices back into oblivion, but they writhe louder with every recollection of his touch. every careless word, every unseen betrayal, gnawing at what remains of her fragile identity. 

Back then, in the soft aftermath of their stolen nights, she was whole—no shadows at her back, no whispering phantoms tugging at her mind. The only voice she heard was her own laughter, clear as a bell. But now, with his child growing inside her, the old demons stir with purpose, swarming through her synapses like wasps defending a newly built hive, their buzzing command: “Kill the star.” He can’t see the half-empty pill vials she stashes under her makeup kit, nor the tremor in her fingertips as she counts each hour of darkness in her lonely apartment. All he remembers is the woman who used to belong only to him—bright, unbesieged, unbroken. Yet even unseen, he has become her fortress: a silent sentinel whose steady heartbeat in her dreams rings like a promise, whose arms form an iron rampart against the onslaught in her mind. In the pale light of every dawn, his protection gleams just beyond her sight—a shield forged of devotion and defiance, the only power strong enough to save the constellation he helped ignite.

Nine months blur past in jagged increments, calendar pages lost under ashtrays, shift rosters stained with lipstick prints, rent envelopes traded for nights she can’t remember. Seasons change in the size of tips, not in the swell of her abdomen; the body that should have rounded stays lean, hunger-tight, as if hiding the secret beneath knotted muscle and clenched silence. When mirrors flash her reflection backstage, she sees bruises she earned, glitter she didn’t, but never the curve of impending motherhood. The voices insist nothing grows there, tell her any flutter is indigestion, any tightness merely rent overdue.

Between shifts she drifts through the city like a cracked marionette, joints held together by habit and the thin wires of her routine—club, alley, pawnshop, club—while the voices keep up their low chant: emptiness can’t carry life, hunger can’t cradle hope, move along. Whenever a sudden flutter ripples beneath her ribs she presses two fingers to the spot and murmurs, “Hush, Star,” the name tasting half-sweet, half-suspicious, as though she’s christening a ghost. She tells herself it’s gas, or a muscle twitch, yet still pockets sunflower-yellow trinkets, a plastic ring from a vending machine, a price-slashed cotton ribbon, then throws them away before nightfall because the voices whine that yellow draws parasites. On stage she glides under amber spotlights that paint her skin with sick daylight, imagining a swarm of gnats trapped in her belly, hammering to escape; off stage she stuffs napkins in her bra to muffle the knocking, convincing herself that if she ignores the rhythm long enough it will fade, like rent notices slipped under the door and swept away by morning drafts.

Tonight a velvet booth swallows her and a customer together, red lamps painting halos that look like warnings. He smells of cologne and conquest, darts eager hands beneath her dress while murmuring fantasies she lets glide past. She climbs onto his lap, thighs bracketing him in the flicker of gold light, and rides his rhythm with the mechanical grace the job demands. He groans, tries to guide her hips, but midway she goes rigid. Deep inside, a sudden roll—sharp, deliberate—spider-webs across her gut. For a heartbeat she thinks an elbow has jabbed from the wrong side of her skin. The room tilts.

A second kick, harder, and everything cracks open: the bassline of the club drops away, replaced by insect wings thrumming behind her ribs. The man beneath her whispers praise; she hears him as though he’s speaking through running water. In panic she snatches the half-finished glass of house red, slings the wine across his face. Crimson arcs like arterial spray, beads along his nose, dripping from his tie. He yelps, hands flying up in shock. She strikes his chest with both palms—once, twice—babbling, “Get it out, get it out,” eyes wide enough to white-out the iris.

He scrambles backward, chair legs screeching, but she follows, fists small yet frantic, knuckles catching collarbone, babbling syllables that collapse into static. “Yellow, yellow,” she hisses, clawing at her own stomach now, nails leaving half-moons. “A wasp nest in me—sunlight rotting—buzz, buzz, can’t you hear?” He stammers apologies, thinks maybe she’s on something stronger than champagne. She drags in a ragged breath; the flutter inside twists, a fist of muscle and need, and she slaps her belly as if scolding a disobedient pet. For a fractured second the kicking stops. Her gaze clears, only to fog again when the next movement comes—softer, pleading, a heartbeat tapping SOS against her bones.

Patrons swivel to look; a bouncer lumbers forward. She backs toward the exit, eyes glassy, whispering to the shape she still believes isn’t there: “Stay quiet or we both burn.” Her palm presses tight to her abdomen, as though holding a door shut. The voices surge, hot static filling her skull, parasite, poison, sunflower-bright sickness, and she forces her way through velvet curtains, leaving confusion, a puddle of wine, and a man wiping crimson from his lashes while the echo of unseen wings rattles around the booth like trapped light.

The plate-glass door of the club shivers when she slams it behind her, and the city greets her with a gust that smells of refuse and rain, a breath as sour as a broken promise. Fluorescent bar signs leak along the puddles in arterial streaks, and somewhere a man’s shout ricochets between alley walls, a ricochet she swears spirals straight into her spine. Inside her bloodstream benzodiazepines drift like pale anemones, numbing thought even as the vodka she slugged between sets keeps her heart jack-hammering under skin gone clammy. She can’t remember why her abdomen drags with such leaden weight; she only knows the night is hunting, and she needs velocity. A sedan idles at the corner, door cracked as though the street itself has yawned—welcome or warning, she can’t tell. She slides behind the wheel, fingers slipping on the ignition key, breath fogging the glass in frantic bursts that bloom, then vanish, like spirits locked out of heaven.

Dashboard lights pulse sunflower-gold, hopeful and sickly at once, bathing her trembling knuckles in a color that feels like a lie. Tires shriek; alley grime spits behind her in a comet tail; a gull rises from a dumpster flap, white wings stark in headlight glare before darkness snaps them away. Sirens appear in the rear-view—blue, red, blue—then melt into spectral ribbons that might be behind her, might be ahead, time folding in on itself. One beat, a second, then a rogue tremor blooms beneath her sternum, bright as a buried sun-shard, drumming its own cadence against the dark. She clamps a palm over the spot, hissing for hush, but the radiance retaliates with a jolt, sunflower-strong, urgent, knocking her balance off its axis and flaring gold behind her eyes. For an instant the street fractures: white lane lines wriggle like earthworms; storefronts bulge and blur; every traffic light blossoms into a jaundiced sun and blinds her with its pity.

The concrete divider rears up from the asphalt with the awful certainty of a guillotine. Steel screams. Metal folds. Her chest slams the wheel so hard she tastes iron as the horn howls and then dies. No airbag blooms to cradle her; glass pebbles shower her lap; the windshield paint-brushes a web of fractured constellations, sky replaced by a cathedral ceiling of broken starlight. Somewhere inside that cathedral a voice she hasn’t heard since childhood whispers her name before dissolving into static. She pushes the bent door with both hands, bone rasping on bone, and spills onto the asphalt barefoot, thigh dripping a thin ribbon that steams in the cold. Engines whine in distant lanes, yet the world feels paused, as if God held down the clutch and forgot to shift.

Hands and knees rasp across the gravel; she plants a palm to her belly for leverage, but the flesh rises again—then again—each thud a fierce, sunflower-bright hammer, pounding in quick succession as though a small fist is trying to tunnel straight through bone. The blows come so relentlessly her skin jumps beneath her fingers, rhythm wild and unyielding, an insurgent heartbeat refusing to be stilled. She mutters that it’s a parasite gnawing her marrow; she calls it a sunbeam set to scorch her hollow. A horn blasts somewhere beyond the divider; headlights sweep past, and for a moment her shadow looms against the barrier, grotesque and pregnant with something she refuses to name. The shadow bends. Collapses. Darkness swallows the outline entirely.

When awareness lurches back she is bathed in strobing neon that leaks through dusty curtains— a motel room whose wallpaper peels like dead petals. In the doorway stands the colleague who lives in the unit directly below, the one who shares her shifts and cigarettes, forearms inked with flowers curling toward decay. She cradles a half-empty bottle against her ribs, and her gaze pools with equal parts dread and awed disbelief. “You screamed for six hours,” she says, voice raw as a rusted hinge. “Cut the cord with kitchen scissors, and you bled all over my towels.” On the carpet by the bed lies a bundle no larger than a grocery loaf, wrapped in a thin towel gone gray at the edges, the fabric already blotched yellow where bile and amniotic fluid soak through. Tiny limbs twitch like pale moth wings; lips bruise toward blue. Her own sunflower sock, pilfered weeks earlier during a momentary bloom of maternal fantasy, lies beside the bundle, its cheerful dye dulled to the color of old parchment.

The girl from downstairs crosses the threadbare carpet, bottle set aside, inked lilies flexing over her forearms as she kneels by the towel-swaddled bundle. “She’s still breathing,” she whispers, voice wobbling on the edge of a prayer. With a gentleness that startles them both, she slides trembling hands beneath the baby’s head and rump, lifting the weightless form as though hoisting a moth from puddled moonlight. “Here—take her, just for a second.” The words fall like petals. Reluctance knots the mother’s shoulders, yet something cracks open; she extends her arms and the infant settles against her chest, a tremor of warmth no bigger than her own heartbeat.

For three fragile breaths the room tilts toward something almost tender. She strokes one paper-thin shoulder, murmuring, “Star—little Star,” the name tasting like honey spiked with rust. Beneath the towel the child is nearly spectral: ribs countable, knees knobbed, skin a translucent frost that shades to dusk around lips and fingernails. Each inhale is a shallow rattle, each exhale a question the lungs barely answer. Yet when the mother’s thumb brushes the hollow of that bluish collarbone, one eyelid flickers, halogen gold iris under dust. and a faint pulse flutters against her palm. The sight stings her eyes, stirring an ache so bright it almost feels like love.

But the voices are never far. They snake through cracked wallpaper and hiss inside her skull: parasite, mistake, devil grub drinking you hollow. Pain sears down her spine, withdrawal clawing marrow, benzo ghosts demanding tithes, and her arms begin to quake. She hears them judge the infant’s silence, insisting those twitching moth-wings should have stilled hours ago. “We craved her death—pleaded for that innocent scrap to stiffen cold and silent—and still you ignored the warning. We begged for her to stiffen into milk-white stillness, prayed for the hush of grave dust over lungs still tasting first air—you were warned.” The chorus rises, sour and metallic, until her ribs ache and bile licks the back of her throat. She clamps her eyes shut, but even the dark blooms sunflower yellow, too bright, too accusing, spreading across her vision like a bruise blossoming in reverse.

The other girl reaches to steady the baby before she slips. Tiny fingers, waxy and trembling, curl around a lock of the mother’s hair, and that fragile grip sparks one last flicker of mercy. She tucks the towel tighter, rasps, “Stay warm, Star,” though her voice sounds borrowed, hollow. Somewhere in the night a soft conviction glows—pale, stubborn, sun-bright—that this child still breathes because she is already loved by hands not yet here, a heartbeat bound to meet another heartbeat on a ward of humming machines. And even as the voices snarl that the light will scorch them all, the infant’s pulse answers with its own faint drum, insisting on survival, promising that yellow dawn is waiting, somewhere beyond the pain, beyond the noise, where a father’s arms will learn the rhythm that keeps her alive.

She stares, waiting for panic, wonder, anything to flicker, yet all she feels is the drugged hush of distance. Sirens hum somewhere beyond the parking lot, a lullaby tuned for someone else. She presses the heel of her hand against her temple, as though by crushing her skull she might quiet the two uneven drums. The neon sign outside flickers SUN and then stutters the next letters into oblivion, leaving only the raw promise of warmth it cannot keep. Shadows tilt; voices swell at the edges of the room, urging her to flee, to silence the moth-wing breaths before the light gulps her dry. She drags herself upright, blood streaking calf to ankle, and the towel-swaddled bundle lets out a thin, warbling cry that sounds like metal bending under too much snow.

Somewhere inside her chest a filament snaps again—another inch of eclipse closing over what little remains—yet for one impossible heartbeat she feels the faintest tug of gravity, as if that sunflower glow tries to anchor her to the earth. The moment flickers, vanishes. She tastes copper and cough syrup on her tongue. The older girl lifts the bottle, offers, “Painkillers?” She shakes her head. Pain is the one proof she has that she still exists. Curtains billow like lungs behind her as she turns toward the door, the bundle’s cry segueing into the room’s leaking toilet hiss, indistinguishable, fading. Somewhere down the corridor fluorescence pulses, and the world tilts anew, every light a jaundiced crown, every shadow a mouth waiting to chew her into nothing. She takes one step forward, then another, feet sticky on linoleum, heart dragging a constellation of bruises behind it—and the night swallows the hotel, the older girl, the crying infant, and all that sunflower light the way a storm swallows a match.

She staggers back through the motel door just before dawn, arms cradling a mess of half-stolen, half-begged supplies: a dented tin of evaporated milk, two diapers plucked from an open hospital laundry cart, a bottle meant for kittens, and a motel ice bucket crammed with crushed sunflower-printed napkins she thought might pass for burp cloths. The older girl helps her spread the haul on the bedspread—eyeing the kitten bottle, the wrong-sized diapers, the can without a proper nipple—and sighs. “It’s something,” she murmurs, though they both see it isn’t enough.

They prop the infant—Star—against a towel rolled like a tiny lifeboat. When the mother tries to guide the bottle to the bluish lips, the rubber tip is too wide; formula dribbles down the baby’s chin, pooling in the hollow of her collarbone like watered paint. Star’s gums work, confused. The mother strips off her own shirt and offers a breast; milk comes thin, tinged almost gray. The baby latches for a breath, coughs, sputters, and wails. a brittle, papery cry that cracks the silence like a match.

The older girl wipes the milk with a napkin, whispers, “She needs a hospital.” The mother flinches at the word hospital; inside her head a scraping chorus answers— they’ll tape your bones hollow, harvest the sunflower glow beating inside you, she shakes her head, humming the lullaby again, but the tune falters, replaced by the hiss: Poison. You’re feeding her poison. She’s already poisoning you.

When the neighbor’s footsteps fade down the stairwell, the room shrinks to two heartbeats and a flickering strip of neon. Determined, she sets to work like it’s a test she might still pass. She warms water in the rust-stained sink, stirs powdered formula with a stolen coffee stir stick, then dribbles a drop on her wrist the way she saw mothers do in soap commercials. Too hot—she blows until her skin prickles. She lines a shoebox with newspaper and the sunflower sock, thinking a makeshift cradle will feel less cruel than towels on nicotine carpet. She even tears off a strip of her favorite stage dress. sequins glittering like trapped daylight, and knots it into a headband, hoping a flash of beauty might coax the baby to feed.

Star will not take the bottle. Her tiny lips purse, shiver, turn away as though rejecting the scent of her skin. Panic flares; she loosens the cap, tries again. Milk dribbles, pools in the notch of a bird-thin collarbone. She pats the baby’s back, gentle, gentler, remembering videos on a stranger’s phone: pat to burp the air out. Nothing but a croak, the color of the mouth deepening from bruise to dusk. She rubs circles harder—too hard—before catching herself, whispering sorrys that skid into gasps.

“See?” she murmurs, voice bright but cracked. “Trying. Trying so hard.” She rummages through the scavenged pile: diaper too big, safety pin bent, washcloth stiff with someone else’s soap. She wipes the baby’s lips; the washcloth smells like bleach and last year’s rain. A whimper rises from the bundle, thin as thread, and the voices rush in to meet it—She tastes the poison on you, she feels you draining her light.

Her thoughts spiral back to solutions: room needs warmth. She positions the shoebox next to the radiator, but the unit only rattles cold air. She lights a half-used match, flicks it out before the scent can sting the newborn lungs, then lays the spent stick beside the baby as if warmth might linger in the char. She hums the fragment of a lullaby. three notes bright as sunflower petals. yet the tune warps halfway, twisting into a minor key as the chorus in her skull counters: Not meant for you. Not your hymn to sing.

Star’s cries stretch thinner, rasp out, fade. The mother bundles the infant against her own chest, rocking on her knees, tracing circles upon the skeletal back—circles that become frantic scribbles when no steady breathing answers. “Want to want you,” she whispers, forehead touching a crown of damp hair that already smells a little like loss. “Want to keep you. See, Star? I found a ribbon for you, I found a box, I—” But the pulse beneath her fingers skips then slows, and the voices rise louder than any lullaby: Give it up. Let the sunflower glow flicker out. Parasite. Ravenous. It will eat the rest of you next. Pain knifes through her abdomen—withdrawal, hunger, grief—making her fold in half. Napkins drift from the upturned ice bucket, snowing over mother and child in frail, white petals that can’t muffle the raw, scraping cries.

Star’s fist opens once, grasping at nothing, and in that gesture the mother glimpses all the things she cannot offer: steady heat, clean sheets, milk that nourishes, silence in her skull. Her tears drop onto the sunflower sock, darkening the yellow to a muddy bruise. She clutches the bundle tighter, but the baby’s head lolls, turning instinctively toward the doorway. as though she aches for a guardian whose heartbeat matches the stubborn rhythm still ticking in her frail chest.

A streetlight beyond the curtains flickers, pouring ragged beams across peeling wallpaper. In their tremor she sees the shadows twist into gaping mouths, waiting. Exhaustion and voices braid together until she can no longer tell which urge rises from her or from the dark. Her arms stiffen, rocking slows, and a hush swallows the room so completely it feels like a held breath—one that might end with mercy, or with something far colder. Only the faintest sunflower glimmer lingers at the edge of her vision, and even that seems to be dimming, pleading for rescue from hands not yet arrived. End her hunger. End the noise. The words scuttle against her skull like beetles. Star hiccups a final time and goes ominously still, breath on pause, skin washing toward porcelain. It jolts the mother upright—fear, fury, instinct tangling—but the voices lunge faster: Do it yourself or she’ll drag you both into the dark.

Her eyes prowl the dim room, cataloguing ordinary objects as if each were a hush waiting to be used: the pillow slumped against stained headboard, its cotton belly promising silence; the dank bath towel hanging from a nail, long enough to cinch daylight shut; the cracked bathroom door revealing the faint gleam of tap water cold and deep. Even the radiator’s rust-grated vent seems to exhale a lull: this could be quick, this could be kind. Jaundiced streetlight paints the windowpane an ugly halo, the siren outside droning like a funeral hymn already half-sung. The lullaby in her throat withers to a threadbare hum. Gravity tilts the floorboards, funnels every thought to a single, brutal mercy. She draws the bundle closer—arms stiff, not tender—glass-eyed, jaw locking tight, while the chorus in her skull hisses that the surest way to dim the sunflower glow is to snuff it before dawn remembers to rise.

The bundle in her arms weighs less than the guilt rotting her ribs—swaddled in a fraying bath-towel the color of bruised butter, its faded sunflower print glaring up like sallow eyes that judge her every breath. “You’re a lie,” she croaks, throat salted with old screams. “I never carried you.” The denial loops and frays, half-curse, half-confession, while her gaze, fever-bright, hungry, clutches the infant the way a drowning woman grips a stone. Wallpaper droops behind her in strips like wilted wreaths; she studies it once, committing the decay to memory, then slips barefoot into the predawn hush, blood drying in rusty trails down her shin. Neon gutters overhead, casting sick lemon halos. She skirts each puddle of light as though stepped in radiance might brand her skin with proof of the small trespasser pressed to her heart.

The towel slips, and a miniature hand—frost-blue at the fingertips, soft as a flower petal—flutters into view. The motion is heartbreakingly gentle, more plea than protest, and she jerks as if a moth has shattered the pane of her certainty. A breathless “sorry, sorry,” tumbles out; she tucks the tiny limb back beneath worn cotton and knots the sunflower towel tighter, as though she can bind light itself. In her head the voices sneer that this glow is a bright parasite, a wasp hive of yellow wings nibbling her from the inside. but the hand had curled in trust, not threat, and some ancient, trembling instinct draws the bundle closer against her sternum while she slips into streets that taste of rain-rot and exhaust.

She chooses the church first, the same stone nave she used to slip into as a child, clutching stolen hymn sheets and praying she wouldn’t be noticed. Even then she’d felt the architecture disapprove of her, its gothic ribs crowding overhead like a chest too tight for breath. Tonight—or what’s left of night—she pushes through the wooden doors and stands at the threshold, the baby in her arms and a wet trail of blood on her calf. For a moment she simply listens: damp silence, a single organ chord testing the air, the faint stir of a rehearsal choir tucked somewhere behind the chancel. Stepping inside, she watches her footsteps stain the aisle—rust-brown prints that mark her route through a life she was never meant to lead. The nave stretches before her like an unlit furnace: pews in strict rows, votive candles trembling along the walls, and high above, Christ in stained glass. His ruby wounds seem painfully fresh, the blues of His robe so dark they look bruised rather than holy. Even the sunflower yellows in the window, meant to promise mercy, glows too much like the weak pulse fluttering against her collarbone. The echo of that resemblance makes her want to turn away; it feels obscene, as if the window accuses her of dragging corruption into sacred light.

She pauses at the baptismal font, water black as scrying glass. A reflection rises—her own face, pale and frantic, and the towel-swaddled shape clutched high on her shoulder. In her fractured vision the infant’s outline flickers: one moment a baby, next a bundle of writhing larvae haloed in harsh light. She jerks back, sloshing holy water over the marble lip. It spatters the tile, and for a heartbeat she swears the droplets hiss like oil on flame. Somewhere behind her the choir holds a long, piercing note; it scales her spine like talons.

A priest emerges from the side aisle, cassock flaring with each stride. His voice, meant to soothe, falls on her like gravel: “Child, are you in need?” The title detonates shame—child, child—as if she is the one swaddled in desperate cloth. She steps deeper into shadow, tightening the towel until the baby’s cough sputters against her collarbone. The priest approaches anyway, palms raised in benediction; candlelight stains his fingertips crimson. Her eyes latch onto that color, and the voices howl—Blood on his hands, he loves to bleed lambs dry. She recoils, whispering nonsense benedictions of her own, clashing syllables that taste like rusted metal.

“Let me bless the little one,” the priest offers. The phrase sets her teeth on edge. Bless sounds too close to claim, to keep. She pictures the infant laid on the altar, white linen soaking through, parishioners kneeling while the baby’s sunflower glow dims under incense smoke. A low growl coils in her throat. “Not yours,” she manages, a feral liturgy. At that, the priest glimpses the livid bruise blooming down her calf, the bare feet, the fever glossing her eyes. Compassion flickers across his face, but compassion looks like pity, and pity has always snapped her nerves.

She backs toward a row of votive stands, flame tips warping in her periphery. Each candle seems to sprout horns of light, twin licks curving like goat horns—tiny devils dancing on wax. One sputters, guttering into a molten stub; the hiss matches the whisper in her head—Snuff it. Snuff her. Cold is kinder. The baby wheezes, a rattled gasp that carries too far. A boy soprano turns mid-hymn, his mouth a perfect O of alarm. Behind him, glass saints shift: eyes melt, halos sag into barbed crowns, mouths stretch in silent, molten howls.

The air contracts; she tastes ozone and candle soot. The priest steps forward again, and the voices shriek—He’ll bind her with holy ropes, drown the light in sanctified water. Terror snaps her muscles into motion. She pivots, slippering on wax drips, nearly dropping the towel-wrapped child. A lit candle tumbles from its holder, rolling across the flagstones like a glowing eye. She flings open the brass-shod door—hinges wail like trumpets of judgment—and stumbles into rainfall so cold it scalds. The choir’s last chord splits behind her, crashing into dissonance as the door slams shut, booming like stone over a crypt.

Outside, dawn is a bruised limb on the horizon. She presses the bundle closer, panting mist. The hiss in her skull has not subsided, but one phrase edges louder than the rest: Keep moving or lose her. Whether the warning comes from fear or love, she can’t discern; both feel like claws around her throat. She spares the spire a final glance—the cross now skewed against pregnant clouds—and then she runs, barefoot over slick pavement, carrying the fragile sunflower ember away from stained glass angels that watched her with bleeding eyes.

Bare soles slap wet pavement—slap-slap, a frantic metronome—until she stumbles into a pocket of furnace-warm air. The brick façade before her throbs under floodlights, every mortar line glowing ember-red as though the building itself is holding its breath between blazes. Diesel fumes curl in lazy veils, mixing with the metallic tang of scorched steel; somewhere an exhaust vent exhales smoke that dims the dawn beams into rancid butter-yellow streaks. She stands on the concrete apron, baby tight to her chest, towel damp and dark where the infant’s laboured breaths fog the cloth.

For half a heartbeat the fire station seems perfect: cement floor smooth enough to cradle a body, hulking engines like guardians in crimson armour—strong, decisive, nothing like her. She imagines laying the bundle at the threshold, stepping back into the shadows, letting men built of rescue and discipline find the child and decide her fate. A strange mercy flickers. Then klaxons flare. Overhead strobes ignite—red-white-red—branding after-images across her vision. Garage doors rattle upward; an engine yawns forward, headlamps searing like judgment. Sirens coil into the morning air, shredding every thought to ribbons. A firefighter jogs closer, calling out, but the words warp into bestial howls beneath the siren’s pitch. The voices inside her skull answer in kind: Too bright. Too hot. They’ll burn the last glimmer she hoards.

She staggers backward into the glare of the emergency lights. The towel loosens, and a bluish-tipped fist slips out, trembling. The sight forces a ragged breath from her lungs, but no sound follows. Diesel smoke billows from the idling engine and curls around her bare ankles like hot breath. Beside her lies a length of fire-hose, its open end gaping like an iron throat. The thought occurs—thread the baby inside, let the darkness hush the fragile heartbeat. A second, crueler impulse flashes: set the bundle behind a truck tire and walk away, let thirty tons of heroism finish what misery began. But the heat, the roar, the blinking lights, too many watching eyes, drive her back. Tires screech as the truck engines into the street, the whole bay yawning like a furnace door. She lurches sideways, nearly dropping the bundle, the chorus in her head shrilling that she’s seconds from being stripped of the only control she has left. Cradling the child tight, she bolts into a side alley, smoke still clinging to her hair, lungs searing as though she’s inhaled a lit match.

A single street lamp guards the mouth of the alley, its bulb burning a smoky, sulfur-yellow—the color of nursery sunbeams gone bad. Each time the filament flares, it hisses like a match in wind; each time it falters, darkness rushes back, swallowing the walls and her resolve. Three bright flickers, a pause, then three again: a broken heartbeat tattooed in light. She stands beneath the strobe, heart hammering funeral drums, soot-grit rain steaming off the pavement like breath from a dying furnace. The towel in her arms feels heavier now, as though the baby inside has turned to coal. Against her collarbone the infant’s breaths come thin and fading, each one a paper-thin puff of warmth that barely survives the night air. Smoke from the distant firehouse exhaust drifts into the alley, curling around them, staining the last scrap of sunflower glow that lingers in the bundle. She tightens her grip, slipping deeper between the buildings—beyond the reach of sirens, beyond the reach of light—determined to choose, in her own ruinous way, the place where that faltering little sunbeam will gutter out for good.

She walks now—she has no energy for running—each step numbing her soles. The towel dampens; the infant’s breathing rasps, then pauses, then resumes in ragged sips. She mutters fragments of lullaby, lyrics rearranged by the chorus inside her head. A nurse smoking behind the emergency entrance glances up. “Ma’am, do you—” She ducks her gaze, darts past. She can’t let fluorescent corridors swallow her; fluorescent light shows everything. So she loops around to the service stairs, climbs flight after flight until the city wind greets her with exhaust and wet iron. The rooftop garden greets them with threadbare reminders of daylight, sun-starved sunflowers tilt in cracked terracotta, their heads ragged yet defiantly tracking the pale arc of dawn; brittle dandelion clocks tremble on hollow stems, scattering freckles of light with each icy gust; and a strip of calendula flares richest gold, petals tight around their centers as if bracing for frost yet refusing to surrender their flame.

First light edges over the city skyline, and those yellow petals catch it like small mirrors, throwing soft halos across the concrete. She kneels among the planters, bruising her knees on gravelly cement, and unwraps the towel. In that newborn splash of sunlight the baby’s waxen skin glows faintly, ribs etched like the veins of a fragile leaf. A breath quivers in, out. The baby’s eyelids flutter and open just a crack. In that sliver of light, her eyes grab the gleam from the yellow flowers—two tiny suns fighting through clouds. For one sweet moment the rooftop feels soft and warm, as if morning itself has wrapped her up. Her chest lifts, small but stubborn, drawing the light inside like a seed hungry for spring. The wind slips in, shaking the stems and stealing the heat, and the glow around her dims. Still, the little chest rises again—quick, brave, bright—an ember refusing to go out, trying with every breath to grow back into sunshine.

For the first time she truly looks: the delicate fists, the paper nails, the faint tremor that shakes like a caught bird fighting for a sky it hasn’t seen. Something in her splits—not the cruel fissure of voices, but a filament of yearning. “Little Star,” she whispers, stroking a brow no wider than her thumb. “Bright thing.” For a heartbeat she feels a warm surface—thin, risky, real. With clumsy care, she lays the baby down in the midst of the only living patch in the garden—a tangled bed of yellow blooms, sunflowers and marigolds stubbornly shining against the cold. The petals press close, curling around the baby’s towel like a chorus of small suns. Nestled beside the flowers is an old music box left behind by another grieving soul, its painted lid chipped and golden. She opens it and sets the infant atop the faded music sheets tucked inside, their notes ghosted with the memory of lullabies. She turns the key. The music stumbles, notes splintered and off-key, but the melody limps out—a broken cradle song threading through dawn and dew. The baby, surrounded by gold and music, gives a fluttering gasp, chest lifting as if to follow the sun, then falls quiet, lulled by the thready tune. Her own heart stings with the violence of leaving, but exhaustion drags needles through her skull and the chorus returns, acidic: Not yours to save, finish her, dim her light. The baby’s chest stutters; a pause lingers too long; a weak gasp answers. She stares a moment longer as the wind tugs the baby’s towel, scattering marigold petals over her face, and as the tune dies into silence, the girl rises—empty, shivering, stepping back from her brightest, most broken offering, in a bed of yellow meant to hold light until the truest arms arrive.

She forces herself to step back, and the voices surge—snapping, mocking, clawing. “Shut up, shut up!” she screams, palms clamped over her ears. The noise doesn’t fade, so she slams the heel of her hand against her temple—once, twice—hard enough to spark white stars in her vision. “Quiet, it’s me, it’s me,” she gasps, as if she’s talking herself into control. Blood hums behind her eyes; the metal railing bites her spine. She turns to the bundle, breathing ragged. “I won’t hurt you, not here.” Leaning in, she kisses the baby’s cheek, then presses her forehead to the tiny one, squeezing her eyes shut. “Good-bye, little Star,” she whispers, voice breaking. “Find the sun without me.” She straightens, shoulders shaking, and stumbles toward the rooftop door, fists still knotted in her hair as she fights to drag the screaming voices with her and leave the child in fragile peace.

Wind snaps her hair as she reaches the stairwell door, and the voices lunge—End it. One push, one drop, one quiet hush. For an awful second she pivots back, palm hovering over the baby’s mouth, fingers ready to pinch the last breath closed. The lavender bends toward her like witnesses, their purple heads trembling. Do it, the chorus hisses, snuff the false sun before it burns you again. She lifts her hand—then, with a ragged roar, turns the violence on herself. Fist meets forehead, once, twice, three times, until skin splits and warm red runs down her temple. The jolt clears the haze; pain floods louder than the voices. She staggers, blood speckling the concrete like fallen petals, and spits through her teeth, “Not today.” Another blow to her own skull, and the chorus recoils, fading to a static whine. She backs away, forearm smeared crimson, breaths knife-sharp, and forces her body through the stairwell door. Metal slams shut, swallowing her silhouette for good—no footsteps, no farewell, only the faint scent of iron fading down the stairwell.

Dawn spills over the roof in ribbons the color of warmed honey, turning the battered garden into a patchwork of soft gold and bruised lilac. Wind brushes the lavender first, coaxing its tired stalks into a hush that sounds like lullaby, then drifts across a ragged row of sunflowers, heads bowed, but still fierce, their petals bright as candle flames that refuse the night’s final breath. In their midst, calendula flares like pocket-sized suns, petals cupped tight against the cold as if guarding what little heat remains in the world. The baby, no heavier than a sigh, rests where those blossoms converge, towel cinched around her like a faded chrysalis. Dew settles on her lashes in perfect beads, tiny crystal lanterns catching each new beam of light. With every fragile inhale, her ribs lift just enough to cast the faintest shadow; with every exhale, a plume of warmth spirals into the crisp morning air and dissolves. One fist escapes the towel and uncurls toward a drooping sunflower petal, brushing its edge as though asking the bloom to stay awake a moment longer.

Above her, the sky blushes from pewter to lemon, then to a soft, translucent yellow, the same tender hue pulsing at her throat where the heartbeat flickers on. She is ringed by guardians no human assigned: the lavender’s scent drapes over her like a quilt; the calendula glare at the wind, daring frost to try; the sunflowers lean inward, forming a ragged crown whose shadows fall upon her brow in broken spokes of warm light. For an instant their shapes merge, and it looks as though the flowers themselves have knitted a cradle of living gold around her, as if they’re praying her towards survival. Somewhere far below, the city lifts into its weekday hum—buses sighing awake, traffic lights snapping through colors, coffee pots hissing behind diner glass—yet none of that commotion breaches this high garden. Here, the only rhythm is her own: a stubborn, staccato thrum that weds itself to the rustle of petals and the slow turning of the sun.

She lies waiting, half-dreaming, as if she already knows another set of arms is stretching across the morning to claim her—arms that will match her pulse, learn its falter and rise, memorize its starlight cadence. Until then, the rooftop holds its breath, the flowers keep watch, and the newborn light pools around her like liquid gold, seeping into the towel’s frayed weave, painting her skin with the promise of all the mornings still to come. She blinks at the world through dew and daylight, as if somewhere deep inside she senses the truest warmth is still on its way. The biggest sunbeam has not yet touched her—the wide, sure shelter that will lift her from these petals, arms bright enough to make her feel safe for the first time, arms that will fit around her like the strongest flower of all. Until then, she curls deeper into the yellow hush, baby fists tangled with marigold stems, her heartbeat counting down to the moment when real sunshine finds her and calls her home.

He arrives before dawn, the hospital’s glass towers still dark slivers against the sky, and the only sound is the hiss of his boots on concrete. His toolbox is strapped tight to his back—rusted latch, a photograph of his son tucked inside the lid, grin bright as a hospital sunrise. He breathes deep, tasting frost and winter air, then taps the scaffold frame twice, a ritual he’s kept since the day his wife slipped away. Every bolt he tightens today carries her memory, and the promise he made to their boy, Haknyeon, that he would keep working, keep breathing, keep building something beautiful out of loss.

He steps off the service elevator into the sterile glare of ‘Hwarang’s’ central atrium and is met by a chorus of voices—“Mr. Cho!”—ringing from every nursing station. He’s the hospital’s go-to handyman, the familiar face they call the moment a boiler cracks or a syringe pump stutters, and in his month-long absence every department noticed. Today he’s back on the rooftop, summoned to recalibrate the solar array that powers the NICU’s incubators—the quiet lifeline under fluorescent skies. Doctors pause in their rounds to lift a grateful nod; nurses press steaming mugs of coffee into his hands without asking. He smiles, the steady pivot of this hospital’s heartbeat, and tucks his tool bag under one arm, ready to bring warmth and light back to its smallest patients.

He climbs the fire escape, heartbeat steady as the elevator’s hum below. On the rooftop, machinery waits: solar panels that will warm NICU incubators, a spray of cables like silver arteries. He tests each connection with the precision of a surgeon, his gloved fingers finding purchase on metal I-beams he knows will hold. A chill snakes up his spine, not from wind but from absence—a loneliness he brushes off with a flick of his collar. He tells himself it’s just morning cold, nothing more. He stops for a moment at the garden’s edge, where frost-bitten dandelions shiver beneath the guardrail. He remembers the day he planted daisies here, before his world fractured. He had imagined Haknyeon running between the blooms, giggling. Now he simply tightens one more bolt, listens to the hiss of compressed air, and resumes. “For you, buddy,” he whispers, wiping sweat that isn’t supposed to form in such cold. He steps back to admire his work—panels aligned, cables secure, the promise of light for tiny bodies stretched below.

He tests the final switch. A soft click, then the low hum of power flowing through the wires—an electric heartbeat for the ward he’s never seen awake. He packs away his tools, shoulder aching, and pauses in the pale half-light. Today feels different, though he can’t name why. His breath clouds before him, each one of his exhales a question he can’t answer. He slings his pack, turns to the fire escape, and that’s when he sees it: a flash of yellow tangled in the weeds, a shape he assumes at first is lost cloth from a patient’s gown. At first he thinks it’s a doll abandoned in the cold. Then the towel shifts. He sees pale skin, hears the faint rasp of breath that shouldn’t belong to stone. 

Curiosity propels him forward. He kneels, heart tensing as he parts the crumpled towel to reveal the smallest face he’s ever seen, eyelashes tipped with dew. The baby lies coiled in a shallow nest of crushed calendula and frost-bitten dandelions, the only yellow flowers brave enough to survive winter. She’s nestled into a small music box, its gears clicking out the last fragments of a lullaby into the chill, each broken note caught and scattered by a restless wind like a heartbeat slipping off its rhythm. Dew clings to her lashes like sunlight frozen mid-blink, and her tiny fists twitch against her chest as if in search of a mother’s pulse that has gone strangely still. Under the rising sun, her body seems to glow—not with warmth, but because the flowers around her believe she deserves one last trace of light. She is swaddled in a yellow towel, soft from age and frayed at the seams like an old promise; it smells faintly of smoke and holds her like a memory already slipping away.

The world tilts—his son’s laugh, his wife’s lullaby, their last promise—all converging in a single, ragged breath. He lifts the bundle with trembling reverence, surprised at its weight and warmth, the soft gasp that cracks through the cold. In the silent shimmer of yellow petals and broken lullaby, he understands: today, he will do more than mend wires—today, he’ll dare to hold a life back from the edge of forever, today is the day he will save a life, one he never knew he carried into this world. He lifts her, surprised at how feather-light she is, how fragile and nearly lifeless. He presses the baby’s head gently against his chest, each fragile breath a plea for life he refuses to ignore. Clutching her like a flickering candle shielded from the wind, he bolts down the first flight of stairs, determination burning behind his eyes. Four flights become a blur of concrete and railing as he races toward the lobby, a single thought driving him: keep her alive.

Panic detonates in his chest before he even reaches the lobby doors—a wildfire of fear that ignites every nerve beneath his skin. He crashes through the glass double-doors, boots scraping tile as he staggers into the fluorescent glare of the atrium. His breath comes in ragged shards, each exhale sending little clouds over the marble floor, the yellow towel-wrapped bundle held out like a desperate offering. “Someone—please—help her!” he roars, voice cracking the silence like a thunderclap, echoing down corridors meant for hushed footfalls and measured whispers. He clamps a trembling hand to his side, as if to staunch the fracture in his ribs, but it only pulses harder, a frantic alarm that won’t be silenced.

He sees the pallor of her skin, the faint flutter of her nostrils, and his voice breaks, raw with pleading: “Please, please, she’s just a baby. She’s just a baby, I don’t know what else to do.” Over and over he repeats the prayer, each time louder, each time more helpless, until the lobby teems with startled staff rushing forward—an outpouring of hands and murmured urgency to cradle the fragile spark he clutches like hope itself.

Immediately, the hospital convulses. A nurse’s stethoscope tumbles from her neck with a clatter; a doctor vaults off a stool, coat flaring in his wake. Phones spring to life in a chorus of ring—ring—ring—as receptionists snatch them up, muffled voices crackling orders into headsets. The night security guard snaps his flashlight on, its beam darting over white coats and stray charts, carving the chaos into sharp relief. Monitors in the hallway flicker awake, their beeps staccato like a premature heartbeat demanding attention. A cart laden with supplies screeches to a halt, its wheels protesting against the sudden uproar. Every eye snaps to the intruder and the fragile cargo in his arms, and for the smallest fraction of time, the hospital holds its breath.

“Someone take her and help me! Don’t just fucking stare at me!” The builder’s voice cracks the sterile air like a detonator. He thrusts the yellow bundle toward a nearby nurse, panic flooding every word. The towel’s sunflower hue is grim with smoke and old blood, its edges ragged as if it might tear itself apart. The nurse snaps her eyes to the stretcher she’s just set up, hands already clipping on oxygen tubing and flicking through pages on her tablet. Without missing a beat she shakes her head. “I’m prepping the warmer and paging the on-call peds resident,” she says, voice taut with urgency. She glances over your way, scanning the lobby’s swirl of white coats and badge-clad silhouettes. “Give the baby to her—she’s the only doctor here.”

You stand rooted to the spot, scrubs the soft blue of a dawn sky still half-lost in night, badge dangling like a distant star you can’t quite reach. Your heart thunders in your ears, an eclipse of nerves darkening every thought. You’ve never felt time stretch this thin—no coffee yet, no chart opened, not even a chance to sober your hands. This is your first day and now a baby rests in your arms, a living flicker against your chest, and your limbs betray you with tremors you can’t quite silence. When the towel slides into your grasp, you realize you don’t even know how to hold a child, but your arms fold around her anyway. She weighs nothing, yet feels too alive: a cradle of warmth that threatens to melt your knuckles. You lean in, breath hitching at the sharp scent of smoke and the faint trace of antiseptic that lingers on her skin. You can almost taste the promise of sunrise in her every shallow breath, as if she carries her own constellation within.

Your mind scrambles for protocols—airway, breathing, circulation—but the moment her cheek brushes your scrub top, a galaxy of instinct blossoms in your chest. The yellow towel’s threadbare softness presses against your sternum like a dying sunbeam desperate to flare back to life. Your hands remember lullabies you’ve never sung, memories whispered from every mother you’ve ever met, echoing beneath ribs that ache to protect. All around you, the lobby erupts into motion. A crash of metal carts, the hiss of regulators, nurses lunging for blankets, techs dashing for monitors. Lights flicker overhead like warning flares. The baby wheezes—a single cracked note that twists itself into your bones. You swallow against the tide of panic, arms tightening as if to shield her from the storm.

The infant in your arms is icily still—her breath a ghost you can’t catch, her fragile body wrapped in a yellow towel that feels too small for her sorrow. All you hear is your own blood roaring in your ears like a siren, drowning out the sterile hum of the corridor lights and the distant echoes of life beyond these walls. You want to cry out for help, to shatter the hush with a plea for mercy, but terror has locked your tongue. Time stretches thin around you, and in that frozen moment, you realize you’re holding hope itself on the brink of snuffing out.

That moment catapults you into your true arc with poetic brutality. You arrived here chasing ivory-tower dreams of perfect diagnoses and tidy case studies, only to have the universe fling its most abandoned bloom—an angel wrapped in a rooftop’s yellow towel—into the soil of your life. She is a wounded sunflower, petals scorched by midnight winds, a silent ballerina whose first pirouette was a gasp for breath. Cradling her fragile form feels like holding sunlight in your palms just as it threatens to flicker out. Your chest tightens at the tremor of her heartbeat, a single petal trembling against the taut wire of life. 

At your side, the nurse’s voice cuts through the haze like a scalpel: “Warm her—now! Why are you just staring at her? You think staring will save a life?” Your chest jams with ice, and for a heartbeat you can’t move. Your scrubs are as light-blue as first breath, a hue born of dawn’s quiet promise and the soft hush of wings folded against night. Under the hospital’s relentless neon, they gleam like a sacred pledge, an unspoken pact of care drawn across your shoulders. And pressed against your chest, the yellow towel, threadbare as heirloom lace, hovers between you and the infant, its frayed strands whispering of bloodlines and lullabies, a golden umbilicus tying you to a family you have yet to meet.

Your legs tremble as the nurse’s voice cracks like a whip: “Doctor, move! We need to get her onto the warmer now!” Another shouts, “Get the oxygen hooked up—why are you just standing there?” Their commands ricochet off the blue-tiled walls, each syllable a jolt demanding action. But you’re frozen, caught between the light-blue promise of your scrubs, soft as a dawn-tinted sky, and the fierce gold of the towel wrapped around the child’s ribs. Your breath hitches, and for a moment the world narrows to the glint in the infant’s dew-beaded lashes. You feel every thread of that yellow cloth pressing questions against your own heart: Can you save her? Do you know what life demands? The corridor pulses with urgency, nurses and doctors rushing past, stethoscopes flying to necks, hands outstretched, but you can’t step forward. Your feet are anchors, your mind a haze of protocols you’ve only ever practiced on oranges.

You’re poised to step forward, gloves half-donned, mind racing through every textbook procedure you’ve memorized: neonatal resuscitation, airway management, thermoregulation protocols but before you can move, he crashes into the bay, steps forward like a storm, coat tails flicking as he towers over the incubator’s glow. His jaw is set, collar undone just enough to reveal the pale hollow of his throat, and when he raises one sculpted eyebrow, the fluorescent light catches the gold flecks in his gaze. burning impatience and a fierce focus only the smallest patients ever earn. The air crackles as he murmurs to her, soft, urgent, entirely separate from the iron edge in his voice when he turns to you: “Move.” His command is a heated blade through the tension, and you feel every molecule of the room shift toward his magnetic intensity. Without a word, he strips the yellow towel from your trembling arms and transfers the baby to his sternum, his fingers deft as a pianist’s. 

He snaps on the thermal mattress, its surface hissing to life, then clips pulse-ox probes to each tiny fingertip as if tuning a fragile instrument. With a surgeon’s precision, he pinches an oral airway into place, then leans in close to flick open the ventilator’s valve and watch her chest lift under warm, measured breaths. “Warm fluids, two hundred milliliters—now!” he bellows, voice sharp enough to carve through your hesitation. He slaps a saline lock into the vein at her wrist, the line flooding with gold-tinted fluid, and slams the lab orders: blood cultures, ABG, CBC, lactate—stat. All the while, his gaze flicks back to you, disbelief curling in the corners of his mouth. “You just stood there,” he hisses, “frozen, while she was on the edge of nothing. Do you have any idea what you almost lost?” His every movement is a masterclass in emergency care, each command a reminder of how life-and-death hinges on action, not hesitation.

He leans in as he murmurs his running critique—pathetic, frozen, useless—and you feel the heat of his presence, a charged current between you. Your heart staggers; the monitors bleat in protest at her mounting fragility. You see the doubt in his eyes and taste it on the antiseptic breeze. All at once you remember the long nights you spent mastering intubations on mannequins, the surgical workshops, the dean’s list, the scholarships won. But none of that keeps your feet from quaking. In the hush that follows his scorn, you realize you’re not just fighting for her life—you’re fighting to prove you deserve this place at all.

𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐑

You wake in the half-blue hush before dawn, the world beyond your window still folded in sleep, yet your heart pounds like a tiny drum in your chest. There is no blaring alarm, your body rises at precisely 5:00 AM because it knows this hour is sacred. Your feet click on the hardwood floor, each step deliberate, as though you’re crossing an invisible threshold from starlight into purpose. In this fragile pre-dawn light, the air tastes cool and new, and every breath you take feels like an invitation to honor the dream you’ve carried since infancy.

Light seeps along the edge of your bed, illuminating the corner where your immaculate white lab coat hangs on a smooth wooden hanger. Your hospital ID is already clipped to the belt of your rolling bag, standing ready before you are. On the counter, a single nutrition bar rests beside the kettle—m, fuel portioned and packed, its wrapper folded with mathematical precision. On the fridge door, a checklist in three bands of ink, black for logistics, blue for gear, red for “don’t forget to breathe”—serves as your guiding star. Your handwriting is small and precise; the final red box gleams like a tiny victory, the last promise you’ll keep today.

You tap your phone and the first notes of soft piano drift through the room, not to soothe, but to sharpen. This exact soundtrack carried you through pediatric finals, each arpeggio anchoring your frayed nerves to one clear thought: remember how to save them. As the chords weave through the air, without thinking, you recite the entire abstract of last month’s ‘Pediatric Critical Care Review,’ every statistic on neonatal hypothermia, every margin note you penciled at 2 AM when the world was dark and your desk lamp burned like a beacon. You can still see the graph of glucose curves etched on page 37 as clearly as the sunrise outside your window. Your fingers trace the invisible text in midair, recalling exact phrasing—“Maintain core temperature above 36.5 °C to reduce morbidity”—while you pack your bag. Each line you’ve studied in the early mornings, each protocol you’ve annotated in the margins, lives in your mind like a living document, ready to be summoned the instant a monitor alarms.

Finally, you don your scrubs, buttoning the left sleeve first, always left, then right, as though you’re donning armor. The pale-blue fabric settles over your shoulders like second skin, echoing the dawn’s first light. You smooth each crease with the careful touch of someone who understands that precision matters. When you clip your badge over your heart, the weight of every life you’ve vowed to protect settles on your chest. Today, you step into the hospital not as a student, but as a doctor, every movement calibrated, every breath an affirmation: I am ready.

You lace up your shoes and whisper the names of children you’ve yet to meet, each syllable a vow. Even in this quiet moment, you imagine their fragile pulses, their tiny chests quivering with first breaths. Every child who crosses these hospital thresholds becomes your responsibility before you even set foot in the lobby, your mind already dancing through protocols for hypothermia, IV access, neonatal resuscitation. Your bag waits by the door like a silent partner in your promise. You pack trauma shears with the precision of a surgeon sizing scalpels, stash glucose tablets for the hypoglycaemic shocks you know will come, and tuck in two pens—black and blue—because you’ve learned the hard way that someone will always “borrow” a pen and never return it. Beneath these practical tools lies an old Polaroid: you as a toddler swaddled in a hospital blanket, your aunt in pink scrubs cradling you. You trace her smiling face, remembering the warmth of those arms, the first promise of healing you ever felt.

Your own story begins under fluorescent warmth and humming machines. You came screaming into the world six weeks before your time, so tiny that the nurses whispered you might not make it, and for six long weeks your body lived inside an incubator’s glass cradle while your mother teetered on the edge of death. That first fight for breath isn’t just a story you tell, it’s a drumbeat in your blood, a reminder that survival is your inheritance. You tell people you chose medicine, but late at night, when your hands tremble from fatigue and the memory of that incubator’s hum floods your mind, you wonder if medicine chose you, whether your destiny was written in those first fragile gasps you fought so fiercely to draw.

You grew up above a corner pharmacy, where your father’s night-shift rotas overlapped with your mother’s frantic mornings. She braided your hair with strips of medical tape when she ran late, and the apartment smelled of iodine and printer paper, lingering behind everything else. Vitamin chews clinked in your lunchbox alongside your carefully folded anatomy flashcards. That was your world: a tapestry of care, urgency, and the quiet hum of possibility. At six, you sat in the back of Sunday school and taught yourself the names of every bone in the human body. By nine, you’d copied your aunt’s anatomy textbook in gel pens, color-coded and margin-annotated. At thirteen, you watched a friend’s brother die because the ambulance arrived too late, his small body still as broken glass. You vowed then you’d never freeze in the face of panic. That memory sits behind your eyes whenever you hear a code pink.

High school found you in the library stacks, head buried in journals on pediatric trauma, your fingers tracing graphs of survival rates. In undergrad, you lived in labs, pipetting DNA sequences and charting cell cultures. In medical school, you balanced on the razor’s edge between obsession and burnout, refusing to quit, refusing to lose. You weren’t the top scorer, but you were the most relentless: the kind who redid an entire cardiac physiology paper at 3 AM because you spotted a miscalculation in your own footnote. Now, standing in your apartment’s pale dawn, you feel the weight of every textbook you’ve memorized, every protocol you’ve rehearsed until muscle memory turns to instinct. You carry the echo of incubator alarms in your marrow and a photographic library of neonatal charts in your mind. You know the curve of a glucose tolerance graph as intimately as the back of your own hand.

You moved through the med school like a specter in lecture halls, your pen a metronome across slides of metabolic pathways and embryonic layers. While classmates whispered study tips, you traced the Krebs cycle in the margins of your notebook until you could recite each enzyme without a second’s hesitation. Professors nicknamed you “the shadow” because you spoke only when your insight upended a diagnosis, like noting that a “benign” rash matched the pattern of early neonatal lupus, yet your silence held the heft of every nuance you’d catalogued. In the simulation lab, you learned to wield theory as a scalpel. Mannequins exhaled preprogrammed distress, and your fingers danced through ACLS algorithms: airway first, then breathing, then circulation. You navigated high-fidelity code blues so many times that the crash cart felt like home. When you finally watched a real thoracotomy—your first true encounter with surgery’s raw geometry—your vision swam and the cool scrub sink rushed up to meet you. You fainted against the porcelain witness. You cried. By sunrise, you were back, describing every step of the posterolateral approach in flawless detail, your attending’s praise was a quiet redemption of last night’s tremor.

On clinical rotations, you discovered that medicine lives between theory and human connection. You found yourself leaning close to frail patients—your palm a bridge between stethoscope and story—learning that it isn’t a perfect chart or a flawless procedure they remember, but the way you met their gaze when fear trembled in their eyes. You practiced explaining CPAP pressure settings in plain language, watching relief bloom on anxious faces more vividly than any pharmacologic promise. In your pediatric clerkship, the line between textbook and tragedy blurred irrevocably. You watched a fragile preemie slip away despite surfactant, fluids, and dopamine—the resident’s hands moving faster than your heart could catch up. You didn’t perform the procedures, but you felt each failure as though you’d held the ambu bag yourself. For an entire week you spoke only in data points, until you scrawled his name on a tiny Post-it in your phone: Lin, 28 weeks. Not punishment, but a covenant: every protocol memorized, every simulation repeated, every sunrise you’d welcomed would be in his honor—and in honor of every life you refused to let slip through the seam of preparedness and compassion.

The ride into the city feels shorter than it should—five stops of the elevated train, steel wheels screeching like a tuning fork whose pitch only your nerves can hear. You step onto the platform just as sunrise ignites the skyline, and there it is: Hwarang Medical Center, a cascade of glass and brushed titanium that gleams like a freshly autoclaved scalpel. You’ve dreamed of this façade since childhood, since evenings when your aunt returned from night duty still smelling faintly of isopropyl and lavender hand soap, telling stories about miracle codes and impossible saves. Even then, you memorized the hospital’s silhouette the way other children memorize constellations, certain that one day you would trace those lines from the inside.

Crossing the plaza, you step past a bank of security turnstiles, your badge swiping against the scanner’s soft green glow before a quiet click grants you passage. Uniformed officers stand sentinel in glassed alcoves. shoulders squared, eyes flicking between screens that cascade live feeds from cameras tucked into every corner. Doors hum shut behind you, their magnetic seals snapping like vault gates, and you realize every corridor is a secured zone, every elevator ride tracked by log-ins and time stamps. It feels less like a hospital and more like a citadel of care, where the most precious cargo, human life, moves under watchful guard, shielded from chaos by this silent network of vigilance.

The main entrance rises in tiers of transparent panels, each etched with microscopic text. quotes from pioneers of medicine in six languages, so that morning light fractures into prismatic lines across the marble. A brass plaque by the revolving door lists accolades like battle honors: Ranked #1 in trauma outcomes eight consecutive years; first in the nation to perform whole-organ 3-D–printed tracheal transplants; Level-I pediatric burn center with a ninety-eight percent survival rate. Your pulse skitters in your throat. This is the arena that minted Huang Renjun, the cardiothoracic prodigy whose single-incision valve repairs rewrote surgical textbooks. It’s the same place your aunt once led RRTs as charge nurse, her quiet efficiency now woven into the corridors’ muscle memory. It’s also home to Kim Jungwoo, director of neurovascular surgery, whose fingertip-precise bypasses rescued strokes once deemed untreatable; Sim Jaeyun, head of pediatric oncology, who pioneered immunotherapy protocols that turned childhood leukemias from death sentences into chronic manageable diseases; and Park Sunghoon, the trauma bay’s iron-nerved architect, whose mastery of damage-control surgery has pushed survival rates in multi-system trauma beyond anything the country thought possible. Each name is a legend here, each specialty a testament to the brilliance you’re about to join.

Inside, the lobby dwarfs every lecture hall you’ve ever occupied. Twin atria vault six stories high, latticed with sky bridges that float like glass arteries, moving white coats in continuous circulation. Beneath your shoes, Italian travertine gleams warm and bone-smooth, inlaid with brass lines that guide patient flow the way conduction fibers guide an impulse through the myocardium. Ahead, a cylindrical elevator bank rises like a transparent column of light, capsules zipping up to specialized wings: Burn & Reconstructive (5), Transplant ICU (6), Neurointervention Suites (7), Robotic OR Theater (9-11), and the crown—SkyGarden Pediatric Pavilion (roof), where therapy dogs and botanists coax children toward photosynthesis.

You pause near an interactive directory whose screen blossoms at your approach, offering a topographic map of the hospital’s sixteen clinical floors. There is an entire wing devoted to hybrid endovascular labs; another to regenerative medicine where scaffold bioprinters hum day and night. The trauma bay boasts negative-pressure resus rooms lined with high-speed CT gantries; the helipad above is floodlit with amber LEDs, capable of receiving rotorcraft in zero-visibility snow. A scrolling sidebar lists more than a dozen Centers of Excellence, from the Hwarang Fetal Surgery Institute to the Comprehensive Craniofacial Program, each a citadel of expertise you once outlined on index cards now yellowed with time.

A security badge check later, you enter the staff concourse: vaulted ceiling, acoustic panels shaped like DNA helices, and a living moss wall irrigated by recycled condensate. The smell hits you—clean vinyl, hand sanitizer sharp as gin, and something faintly floral that the environmental services team diffuses to keep visitor cortisol low. Every few steps, touchscreens bloom with patient metrics, lab values updating in real time like stock tickers, and digital wayfinding arrows shift to account for foot-traffic density. You glimpse a cluster of white coats around a stainless-steel coffee kiosk; at its center stands Dr. Huang himself, unmistakable even from behind: spine ruler-straight, silver-lined temples, discussing mitral valve chordae as casually as weekend weather.

You find the bank of elevators reserved for trainees, color-coded blue the shade of pre-dawn scrubs. and scan your provisional badge. As the doors close, you catch your reflection: wide eyes, pulse bobbing at your throat, yet posture squared by years of 3 AM anatomy sessions and cadaver labs that smelled of formalin and determination. You recall how, during med school, professors called you quiet but with good instincts, first to flag a silent anastomotic leak during rounds. Those same nights you’d fallen asleep propped against library stacks, cardiology atlases open like wings. All of that has brought you here, into a lift that hums like a tuning fork, carrying you toward the intern locker room on ‘Level 3 Graduate Medical Flood.’

The doors part onto a corridor paneled in light-oak veneer. Digital plaques list each residency track: Surgery, Trauma & Critical Care, Neuroscience and Pediatric Surgery—yours. Your palms prickle with sweat that smells faintly of latex gloves, and you think of your aunt again, her mantra echoing: Chart with your ears, treat with your heart, cut with your mind. You run through your mental library: neonatal sepsis pathways, pediatric burn fluid formulas, the Parkland equation singing in the back of your skull. Each fact unspools in perfect order, ready to bear the weight of real blood, real time limits. Before you push open the locker-room door, you glance through a side window at the main corridor. Nurses glide in teal uniforms, residents in jewel-toned caps flash past, and a transport team wheels a bassinet with an ECMO pump rhythmic as a lullaby. Your breath catches: this is the heartbeat you have followed since childhood, siphoned through bedtime stories of miracle codes. Today, at last, you aren’t an eavesdropper outside the ICU glass—you’re part of the rhythm. You square your shoulders, tug the strap of your bag, and let the door swing wide into the noise of possibility.

The operating room feels charged, as if every light, every tray of polished instruments, is holding its breath in anticipation. Beneath the constellation of overhead lamps, you and twenty of your new colleagues, six of you women, stand in a rough semicircle around the steel altar. You were chosen from over half a million hopefuls; the plan was to take twenty, but the board, including Dr. Baekhyun himself, couldn’t resist adding one more exceptional applicant. Today, you carry not only your own hopes but the gratitude of every life that might depend on your hands. Dr. Byun Baekhyun enters without fanfare, his crisp coat billowing behind him like a banner. He pauses in the center, scanning each face with eyes that have borne witness to miracles and heartbreak in equal measure. The click of his shoes on tile is steady as a metronome, measuring out the seconds before he speaks.

Dr. Byun Baekhyun, the undisputed titan of Hwarang Medical Center’s surgical wing, needs no introduction—yet here it is. A general surgeon by training, he spearheaded the first single-incision pancreaticoduodenectomy in the country, slashing average recovery times in half and rewriting textbooks in the process. He holds dual fellowships in trauma and transplant surgery, has published over two hundred peer-reviewed articles, and lectures annually at the World Surgical Congress. Twice awarded the National Medal for Clinical Innovation, he’s saved lives on every continent, from disaster zones in Southeast Asia to conflict hospitals in Eastern Europe. His name is spoken in reverent tones by nurses and whispered with awe by residents. “Each of you comes here hopeful,” he begins, voice measured but carrying to the furthest corner of the room. “A month ago, you were med students—learning how to suture, how to soothe, how to stand in the wings.” He lifts a scalpel, letting the blade catch the light. “Today, you are the surgeons. You’re here because, from over five hundred thousand applicants, only twenty-one were deemed worthy. You carry the board’s vote of confidence, an extra slot granted only because one of you simply couldn’t be left behind.”

He paces slowly, gloved fingertips brushing retractors as if greeting old friends. “This hospital is not a place for comfort,” he continues, “but it is a place for transformation. We are a teaching hospital—where even the greatest among us learned to bend and break before we found our edge. You will be pushed beyond anything you’ve imagined: through fatigue, through fear, through days when you wonder if you can take another step. But you will not walk these corridors alone.” He stops, gaze locking on each of you in turn. “Look to your left, then to your right. These are your surgical family. Eight of you will switch to easier specialties, five of you will crack under the pressure, two of you will be asked to leave. And the rest—if you endure—will become the doctors who save lives, who teach others in turn, who carry forward the legacy of this place.”

He lowers the scalpel and folds his arms. “Patients don’t remember your fatigue. Families don’t remember your doubts. They remember results—and they remember how you met their gaze when their world was falling apart. Your job is to learn—quietly, precisely, relentlessly. When you are the ones bleeding in the OR, your team will be the reason you stand.” His voice softens just enough to hint at the kinship he expects you to forge. “This is your crucible, yes, but also your community. Here, brilliance meets humanity. Here, mentors carve champions from raw potential. Here, you will laugh when relief arrives, and you will weep beside one another when it does not.” He steps back, the fluorescent glow catching the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. “This is day one of the best—and worst—seven years of your life. This is your arena. How well you play is up to you. Dismissed.” In the sudden stillness that follows, you feel every fiber of the room resonate with possibility, and with the unspoken promise that you will carry each other through whatever comes next.

Dr. Byun lowers his gaze, sweeping the circle of interns one last time. The humming lights catch the silver in his eyes as he delivers the final decree: “All interns, report to the Commons on Level 3. Wait there until your resident calls your name, don’t wander off.” His voice, cool and unwavering, hangs in the antiseptic air like a benediction. And with that, the surgical cathedral falls silent, your directive sealed beneath that final, unyielding command.

You step through the swinging doors into a gentle hush, the polished floors and sheer glass walls dissolving the world behind you until it feels bathed in quiet light—like crossing into a sanctuary built of careful hands and whispered prayers. Yet before you’ve fully taken in the brightness, something stirs at the edge of your awareness: the soft glide of a nurse passing by, her hair coiled into a halo of midnight, and for a moment you’re elsewhere—in your aunt’s old ward, where fluorescent lamps hummed lullabies and your small hand curled around her scrub pocket for a hidden peppermint. The faint tang of antiseptic lingers in the air, edged with lemon and memory, and without conscious thought your feet drift toward that phantom corridor you haven’t walked in years, drawn by the echo of every step you once took under kinder lights.

You inhale that scent like a prayer, letting it carry you back to afternoons when you dawdled behind your aunt in those very halls—her laughter soft and knowing as she steered you away from the bleak corners, her fingers brushing yours to steady you when the overhead lights felt too bright. You remember her voice, calm as warm broth, reading your scraped knee like it was the most important case in the world. You remember how she’d press a cool gauze pad to your tears, whispering, “Bravery doesn’t mean you don’t cry; it means you keep going.”

In your mind’s eye, she stands at the nurses’ station, sleeves rolled up, her badge catching the fluorescent gleam. You’d perch on a stool beside her, entranced by the rhythm of her rounds—the soft shush of charts, the rustle of stock orders, the gentle hum of equipment—each sound a note in the melody that taught you medicine was both precision and grace. She’d show you how to fold bandages into neat little packets, how to say “hello” to a frightened child so they might believe the hospital was a place of healing, not harm.

You drift, chest tightening with that curious ache of wonder you’ve always carried. In childhood, large supermarkets were your secret palaces, aisles echoing with the music of overhead piped-in pianos and rows of oranges glowing like miniature suns. Back then, you’d weave between carts, fingertips grazing fruit, unafraid and marveling at unexpected miracles tucked into every corner. Now, that same instinct pulls you away from the clustered interns, drawing you toward the soft murmur of a distant HVAC grate, toward the invisible pulse of this hospital’s heart. You press your palm flat against the cool wall because you have to listen, you have to feel. The concrete hums beneath your fingertips, a private lullaby of ventilators and IV pumps, each beat a reminder that you belong to something far larger than the rigid schedules and locked-down protocols.

By the time you blink free of the memory, the Commons is empty. The high-backed stools stand forlorn around the central table. Dr. Byun’s voice has faded to a distant echo, replaced by the slow drip of a broken faucet somewhere down the hall and the soft whirr of an unattended air vent. Panic flares across your collarbones. You spin on the balls of your feet: no fellow interns to guide you back, no whisper of a displaced co-worker. You are entirely, achingly alone in the labyrinth. Your heart hammers as you realize your error, but there’s no shame in the twitch of relief when you catch a sliver of yellow light from the emergency wing ahead, a hint of what pulled you here in the first place. You step toward it, each footfall echoing down the corridor like footsteps in an empty cathedral. And though the Commons called your name for orientation, this pulse — this luminous thrum beneath your palm, this radiant promise of small life waiting in the shadows — has claimed you instead.

You straighten your spine and breathe deep, tasting the hospital’s electric charge on your tongue. It’s not lostness; it’s a summons. Every nerve in your body hums with the recognition that this is where you’re meant to be — even if it means straying from the path you thought was laid for you. As the yellow beacon ahead shifts into view, you realize you’ve already begun your true orientation. Welcome to the pulse of Hwarang.

You stand beneath the fluorescent hum as thunder mutters through the hospital’s steel spine, a low rumble that shakes the windows like distant drums. Outside, rain lashes the glass façade in staccato sheets, each droplet a metallic tattoo against the building’s skin. Inside, the air tastes of sharpened antiseptic and cooling vents, tremoring in your chest like the hush before the tide breaks. A flicker of the lights ripples overhead—once, twice—casting the corridor into momentary darkness before they blaze back to life, revealing walls that gleam like pillars in a storm-forged cathedral. Your hand tightens on your badge, its weight suddenly thunderous against your palm, and you breathe in the electric charge that threads between the lights. Somewhere beyond these doors, a wave of chaos gathers—an unseen tide of alarms and footsteps soon to crash through this quiet. For a heartbeat, you stand poised at the eye of it all, every nerve alive with the anticipation of disaster, every breath a promise that you’ll meet the coming storm.

The peace fractures in an instant. A heavy thud echoes from beyond the frosted doors—a single, urgent heartbeat in the corridor’s quiet. You pivot, heart hammering, as the light ahead shivers and warps, a yellow beacon bending into a warning. In the slit of vision beneath the door, a figure bursts through: a construction worker, rain still pooling on his shoulders, face creased with desperation. Clutched to his chest is something small, so still that for a moment you think it’s a kit of instruments. Then the yellow towel shifts, and your breath stutters.

“Please—someone help her! Don’t just stand there!” His voice splinters the air, raw and ragged as a wounded bird’s cry. You step forward, adrenaline uncoiling in your veins, but your feet lock as the hallway snaps into hyperdrive. Monitors scream to life in adjacent rooms, a metal cart screeches around the corner, and the crisp click of a stethoscope being snatched by a nurse falls like thunder. She’s already two steps ahead, gloved fingers tracing the baby’s lines, prepping the portable warmer with an efficiency born of countless nights just like this. You watch her rhythm—warm fluid, oxygen mask, suction device—each motion precise as a surgeon’s, each breath a direction in a frantic ballet.

“Prepare the portable warmer. Page pediatrics—now!” Her voice is tight, a taut wire cutting through panic. You feel her rigor lock the chaos into a grid of purpose. Then she fixes you with a glare sharper than any scalpel. “Give her to the doctor!” she commands, pointing at you with a force that leaves no room for doubt. The world tilts; you’re the only one in doctor scrubs, you’re barely sixty minutes into your first shift, but every eye snaps to you as though your very name is written across your chest.

In that breath-held instant, her chest lifts—a tremor so slight it could be mistaken for a ghost’s whisper—yet to you it blazes like the heart of a lone sunflower straining up through midnight soil, petals of life unfurling against the weight of oblivion. You feel her fragile warmth press into your sternum, a single ray of molten gold caught in human form, and every fiber of your being fractures between awe and terror. Your arms tremble as though they hold the last sliver of sunrise, every heartbeat in her tiny wrist echoing your own, begging you not to drop that sliver into darkness. Protocol screams in your mind—call for help, clamp the line, secure the airway—but your bones remember a simpler truth, older than manuals: hold her close, shield her from the dying light. And so you stand frozen, soul caught between the dying day and the promise of dawn, cradling a single spark that refuses to be snuffed.

Behind you, the nurse’s steps recede as she rounds up the team, residents, orderlies, respiratory techs, while you stand at the epicenter of this trembling moment, heart echoing in your ears like a cymbal crash. You glance down at her, at the tiny curve of her hairline, the faint crease where the towel presses, the drop of condensation on her eyelash shimmering gold in the glare. “You’re okay,” you murmur, voice trembling with awe and fear, “you’re okay.” And in that whisper, the corridor holds its breath, the hospital’s pulse slows to match yours, and you realize you’ve just become the keeper of her light.

Time dilates around you, the corridor’s fluorescent hum stretching into a low, relentless drone as the baby’s feeble heartbeat flickers against the soft yellow blanket in your arms like a dying neon sign in a rainstorm. You clutch her closer, weight and warmth fused into a single, trembling beam of light. sunflower-gold in your memory, yet you cannot move. Your muscles have locked into a statue’s stillness, every command you ever learned buried beneath the tidal pulse of terror that surges through your veins. Somewhere behind you, distant alarms begin to pound like warning drums, but you remain motionless, locked in the gravity of her need. It’s only when a voice splits the haze—sharp as a scalpel’s edge—that the moment fractures and you remember how to breathe.

You stand rooted to the spot, breath lodged in your throat, as if the world has tilted on its axis and left you dangling between heartbeat and collapse. The baby in your arms murmurs a single, tentative sigh, a sunflower seed cracking open in winter, and you realize you’ve been holding her too tightly, as though you could squeeze life back into her. Your mind races through every neonatal protocol you’ve memorized, but your body remains a statue of shock and awe. “Give her to me! Why are you just standing there?” The command cuts through the corridor’s drone like a thunderbolt. You flinch, clutching the yellow blanket as though it might shield you from both his rage and the hospital lights. It takes a moment—two, maybe three heartbeats—before your limbs remember their purpose. You step back, paling, and hold out the baby like an offering.

When his hands close around her, it’s not the fierce snap of authority you expect but a gentle cradle, as if her fragility has carved tenderness into his fingertips. You glance up, and there he is: Dr. Na Jaemin, the name you’ve only ever seen etched in journal mastheads, now carved in living flesh before you. His hair is streaked with silver at the temples, as though lightning once struck a single promise into him; his cheekbones catch the harsh lights in angled planes of shadow and steel. His gaze, storm-wracked and luminous, sweeps you once, the flicker of recognition in his eyes softening them for a heartbeat, before it contracts back into the command of a man who has known hunger, fear, and hope in equal measure. You watch, breath returning in uneven gusts, as he settles the baby onto your shared station: a counter of stainless steel that glints like a mirror catching sunbeams. He checks her pulse, two fingers pressed to the curve of her wrist, reading the rhythm as if it were a sunlit sonnet carved in Morse code. He leans in, eyes narrowing, and you see the faintest tremor in his jaw—something you’ve never seen in journals or at conferences—a tether of vulnerability when a life so delicate demands his full attention.

“Clear trauma bay,” he mutters under his breath, not loud enough for staff outside the sliding doors to hear, but as precise as any vital sign. “Get me warm NS at forty.” The nurse scurries at his side, syringe and tubing in perfect sync. Yet even in the ballet of urgency, he pauses, fingers brushing back a stray curl from the infant’s forehead in a movement as reverent as a benediction. It is a gesture you will replay in your mind for nights to come, a single sunbeam in a sky of surgical steel.

As monitors begin their urgent chorus, you take a trembling step back, hands still empty of her weight but full of tremulous relief. The baby’s chest rises again, a single petal unfolding in dawn’s first light. He catches your eye then, just for a flicker, and you are no longer the rookie who froze—you are the keeper of her spark. In that moment, amid the rush of alarms and whispered hierarchies, you understand the gravity of trust: he needed those long, pale arms to move. And though neither of you knows it yet, that shared heartbeat beneath the hum of fluorescent halo will bind you in ways no protocol ever could.

“If you’d hung like that for another second, she would’ve died.” His words strike like shards of ice, and you lift your gaze to him—his presence at once promise and warning, every line of his face etched by battles with life and death. Dr. Na Jaemin, renowned chief resident and pediatric surgeon, stands before you, his reputation whispered in reverent tones through every corridor. His features are a map of obsession and precision—high cheekbones angled like razor blades, eyes the color of storm-wracked skies, mouth set in a vow of steel. He moves with the fluid economy of someone who has saved lives by the count of hundreds, yet tonight he is two steps away, stretching out long-fingered hands that seem designed to cradle rather than cut. You’d read his CV: summa cum laude, fellowship in neonatal cardiac surgery, inaugural surgeon in the country to repair a hypoplastic heart via a single thoracotomy. You’d only ever seen him in blurred action shots on medical journals, an apparition in half-glove and surgical cap. And now, here he is—real, urgent, scolding you for a hesitation that almost cost her everything.

His voice is still a blade of authority: “Move her to the warmer. Now.” You stumble, cheeks flushing under stark lights that feel too bright, too public. As he works—tenting her fragile chest with warm hands, unleashing catheters and cameras, barking precise numerical orders, you shrink into yourself, remembering every cautious step you took to become a doctor, only to freeze at the moment that mattered most. Yet even as embarrassment chokes you, you’re vaguely aware of relief stirring: he’s here, the best healer of little babies in the entire country, and under the arc of his command, this tiny life might endure. In that pulse of shared focus—his surgical calm meeting your frantic need to atone—you glimpse the first shaky thread of a bond that will bind you together in ways you cannot yet imagine.

“Scrub in with me, now,” he snaps, voice sharp as steel. “There’s no one else around, and I don’t have time to wait for doctors to answer their pagers.” Your feet move before your mind can protest, carrying you into the storm at his heels as the corridor dissolves into a blur of urgency and light. The fluorescent world contracts into a narrow, lightning-bright path straight to the OR. He doesn’t wait to see if you follow. His focus fixes on the bundle cradled against his chest, on the frail clockwork pulse beating a countdown beneath the yellow towel. You catch only a glimpse of his profile—jaw set like carved steel, eyes narrowed into twin coals of urgency—and then you’re running, soles slapping vinyl, breath tearing raw lines down your throat.

Nurse Yuha arrives at your side with the precision of a metronome, her silver braid swinging against her scrub collar. She doesn’t pause for explanation. “Hold that door,” she instructs, keying the release on the magnetic latch. “We’ll transfer her under a blanket only. skip the overhead warmer, she can’t tolerate the heat spike. Set oxygen at twenty-five percent on the T-piece and have a self-inflating bag ready in case her saturation dips below eighty-five.” In the span of a heartbeat, she has armed an entire crash cart with suction tubing, endotracheal tubes, and emergency epinephrine, her every motion a lesson in crisis-born certainty, while your own hands still tremble with textbook promise.

The corridor transfigures into a warpath. Cabinets unlatch with a clatter as orderlies fling open drawers, metal carts thunder to life behind you, and overhead lights strobe in urgent crescendos. A voice crackles from the intercom: “Surgical team, egress to OR three—code neonatal!” Red-badged technicians materialize at your flanks, guiding backstanders out of the way with brisk nods. Jaemin runs, the corridor’s neon haze stretching before him, but his gaze stays welded to the fragile sunbeam cradled against his chest—a living shard of dawn he refuses to let slip away. His legs pump like pistons, heart thrumming in time with the baby’s faint pulse, every muscle coiled to shield that trembling light from the encroaching dark. In that instant, he becomes her living eclipse, channeling all his brilliance and fury into a single vow: he will save her, and he will keep her flame alive.

Inside the scrub bay, time dilates and pressure coagulates. You step before the sink—stainless steel reflecting your pale reflection—and bring your hands beneath the surgical soap, feeling the antiseptic burn like absolution. Mint-scented foam catches under your nails as you count your scrubs’ layered lather, each rotation a vow to shade fear with action. The dryer bellows above, gusting sterile warmth over your wrists until they still. Never again, you promise your trembling palms. Never again will you let hesitation eclipse a life. When your gloves snap on, Yuha stands sentinel at the door. Her gaze softens with hard-won kindness as she checks your doubled knots and tucked cap. “This is your first neonatal crunch,” she says quietly, voice steady as a mother’s heartbeat. “Don’t blink, breathe with her rhythm, ensure your reactions are quick. I’ll scrub in behind you.” She steps back into the blur of the corridor’s chaos, leaving only the echo of her calm to guide you.

The OR door slides open on a pneumatic sigh, white light flooding the threshold like judgement and mercy entwined. There, at the center of that brilliant glare, stands Dr. Na, silhouetted against the beam, clothed in the conviction of someone who has cut open sorrow and stitched it back together. In his arms, the sleeping infant trembles beneath the yellow blanket, her fragile life balanced on the precipice of steel and skill. As you cross into that cathedral of urgency, your heartbeat finds its counterpoint in the monitor’s beeps, and you feel the vow in your blood answer the call: you will not let her light extinguish tonight.

The overhead lights flicker to life, folding the operating room into a blinding cathedral of white. Instruments gleam on a stainless-steel tray like mirrors catching sunbeams—cold, clinical, and unforgiving. Dr. Na lays the infant on the warm drape of the surgical table with hands gentler than a prayer but firmer than any lullaby, positioning her as though she is the axis upon which the world must turn. You stand at the edge of the table, scrub-clad and heart pounding, watching the fragile curve of her ribs under the thin blanket, the ghost of a bruise pressed into her lip, and knowing this is the moment her story will be rewritten.

His voice cracks the hush: “Vitals.” You see the anesthetist lean in, listening to the faint flutter of her heartbeat, fingers poised on the pulse oximeter. Jaemin’s tone drops to a razor’s edge: “Clamp ready.” He doesn’t wait for confirmation, only the soft click of clamps sliding into position. “Suction prepped.” The scrub nurse moves with preternatural calm, her hands tracing the tubing like a practiced ballet. Then Dr. Na turns to you with a single, precise question: “Tell me what we know.”

Nurse Yuha’s voice comes steady, factual as a ledger: “Jane Doe. Newborn, female. Estimated three to four days old. No identifying tags, no maternal notation. Found by construction personnel in the rooftop garden less than an hour ago. Social Services is on line two.” The words hang in the air like thunder before the storm, each syllable a testament to abandonment and desperation.

Dr. Na pauses, his eyes sweeping the infant’s pale skin as if reading a secret map. Her chest barely moves, each inhalation a battle. He dips two fingers to her ribs, pressing gently, and murmurs, almost to himself, “Miracle she’s still breathing.” His lips quirk in a shadow of bitter irony. “What kind of person leaves a child to die like this?” 

A nurse offers a soft counterpoint: “Perhaps they thought it was mercy.” He doesn’t answer; a single tic flickers at the corner of his jaw, and then, almost tenderly, he brushes a stray lock of hair from the baby’s forehead as though shielding a single sunbeam from the void.

Your voice quivers but holds as you begin the presentation, your eyes fixed on the bundle of yellow cloth and cyanotic skin. “Jane Doe, estimated three to four days old,” you recite, fighting to keep your tone clinical. “Presentation: cyanosis of lips and fingers, tachypnea at sixty breaths per minute, core temperature thirty-four point six, systolic pressure in the forties. Weight one point eight kilograms. Uneven tone, intermittent tremors, possible neonatal abstinence. Priority is resuscitation, then stabilization.”

Dr. Na nods once, expression carved from granite sorrow. He stands at the head of the table, gloved hands already spanning the infant’s skull and shoulders with impossible tenderness. A bead of sweat slips past his temple and vanishes into his mask. You continue, flipping the stat sheet with trembling fingers. “Labs on arrival: glucose twenty, oxygen saturation sixty-eight, arterial pH seven-point-one, severe acidosis. Heart rate two-ten and erratic. No record, no APGAR, no prenatal history—she’s a Jane Doe on the edge.”

Dr. Na’s jaw flexes; his eyes never leave the baby. “She hasn’t even cried yet,” he murmurs, more invocation than complaint. He settles the stethoscope dome against her chest, listening to the ragged symphony within. He moves with a gentle savagery: two fingers beneath her jaw, assessing airway; thumb stroking her sternum, measuring rise and fall. “We’re treating for exposure, possible sepsis, maybe pneumothorax,” he summarizes, voice low but certain. “If the tamponade's hiding under that cyanosis, we’ll see it on the first pass—scalpel.”

Nurse Yuha presses the instrument into his waiting hand, her touch light but unerring. Jaemin leans in close—so close you can see the soft tremor in his breath against her ear—his voice a low incantation of warmth. “Hold on, sunshine,” he murmurs, the words sliding through the air like silk, carrying an unfathomable gentleness that seems reserved for the smallest, most vulnerable among us. “It’s not your turn to leave.” In that moment, the quiet insistence of dawn coaxes petals open after the longest night. You watch as his calloused fingertips, so steady over a surgeon’s steel, curl protectively around her hooded form, and you understand how a man who wields a scalpel with unyielding resolve can also weave tenderness with a single whispered vow.

His blade splits her skin in a deliberate arc, an act of violence meant purely for rescue. Blood wells, dark and sluggish, and a hush falls over the room, as though everyone is praying in languages they’ve forgotten. You count her pulse aloud, one-one-five, one-one-seven, while Jaemin parts tissue to reveal a single, malformed vessel thrumming beneath. You feel the ground shift beneath your feet.

“Truncus,” he breathes, voice cracking as though the word itself tastes of sorrow. He pauses, hand hovering over her pale chest, and exhales a shuddering sigh that rattles the sterile air like distant thunder. His shoulders slump, and for a heartbeat, he carries the weight of every choice he’s made—every life he’s saved and every one he couldn’t—in the storm-gray hollows beneath his eyes. Then he straightens, resolve coiling through him like steel tempered in grief. “That’s why you’re blue.” His tone is softer now, braided with pity and fierce determination. He turns on his heel. “Page Cardiology. She needs a conduit, stat.” The room snaps back to action, but he remains a moment longer, chest heaving, as if he’s inhaled her pain into his own ribs. When no one moves fast enough, he snaps again, sharper, colder: “Conduit kit, ten-French Dacron—now!” 

You fetch it with numbed speed, hands no longer trembling because the work consumes the fear. Jaemin fashions the graft in silence, each precise motion a note in a lullaby only he can sing. When the new conduit seats against the miniature heart and oxygen saturation climbs past eighty-five, the monitor trills a fragile, hopeful melody. Jaemin closes his eyes. For the first time, you see his shoulders relax—just an inch—as if absorbing the weight he’s kept at bay. 

The minute the graft slips into place and the conduit’s synthetic fibers align with her trembling myocardium, the monitor’s pitch, once a dirge, arcs up into a fragile aria of hope. Jaemin exhales, a sound as heavy as night rain, and for a heartbeat you see his shoulders uncoil, the storm-gray hollows around his eyes softening just enough to reveal the toll this life has taken. But relief is a fickle thing in this room; he steadies himself against the rail, voice low and urgent.

“Get me blood cultures, stat,” he commands, gloved fist knocking rhythm against the stainless bench. “And draw a full panel — CBC, CMP, toxicology screen. I want an echo in ninety minutes, and MRI when she’s strong enough.” He pauses, turning to you with eyes that still burn with purpose. “Tell me what her pressures were pre-op,” he asks, tapping his pen against her chart as though scratching out every second of her suffering.

You glance at the scrawled numbers: systolic pressure in the forties, diastolic near the teens, acidosis marked at pH 7.1. Your voice catches before you offer, “Systolic forty-five, diastolic twelve. Her lactate was seven-point-four.” 

Dr. Na nods once, the rhythm of his approval as precise as sutures tightened to a single millimeter. “Good,” he says, softer now, but still carrying the weight of night. “You’re steady. Keep it that way.”

He crouches beside the table, fingers tracing the lines of her tiny sternum as though reading a map of every life she might lead. “This conduit is only stage one,” he breathes, voice almost a whisper, as if confessing a secret. “She’ll need a full repair once she’s six kilos, we’ll patch the VSD, replace this with a long-term conduit but she’s not there yet. Tonight, all we’ve done is give her tomorrow.”

Nurse Yuha steps in, laying down a fresh blanket of gauze. Dr. Na straightens, leaning into your ear with a gentleness that surprises your racing heart. “I’ll need you on sutures,” he murmurs. “This row, hand me the eight-zero Vicryl. I want perfect spacing, no tension.” You fetch the suture tray with hands now firm and sure, sliding the fine, violet thread into his palm. Each knot he ties is a promise, each snip of scissors a vow to keep her star burning. He sutures the incision shut, voice a frayed whisper. “She’s alive. Let’s keep it that way.” You nod, unable to speak past the burn in your throat. As he lifts her into the warmer for transfer, you see his thumb brush the soft rise of her cheek, a gesture so tender it hurts to witness. The room smells of iodine and newborn sweat, of danger deferred. She still hasn’t cried, but her tiny chest rises with steadier intent, and Jaemin’s quiet mantra follows her down the corridor like a prayer.

You wheel the transport isolette out of OR 3 just as dawn stains Hwarang’s eastern windows a hesitant pink. The corridor feels far too large for a life so fragile, every overhead lamp an unblinking witness. Your gloved hand steadies the acrylic shell while Nurse Yuha guides the ventilator cart, its hiss-and-click a metallic lullaby. Jaemin walks ahead, one fingertip pressed to the arterial line as though her pulse might vanish if he lets go. You watch the tentative rise of her chest and whisper the facts you never want to forget.

Cyanosis was the first map of her suffering—lips and fingertips bruised to twilight violet. Tachypnea followed, sixty breaths each minute, small desperate sips of air. Hypothermia curled around her limbs; the probe read thirty-four-point-six. Blood pressure languished at forty over fifteen. All of it explained beneath unforgiving lights when Jaemin opened her chest and found a single arterial trunk—truncus arteriosus—forcing oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood into lethal communion. He fixed what he could. Clamp, isolate, conduit: a Dacron lifeline sewn between heart and lung root. A small patch to redirect the river of dark blood. Dopamine coaxing her pressure upward, bicarbonate buffering the acid, epinephrine in sharp, life-snatching pulses. You intubated, set positive pressure, listened to her stiff lungs surrender to the machine’s rhythm. 

Now, as you slip into the hush of the NICU, Dr. Na eases the isolette beneath the radiant warmer. He speaks to her in a voice you’ve only heard in operating rooms—quiet, unwavering, the sound of a man who knows how thin the veil can be. “It’s not your turn to leave,” he murmurs while adjusting ventilator settings with deft fingers. The words settle over you like sunrise shifting through stained glass. He brushes the downy fuzz on her scalp—no gloves now, just skin to skin—and you see how this case has already built a home inside his sternum. “You want to stay, don’t you, Sunshine?” he whispers. She can’t yet cry, but her O₂ holds steady beneath the warmer’s halo.

You breathe in the sterile scent of warmed plastic and antiseptic and understand what you’ve learned: abandonment can be rewritten; a single artery can be bridged by silk thread and devotion; a surgeon’s fury can soften into a lullaby. You step back as the night-shift nurse clips new leads to tiny limbs, and the first full beam of morning spills across the tile—golden, trembling, alive. It pools on her blanket like a promise: borrowed tomorrow, delivered today.

You stand in the hush of the NICU, watching Jaemin’s hand glide across the baby’s cheek as her pulse steadies under his touch. The machines’ soft beeps blend with the hush of your own breath. Across the room, Nurse Yuha presses the social worker for answers, shoulders tense. You catch fragments of her voice: “She has no family, no one will claim her, she doesn’t even have a name. We can’t release her to foster care—she simply won’t survive outside our walls.” Your chest twists with heartbreak at the thought of her alone.

You slip toward the door, certain your presence is no longer needed, certain you’ve lost hours in the glow of that tiny life. Just as your scrubs brush the frame, a throat clears behind you—a tut, a cough, an “ahem” that freezes you in place. Your eyes narrow as you turn to see a stern figure framed by the doorway, arms folded beneath a crisp white coat, those storm-cloud eyes daring you to respond. You glance at her name badge and realize, with a jolt, that she’s your resident: Dr. Park Siyeon, the razor-sharp sentinel of these halls, whose very presence makes hospital protocols tremble. “Really,” she begins, voice measured but carrying the weight of thunder, “I’m impressed. Scrubbing into emergency surgery on day one, but missing your own orientation.” Her glare slices through you. “Do you think hospital rules don’t apply to you?”

Your mouth opens, then closes. You stammer, “I—I’m so sorry, Dr. Siyeon. I lost track of time, I didn’t even realise—”

She cuts you off with a lifted hand. “Save it. Eight hours of lectures, eight hours of simulation, and you skip all of it to play hero?” Her voice rises. “There are five rules to survive here. Do not assume your title makes you special.” She excludes no one as she turns to three figures behind her. You sweep your gaze across the trio, committing each face to memory in the split second before they do the same to you. To your left stands a woman with arms crossed and hair wound into a tight braid, lips pressed so thin they might slice wind, the name badge reads Kim Hyejin, intern; her eyes flick to you once, cool and assessing, like a hawk sizing up its prey. Beside her, another figure offers a softer contrast: Han Hayoung, cheeks faintly flushed, lip balm glinting under the harsh lights as she clutches a stack of color-coded notecards; her gentle smile blooms and retreats in equal measure, the sort of kindness that makes patients cling to her hand. And at the end, leaning casually against the lockers, is Kim Jihoon, three pens wobbling behind his ear as though daring gravity to interfere; he gives you a crooked, conspiratorial grin, brows lifting in an unspoken apology for the chaos you’re walking into. In that instant, you realize these are not just passing faces—they are your cohort, and for better or worse, your newfound family.

Siyeon points to the group. “You all heard me. We are a team, and today one of you decided to improvise.” Her tone softens just enough to cut deeper. “I didn’t name these rules for fun. I want you to repeat them back to me.”

Jihoon shuffles forward first, face coloring. “Never—never skip orientation?”

Siyeon raises an eyebrow. “That was rule one?”

Hyejin steps up next: “Answer every page at a run. That’s rule two.”

Hayoung swallows. “When you’re sleeping, don’t wake you up, unless the patient is dying… rule three.”

Siyeon nods. “Correct. Rule four?”

Your voice cracks as you speak: “Run labs, write orders, be on call every night until we drop.” A flicker of surprise ripples through the group, no one expected you to recite the rule verbatim but you swallow hard and meet their eyes, knowing you memorized Dr. Park Siyeon’s expectations in the hours before orientation. You were determined to be prepared, even as you got swept away by the emergent surgery. The hallway seems to hold its breath at your confession, and for the first time, you feel the weight of both your mistake and your resolve.

“Five,” Siyeon snaps. “When I move, you move.” Silence wraps around you all like a reprimand. Before you can respond, a sudden cry from the incubator draws Siyeon’s attention—and yours. The baby stirs, whiskers of light across her face as she wakes. You realize Jaemin has been standing in the doorway, arms folded, listening. At her whimper, he steps forward, voice low but firm: “Keep the shouting far from the NICU, there’s babies here.” Siyeon stiffens, then bows back into her stormy composure. She turns on her heel and strides away. Hyejin, Hayoung, Jihoon—and you—trail behind her, each footstep a promise to never wander so far from the path again. As the doors slide shut behind you, you feel a new responsibility settle in your bones: you belong here, with the rules, with the wonder, with the fight to keep this little sunbeam alive.

You slip into the wide intern corridor just as the frenzy of evening rounds softens into a gentle murmur. Along one wall, four examination beds have been commandeered as an impromptu lunch nook, mattresses folded back, brightly colored blankets thrown over the footrests, and pillows propped against the sterile vinyl for back support. Without ceremony, you all haul your trays onto the pale blue sheets and settle in a loose semicircle beneath the warm glow of the sconce lights. Instinct pulls you straight to the bed draped in that sunflower-yellow blanket. You tuck yourself beneath its folds, the fabric rising against your chest like a shield of warmth, and inhale its familiar softness until your heart un-tangles. Across from you, Hyejin unfolds her lunch with surgical precision, each triangular rice ball arranged like evidence on a tray, her fingers performing the same exact movements she’s practiced on cadavers, sheath of discipline around her calm intensity. 

At the next bed, Hayoung lifts a pastel binder and fans through her notes with the grace of a lullaby, her voice low and soothing as she recites patient protocols under her breath, tiny blossoms of care in every careful whisper. And Jihoon sprawls on his borrowed mattress, elbow propped on a stack of neon post-its, regaling them with half-improvised quizzes and goofy mnemonics that scatter laughter like confetti, each bright pen behind his ear a playful war trophy in this battlefield of medicine. Here, under the muted glow of the sconces, you breathe in relief as the yellow blanket’s warmth seeps into your bones, and for a moment, you let yourself believe you’re safe enough to rest, wrapped in sunshine, held by strangers turned kindred, ready to face whatever comes next.

Hayoung nudges you with an elbow, soft as a pillow. “Okay,” she says in her gentle voice, “we want every detail. How did ‘Sunshine’ end up in our arms?” Her eyes gleam with concern and excitement. 

Hyejin nudges her rice ball with a chopstick, eyebrows raised. “So what actually happened? Was there dramatic wind? Slow-motion hair flip? Because the nurses are all whispering that Dr. Na swooped in and saved a life.”

Jihoon leans forward, pen in hand, ready to annotate. “We were stuck in a four hour presentation whilst you scrubbed in with the Dr. Na, so don’t spare us the heroics.”

You take a breath, unwrap your sandwich, and begin: “It was just after dawn. A builder burst through with her wrapped in a yellow towel, almost pale as sun-bleached grass, crying one moment, still the next. I didn’t even realise she was a baby, I’ve never held something so small yet lifeless in my arms. I froze completely, I didn’t know what to do. Then Dr. Na appeared, he immediately got to work and ordered me to scrub in. We ran to OR 3, every second ticking off her life like a bomb.” You pause, spoon hovering. Hayoung gives you a gentle smile. “Keep going.”

You describe the incision that revealed a single arterial trunk, a heart born with one artery instead of two, and how Dr. Na, with that gentle fury he reserves for tiny patients, stitched in a Dacron conduit to split her blood streams. You recall the monitor’s alarms softening into hopeful chirps, that first soft tremor of relief in the room. Hyejin’s brows knit as she imagines the sacrifice it took. Jihoon whistled low, “Damn, that’s the work of legends.”

Nurse Yuha’s voice echoes in your memory: “She’s updating her own records now.” You smile, remembering how Yuha once teased you for devouring charts like they were candy.

Hayoung sighs. “I’m so proud of you,” she murmurs, cheeks pink.

Jihoon pats your shoulder. “You didn’t freeze, not where it counted.”

Hyejin leans back, expression softening for the first time that day. “You were born for this.”

You realize the corridor lights have dimmed as the sun sets outside. Four interns, four beds, one shared miracle. And in the hush of that makeshift lunchroom, you all carry a little more warmth than you did before—proof that even in a hospital’s cold corridors, sunlight can bloom in the shape of hope.

You sink into the folded yellow blanket, its sunflower-gold warmth spreading slowly from your shoulders down to your fingertips, and something inside you shifts. You glance around the makeshift lunch nook—Hayoung’s gentle smile as she tucks a stray lock behind her ear, Jihoon’s easy grin as he teases you about your first-day heroics, Hyejin’s rare, half-smile of approval—and realize these faces, once strangers, now feel as familiar as the soft grooves of your own palms. You don’t truly know them, yet you already sense this corridor, these borrowed beds, will be your home. You remember your aunt’s words echoing in your mind: “In hospitals, we bury our grief and plant our courage. The family you find here will choose you back.”

Flash forward a month, and you’re piling suitcases into an apartment just off the hospital grounds, peeling open takeout containers on a wobbly coffee table. The living room walls are too bright, the furniture a mismatched tapestry of thrift-store finds, but it’s yours—yours and theirs. Hayoung hangs fairy lights above the couch and brews ginger tea whenever you stumble in with exhaustion. Jihoon claims the smallest bedroom, swapping trading stories and piping hot ramen at two a.m., his laughter echoing off the walls until your chest aches with relief. Hyejin sets up a whiteboard in the kitchen for shared schedules and pearls of surgical wisdom, her fierce eyes lighting up whenever you solve a med–surg puzzle she’d posed.

Over steaming bowls and battered textbooks, you all learn each other’s rhythms: Hayoung’s gentle way of humming through your mistakes, Jihoon’s uncanny ability to know when you need a joke more than a coffee, Hyejin’s precise nod of encouragement when you’re on the brink of giving up. You fall into the pattern of belonging: mismatched mugs lined up on a shelf, leftover lecture notes plastered to the fridge, the soft thrum of an IV pump reminding you that life and love here are intertwined. In the hush between shifts, while the hospital hums beyond your windows, you realize this is where you belong—a constellation stitched together by shared purpose, laughter, and the unspoken vow to protect one another, just as you protect her—the little sunbeam who first brought you all together.

It’s been forty-eight hours since your shift began, forty-eight hours of adrenaline and trembling hope, but in this hush, all that’s left is you and that tiny form under the warmer’s glow. You haven’t slept more than two hours, and every muscle aches, but you can’t leave without this one pilgrimage. You push through the NICU doors, each step a quiet confession against your own fatigue. Your heels press into the vinyl floor like weights chaining you to the moment you first froze, arms cradling a life you weren’t sure you could save. She lies so small you almost think she might vanish if you breathe too hard. Her cheek is paper-thin beneath your finger, a petal wilting under the hush of the night. You trace the curve of her jaw, so fragile it seems a mere whisper might crack the fragile arc of her bone. Beneath the soft hum of machines, her chest rises and falls in a tremulous whisper, a lullaby of survival you’ve committed to memory:  frets of numbers flickering above her isolette, oxygen saturations like fleeting stars. You lean closer, pressing your palm to the glass, as if your warmth could seep through and steady her flickering pulse.

Guilt, sharp as a surgeon’s blade, cleaves your chest. You remember how your hands shook the first time they placed her in your arms, the terrible weight of potential loss. You should’ve been braver than, but you were buried in shock. The world outside this room spins on, but here, time slows to the beat of her tiny heart. You murmur, voice hushed, “I should’ve been braver. You were.” A single tear escapes, sliding down your temple before you catch it. You swallow the catch in your throat and press a knuckle to your lips, hiding your shame in the dim glow. Tonight, you are both witness and guardian—no longer frozen, but forging a promise with every whispered vow and every careful tracing of her fragile skin. As you stand and tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear, you feel the gravity of this child’s fight bind you tighter to her fate. Tomorrow, you will return. Tonight, you will believe.

You step away from the isolette alcove, each footfall dragging the weight of two sleepless nights deeper into your bones. Ahead, a lone figure stands beneath the corridor’s pale wash, his jacket still speckled with job-site dust, fingers nervously twisting a singed cigarette butt. He hasn’t moved since he handed you that fragile bundle, choosing vigil over rest because no one else claimed her. In the slope of his shoulders you sense a silent history of loss: a hushed house once full of laughter, a child grown too quickly, an absence he cannot fill.

You pause, and he nods toward the isolette as if seeking permission to speak. His voice is rough with the rasp of concrete and early dawn. “I know it’s foolish,” he says, thumb turning the cigarette ash between his fingers, “but she has no one. No mother, no father—or at least, no one who would come. I couldn’t let her wake up and find the world just as empty as when I found her.” His confession hangs in the sterile air, a quiet anthem to abandonment and hope intertwined, and you realize that in this impossible place, compassion can be the bravest act of all. She arrived breathless and alone, a lone star cast into a sky of strangers—and yet here he remains, a steadfast witness to her first fight. His vigil won’t rewrite her beginning, but it stakes a claim on her tomorrow: someone stood guard when the world turned away. In that pledge lies a fragile promise that, even in the vast loneliness of her first breath, she was never truly abandoned.

You halt and offer the quiet reassurance you’ve repeated like a mantra. “She’s stable,” you murmur, voice gentle enough to cradle hope itself. Gratitude flickers across his face, mingled with relief and buried sorrow, as the last ember of smoke drifts upward like a whispered prayer. He inclines his head in solemn thanks, a wordless pact between two strangers bound by a tiny life fighting its first battles. In the lantern-quiet room, his shadow lingers at the periphery, steadfast as a lighthouse beacon, an unvoiced vow that each fragile pulse of hers will be cradled in unwavering warmth, until she unfurls like a dawn flower against the darkness.

You walk to the nurses’ station hushes to its late-night hum, paper crisp beneath your shaking hands. Post-op note, final vitals, incision clean, no drainage, the pen moves by reflex until you reach the blank labeled Name. Your eyes sting before you even feel the wet. Ink blurs where a tear falls, a dark blot over the vacant line that still reads Jane Doe—a designation colder than any scalpel. You swipe your sleeve across the page, remember the name Jihoon had said earlier which warmed your insides. You smear saline and ink, then steady the pen once more. Sunshine.

The letters spread like dawn across the form, soft, certain, impossibly bright. You know it isn’t the name she will carry forever; she deserves a syllable chosen by loving voices, a sound stitched from lineage and dream. But for now, this fits like the first warm day after winter. She is the infant who outlived rooftop frost and surgical steel, who greets every monitor beep with a fearless conviction, who learned to weave light from the smallest crack in the NICU blinds. Under the radiant warmer’s soft amber glow, the IV tubing arcs like spun gold around her isolette; the monitor’s gentle yellow ring pulses in time with her tiny heartbeat; and the single sunburst sticker on her ID bracelet seems to hover above her wrist—every flicker of light drawn irresistibly toward the new centre of its universe.

Sunshine: because her pulse feels like midsummer on a wrist that once knew only cold clamps. Because her hair flickers copper in the glow of warming lamps, a miniature sunrise cresting fragile bone. Because when she opens her eyes, the greys of this hospital back away, walls repainting themselves in honey and marigold and every bright hue that promises survive. Until the day new parents cradle her and press a chosen name against her temple, you’ll keep calling her this small constellation of light—Sunshine—and even Dr. Na, whose voice rarely softens for anyone, lets the word settle like a blessing each time he bends over her crib. You cap the pen, whisper the name once more to the quiet chart—Sunshine, Sunshine—and feel the ward brighten by a fraction, as if the very syllables have pulled another sliver of yellow into this long night, promising her that she has always been more than the darkness that almost kept her.

You stumble out of orientation into your first week of rotations with your chest thrumming. The halls blur into a conveyor belt of chart reviews, lab draws, and never-ending pages. Hyejin strides past you with the precision of a metronome, already deep into her first cardiac consult, while Hayoung flits between rooms with sympathetic smiles and candy wrappers for anyone who admits they’re hungry. Jihoon appears with two coffees in hand—one for you, one for himself—his grin wide but weary as he jokes about how the pajamas in the call room feel softer than his own bed. You find yourself leaning on the reception desk at 2 a.m., replaying protocols in your mind, trying to reconcile your textbook confidence with the hollow ache of every alarm you answered wrong. Energy flickers like a dying bulb, only to be reignited by the adrenaline of every emergency you’ve barely survived.

Nights become a series of half-dreams and grunt-filled awakenings. You curl into the scratchy vinyl of the call room, blanket tangled at your waist, as the fluorescent light above hums an unsteady rhythm. Your phone buzzes with pages you can’t ignore, and you haul yourself upright on trembling knees to run corridors you barely remember navigating in daylight. The caffeine wears off at dawn, leaving you breathless and hollow, but the moment a patient’s vital stabilizes, a rush of triumph surges through you, sharper than any sleep could have been. By the end of the week, exhaustion has carved lines into your face, but so has resolve—each stumble through the ward forging you into someone who doesn’t just watch the clock, but owns every second it hands you.

You’re standing beside Hayoung, nursing a bruised Styrofoam cup of vending-machine coffee, when Siyeon strides into the corridor. Clipboard in hand, her white coat snapped shut like armor, hair twisted into a bun that could take a bullet and shrug it off. The hallway stills beneath her gaze as though it recognizes prey before a hawk. “Today I’m assigning your rotations,” she announces, voice flat and unyielding. “You will spend one week on each service, beginning immediately after rounds. Do not grow attached to your patients. Do not embarrass me.”

“Hyejin—cardio. You like control. Now prove it.”

“Hayoung—OB/GYN. Hope you don’t faint at the first placenta.”

Before Siyeon can finish her list, Jihoon folds his hands in front of his chest and whispers a fervent, “Please let it be neuro…” as if he’s beseeching a higher power. Siyeon glances his way, unimpressed, then continues without missing a beat. “Jihoon—orthopedics.”

Jihoon exhales a dramatic sigh, cheeks flushing, and mutters under his breath, “Of course,” before slumping into line with the rest of you. His fist shoots into the air. “Bone-saw baby,” he mutters under his breath, and you stifle a laugh—until her voice cuts through the corridor like a scalpel.

“You, pediatrics.” She pauses, letting the words linger. Then, almost quietly: “Since you’ve already made quite the impression.” A twitch at the corner of her mouth, half-smirk, half-sneer, says she means every mocking syllable.

Hayoung slides a hand to your arm, warm and steady. Hyejin lifts a single brow, amusement glinting in her eyes. Jihoon whistles low. “Damn, already chosen? Teach me your ways.” You force a nod, but your heart isn’t in the applause. In its place flashes the memory of a girl no bigger than your palm, taped to life-support machines like whispered prayers. You haven’t seen her, or Dr. Na, in a week, every waking thought still tethered to that rooftop rescue. When the group disperses, your legs carry you forward on autopilot. Your ID badge winks in the fluorescent glare as you turn toward the pediatric wing. Around you, the buzz of morning rounds fades to a hum; your world condenses to one locked door ahead. The pediatric ward beckons—sunshine and sorrow waiting just beyond its threshold.

You pad down the deserted corridor before dawn, each step a soft patter on pale linoleum that echoes like a newborn meal’s first, uncertain cry. The hospital exhales behind you, its night shift’s pulse still thrumming in empty waiting rooms and silent alcoves. With every corridor you cross, your ID badge swings gently, a little seed bobbing on a slender stalk, marking the slow growth of your resolve. The scrubs you donned this morning feel too crisp, too untouched—like a swaddling cloth that has yet to cradle any life—and you realize turning back is no longer an option. A fresh day waits just beyond these doors, and inside them, a babe teetering between breath and stillness has already claimed you.

You haven’t had a reason to cross these doors since that first desperate night, but your feet carry you in hurried unison, as though your heart has been tugging on your ankles all week, aching and desperate for this moment. The pediatric wing stretches before you, its pastel walls humming with echoes of lullabies and soft sobs. You feel every craving it holds: to cradle small lives, to answer silent pleas, to stand guard at the edge of breath. The air grows thick, almost viscous, as if the very walls are holding their breath. You pause at the sliding doors of the NICU, tracing the faint scuff where you first crossed this threshold. How your scrubs were wet with someone else’s terror then, how your heart ached like it had been grafted into another body.

You press the sensor and the doors part with a soft sigh, revealing a silent army of innocence suspended between life and machine. Rows of incubators line the dim corridor, each one cradling a baby no older than a prayer—skin ghostly, limbs bundled in tubes that pulse with borrowed breath. The air tastes of antiseptic and sorrow, weighted by the soft hiss of ventilators and the rhythmic whoosh of warmers fighting to stave off the cold. You catch glimpses of tiny chests rising against impossible odds, IV lines snaking like vines through ghostly forests of whipped-up sheets, and every face you meet is etched with the fragility of a spark that should never have been left to gutter.

Somewhere ahead, a nurse’s shoe squeaks, a soft interruption in the hush. You step forward, heart tightening, as the pale glow of each warming lamp bathes the incubators in a sickly yellow haze, light attempting to stitch warmth into envelopes of translucent skin. Each bed feels like its own graveyard vigil, each monitor’s alarm a tolling bell for lives that might slip away before morning. You realize you’re holding your breath, as though any exhale might extinguish one of these flickering miracles.

Dr. Na settles into the faded green feeding chair, the one he claimed after two sleepless nights. His coat sleeves are rolled to the elbow, revealing forearms taut with lean muscle, and the overhead lights scatter prisms across his dark hair. You pause, heart tightening, as you watch him cradle the nameless newborn, still called “Jane Doe” by official records, in the crook of one arm. His other hand tilts the bottle with a surgeon’s precision, the milk creeping toward her lips in a forgiving arc. She opens her eyes for the first time. rims of dusk around tiny iris pools, and you almost catch the tremor of recognition in her gaze. The soft slur of her suckling is gentle but hungry, a whispered plea that reverberates through your chest.

He leans in, the crease of his jaw softening, and murmurs something so low it is swallowed by the hum of ventilators and the slow hiss of humidifiers. Each word is a caress, though you can’t make out the syllables; it’s the way his voice cups her pain with velvet warmth, like lullaby light behind closed eyes. Her slurps falter into a hiccup of tears—pain lancing through her, honest and raw—but he never pulls away. Instead, his fingertips brush away the tears, tender as if guiding a lost bird back to its nest. In that moment, you see the full measure of his devotion: a doctor whose hands can cut through flesh with cold certainty, yet cradle this tiny life with a gentle gravity that feels nothing like professionalism and everything like love. The air between you fills with something new—an unspoken promise that this small, wounded soul will know care at first touch, and that Jaemin’s vigilance, once so distant, now burns bright beside her.

Your breath catches—not from surprise at finding him here, nor from the sight of her cheeks flushed rosier than before, but because together they look whole, a constellation formed from two solitary stars. You hesitate at the threshold, the sanitizer dispenser gurgles as you wash your hands, each drop of soap a ritual to clear the ghosts of last week. Your heart thuds, synchronized to the soft pulse of her monitor. You clear your throat. “I’m in pediatrics this week,” you say, voice steadier than you feel, offering your name and intention like a key.

Jaemin straightens, gaze still fixed on her pale brow. His ears tune to your words without turning. Then, crisp as a scalpel’s blade: “You’re late. Close the door behind you.”

You cross the threshold and stop, catching your breath at how much she’s grown, her limbs still the length of your palm but carrying the promise of tomorrow’s strength. Yet as you lean closer, your heart skips: she still can’t breathe on her own. Her tiny chest heaves only when the ventilator urges it, each mechanical sigh a reminder of how close she still hovers to darkness. Tubes and wires cling to her like crystalline vines—feeding lines, oxygen cannulas, IV catheters—all converging on the brightest constellation in this quiet galaxy. You notice the gentle rise of her brow as if she’s dreaming of sunlight, her fists unclenching around the soft edge of her swaddle, but the truth sits heavy in your chest: no matter how much color blooms back into her cheeks, she remains tethered to machines that whisper the fragility of her fight. And in that suspended moment, you understand the depths of what you’ve joined—this isn’t just another rotation; it’s your vigil beside the edge of life, and every breath she borrows is a vow you silently renew.

He straightens, shoulders coiling into armor. “We have a long day ahead,” he says, voice clipped and precise as a scalpel’s edge. “I’m scheduled for four back-to-back cases: an emergent appendectomy in OR2, a cricothyroidotomy for that car-accident trauma in OR5, a laparotomy on a perforated ulcer in OR1, and then Sunshine Girl’s second-stage repair.” His gaze flicks to your badge, marking the ten-year gap in your ages, your rookie enthusiasm against his decade of hard-earned scars. You feel the distance between you tighten, yet the air hums with something charged and raw beneath his cool command. He folds his arms—one sleeve pushed above the elbow, veins tracing silver paths—and adds without warmth, “We leave for rounds in five minutes. You’ll also be presenting all the pre-op status’, and then we handle the cascade of post-op care for all four of those cases. Do not be late.” His words hang in the humming corridor, a vow not of comfort but of unyielding expectation. In the silent space between life and blade, you are both servant and sentinel—and there is no room for anything less than perfection.

You slip through the doors, the world outside still hushed in dawn’s half-light. Dr. Na Jaemin leads the way, stride long and unhurried, slipping between isolettes and warmers without so much as a backward glance. You trail a step behind, notebook open, pens at the ready, but there’s no coffee in your hand, no pause for camaraderie or small talk. His gait is purposeful; every door he passes clicks shut like a verdict. You hurry to keep pace, heart thundering like a code alarm in your chest, as he moves through the post-op charts with brisk efficiency.

At the first sign of hesitation in your voice—when you attempt to clarify a knot in a ventilator setting—your words tumble over his brisk instructions. He stops mid-step, the fluorescent glare catching the steel of his loupes, and turns slowly. “If you already know everything,” he says, his gaze as flat as an unblinking monitor, “present the rest of the list.” The ward seems to hush around you; Nurse Yuha stifles a chuckle behind her hand. You swallow, cheeks burning, but press on—reciting your notes with trembling precision. He doesn’t reply, only nods and marches on, leaving you to sink back into the rhythm of charting.

Fifteen minutes later, you’re lost in the glow of the electronic record when he slips in beside you, silent as a scalpel. His finger hovers over a misplaced decimal—a heart rate entry off by a hundredfold—and he leans in so close you feel his breath. “If you’d charted that,” he murmurs, eyes cold with precision, “she’d be paralyzed in seconds.” His voice is velvet over steel. You freeze, then your fingers fly, erasing and re-entering the correct value with trembling haste. After ten seconds of paralysis, you rise and track him down, offering the corrected version on a slim clipboard. He takes it, eyes still fixed on the baby’s chest rise and fall. “Good,” he says, the single word almost tender but you hear the unspoken “thank you” buried beneath its clinical edge.

By eight, you’re scrubbed into your first case: a neonate’s hernia repair. The baby boy is six days old and still frail from premature lungs. You hover with the suction line, breathing in the sterile heat, ready to clear droplets as soon as they appear. When you adjust his vitals just before the incision, Nurse Yuha gives you a discreet nod of approval. Jaemin’s silhouette leans over the tiny patient; he allows you to suction but corrects your grip with a fingertip nudge. You flinch, as though struck, but he offers no comfort—only that half-second of his gaze that lingers like a question you need to answer.

At 11:30, you’re back in the scrubs, this time for a teenage trauma patient’s bowel resection. The field is deeper, the stakes higher, and the flash of blood sends your pulse skittering. You note the transfusion threshold just before the anesthesiologist blurts it out, and Jaemin’s eyebrow arches, an almost-imperceptible salute. Steam ghosts off the stainless faucets, clouding the mirrors as you scrub chlorhexidine from beneath your nails. Your pulse is still racing the clock you just outran in OR-2; the bowel resection’s last suture feels stitched into your own heartbeat. Jaemin stands at the next sink, sleeves shoved to his elbows, water sluicing down forearms etched with long night-shift veins. He never rushes this ritual—thirty strokes, flip, thirty strokes—scrubbing as if absolution can be earned by arithmetic. You glimpse the surgical lamp’s reflection glimmer across the edge of his jaw, and suddenly every fact you’ve ever memorized vibrates for release.

“The inferior mesenteric,” you blurt, voice too quick, “branches at L-3 before it supplies the proximal rectum—so if we’d taken the margins any farther distal—” You hazard a glance. He’s drying his hands, gaze fixed on the floor, the ghost of an eyebrow lifted. Heat flares up your neck, but the words keep falling, dominoes you can’t stop tipping: motility patterns, parasympathetic innervation, rare post-op fistula rates. You talk faster, trying to fill the hush, trying to prove you’ve earned the scrub soap flaking off your wrists, until the echo of your own breathless lecture startles you into silence.

Jaemin folds his towel with surgical precision, tucks it into a bin, and faces you at last. His eyes are the tempered gray of an instrument tray, unreadable but razor-bright. “If you’re going to ramble,” he says, voice smooth enough to slice, “then make it useful. Otherwise, silence is preferable, you’re giving me a headache.” The sting lands clean; you feel it bloom behind your ribs. But then he reaches forward, just two fingers, and adjusts the angle of your mask loop where it’s digging into your ear. “You caught the bleed in there,” he adds, softer, almost an afterthought. “Good.” His hand falls away before you can answer.

You hustle into OR-3 still replaying his “Silence is preferable” in the back of your skull, determined to redeem every breath. The room smells of cautery and cold metal; overhead lights pool like noon-bright moons on a field of blue. Dr. Hwang Renjun, Chief of Cardiothoracic. a legend you once dissected journal articles about, is already gown-gloved, guiding a vascular clamp with the poise of someone who has rerouted more blood than most hearts will ever pump. His profile is thoughtful, serene even, but every gesture is a verdict: precise, unhurried, unforgiving. Jaemin steps in beside him without a word, and you fall into position at suction, pulse thrumming against the tubing. The two men work in a choreography so tight it feels illicit, Renjun’s steady murmurs of “Clamp… tie… next,” Jaemin’s sutures flashing like silver lightning under templed brows. You barely breathe, hyper-aware of the heat of Jaemin’s shoulder a hand-span from yours, of how the raw focus radiating off him makes the sterile drapes feel suddenly too thin.

Forty minutes in, just as the graft seats clean, Jaemin’s pager erupts with a shrill insistence that slices the quiet. He barely glances  but you see the infinitesimal widening of his eyes, a flash of storm before the composure slams shut. Nurse Yuha’s voice crackles through the intercom, breathless: “NICU, Code Lavender, Baby Sunshine just required full resus, sats unstable, we need cardio-peds in OR-2 ASAP.” The scalpel seems to pause mid-air; even the vent sputters like it forgot its rhythm. Jaemin draws one measured breath, so calm it’s terrifying, and continues the anastomosis, hands steady while an artery the width of thread pulses between his forceps. Renjun tracks the tension immediately; his gaze flicks from the field to Jaemin’s clenched jaw, and something like recognition softens his brow.

“Go, Na,” Renjun says, voice low but carrying. “I’ll close. She’s your case.” It’s not a suggestion, it’s an absolution. Jaemin knots the final stitch with a snap, meets the older surgeon’s eyes in silent gratitude, and turns to you. “With me,” he commands, already stripping his gloves. There’s no time to marvel at how fast adrenaline atomizes fatigue; you’re yanking off your gown, letting it puddle, chasing his back through the corridor before the automatic doors can finish their sigh. Your sneakers slap linoleum, your breath saws icy against your mask, and still he outruns you, white coat a blur, like he’s tethered to the infant heart blinking red on some distant monitor.

Every hallway monitor seems to echo the same alarm tone, the hospital’s vascular system convulsing. You think of the way Sunshine’s fingers curled around his in the isolette this morning, of the bottle angled just so, of the unfathomable tenderness hidden beneath all that clinical frost. He doesn’t slow, but he speaks, more to himself than to you. “She was stable, her vitals climbed overnight, her surgery wasn’t scheduled until later, this isn’t fair.” His voice is a scalpel now: honed, dangerous, meant for cutting truth away from panic. You pump harder, matching his stride, replaying medication lists in your mind for anything you might have missed.

You and Jaemin lunge through, baby in his arms, the yellow towel damp with sweat and blood. Monitors behind him scream their alarm into the corridor as he barrels forward, feet slipping on tile, heartbeat drumming in your ears louder than the chaos. Nurses scatter, keys clatter, and someone shouts for suction. He doesn’t hesitate, he holds the child as if she’s the only thing keeping him upright, arms locked around her frail body, every muscle coiled. You sprint beside him, scrubs flapping, adrenaline slicing through marrow, and catch the next elevator down. The doors close on a blur of motion and neon.

In the OR’s harsh glare, Jaemin lays her on the steel table with the tenderness of a prayer. His white coat flutters like a banner in a storm, and he doesn’t wait for gloves—he clamps an oxygen mask to her mouth, voice low and urgent: “Breathe, baby. Breathe for me.” You move into position, hands steady despite the tremor in your chest, primed to suction, to stabilize, to fight. Under the interrogation light, her skin is the color of bruised infancy, breaths ragged against the mask. Jaemin’s eyes lock onto yours for a heartbeat—flint and promise—and in that instant you know: no one else matters in this room but her survival. Then, with soft precision, he begins.

The old conduit lies buried beneath layers of scar and sterility as Jaemin’s scalpel carves along the faded thoracotomy line. The skin parts readily under the iodine’s harsh glow, paper-thin and fragile, revealing the dark ribbon of graft beneath. Instantly, maroon rivulets of clot spill from the synthetic tube, each bead a ticking second lost. With measured urgency, you sweep the pooled blood aside, fingers sure despite the tremor in your belly, while Nurse Yuha slides a six-millimeter bovine graft across your field of vision. Jaemin’s movements are economical, he trims the new conduit to length, positions it with uncanny precision, and threads the suture through living tissue and graft alike. Every stitch is a promise: one tightens the lifeline, another seals the vow. As he flushes heparin through the lumen, the first flash of bright effluent appears in your suction tip, a promise of redemption in a swirl of liquid white.

Across the sterile expanse of OR-2, the monitors begin their hesitant climb: oxygen saturations flicker from 68 to 78, mean arterial pressures lift from a whisper to a breathable hum. You hold the suction catheter steady as Dr. Na draws the final knot tight, his forehead slick with sweat, jaw set like chiseled stone. “Come on, baby,” he exhales, voice low and intimate beneath the harsh lights. With deft fingers he closes the incision in imperceptible layers of six-zero Prolene—each pass of the needle as fine as spider’s silk, each knot a quiet exhalation of relief. When the last stitch is buried, he steps back, shoulders finally loosening just enough to admit a fraction of release. “We bought time,” he states, tone flat yet threaded with something fierce—gratitude, exhaustion, relentless hope. And as you sponge away the remnants of battle from his brow, you understand that in this cathedral of conflict, every heartbeat saved is a small victory against the darkness.

Even as the final suture vanishes beneath his gloved thumb, Dr. Na doesn’t turn away. He leans closer, voice soft as a lullaby amid the aftershocks of adrenaline. “You’re so fierce, little fighter,” he murmurs, fingertips brushing her cheek as though the slightest touch might rekindle her spark. “You’ve carried more pain than most people ever will, and you don’t even have a name or a family to call your own. But you belong to the light, there’s a sacred corner of it reserved just for you.” His words flutter through the hush—each one a salve, each one a vow of protection. “You’re stronger than anyone deserves to be—I believe in you, little warrior. I swear I’ll carry you through the rest. Now rest, grow stronger…we still need your fire.”

You choke back a breath as you watch him lean over that isolette, but it isn’t just this moment that catches you—it’s the pattern of tenderness woven through every encounter you’ve witnessed today. This morning, you saw him crouch at eye-level with a trembling three-year-old whose leg brace chafed raw; without a word, he drew a wobbly dinosaur in the dust of the cast and nudged her fingers to follow each curve, her giggles bursting through the ward like warm sunlight. At lunch, he sat cross-legged on the floor beside an intubated neonate, coaxing the baby’s fingers to wrap around his own thumb as he hummed a gentle, off-key lullaby he’d clearly invented right then and there, the tiny hand tightening with trust. Later, he paused mid-stride in the corridor, reached out to catch a knot unraveling on a premature infant’s incubator ribbon, and retied it with surgeon’s precision, transforming the harsh plastic into a cradle trussed in hope.

Everywhere he goes, little eyes light up at the sight of him: toddlers clutch his scrub sleeve in shy delight, babies swivel toward his voice as if it were the promise of home, and from the far corner of the ward, a rough-voiced janitor once paused his rounds to watch the way that a child’s face unfurled into a toothless grin when Jaemin pressed a fingertip gently to her cheek. You remember how he leaned into that moment—softening his shadowed features until even his stern jaw seemed to melt—and offered a high-five that turned into a little dance, the floor echoing with tiny feet gliding in time. Each gesture is another verse in his unspoken hymn to the vulnerable: a stethoscope warmed in his palm before he presses it to a baby’s rib cage, a fingertip brushing a frightened parent’s knuckles as he whispers, “She’s strong, we’ll see her through,” or the simple gift of a handcrafted origami crane handed to a tearful sibling to remind them that even in these antiseptic halls, wonder still exists. In every crease of his coat, in every soft word he murmurs, every careful touch, you see how his healing hands build sanctuaries out of sterile steel and how, for the smallest lives, he becomes both refuge and light.

He is at once tempest and hearth—shattering disease with the precision of a lightning strike, then gathering the fractured pieces of hope and wrapping them in the quiet glow of his compassion. You’ve seen him summon a tremor-soothing smile for one child’s first sip of milk, later catch a frightened toddler’s gaze across the ward and answer it with a nod so steady it might well have been a silent pledge: “I am here. I will not let go.” In these fragments of care—each small miracle of connection—you realize that his fierce competence in the OR is matched only by a fiercer tenderness reserved for those who can barely speak. And now, as he murmurs your name with that same calm fire, you understand that every life he saves is a petal pressed into the pages of his own legend: a healer whose warmth shines brightest where the light is weakest.

In the first four months of Sunshine’s life, her tiny heart beats a desperate rhythm beneath surgical lights and humming monitors, each pulse a fragile echo of hope. Twice she’s reborn on Dr. Na’s table. first when he threads a synthetic conduit through her marrow-soft chest, then again when midnight alarms yank him back to carve out a clot that stole her breath. You hover at his side, suction in hand and courage blooming where fear once froze you, learning to read her tremors like secret messages and to cradle her as if you could hold dawn itself. Between operations, morphine drips slow and sure, you chart every flicker of withdrawal and every quiet victory in her eyes, and Jaemin—stern sentinel by day, gentle guardian by night—whispers fractured lullabies at her bedside. Together, surgeon, intern and nameless newborn weave a bond forged in white-glove precision and whispered promises, proving that life’s most radiant bloom can spring from the sharpest edges of despair.

Each week in those first four months unfolds like a delicate stanza in a dirge-turned-prayer. Under the pallid glow of surgical lights, Dr. Na carves hope from her chest. first by threading a synthetic conduit through the fractured channels of her heart, then by cracking open her dawn-black body again when her tiny river of life stutters into code. At each juncture, you stand sentinel, suctioning froth from her lungs, watching the wavering digits of her oxygen saturation climb and fall like a gull caught in a storm. Your fingers, once trembling at the mere thought of her fragility, grow steady with purpose, tying off lines and titrating morphine drips whose weaning you chart in meticulous crimson ink.

Between those lifesaving crucibles, she clings to life’s thinnest tether—her feeding tube—her fists wrapping around it as though it might sprout wings and lift her from this battleground. Sleepless tremors mark her nights, each shudder a negotiation between the withdrawal gnawing at her marrow and the nascent fight refracted through her blood. Though she cannot yet speak her name, her dark, urgent gaze finds you in every lull, offering a trust so unearned it humbles you: a silent plea that outshines every monitor’s flicker. Her body, smaller than a prayer, carries a weight of suffering no infant should bear: a heart mapped by truncated arteries, limbs restless with withdrawal’s ghost, a liver crying out in enzyme whispers. Yet in every labored breath, every anxious twitch, you and Jaemin see a defiant spark—an ember of life that refuses to extinguish. And so you stitch, you chart, you hold vigil through the soft-bleating lullaby of alarms, tethering yourselves to her survival with each weary, unwavering heartbeat.

She emerges from her second surgery like a wounded bird pieced together with silk threads, her frail body barely casting a shadow beneath the harsh glow of fluorescent tubes that hum above like restless ghosts. Around her, incubators bloom with pastel balloons, handwritten cards and soft toys—tangible prayers from families who refuse to let go—yet her own isolette holds only sterile cotton, a half-full bottle of morphine standing sentinel, and the steady beeping of machines as her lone lullaby. Social workers’ clipped whispers drift through the corridor, tangled in question marks on her chart, and you feel the weight of every unanswered name pressing against your chest. In this vast, antiseptic hall, she is both a miracle and whisper of loss, a solitary heartbeat leaking into the emptiness that should have been filled with arms and lullabies. Fluorescent lights hum low in the vast NICU corridor as you slip past the double doors, your white coat whispering against the floor. Social workers have been hovering at a safe distance for weeks, they’re only doing their job but their clipped concerns drift through the air like unwelcome specters. You ignore their murmurs, focusing instead on the tiny rise and fall of her chest, steady and miraculous against every odds. 

Dr. Na leans in close to her incubator, exhaustion etched into the creases around his eyes yet reverence guiding his every movement. He brushes a stray eyelash from her porcelain brow before smoothing the pale, stiff swaddle with the ritual precision of someone invoking an ancient vow. His voice drops into a hushed confession, only reserved for the terrified and the hopeful as he tucks the pale and stiff blanket a fraction tighter and murmurs “I’ll be back soon, Sunshine, hold the fort, I’m so sorry I always have to leave you when you’re like this, I promise I’ll return, I always promise that,” Before the echo of his words can fade, her chest convulses in a storm of raw grief. Tiny sobs tear through her, each shuddering breath a testament to the loneliness she already knows too well. Nurses gather swiftly, their gentle hands pressing warmth against the cool glass, murmuring soft lullabies that weave through the beeps and hums of the machines. One rocks the isolette in a practiced rhythm while another cups her quivering back, whispering encouragement into the sterile air.

Dr. Na remains at the glass, fingertips hovering above her blanket, eyes glistening with a sorrow that no medicine can ease and chest tightening with the weight of her tiny sobs echoing across the sterile corridor, each shuddered breath a testament to the abandonment she was born into and the silent pleas for someone, anyone, to stay. Her tears carve crystalline tracks down her porcelain cheeks, rivulets of despair that speak of betrayals she cannot yet name. Her small fists press against the glass as if begging for a single hand to hold her so she will never again learn the cost of leaving, and his whispered promise hangs between them, louder than the fluorescent hum, binding him to her fragile heartbeat. It’s as if her wide, wet eyes already know the hollow ache of abandonment that should be kept at bay by loving arms. His whispered vow hovers between them—“I promise I’ll be back”—an unspoken plea to outrun the sorrow she wears like a second skin.

You stand beyond the glass, pretending to chart on your tablet, but your heart pounds too loudly for the typing to cover. Every moment free from rounds, you find yourself drawn back here, watching him care for the child you first held with trembling fingers. He gives her more attention than the other babies receive in a week, and she has nothing but sterile cotton and that half-empty syringe to mark her presence. The incubators around twirl like hopeful promises, cards flutter like whispered prayers, and plush toys stand guard in clusters, comforts she’s never known. She gazes up at the fluorescent lights with wide, unblinking eyes, already too familiar with abandonment, as though she can taste the cost of every step her caregivers have to take away from her. She has only an ID number and a scratchy white hat that she rips off in furious grips, as if even the hospital wants her kept at arm’s length.

Beside you, Jihoon’s shoulders heave in silent sobs, and you glance over with raised eyebrows even as a fresh tear slides down your cheek. He tries to swallow it back, throat bobbing like a bird caught in a storm, until he finally chokes out, voice cracking: “It’s so sad, so sad, she’s just a baby!” You squeeze his arm, and Jihoon hiccups another sob that rips through the hush. “I mean,” he chokes, voice thick, “who leaves a baby like this? It’s—” He breaks off, stares at the isolette as though expecting it to explode into confetti so the loneliness would vanish. “—it’s just criminal. Criminal!” He snorts, tears spilling again. “I didn’t sign up for this.” He waves a hand as if batting away his own grief. “I didn’t sign up for heartfelt emotional breakdowns in the pantry. I thought I’d be throwing scalpels around, saving lives like a badass doctor, not dissolving into a puddle over a tiny human with no parents!”

The doors swing open before you can blink, and Dr. Na strides out of the NICU, coat tails swishing. His gaze snaps to you. icy, exacting, yet beneath it a spark of something raw and vivid that makes your cheeks warm. His jaw is set, eyes narrowed into slits of polished steel, and for a heartbeat the world narrows to the cool, sensual cut of his anger slicing through the dim corridor. You freeze, breath hitching, the echo of baby sobs still lingering behind the glass. Behind you, Jihoon hiccups another sob, shoulders shaking in silent protest. You turn to him, tears still glistening on his lashes, and suddenly your chest lifts with a burst of mischief. Your eyes find him bright and urgent. you have an idea. A slow smile tugs at your lips as you lean in, whispering, “What if we give her something no one can take away from her?” Jihoon blinks through his tears, sniffles once, then nods fiercely, determination and grief mingling in his gaze and just like that, you know exactly what you’ll do.

You slip into the empty nurses’ station the next day, carrying your bag of charts and a secret hope. Nurse Chaeyoung looks up from her paperwork, surprise flickering in her eyes. your notebooks already bulge with hand-written protocols but she doesn’t question you when you clear your throat and whisper, “Could you please teach me how to knit?” 

Chaeyoung blinks. She knows you’re already drowning in notes, but she studies your face, sees the resolve trembling there, then slides her paperwork aside. “All right,” she says, voice a soft acquiescence. She presses two slender bamboo needles into your hands and unfurls a skein of yarn in the hue of sunlit yellow. The alpaca-silk blend. soft as dawn’s first light, was a splurge after your last thirty-hour shift, chosen for its gentle warmth against skin as delicate as petals. Your first stitches are clumsy: loops too tight, tension askew, needles clacking like restless birds. You jab your thumb, hiss, bite the inside of your cheek. Chaeyoung guides your fingers, her own movements certain and slow, but she never scolds when you drop a loop; she just lifts it back onto the needle as if rescuing something sacred. “Keep going,” she murmurs. “Babies don’t judge crooked lines.”

You pretend indifference, say you’re bored, say you need a hobby, but everyone within earshot knows the truth: you’ve fallen for a three-pound girl in Isolette Three, and you’re desperate to give her something no chart can record. Night after night you return to the on-call room, lamp dimmed so the shadows won’t wake the residents snoring on plastic mattresses. Tutorials flicker soundlessly on your tablet; you’ve watched the same row unpicked a dozen times. The yarn whispers over your knuckles, smelling faintly of lanolin and lavender from the sachet you tucked into your bag, the same scent you dab behind your mask before each visit to her crib so your presence will mean comfort, not chemicals. Tiny blood-bright dots blossom on your fingertips where needles have slipped; you wear them like vows. You unravel rows when the corners curl, knit them again until the fabric lies smooth, until each imperfect loop feels like a heartbeat finding rhythm.

One evening, during a lull between rounds the four of you spill onto the scarred wooden bench outside the NICU, take-out cartons steaming in your laps, stethoscopes still draped like question marks around your necks and though each insists they’re “not as invested” as you, every conversation arc bends inevitably toward the girl in Isolette Three, the way sunflowers tilt to whatever light they can find; Hayoung, tongue stained orange from spicy tteokbokki, admits she swings by just to borrow the courage in Sunshine’s clenched fists, and when you pass her the bamboo needle she blushes, threading rose-silk and coaxing a cherry blossom into life because “fragile petals survive storms by being soft and stubborn at once.” Jihoon snorts, denying his tears whenever asked, wiping soy sauce from his chin, yet his hands tremble as he anchors a pearlescent seashell—“so she’ll hear an ocean in the hum of those machines, and know the world is wider than this glass.” Hyejin, quiet as a chapel at dawn, selects gold thread, her star stitched with astronomer’s precision; she murmurs that every child deserves a northern light when hospital nights go power-out. Last, you guide moss-green silk through the fringe, tucking a leaf beneath their symbols—your covenant that life can unfurl even in fluorescent soil. The blanket ripples unevenly across your knees, tension wobbling where laughter shook the yarn, yet in its crooked constellation of blossom, shell, star, and leaf, you feel an entire afternoon distilled into a portable sky she can wear—proof that four imperfect hearts chose to stay.

You’ve been awake since yesterday’s twilight, eyes grainy from a marathon of dropped stitches and midnight caffeine, and the blanket, freshly bound off at 4:17 a.m., still radiates the ghost-warmth of your desk lamp and the lavender sachet you kept tucked beneath the skein to calm your nerves. All morning you hovered at the NICU doors, blanket clutched like a shield. Whenever a rare minute of freedom finally opened, you’d hurry toward Isolette Three, only to find Dr. Na already stationed there—scrub cap discarded on a rolling stool, loupes still dangling from his collar, spending every stolen breath of his break in the hush between his whisper and her fragile inhale. You spot his silhouette again, shoulders bowed, hand cupped over glass and nerves spark hot under your skin. Your feet stall, then inch forward, every step a stitched-together prayer: this is it, no more stalling, don’t drop the blanket, don’t trip, don’t start reciting fiber statistics the second he looks up. You tighten your grip on the pastel-yellow blanket, swallow hard, and force one foot in front of the other, determined to place dawn itself inside her isolette before courage unravels like a loosened stitch.

Dr. Na straightens, still cradling Sunshine against the crook of his elbow, the tiny bottle angled with a surgeon’s precision so a ribbon of milk flows down to the last perfect bubble; her fingers clutch his scrub top like drowsy starfish, a sight so tender you lock in place—heart thudding, blanket clutched to your chest, words snarled somewhere behind your tongue. He senses you before you can retreat, and his gaze flicks first to the yellow bundle in your arms, then skims up to your face—razor-sharp, faintly amused, as if he’s caught you scribbling secrets on the walls. “What’s that?” he murmurs, voice low enough to set your pulse strobing in your ears. “Another failed anatomy diagram?” The smirk curves like scalpel steel, and heat scorches up your neck; you fumble a half step forward, nearly knock your clipboard into the IV pole, then grip the blanket tighter, praying the pastel wool can muffle the thunder of your nerves.

“It’s… it’s for her,” you blurt, eyes fixed on the floor tiles because meeting his stare feels like stepping into open-heart surgery without gloves. “I—I knitted it last night. Well, technically it’s an alpaca-silk blend, nineteen‐micron fibers, I triple-checked, so it’s hypoallergenic and it drapes really softly, not too thick, not too flimsy. I swear I triple-checked—because, look, I know it sounds ridiculously decadent, and yes, it cost almost three times what I usually spend on take-out, but Sunshine’s file notes her skin barrier is compromised, there’s a high likelihood of allergic reactions, even eczema under those incubator lights, so I couldn’t risk a cheap acrylic scratch-monster, you know?” You launch into a flurry of justifications, cheeks flaming. “The alpaca makes it soft enough that you could press your ear to it and hear quiet breaths, and the silk adds strength without weight, and I hand-washed every row in hypoallergenic soap the nurses recommended, then air-dried it on a rack, no dryer heat, because that shrinks wool and roughs up the fibers. I didn’t want any microscopic wool barbs tickling her already-fragile skin.” Your words tangle, spilling faster than you can corral them.

“I stabbed myself, um, seventeen times, eighteen if you count the thumb but I figured a little blood loss is worth it because she needs something gentle, something that’s actually hers and not stamped ‘Property of Pediatrics.’” You inhale, cheeks blazing, then plunge on before courage unravels. “I stitched in these tiny symbols, too, there’s a leaf in one corner because, you know, life keeps trying even when conditions are terrible, and a cherry blossom from Hayoung because fragile things can still be ridiculously strong, and Jihoon wanted a seashell so she’ll always have a bit of the ocean humming near her, and Hyejin’s star is for, uh, portable navigation when the lights flicker at 3 a.m.” You finally risk a glance up, pulse thundering. “I know the tension is uneven and one edge looks like it’s sighing, but it’s warm and it’s soft and it’s hers, and I just—” Your voice cracks into a whisper. “—I just really wanted her to have something that says she isn’t alone.”

He straightens in one fluid motion, still cradling Sunshine in the crook of his elbow, the tiny bottle poised at her lips as she drinks with surprising vigor, an intimate task that makes you gasp. His gaze snaps to the pastel bundle against your chest before flicking up to your face, cool and curious. “Did you make one for me too, or just the baby?” he asks, voice low enough to ripple through your ribcage like warm blood.

Your cheeks flame, and you swallow hard, words tumbling out jagged and too-fast. “You? No. I mean, you never occurred to me.” Your heart hammers so loudly you can almost hear its echo in the hum of the incubators. “It’s just, there was this article in the ‘Journal of Neonatal Textile Therapy, Volume 12, 2023,’ ‘Fiber Diameter and Thermoregulatory Benefits in Preterm Infants.’ It said infants swaddled in sub-20-micron fibers show a forty-two percent increase in weight gain and a thirty-one percent drop in cortisol spikes.” You bite your lip, eyelids flicking to his collarbone as if memorizing its contour. “My brain filed it under ‘useless trivia,’ but when I saw that alpaca-silk blend, nineteen microns, moisture-wicking, thermally neutral, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I saw it on a specialist auction listing, and—I swear—ended up bidding through the night. Four hours of non-stop laptop glances, heart pounding every time I hit refresh, until I won it. Sunshine’s chart notes compromised skin integrity and high allergy risk so I didn’t want some acrylic nightmare scratching her still-healing dermis.” Your voice quavers, and you tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, suddenly aware of every stitch of your scrubs clinging to your skin. “I—well, I got carried away. I just wanted her to have the absolute best chance. All the other babies have cards and soft toys; she arrived with nothing but a blanket that’s now gone yellow, and I couldn’t bear it, I needed to give her a small measure of kindness.”

His eyes trace the ridges of the pastel yellow as though mapping a new continent, then snap up to you with a spark that makes your breath catch. His smirk flickers faster now, teasing and sharp: “You nearly turned my ICU into a lecture hall. Next time, publish the paper first so I can bring popcorn.” The low timbre of his voice vibrates in your chest, and you gasp, an accidental inhale that sounds conspicuously like awe, your cheeks flaming brighter than the incubator lights. You tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, heart hammering in staccato, suddenly acutely aware of every word you’ve ever tripped over and every flutter in your stomach that you’ll never admit aloud.

Before you can sputter another ramble, Sunshine coos, a clear, bright note like tiny bells, and Dr. Na’s gaze softens in an instant. He tilts her head against his shoulder and, with a surgeon’s gentleness, traces a fingertip along her spine, coaxing a series of sleepy kicks. She kicks again, and he presses the tiny foot into his palm, tilting his mouth to make a soft raspberry that leaves her gurgling with delight. You catch the slack in his shoulders, the careful steadiness of his hands, the way his eyes drift closed for a brief, reverent moment, it all reads like fatherhood in high definition. You swallow hard, lips parting in an unsteady whimper that you cloak in a cough, rubbing the back of your neck as though you’ve just stepped into a gale of feelings you’re not sure how to name. Yet even as warmth blooms in your chest, your brow knots with a sudden ache: he is not her father, she has no family, and in this glowing cocoon of devotion, she remains utterly alone.

Your heart thunders so fiercely you half-expect the monitors to pick it up, but you force yourself closer, blanket folded against your chest like stolen sunlight. Your cheeks burn—they’ve been burning all morning—but you step into his space anyway, breath catching as you press the soft wool into his hands. “I—um, would you mind… could you cover her with this?” you whisper, voice trembling between hope and embarrassment, each word a tiny act of bravado masked by your shy, downcast gaze.

Dr. Na’s fingers hover for the barest instant, then he lifts the blanket and, with a surgeon’s precision softened by reverence, tucks it around Sunshine’s shoulders so the pastel yellow settles over her like first light. In the month you’ve known her, you’ve never seen her so still: her tiny fists unwind from the tubes, her knuckles uncurling as though they trust the world for the first time. A delicate coo drifts from her lips—so soft it sounds like a sigh—and her eyelids flutter half-closed, painting sleepy crescents against porcelain skin. Her mouth parts in a gentle yawn, and a flush of rose warms her cheeks as she buries her forehead into the embroidered leaf you placed at her chest, exhaling a slow, contented breath. She nestles deeper into his arm, limbs going lax, her whole body folding into that sliver of warmth, and for one aching, beautiful moment you realize she feels at home.

He straightens with the ease of someone born to this—ever so gently rocking Sunshine in the cradle of his arm, the golden thread work of the blanket slipping into place like a secret promise. His gaze flickers down to her, pupils melting into warmth as he brushes a stray curl of her hair back with the pad of his thumb, eyes dark with tender focus. “There you go, little one. Comfy?” he murmurs, voice husky with quiet devotion, each word a soft caress in the white glare of the NICU. You watch, breath catching at the steady line of his throat, the way his tailored scrubs hug broad shoulders and taper to the subtle swell of muscle at his forearms, and heat floods your cheeks until you’re certain your skin glows brighter than the incubator light. Sunshine answers him with a tiny coo so sweet it feels like a bell inside your chest. her mouth quirks into a sleepy bubble, a gurgle that ripples through her like laughter in slow motion. She flexes her fingers around his finger, tiny translucent nails barely grazing his skin, and a soft sigh drifts from her lips as she nestles closer into the pastel folds.

Dr. Na’s thumb follows the embroidered leaf at her collarbone, tracing your stitch with a reverence that leaves you breathless. He glances up at you—just for a moment—and you flush harder, eyes darting down to the blanket’s edge, wishing you could melt into the warmth of that shared glance. Meanwhile, Sunshine lets out a contented hiccup, her brows lifting as though surprised by comfort, and you swear you can see the faintest dimple at the corner of her mouth. In that hush, full of soft sighs, coos, and the underswell of your own racing pulse, you realize you’ve never witnessed anything so achingly vulnerable, so quietly triumphant, as a tiny life finally feeling at home.

You clear your throat, the thread trembling in your grasp as warmth floods your cheeks all the way to your ears. You can’t help yourself, you have to go deeper. “I—actually,” you begin, voice catching like a hiccup, “I have this extra spool of thread, it’s the same yellow family, but a shade deeper, richer—like sunset gold. I thought, maybe, if you stitched a little crescent moon beside the leaf, or even a tiny halo above it, it would mean more to her, a secret promise shimmering in the corner. I know it’s silly, but I just… I couldn’t resist.” You glance up, eyes wide and earnest, sheepish hope dancing in your gaze, every syllable spilling out because once you start, you always have to ask just one more thing.

Dr. Na lifts his gaze from the isolette just long enough to catch your outstretched hand and, without a word, slides the extra spool of thread from your trembling fingers. Then he leans in and, with that same deliberate care he showed Sunshine’s first feed, he scoops her up, tiny limbs curling against his chest, and places her softly into your arms. Your heart seizes as her warm weight settles against your collarbone, her breath a whisper in your ear. She blinks once, then clasps her fingers around her own thumb and draws it to her mouth, sucking in blissful little gulps that echo like lullabies through the sterilized air.

When Dr. Na peels the blanket back, Sunshine’s face crumples in the most heartbreaking pout, a single hiccup-cry so small and urgent it tugs at your chest, her lips quivering like a wilted flower begging for sun. Even her tears glisten like morning dew on porcelain. You press her closer, brushing a kiss to her forehead as she hiccups again, cheeks rosy and soft under the pastel wool. Dr. Na’s scalpel-steady fingers slip the blanket back into place. He parts the pastel wool with the same reverence he shows her fragile chest, then lifts your extra spool of golden thread and threads it through the eye of the needle as though drawing first light into being. He pauses, hands poised above your embroidered leaf, and for a breath it feels as though time itself holds its pulse. Then, stitch by stitch, he draws a tiny sun beside the leaf—each loop a delicate arc of dawn breaking over shadowed valleys. The thread gleams like honeyed sunrise, the rays curling outward in promise: here is warmth, here is light, here is a vow that she will never face the dark alone.

Sunshine watches it all, eyes widening in the incubator’s glow. A high, breathy coo escapes her lips—so soft it sounds like a secret whispered between friends—and she lifts one nub of a hand to brush at the new golden sun, tiny fingers batting at the yarn with curious delight. Her cheeks bloom rosy, as if she understands that this little orb was made for her, and she presses her forehead into the wool, sighing a contented sigh that ripples through her like a lullaby. She sucks her thumb in blissful rhythm, eyelashes fluttering against porcelain skin, and a single hiccup-cry bubbles up—so dainty it’s almost like applause.

Dr. Na leans in close, voice hushed. “You see that, little one?” he murmurs, tracing the sun’s rays with his fingertip. “That’s your light. Always there.” His gaze lifts to you—warm, intimate—and for a moment you share a smile that needs no words. In the hush of beeping monitors and the soft murmur of the NICU night, baby and doctors alike are bound by the quiet power of that golden sun and the promise it holds.A hiccup of relief escapes you, and Sunshine coos again, her little hand fluttering as if in applause. You swallow hard, blinking back the last of your nerves, as the three of you stand in the pale glow of the NICU—bound by wool, wonder, and the promise that none of you will ever leave her alone.

You clear your throat in a soft, practiced cough. your agreed signal and the door to the NICU slides open a crack. Jihoon slips in, arms laden with plush bunnies, two extra pastel-yellow blankets, a stack of onesies embroidered with tiny suns, and a handful of handmade cards scrawled with “you’ve got this” and “sunshine princess” in mismatched inks. You and him share a relieved smile as he sets down helium balloons that bob gently against the ceiling and a small music box that plays a lullaby too sweet for words. Jihoon grins, as earlier today, you both hosted every bit of warmth from the downstairs gift shop for this one beautiful girl.

Dr Na’s eyes lift from Sunshine’s chest as you lower your voice. “Would it be all right if we… decorated her crib?” you ask, voice sheepish and earnest. “All the other incubators look like birthday parties, and hers feels so bare.” He blinks once, expression clipped, and then gives the faintest nod, as though granting permission to break a hospital rule you didn’t know existed. You exhale a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

Jihoon peels a sheet of baby-safe stickers from its backing and hands you the first one—a golden sun that catches the NICU light like a promise. Together you press “fighter,” “sunshine baby,” and, in your own trembling handwriting, “belongs here” onto the plastic wall of her incubator, each word blooming like wildflowers in a barren field. You drape two plush bunnies, one snowy white, one butter-yellow, over the edge, their soft fur whispering comfort against the sterile rails. A pink pacifier with a glitter heart bobs on its clip, and you tuck an extra pastel-yellow blanket around the foot of the isolette so it spills over like the first rays of dawn.

Next, you and Jihoon suspend a sunshine mobile overhead, its tiny golden stars spinning in a lullaby waltz. You clip a miniature music box to the side rail, the tin tune coiling through the hum of machines, delicate as a mother’s hum in a silent church. All the while, Sunshine stirs beneath the glow: one tiny hand uncurls, fingertips brushing against the soft ear of a bunny, and she coos, a breathy, bell-bright note that makes your heart catch. She yawns, her lips parting in an unhurried arc as if savoring each moment, then nuzzles into the curve of the blanket, eyelashes fluttering in sleepy contentment.

“Delivery for Miss Golden Cheeks,” Jihoon announces with mock formality, setting down a small stack of handmade cards scrawled with love and a pair of knitted booties you couldn’t resist. He grins at you, nudges the bunnies upright, then quips, “Dr. Na, I’d offer you a pacifier too, but I think you’re already suckin’ the life out of Doctor Y/N.” The words tumble into a hush of shared laughter, and in that intimate glow of balloons, blankets, and baby coos, you feel as if the world beyond these walls has paused, just long enough for Sunshine to know she is, at last, home.

As you stand back to survey your handiwork—balloons drifting, bunnies perched like sentinels, blankets folded in sunlit layers. Doctor Na clears his throat—sharp as a scalpel’s edge—and with a single, precise motion he lifts Sunshine from your arms, cradling her against his chest as though she weighs nothing more than a sigh. His voice drops into the clipped, authoritative timbre of a chief resident on rounds. “Don’t you both have rounds to attend to?”

You and Jihoon exchange sheepish glances, cheeks still warm from pride and embarrassment. Without another word, you hustle toward the door, balloons bobbing at your heels, bunnies and blankets forgotten for the moment. Behind you, the door slides shut, and in the soft glow of the NICU morning light, Sunshine nestles deeper into Dr. Na’s arm. Her tiny hand drifts up to rest against his stethoscope, as if grounding herself in his steady heartbeat, and his fingers curl around hers, two fragile promises bound by dawn’s first light.

The night after, you slip into the NICU on tiptoe, the corridor bathed in a soft, bluish glow that turns every surface to silver. You pause as you reach Isolette Three and realize Dr. Na has dozed off, perched on the small stool beside the crib. His elbow rests on the incubator’s edge, scrub sleeve gently crumpled where he has propped his arm to keep her close and even in sleep his stance is vigilant, as though his body itself could shield her from the dark. Each rise and fall of his shoulders is paced like a metronome, matching the steady beeps of the monitors and reminding you that two lives here balance on his quiet watchfulness.

Inside the incubator, Sunshine Girl lies swaddled in her pastel-yellow blanket, the crooked stitched sun resting just beneath her cheek like a silent benediction. Her eyelashes, fine as gossamer threads, fan across her high, rounded cheeks. cheeks so perfect and full they seem to glow against the sterile white light. Her tiny fist has curled itself around Dr. Na’s finger, knuckles rising and falling with each gentle breath as though she’s discovered an anchor in the darkness. Now and then, the soft rasp of her breathing shifts into a coo so delicate it could be mistaken for a lullaby carried on a breeze. You watch the way her lips part in sleep, the faintest quiver of a sigh escaping her, and you feel a fierce protective surge as if you’d defend this moment with every remaining ounce of courage.

Your breath catches at the sight: the two of them in perfect stillness, man and baby bound by a single golden thread of care. You raise a hand and press your palm to the outside of the incubator glass, where dribbles of warmth linger like fingerprints, proof that she’s no longer just a patient but a presence, a life that matters to you more than just machines. Your hands tremble, not from fear, but from the weight of all the promises you’ve stitched into her blanket and all the vigils you’ve yet to keep. Here, in this suspended hush, you realize she’s still here—and she’s not alone. Below the soft glow of the overhead lamp, the bond between doctor, baby, and the memories of every late-night stitch pulses like a whispered vow: she will always have someone to come back to.

You pause, heart tightening, as the baby stirs—her shoulders quiver in a slow, sleepy tremor like petals trembling at dawn. Instinct propels you forward. You press a fingertip to the blanket’s edge and tuck it more snugly around her shivering shoulders, smoothing the wool in long, careful strokes. She gives a faint whimper, soft enough to be mistaken for a sigh, but her hand flutters free and curls around the folds of fabric as if seeking refuge. You lean closer, voice low and warm: “It’s okay, little one,” you murmur, feeling warmth bloom behind your sternum. The bunnies on either side seem to lean in, their stitched eyes fixed on her, and in that moment you realize your hands know exactly how to comfort her, more tenderly than you ever imagined you could care.

As her tremors fade, Sunshine Girl’s lashes flutter, and she emits a faint coo that resonates like a lullaby in the stillness. You brush a fingertip across her forehead, light as a benediction and step back, heart thundering with a new, fierce protectiveness. The bunnies stand guard, the blanket’s golden sun glows softly, and Dr. Na remains asleep, unaware of the small miracle you’ve woven here: a baby finally finding peace in a world that once felt too cold. You press your palm once more to the glass, breathing in the hush, and carry this tender image with you—the quiet power of love wrapped in yarn and vigilant hearts.

It’s been exactly one week since you slipped that uneven, golden-hued blanket beneath Sunshine’s fragile shoulders for the first time, and every night since, tucking her in has become both ritual and refuge. You arrive before midnight, the corridor’s fluorescent hum receding behind you as if yielding to the warmth you carry in your arms. Kneeling beside the isolette, you spread the blanket like dawn unfurling across her body, each imperfect stitch a vow you’ve already kept ten thousand times in your heart. You lean in close, brush a fingertip along her cheek, and murmur the nonsense lullabies you’ve invented, soft rhythms meant only for her ears, until her breath steadies and her fist relaxes around the plush edge. The nurses know you by that glowing silhouette, the way you coo her name under your breath, and you wouldn’t trade this private hour for any other. In that golden glow, you feel her confidence bloom: the blanket is no longer just yarn and yarn, it is your promise that she will never wake alone.

Morning always arrives with a flurry of vital signs and lab reports, the turning pages of her chart as familiar as a heartbeat. Her oxygen saturations hover in the high nineties, her weight inching upward by grams, and cranial ultrasounds show no new bleeds, small mercies that keep you tethered to hope. Yet the specter of future procedures lingers in every echo and blood gas: there will be more surgeries, more anesthetic dawns, more nights you’ll pace these linoleum corridors with your heart in your throat. Today’s brief reads stable but cautious: minimal ventilator support, tolerating feeds at fifteen milliliters per hour, no fevers, no new murmurs. It’s hardly triumph, and not quite warning, but enough to remind you that her life is a tightrope walk above uncertainty. Still, for now, she is holding on—and so you hold your pen steady, charting her rises and falls as if mapping the constellations of her survival.

You’ve been by Dr. Na’s side for the entire month, your rotations intertwined like threads in a single tapestry and yet your care extends far beyond Sunshine. Each morning you slip into the NICU and then down the pediatric corridors without fanfare: he sees you waiting by the doors, ready to plunge into the lives of every fragile infant and child whose charts bear your name. He delegates with clipped efficiency, “I want your numbers on her intake by 0800,” or “Prep the line-change in Room 4, then meet me for the pre-op huddle”—and you glide into action, moving from Sunshine’s isolette to the ventilator-dependent preemie in isolette two, to the toddler in PICU recovering from congenital heart repair, to the school-age child with diabetic ketoacidosis in room 12. 

Fellow interns whisper that he values your precision and rapid surgical aptitude alike: you recall every baby’s perfect foot-warmer setting, deftly threading a central line into the tiniest vein without a tremor, anticipate the toddler’s restless kicks and distract her with a finger puppet, and spin quiet bedtime stories for the eight-year-old as she drifts toward anesthesia. In just days you’ve mastered ultrasound-guided catheter placements and flawless surgical knots—skills that typically take months to acquire—yet you never forget to memorize each patient’s personal quirks. He never praises outright, but when you hand him the latest blood gas for that cyanotic newborn and the drip-check sheet for the septic one before he even asks, his nod is enough: he trusts your competence with every life in this ward in a way he never has with anyone else.

Though sponge baths technically fall under the nurses’ domain, today two RNs have been pulled into a respiratory emergency across the ward, and the charge nurse’s clipboard is bulging with admissions. You know that no one else can give Sunshine that quiet hour of warmth that she deserves, a sacred pause in her battle, so when the nurse asks, “You sure you’re not busy elsewhere?” you and Hayoung exchange a look and slip past her gentle protest.

Steam drifts like silver ribbon through the alcove when you wheel Sunshine’s isolette against the tile, and the world narrows to a lit basin of water, clear as blown glass, trembling with heat that halos upward in soft wavering columns. The overhead lamp pools amber on the surface, turning each ripple into a molten sunbeam, and somewhere behind the hiss of warm taps and the distant ventilator beeps, you catch your own heartbeat counting off the measurements you memorized at dawn: thirty-eight degrees Celsius, just shy of skin; saline flush at the ready; cloth folded four times into a square small enough for her sternum. Hayoung steadies Sunshine’s neck with a gentleness that reminds you of a bird handler coaxing a sparrow to trust her palm, and you slide your arms beneath the baby’s fragile spine, feeling the flutter of hidden wings in the muscle of her back. For an instant she dangles between air and water—caught in the hush of a tide about to turn—and the blanket you peel away from her feels suddenly enormous against the threadbare hush of her soft cry.

The moment her heel touches the water, she startles—tiny mouth pulling into an O, lungs expanding like the opening of a stormcloud—and she loosens into a half-sob, wet and breathy, that ricochets off the tile. The basin shivers as her fists jerk, droplets flinging outward like startled minnows; her pulse skitters, monitors chiming in uneasy counterpoint. You press the warm cloth against the swell of her ribs, whispering the numbers in rhythm, one, two, three, lift; one, two, three, glide, while your thumb strokes the tremor that quakes at her collarbone. “Shhh, little current,” you murmur, letting the invented pet name ride on the hum that spills from your throat—a low, wordless vibrato that seems to braid itself with the water’s soft slosh. Hayoung’s breath catches when Sunshine jerks again, but you flatten your palm across the fluttering cage of her heart, and the warmth seeps into bone like sunlight into river-ice. Slowly, her sob tapers to a whimper, then to a hiccup that bubbles and fades; her fists uncurl, fingers splay like tiny sea stars against the surface, and she surrenders to the lap-lap of cloth gliding over her knees, her cheeks, the fragile sutures at her sternum. Each pass of the linen feels sacramental—an ocean washing grief from stone—until her eyelids droop, lashes beading with little diamonds of water that catch the lamp and scatter it across her cheeks like dawn-lit salt.

As the water settles and the two palm-sized rubber duckies drift like yellow planets at the basin’s edge, Sunshine finally melts into the warmth, her legs loosening, toes flexing under the surface until she gives a sudden, delighted kick that arcs a crescent of droplets across your scrub top; the duckies bob and wobble in her wake, far too large for her starfish hands to seize, yet she sends them spinning with each rhythmic flick of her ankles. You grin, angling the cloth in slow circles over her knees, and murmur, “Easy there, little ballerina, save your grand jetés for Auren Hall,” letting the joke float atop the steam. Hayoung huffs a watery laugh, and even Sunshine rewards the line with a burbly sigh, half-coo, half-giggle, as though she understands that choreography is simply another way to say I’m alive, watch me dance.

When the bath is finished, you lift her free in a cradle of toweling warmth, and the basin stills behind you, glassy as a tidepool after storm. Sunshine sighs—an almost inaudible reed-whistle—and burrows into the crook of your elbow, skin flushed rose where the water kissed her, eyelids drifting like soft curtains in a breeze. Hayoung drapes the pastel-yellow blanket around her crown; you fold the corners beneath her chin so the crooked sun Dr. Na stitched sits just at her throat, a makeshift medallion of dawn. In that moment she is a tiny comet wrapped in gold, and even the machines seem to hush, their lights dimming in reverence. Jaemin’s silhouette appears at the threshold, arms crossed, unreadable eyes catching on the way your hands settle her deeper into the blanket’s glow. He watches as Sunshine releases a drowsy coo—more exhale than word—and then, impossibly, a gurgle of something close to laughter flares in her throat before dissolving into a dream-heavy sigh. The steam around you disperses like a curtain parting, and the room, water-warm, antiseptic-bright, feels for one breathless instant like the safest harbor on earth.

You and Hayoung lift Sunshine onto the heated changing pad, the steam curling around you like a promise as you peel back the damp towel. She trembles, tiny shoulders shivering in the cooler air and unleashes a fresh cry, thin and urgent, as Hayoung slips a soft cotton onesie over her feet. You pause, heart tightening, and the wet strands of her hair plaster against your fingers. Without thinking, you begin to hum, a gentle, wordless lullaby that drifts from your lips like warm breath. The melody curves around the alcove, threading itself into the hiss of the warmer and the distant hum of ventilators. Hayoung freezes, roots her hands in the folds of the sleeper, and watches as Sunshine’s wails falter. The baby’s eyes flutter shut, a quaver of relief softening her lips, and she settles against your forearm, body folding into the soft cotton as if the song were a soft landing.

You straighten and whisper encouragement—“Almost there, sunshine”—then lower your voice so only she can hear. Hayoung fastens the little snaps at your coaxing, hooking the final one beneath Sunshine’s chin. Your lullaby falters, and you realize with startled wonder that you didn’t even notice the tune rising and falling; it simply poured from you. For a heartbeat, Hayoung’s eyes brim with unshed tears, and you blink away your own as you step back, hands trembling with the residue of that unbidden song.

From the far corner of the alcove, Dr. Na watches in silence, arms folded over his scrub top, gaze narrowed but not unkind. “Intern.” The single word drops into the steam like a stone. “Keep singing.”

Heat floods your cheeks. You swallow, stripes of red blossoming across your neck, but you lift your chin and offer the melody again—soft, steadfast—this time for him as much as for her. Sunshine breathes in time with the hum, tiny chest rising and falling beneath her sleeper, and you feel the quiet power of voice meeting flesh, of song meeting skin. In that charged hush, the world narrows to three hearts, baby, doctor, intern, bound by the simple grace of a lullaby in a room that knows too much sorrow.

Back at the isolette, you fasten the pulse-ox sensor, the one with the tiny bunny print, around her heel. You remember, almost without thinking, to switch to the smaller warmer pad; you’ve memorized her chart’s foot-sensitive notes. Jaemin leans in close as you whisper her vitals into the tablet. “You always remember the heel warmers,” he murmurs, voice quieter than the ventilator’s hum. It’s the first time you hear “thank you” from him, and your fingers falter on the clamp. He watches you, gaze unreadable, and you realize he’s catalogued every small devotion you’ve shown this child.

You settle beside Sunshine’s isolette and Dr. Na’s hand drops on your shoulder—warm, firm—a silent prompt to begin. You peel the corner of the gauze dressing at her sternotomy site and, in your haste, pull too sharply. The adhesive rips away from her porcelain skin in a rough tear, and she jolts awake with a high-pitched wail, her fists clenching at her chest. Guilt ricochets through your chest as you freeze, thumb hovering over the damp gauze. The room tilts: her tears, the twitch of her lip, your trembling hand.

Jaemin bends over the isolette, voice pitched to a velvet command. “Easy, Sunshine.” He cups her crown with one broad palm, thumb stroking the downy hair at her fontanel, and she settles in seconds—tiny breath catching, then sighing back into half-sleep. The dominance in his posture is palpable: shoulders squared over her like a sentry; eyes flicking to you, unreadable, expectant. Heat flushes up your neck. You reach for the second strip, but hesitation glues your fingers. They shake.

“Here.” He slides behind you, torso grazing the curve of your spine, gloved hand enveloping your own. The contact is clinical, rubber on skin, yet the weight of him is molten, breath grazing the shell of your ear. “You anchor first,” he murmurs, guiding your thumb to brace the intact skin just beyond the adhesive. “Counter-traction. Minimizes dermal shear.” His other hand closes over your wrist, applying the gentlest backward tension: slow peel, adhesive rolling on itself instead of tearing free. Sunshine barely stirs, lips parting in a drowsy sigh. Your own breath hitches, trapped between the porcelain warmth of the baby’s skin and the incandescent press of Jaemin’s sternum at your shoulder blades.

Together you irrigate the incision line, he steadies the sterile saline ampoule while you direct the flow, each droplet catching amber light before sliding over the neat column of sutures. He guides your swab in small concentric circles: “Center out. One pass per pad. Pressure just enough to blanch, not bruise.” The tone is steady, assured; you feel your pulse ease into his cadence. Sunshine’s eyelids flutter at the cool flush but remain closed, trusting.

When the gauze dries, he lowers a fresh transparent dressing into your palm. “Lay the center first,” he instructs, fingertips brushing the inside of your wrist—a static spark that travels up your arm and settles in your spine. You suspend the film over the wound; his thumb nudges your angle by a hair. Film kisses skin, adhesive sealing with a soft hush. Jaemin’s fingers linger to smooth the edges, tracing the perimeter with measured reverence. Sunshine releases a breathy coo—small, silvered joy—and the corners of her mouth tremble upward. It’s barely a smile, but the room seems to tilt toward it. You step back, the metronome of monitors syncing to your heartbeat. Jaemin straightens, gaze cutting from the dressing to your face. Steel meets softness; a quiet flare of approval smolders in the dark of his eyes, but no compliment escapes. Only a clipped “Good,” vibrating somewhere between benediction and command. 

Morning dilutes the hallway’s night-blue hush into ivory light, and you arrive at Sunshine’s isolette before rounds, breath clouding the glass like a secret. She’s already awake—eyes the color of bruised plums, lids still puffy from last night’s tears—yet there’s a new alertness firing in the tiny flick of her lashes. Her cheeks glow lamb-pink, mottled where the cannula tape presses, and the slope of her nose is dotted with pinprick milia that look like spilled sugar on porcelain. She’s still a thicket of tubing: nasal prongs feeding warmed oxygen, an OG tube taped at the corner of her mouth, a pulse-ox lead hugging her bunny-print foot. But her legs, those impossibly frail sticks, keep kicking against the boundaries of her blanket, testing gravity as though she’s just discovered it can be pushed back. Yesterday she scarcely flexed a toe; this morning each kick seems to announce, I’m here, I’m here, in a rhythm brighter than any monitor’s green glow.

You ease the isolette door open, and she startles—first with a gasp, then with a high, breathy “ah,” like the piano note at the very top of a scale. She flails, fists grazing the ventilator tubing, and in that flurry of motion her blanket slips, exposing the little sun Dr. Na stitched beside the leaf. The sight steadies you: vows sewn into cloth, still guarding her sternum. You tuck the blanket around her knees, thumb brushing the soft fuzz at her shin. She grips your latex-gloved fingertip—translucent nails against sterile blue—then promptly loses interest and kicks again, as if auditioning for some celestial swim team. It’s ridiculous, it’s beautiful, and it squeezes something aching and incandescent behind your ribs.

Dr. Na strides in with the rest of early rounds—clipboard in his left hand, stethoscope slung like a silver lariat over his shoulder, but the room seems to shrink to the triangle of you, him, and the baby. Her eyes flick toward him as though she recognizes his scent in the air. “Vitals?” he asks without looking up from the chart, but you’re already reciting them, heart rate 146, sats 95 on two-litre flow, urine output steady, no residuals on the last feed. He grunts an acknowledgment and flicks the diaphragm of his stethoscope against his palm to warm it.

Jaemin lifts the blanket’s corner, and cool air slips beneath the pastel folds. The stethoscope disk finds the soft swell of her belly, silver circle gleaming against moon-pale skin. He gives a gentle tap—just enough for the tiniest vibration to ripple through her, a secret knock at the door of her heartbeat. Sunshine’s eyes flare open, lashes quivering like wet petals; her mouth forms an astonished O, and then—out of the fragile hush—rises a gurgling laugh, round and effervescent, bubbling up as if a pearl had broken free from seawater. Her limbs answer first: feet kick slow, delighted arcs; fingers uncurl, brushing air the way a dreamer reaches for light. He taps again, softer, and the laugh returns—lighter now, half-hiccup, half-song—spilling down her tongue in tiny, shimmering crescendos. Tubes quiver against her cheeks with each sound; the cannula trembles, catching a droplet of breath. Beneath the transparent film at her sternum, the stitches rise and fall, but above them, life pours forth fearless and bright. The little sun embroidered on her blanket glints beneath her chin as she wiggles, laughter beating inside the isolette like a hummingbird’s wings—proof that even stitched skin and plastic lines cannot cage joy when it decides to bloom.

The silver disk skims lower, grazing the faint curve of her ribs, and Sunshine’s whole body anticipates the touch, knees drawing up, toes flexing, lips already quivering at the corners. Jaemin whispers another invisible boo into the hollow of her belly, and the laugh bursts out brighter, a liquid trill that sends her pacifier bobbing on its clip. Her eyes ribbon into crescents; the soft down of her brows lifts as though wonder itself is tickling her from the inside. A flush blooms across her cheeks, staining the skin just beneath the tape a rosy dawn, and she kicks hard enough that one bunny-printed footie blurs in the isolette’s light. Jaemin’s mouth tilts a fraction—more exhale than smile—but he taps once more, gentler than breath, coaxing another ripple of giggles that flutter through her like tiny wings.

You feel the sound land in the hollow of your chest—warm and aching—while your hand hovers inches from hers, ready should she reach, though you don’t interrupt. Her laughter drains into soft hiccups, lashes fluttering open to track the stethoscope’s gleam, as if she’s discovered a private moon. Jaemin finally lifts the disk away, but keeps his palm braced near her flank, steadying the residual tremors of joy. His eyes flick to yours—dark, bright, a quiet astonishment neither of you name—and in that exchange you taste salt behind your teeth, the sweetness nearly too much to bear. Sunshine sighs, lashes sweeping down, and nestles her face into the blanket’s sun, breathing tiny haloed clouds against the wool, her whole body soft as dusk. The room feels newly spun, tender and humming, each of you held in the fragile orbit of a baby’s laugh.

Jaemin, still staring at the impossible joy that just erupted from six pounds of scar tissue and willpower, murmurs, “Guess she thinks I’m funny.” The monitors carry on, oblivious, but every clinician in the alcove stands suspended in that shimmer of pure, unfiltered triumph. Her giggle hardens into legend over the next hour; Jihoon practically sprints to noon conference so he can announce, between panting breaths, “Sunshine likes dad jokes confirmed,” and no one bothers hiding their grin.

Later, as rounds wind down, you watch her burn through her newfound energy: a flurry of kicks, then a sleepy whine, then a thumb sucked loud enough to fog the cannula. Jaemin adjusts her feed angle, his knuckles grazing yours, and though the contact is gloved and fleeting, it sears a path of heat up your forearm. He murmurs a dosage adjustment under his breath, you nod, and together you settle the isolette lid. She sighs through her tube, lashes trembling shut, pacified by your lullaby-quiet breathing. She’s still sick—lines in, surgeries ahead—but today her laugh is proof that healing is not only measured in milliliters and milligrams; sometimes it bursts forth unscripted, a silver bell in a sterile room, and everyone present re-learns what hope sounds like.

You chart her milestone with trembling fingers—First audible laugh, 05:47, elicited by Dr. Na J.—and as the entry saves, you realize your cheeks ache from smiling. Sunshine sleeps, one foot kicking in dreams, blanket sun brimming beneath her chin; Jaemin steps behind you, voice low, neither praise nor reprimand—only, “Keep her this warm, her laugh is beautiful,” before he’s gone. But the day hums brighter for every soul that walks past that isolette and pauses, just long enough to see a tiny mouth quirk, as if she might laugh again, and let the dawn break twice in one morning.

Leaning into the isolette’s porthole, you let your voice dip into the hush between monitor beeps, forehead almost touching the clear plastic. Sunshine’s lashes flutter at the brush of your breath, and you trace a finger along the curve of her swaddle where the feeding line meets her shoulder. “You hungry, beautiful?” you murmur, letting the words tumble out like warm milk themselves—soft vowels, slow consonants. Her lips purse, working around the pacifier in a tiny suck-pause-suck rhythm, and one fist rises sleepily in answer, knuckles brushing the blanket’s sun as if she’s reaching for the idea of nourishment before the syringe even clicks into place.

The scare begins so quietly you almost miss it. Sunshine has been tolerating her afternoon gavage feeds, twenty milliliters of fortified milk sliding through the orange NG tube at a careful drip, but today she fusses halfway through, tiny brow knitting, fists tightening under the blanket. You stroke her foot, waiting for the wriggle to settle. Then, in a blink, everything splinters: her eyes fly wide, pupils blown with panic, and a wet gurgle rattles up her throat. Milk refluxes through the tube and pools at her lips. The pulse-ox monitor shrieks, oxygen plunging from 94 to 70, while the overhead alarm flashes a strobe of angry red.

Your hands freeze above her chest, mind fractured by the cacophony. You see the numbers falling—68, 63—but your fingers won’t move. Dr. Na materialises from the med cart like a shadow called by instinct. In one motion he flicks off the feeding pump, palms her sternum with two fingertips, and tilts her sideways. “Suction,” he commands, voice calm enough to still the room. The nurse snaps the catheter into his hand; he threads it past the tube in a single practiced glide, clearing the frothy milk and thin strings of mucus while his thumb taps gentle compressions along her back. The monitor bleeps up—72, 83—yet he doesn’t exhale until it climbs past 90. Sunshine’s chest heaves, then settles; her colour tints from ashen lilac to mottled pink. Only then does he nod once, clamps the NG line, and reattaches the nasal prongs.

Hours later, after the charting and the machine resets, you retreat to the metal stairwell that smells of bleach and burnt coffee. Your knees draw to your chest; your scrub top is damp where the milk splashed. The adrenaline drains, leaving a hollow tremor in its wake. You stare at your palms and wonder how hands that know every stitch of her blanket could turn to stone when she needed them. Footsteps echo. Dr. Na descends, pausing three steps up so you have to tilt your head to meet his eyes. He doesn’t scold. He simply extends the pink pacifier you’d left on the procedure tray. The glitter heart catches the stairwell light. “You forgot this.” His voice is quiet enough to slip under your guard. “You’re better when you’re not scared of losing,” he adds, tone neither harsh nor gentle—just true. “She needs you to be sure.” You wrap shaking fingers around the pacifier, and he rests his hand on the railing beside your head—close, not touching—until your breathing matches the slow cadence of his own. Only then does he climb back up, leaving the smell of scrub soap and peppermint lingering like a vow.

In the days that follow, Sunshine stitches together a quilt of tiny victories that remap the ward’s heartbeat. Hayoung slips the white plush bunny into the isolette one dawn, and the instant the velvety ear brushes Sunshine’s cheek, she releases a pleased coo—three rising notes that sound like a miniature skylark greeting morning. Later, during chart checks, Jihoon parks himself beside her crib and recites her medication list in a hammy Shakespearean baritone—“Two milliliters of caffeine citrate, thou noble babe!”—and she answers with an enormous yawn, jaw unhinging to the ceiling, pink tongue curling like a comma at the end of a sentence. The whole bay chuckles; she looks faintly pleased with herself.

Her strength blooms in whispers: one afternoon you lift her onto the wedge for physiotherapy, and she pushes up, drowsy but determined, head floating a full half-inch off the mattress. Those five seconds steal the air from your lungs; you duck into the supply closet and cry against a stack of diapers, the smell of powder and plastic cocooning your joy. By week’s end she’s strong enough to lock onto your lanyard—tiny fist snagging the ID badge and yanking with startling ferocity until the clip pops loose. Dr. Na smirks, reattaches it, and remarks under his breath, “Recruiting her early, are you?” She hiccups in reply, cheeks blooming sunset pink.

None of these moments rewrite her prognosis—she’s still tethered to half a dozen lines, still facing more surgery—but they redraw the map of what is possible: bunny coos, Shakespeare yawns, half-inch head lifts, lanyard captures. Each demands new space in the margin of her chart, written in the same ink as vitals and vent settings, because here, joy is as measurable as any lab value. And every night, long after rounds, you slip that yellow blanket up to her chin, whisper the day’s new victory into her ear, and wait for the soft exhale that means she believes you: I’m here, I’m here.

You don’t realize how narrow your orbit has become until Chief Resident Siyeon plants both palms on the on-call room table and says, very evenly, “You’re not a pediatric intern, and you’re not her mother, you shouldn’t be this attached.” The fluorescent light picks out every crease in her brow; the words sting harder because they’re true. Since the night Sunshine emerged into your arms, you’ve lived along a single corridor, drifted from isolette to OR to isolette again, stitched tightly to Dr. Na’s service as though the rest of the hospital were merely background noise. No one bothered paging you for adult trauma consults anymore; your colleagues joked that if anyone needed you they should try the NICU first. At morning sign-out other interns swapped war stories about bowel resections and emergent craniotomies; you traded tips on heel warmers, cannula sizes, and pacifier flow rates. Somewhere in the haze of feeds, line changes, and Dr. Na’s clipped requests, you forgot that the internship program expects breadth, not devotion.

It started innocently: an extra set of competent hands during a midnight PDA ligation, the way you anticipated retractors without being asked. Dr. Na liked predictable, silent efficiency, and you showed up every shift with the chart colour-coded and the OR prepped to his exact preference: curved Metzenbaums at ten o’clock, stat drain at one, suction tubing primed, arterial line transduced to the decimal. When preemies bradyed, you nudged the FiO₂ up before he spoke; when sutures needed tying, your knots lay flat and surrendered at the precise tug pressure he favoured. Word spread that he “doesn’t use interns—he uses her,” but no one challenged it because beds were turning over faster than staff could learn names. And yes, Sunshine cooed for you and settled for your lullaby, but the truth was every neonate under his care benefited: the baby post-gastroschisis closure who only took feeds when you paced the bolus; the ex-24-weeker who desatted less when you calibrated the pulse-ox clip just north of the knee. Other interns documented vitals; you documented patterns and presented them before dawn rounds like tiny weather reports of each child’s storm.

That’s the context Siyeon slaps onto the table when she orders your transfer. “Dr. Na can like you all he wants, but you are not a single-service intern.” She hands you a temporary badge for Cardiac Surgery, Surgical Hearts Unit, Dr. Hwang. The name alone is legend: minimally invasive valve wizard, five papers in JTCVS this year. You nod, throat paper-dry, and turn toward the elevator bank feeling like someone has untethered your gravity. Dr. Hwang’s OR is an icebox of precision, temperature down for myocardial protection, sarcasm dialed up for survival. He watches you scrub, notes your clumsy opposite-hand brush technique, and corrects it with a quick bark. Yet once the chest is cracked and the aorta cross-clamped, he sees how your hands move: quick, economical, no wasted rotation of the wrist. “Good vessel control,” he mutters as you snare the right coronary ostium. Later, in debrief, he studies the suture line on the explanted valve ring. “Soft hands,” he says, which in his dialect counts as euphoria, but follows with, “You second-guess too much. Stop waiting for permission, just take it.” The compliment lands like grit; you pocket it anyway. But the scent of chlorhexidine in Peds still clings to your scrubs, and each time the unit phone rings across the OR, your pulse spikes, waiting for a code you’ll no longer answer.

By the end of the second day, the NICU corridor carries your absence in every echo. Hayoung’s text arrives like a cautious ripple: “Sunshine’s residuals are up. I tried your slow-drip angle—it didn’t settle.” Beneath the bright fluorescents, the incubators stand like empty pews, waiting for someone who knows their hymns. Hyejin’s message reads: Day 3: she misses you. How do I make her stop crying? The accompanying photo shows Sunshine’s lashes stuck together with tears, cheeks mottled pink, eyes too big for her face. You send back instructions, tuck the blanket corner just so under her chin, pacifier rotated to the magic angle, a humming note in F-sharp to match her resting heart rate but the reply is a cascade of crying-face emojis. Down the hall, whispers say Dr. Na prowls the bay like a storm’s eye; when a resident delivers an NG tube two millimeters too large, Dr. Na’s low “Take it back” cuts sharper than any reprimand you’ve ever heard him offer.

He’s accustomed to your rhythm: the exact moment you’d read a drop in sats and cradle her head, the way you’d coax a stubborn feed track into her gut as if it were your solemn vow. He never voices it—prefers to let the ward’s heartbeat betray his preference—but when Hyejin steps forward to lower the FiO₂ by protocol, he slides his gloved thumb to tweak the dial up just enough to see that familiar flicker of calm return to Sunshine’s face. When she gags on her line and Hyejin hesitates, Dr. Na’s hand drifts to your old stool’s empty space, his gaze lingering on the scratches your penlight made on its leg. And though he never summons your name aloud, every order he issues, every shift he schedules, bends toward the unspoken certainty: you’re the one who can speak her language, who knows by heart the fragile grammar of her survival.

And you—torn from the little miracles of midday rounds and the soft triumph of a warmed towel—feel the ward’s pulse in empty spaces. You miss the steady click of the pump when she takes a full feed, the hush that falls when babies like her hold still under your touch, the sharp comfort of a successful central line placement. You miss the shuffle sneakers as you arrive to pre-rounds, the low hum of drip alarms and the chorus of tiny sighs that greet sunrise. Most of all, you miss the small hand that once sought your lanyard and the confident tug that felt like a promise. In the quiet hours between Cardiac’s sterile walls, you close your eyes and hear again the soft gasp of a little fighter beneath the sun-woven blanket, and you know that every stitch you ever made—and every stitch you’ll ever make—exists only because her breath still needs you.

Day Five dawns beneath a vault of piercing lights in Dr. Hwang’s operating theater, where the stainless steel and polished glass gleam with an almost reverent intensity. You stand beside the patient—a silent promise of new life etched into the pale curve of her chest—fingers gloved and poised on the prosthetic valve’s silken cuff. The heart-lung machine hums at your side, its steady pulse echoing the very organ you’re about to replace, and the room smells of antiseptic and opportunity, as if salvation has a scent. Monitors blink in unison, their green and yellow digits sliding across the screen like a countdown to rebirth, while Dr. Hwang’s measured voice issues commands that you, reflexively, transform into precise action: clamp here, suture there, a swirl of motion so practiced it feels like breathing.

Then the doors melt open, and Dr. Na steps in as though summoned by fate itself, mask hanging slack beneath his chin, eyes obsidian pools reflecting the perfusion lights. His presence shifts the air: confidence sharpened to a blade’s edge. He crosses the threshold with the soft authority of someone accustomed to victory, and without hesitation says, “I need her for a consult.” His tone carries no question. Dr. Hwang pauses mid-incision, glancing at the perfusionist as if the entire divine hierarchy has realigned; a single, meaning-laden sigh escapes him. He turns to you, eyebrows arched, and with the quiet grace of a conductor acknowledging another soloist, he nods. In that moment, gowns and gloves become vestments cast aside. You slip out of your apron without ceremony, hand off your instruments, and follow Dr. Na through the antiseptic corridor, the soft click of your boot soles a promise of return—return to the row of incubators where dozens of tiny lives still tremble, each one waiting for the careful hands that know its name.

He says nothing down the hallway, but his pace is clipped; you lengthen your stride to keep up. In the NICU procedure room a 34-weeker lies blue-mottled; a pleural drain has occluded. He snaps on gloves, hands you curved hemostats, and you fall into rhythm—no speech needed. You angle the trocar, he rides the guidewire, and together you chase the trapped air until the pleura sighs and the baby pinks up like dawn over snow. Fifteen minutes, one silent ballet. When the lid is sealed, he nods once. That’s it. You half-expect dismissal, but he holds the door as you wheel the bassinet back, and the air between you feels warmer for the first time in days.

Just before the hospital clocks flick past midnight, the electronic roster shifts without fanfare—your badge ID vanishes from Cardiac Surgery and reappears beneath Pediatrics, as if carried on a silent breeze. No emails, no explanations: one moment you’re scrubbed in for valve repairs; the next, you’re back amid the soft hum of incubators and the diffuse glow of night-shift lamps. In the NICU’s gentle glow, Sunshine lies swaddled in her yellow blanket. Beneath her cheek, the tiny sun Dr. Na stitched gleams like first light, its golden rays a silent promise. She breathes in slow, trusting rhythms—feed residuals minimal, heart steady—and then stirs. A single fist drops free to curl around the loop of your lanyard, tugging once as if greeting an old friend, before her lashes flutter closed again. You press your palm to the glass, feeling the warmth of her tiny victory in every exhale, and in that hush you know you’re exactly where you belong.

Six months have passed since that first fragile sunrise in the NICU, and outside, winter’s breath has begun to frost the glass. Dawn arrives later now, silver light seeping through drawn blinds into the hushed corridor. You pause by Sunshine’s isolette every morning, noting how the steam from her heater mingles with wisps of chill air. The world beyond these walls has shifted from spring’s tentative green to winter’s crystalline stillness, but inside, her incubator glows like a private hearth. Nurses pad past in wool socks, carefully closing doors behind them to guard her microclimate, and you feel the weight of time’s passage every time you see how much she’s grown.

Once a three-pound ember fighting to stay alight, Sunshine now tips the scales at nearly five kilos, her limbs plump with promise. Her cheeks, once translucent as porcelain, bloom a petal-pink when she’s warmed; her tiny shoulders undulate with breaths that no longer rattle but rise in lazy, confident arcs. She no longer needs invasive ventilation, only a gentle nasal cannula that nestles beneath her button nose like a protective halo. Ultrasound echoes show stable shunts, steady cardiac function; every lab value whispers of a body learning to thrive. And within that expanding vessel of flesh and resolve, a personality unfurls: when the mobile swings, her fist bats at dangling stars; when your voice drifts near, her lips curve in an emerging smile that brightens the monitors more than any reading ever could.

Her daily check-ups have become routine rituals rather than alarms. At 0800, the neonatologist traces her growth chart, notes her weight gain, and listens to her lungs with that same stethoscope that once coaxed the first giggle from her belly. No new murmurs surface; no fresh bleeds stain the scans. Feed tolerance climbs to full oral volumes—thirty milliliters every three hours—and the NG tube only remains in place for emergencies. With the stability earned after half a year of vigil, Sunshine now joins a select few for “winter walks”: nurses tuck her into a thermal blanket burrito, pop the isolette into a stroller, and glide her along the ward’s sunlit atrium. Her eyes widen at the soft crunch of gravel in the courtyard below, and for those precious moments of fresh air and gentle landscape, she’s more than a patient—she is a child tasting the world.

And oh, how she explores it. Head held high against her pillow, she tracks faces with that arresting stare that once only prompted solemn charts; now she beams, coos, and squeals like a tiny songbird. Her fingers, once too feeble to clasp, now curl around a nurse’s pinky with surprising strength. She reaches for the music-box ballerina atop her isolette, a tentative grasp followed by delighted gurgles. Rolling from back to side—a milestone she practiced under the soft lamplight—Sunshine declares her presence in the room. Hayoung laughs when she sees the crooked sun on her blanket peeking from beneath her chin, and you sigh against the glass, heart full. In every twitch of an eyelash, every breath drawn in the cold winter air, you witness a living miracle becoming herself: lovely, stubborn, and utterly impossible to imagine ever leaving this world without leaving a piece of herself inside every soul she’s touched.

Midday in the NICU has become its own quiet tradition: the hum of monitors and soft whir of ventilators fade into the background, replaced by the gentle clatter of paper cups and the low murmur of stolen lunches beside Sunshine’s isolette. It's become tradition for interns, nurses, and the occasional resident to gather around Sunshine’s incubator for lunch. It began as whispered guilt: how hollow the bay felt when she sat alone under those fluorescent beams, tray tables untouched, her tiny chest rising and falling without anyone to witness. Now you come armed with fold-out chairs and paper cups of Jihoon’s miso soup, steam curling like a benediction, and the corridor hums with rustling wrappers and soft laughter. Hyejin sits at Sunshine’s head, knitting yet another pastel hat whose stitches count the days of warmth you’ve given her. Hayoung perches on the foot of the isolette with her sketchbook, capturing the curve of a cheek, the slope of a newborn nose in quick graphite strokes. You slip a single marshmallow beneath Sunshine’s blanket for “protection,” tucking it into the fold so that, if luck were candy, she’d have enough sugar to share. When Dr. Na strides by, brow furrowed beneath his cap, you and Hayoung exchange a conspiratorial glance before nodding as if bathing babies at lunch were the most natural thing in the world. Hayoung sighs, strides out, and returns with matcha buns—plastic bags crackling like applause—urging, “Eat up,” because Sunshine’s feast is the only one speeding up the universe.

Over weeks, the bay has become a small, sacred ecosystem of devotion. The isolette’s walls gleam with new stickers every shift—“fighter,” “sunshine,” “baby astronomer”—each one a talisman pressed against the plastic. You’ve knitted half a dozen more blankets: a sky-blue shawl dotted with ivory clouds, a rose-tinted wrap flecked with golden stars, and a mustard-yellow square embroidered with Grandpa’s initials. Plush bunnies multiply beside her chest—one wears a tiny bow tie in forest green, another a lace collar—while a rotating mobile of silver moons arcs above, each rotation a silent benediction. Behind the incubator you keep a little leather notebook, its pages blossoming with scrawled notes: She smiled when I hummed last night, Coos when the thermometer clicks, Fist-bites the NG tube, tiny rebel. That diary is your secret sanctuary, where every flutter of her growth is chronicled like a miracle in bullet points and half-drawn hearts.

But not every story here blooms. One afternoon, you’re mid-round when the resident calls a code on Baby R—a tiny preemie only days older than Sunshine. You rush in, hands steady but heart pounding, to help with chest compressions on a body so small you can’t believe you’re pressing down at all. The machines whine, the alarms pierce, and despite every intervention, he slips away. His isolette stands empty afterward, the space beside his cradle ghostly. You swallow against the lump in your throat, taste bitter fear on your tongue, and slip out to the stairwell, each step echoing your loss. The world narrows to the sound of your tears soaking your scrub sleeve, shoulders shaking like you’ve forgotten how to stand. Jihoon finds you there, eyes soft with shared grief. He doesn’t say a word, he never needs to. He presses a sticker into your palm, bright yellow and crowned with the words World’s Best Intern, and steps forward until you’re wrapped in his arms. His chest rises beneath yours, solid and warm, and you let yourself dissolve, head falling against his shoulder as he hums a single note of comfort. “I’d lose myself,” you manage between ragged breaths, “if anything happened to her.” He holds you closer, the hum resonating through his ribs, a promise that in this bay of fragility, hope still breathes

You slip into the bay at noon, still carrying the weight of yesterday’s loss like a stone in your chest. The grief of Baby R’s passing, so close in size and age, has shadowed every breath you draw, and you find yourself flinching at the thrum of alarms, haunted by the echo of compressed chests. Jihoon watched you disappear into the stairwell, shoulders heaving, tears soaking your sleeve, and he vowed to carve out a moment of light. So today he’s assembled six plush bunnies around Sunshine’s incubator, not as mere toys, but as symbols of hope. Each one was chosen for the way its fur recalls a memory of comfort: mint-green for morning baths, sky-blue for gentle ventilator hums, buttercream for every feed you coaxed her through, and three more in pastel hues you’ve yet to name. He wants you to see that life still blooms here, that joy can return even after we’ve been scorched by sorrow.

The air in the NICU feels charged with something tender, anticipation, maybe, or the quiet insistence that life endures. Jihoon bursts in mid-afternoon with two new plush arrivals cradled in his arms: one snow-white bunny with button eyes like polished pearls, the other golden-furred and soft as spun dawn. “All the bunnies need names,” he declares, setting them on the edge of Sunshine’s incubator as though presenting royal guests. Sunshine, swaddled in her lavender blanket dotted with silver stars, stares at them with wide, unblinking eyes, the first clear focus you’ve seen all day. Her tiny hands seem constantly curious, reaching forwards with delighted determination. She babbles, her little mouth forming consonants as if eager to speak. A gummy smile spreads, occasionally accompanied by a drool that traces her chin. Her eyes, when she focuses, are impossibly wide, full of wonder as she reacts to the world around her. Her small belly rolls gently as she wriggles, her movements soft and innocent, evoking a tender, near-aching affection.

Jihoon clears his throat, voice low and ceremonious, and you feel the weight of every eye in the bay resting on the scene. “Friends,” he begins, tilting his head toward the golden-furred bunny, “I present Egg Yolk.” His tone is playful but firm, as though he’s performing a rite older than any you’ve witnessed in these walls. Sunshine’s big plump cheeks flush a soft sunrise pink at the sight of her new companion, and you watch her lower lip tremble in an exquisite, heart-touching moment when the world seems to hold its breath just for her.

You step closer, cradling Sunshine’s head in your gloved hand, the gentle warmth of her fine downy hair brushing your palm. “Egg Yolk,” you murmur into her ear, letting the name roll off your tongue like a lullaby. Her tiny fists uncurl from the folds of her blanket and she reaches out, fingertips brushing the honeyed fur of the golden bunny with a tenderness that feels too profound for her six months of life. As her hand closes around the soft ear, a delighted gurgle escapes her—an unexpected sparkle in the sterile air. You half-laugh, half-sigh, unable to stop the emotion threading through your chest. “Yes,” you whisper, voice thick, “Egg Yolk, because you’re the first light of our mornings.” Jihoon watches her, eyes softening, and Hayoung’s pencil flutters over the paper as she captures the upward tilt of Sunshine’s lashes. In that suspended second, as the golden bunny nestles against Sunshine’s cheek, you sense the full weight of what naming can mean: belonging, protection, the promise that she will never wander these corridors alone.

Now it falls to Cloud—the pristine, snow-white rabbit—to claim her place beside Sunshine. Jihoon shifts beside you, pressing a gentle finger into Sunshine’s open palm as though guiding the choice. You lean in, voice hushed: “And this friend, what shall we call her? Do you like the name Cloud?” Jihoon smiles, a rare soft curve to his lips, and replies, “Because even on stormy nights, she’ll carry you to peaceful skies.” As he speaks, you watch Sunshine’s eyes brighten, that familiar glint of recognition flickering like a celestial spark. She extends both chubby hands, batting at Cloud’s perky ears with surprising purpose, then presses the bunny’s belly against her own in a sleepy, contented sigh. Her small body shivers with a half-giggle, a wet, breathy coo that seems to ripple through her like sunshine breaking through winter clouds. 

Hyejin pauses her knitting to offer a quiet “Yes,” and the nurses lingering nearby press their palms to the glass, sharing in the warmth of the moment. 

You lean forward again, voice soft as snow: “Cloud and Egg Yolk, official guardians of our Sunshine.” The words hang between you, a tapestry of devotion woven in syllables, and as Sunshine nestles her head into the curve of Cloud’s back, you know she has, in naming these companions, chosen her own small constellation of love.

Jihoon arranges the six plush bunnies around Sunshine’s incubator with precise reverence: two stand guard at her head, two flank her feet like dutiful escorts, and two rest at her sides as loyal companions. Sunshine’s cheeks bloom with a gentle flush as she lifts her head to regard her new court, bright eyes alight with curiosity—an imperious little monarch surveying her circle of soft, devoted attendants. Her tiny hands emerge from the folds of her lavender blanket, plump fingers brushing the ears of the nearest bunny in a delicately deliberate salute. A soft gurgle of delight escapes her lips, and she gives a tentative tug on the silk bow around the bunny’s neck, as if testing the bonds of loyalty she helped forge. You and Hayoung exchange triumphant smiles: the original naming ceremony may have christened Cloud and Egg Yolk, but here, in this moment, every stuffed friend feels newly honored. Jihoon steps back, hands on hips, eyes shining with the quiet satisfaction of a guardian who knows his charge is surrounded by love. In the hush that follows, Sunshine coos again, her coo rippling through the bunnies like a royal decree, and you realize that her laughter has become the anthem of this makeshift court, binding each of you ever closer to her bright, unfolding world.

Then, as if deciding they’re trustworthy, she reaches out one pudgy hand. Her fingers are plump crescents tipped in milky-white nails, each one flexing with surprising purpose, and she wraps them around Egg Yolk’s silky ear. A single droplet of clear drool pools at the corner of her mouth, catching the light like a dew-kissed petal. You nearly gasp at how perfectly it glows against her rose-tinted cheek. She gives a gentle tug and the golden bunny wobbles—but doesn’t fall—and she emits a soft, breathy squeal: a tender half-coo, half-laugh that reverberates through the incubator like a blessing. Encouraged, she shifts in her swaddle, exposing the tiny dimples on her knees as her legs kick in joyous arcs. Each kick sends a ripple through the blanket, and you swear she’s dancing—six months old, still tiny enough to fit in the crook of your shoulder, yet bold enough to claim space in your heart. Her lips part in a gummy grin, and you glimpse the faintest hint of tooth buds just beneath her gums, two pearly pledges of the milestones still to come. Then, between another series of kicks, she coos again, clear, resonant, an unmistakable “ma-ma” that echoes off the glass. Your breath catches. It’s the first time you’ve heard her attempt a consonant, and the sound feels like sunrise breaking through winter’s longest night.

As she settles her hands on Cloud’s plush belly, she breathes out in a sigh so contented it feels like a lullaby in itself. Her eyelids flutter into soft crescents; the bunnies rock gently with the sway of her body. Even the monitors quiet, their beeps retreating into the hush. In that intimate pause, you and Jihoon exchange a glance—no words needed—because you both know: this tiny miracle, this bubbling sprite of light and laughter, has grown not just in size, but into her own radiant self, full of purpose, promise, and the tender power to bind all of you to her orbit forever.

You catch Jihoon’s eye and he offers you a soft, conspiratorial smile, an unspoken assurance that this was for you, that even in grief you can find reasons to rejoice. You lift Sunshine from her incubator, cradling her against your chest as though she might drift away otherwise. “Who’s my wittle princess?” you coo, voice low and tremulous with delight. Her eyes open wide at the sound of your tone, those bruised-plum irises fixing you in a gaze so knowing it feels like a touch. She answers with a stream of warm gurgles, tiny lungs humming under your scrub top. You lean down, pressing a sweet, gentle kiss to her forehead. “Yes, you are, my shining star, my Sunny-Bunny,” you murmur, each pet name tumbling out in a river of soft vowels.

Around you, the interns fall silent, chairs scraping the linoleum in hushed awe. Hayoung’s pencil stills mid-sketch; Hyejin’s needles pause in mid-click; even Jihoon stops the rustle of wrappers in his hands. The nurses drift to the doorway, glancing in with tender smiles, whispering among themselves, “Look how perfectly she fits in her arms,” and “She’s so at home with her.” Sunshine coils her fingers into the fabric of your gown as though anchoring herself to your heartbeat, then releases a series of coos and squeals, each one a miniature conversation, as if she’s replying in her own newborn dialect to your stream of endearments. You sway in the soft overhead glow, lost in the rhythm of her breath, the hush of the bay folding around you like a benediction.

At the threshold, Dr. Na stands with his back to the corridor, shoulders tense, mask lowered like armor. He watches you and Sunshine entwined in that private orbit, and a knot tightens in his chest, equal parts longing and reverence. He doesn’t step forward; he doesn’t speak. There’s a tender ache he can’t describe and an emptiness in his chest that no monitor can measure. The world beyond these walls blurs into quiet insignificance, and all that remains is the soft chorus of your coos and Sunshine’s trusting squeals—a duet heard only within the hush of this sacred bay.

The night after, the NICU hums under low evening light, monitors pulsing like distant constellations, and Sunshine lies nestled amid her newly christened court of bunnies—Cloud curled beneath her chin, Egg Yolk tucked at her hip, Marshmallow posted like a sentinel at her feet. At six months she still fits in the crook of your arm, yet her movements have gained intention: a careful palm patting Cloud’s velvety ear, a gummy kiss pressed to Egg Yolk’s honey-colored nose. She studies each plush friend with solemn concentration, blinking wide lavender-grey eyes as though she can read history in their stitched smiles. When she coos, the sound carries a whisper of ownership, an almost musical lilt that claims these soft companions as part of her story. Even her breathing seems gentler tonight, as if the bunnies have absorbed the sharp edges of the day and handed back only quiet.

Jihoon hovers at the bedside, arms folded, watching her explore this miniature kingdom. “Look at her,” he murmurs, voice half-reverent. “Treats them like glass heirlooms.” Sunshine answers with a gleeful squeak, patting his offered knuckle with sticky fingers. The gesture snags a sigh from his chest, one of those involuntary releases that happen when hope outweighs fear. You lean closer, adjusting her cannula prongs with feather-light precision; she hardly notices, too busy stroking Marshmallow’s ribbon, the frayed satin catching on her still-dimpled knuckle. The nurses slow their steps near the isolette, drawn by the hush that settles whenever Sunshine enters this state of concentrated gentleness, as though she knows tenderness is a power, and powers should be wielded carefully.

When the overhead clock clicks past twenty-two hundred, you begin the bedtime ritual you’ve refined over months of sleepless vigils. First, Egg Yolk is positioned under her elbow for warmth; then Cloud is tucked beside her cheek to catch stray dreams; finally, you unfold her blanket edged with moon-white yarn and lay it over her lap, smoothing each ripple until it mirrors still water. Sunshine watches with grave attention, lower lip caught between soft gums, as if memorizing every fold for the nights you might not be here. You bend to kiss the center of her forehead, skin warm, faint antiseptic scent in her baby curls, whispering, “Goodnight, precious baby,” and her eyelids drift down while a rose-petal sigh escapes her.

Jihoon breaks the hush with a mock ceremonial bow, sweeping his arm across the bunnies. “Sleep tight, Her Royal Brightness,” he says, conjuring a smile that lifts the weight from his shoulders, and Sunshine rewards him with a half-giggle that bubbles like tonic water. He taps the isolette glass twice—an unspoken seal to the ritual—before stepping back, cheeks pink with quiet pride. The hallway lights dim to their midnight setting, and for a breath you think the night is wrapped, but rain begins to tap against the tall windows: soft, insistent percussion that turns the bay’s reflective surfaces into shifting rivers of light.

“Rain,” Jihoon whispers, eyes widening. “She’s never seen it.” Before the monitors can mark another heartbeat, you both nod with an unspoken agreement. He’s already rummaging through the supply cart for colored paper. You fish a sheet of translucent raindrop stickers from your binder, left over from a discharge poster, and begin to press them onto the isolette’s clear canopy, one after another, until a cascade of sapphire droplets drips across her field of view. Sunshine stirs, pupils tracking the new shapes with awed fascination. Jihoon brandishes a quick-cut paper umbrella, blue handle crooked just right, and tapes it above her head like a comic-strip sky. You dim the overheads, swipe open a cloud-slow video on your phone, and angle the screen so shifting cumulus reflections ripple across the blanket. In that gentle gloom, the isolette transforms: raindrops trickle down acrylic walls; a paper sky shelters her; distant thunder murmurs through tinny speakers. Sunshine’s mouth forms a perfect O, lashes fluttering as she reaches into the hologrammed air, fingers curling around visible nothing. A single delighted squeal escapes her, and she kicks both feet, the bunnies wobbling around her like cheerful life preservers.

The bay doors hiss. Dr. Na steps in, rain-speckled scrubs, gravity in his shoulders. He pauses, absorbing the tableau: you crouched in semi-dark with a phone-lit cloudscape, Jihoon holding a construction-paper umbrella over an isolette cloaked in blanket and bunny guards. One eyebrow arcs. “Do I even want to ask?” he mutters, voice low, though the faint crease at the corner of his mouth betrays intrigue. The rain-track melody answers for you, soft tambour strokes tapping the silence.

“She’ll walk in the rain one day,” you reply, adjusting a droplet sticker. “Tonight’s just rehearsal.” Sunshine echoes with a breathy sigh, gaze flicking from the projected clouds to Dr. Na’s silhouetted frame, as though acknowledging every player in her private storm. The moment hangs, thick with quiet prophecy. Outside, real water traces erratic paths down the windows; inside, paper rain and sticker droplets fall in perfect choreography.  In the lamplight Dr. Na’s eyes soften—not joy, not sorrow, but something suspended between: a tender ache, a promise of mornings yet to come. The storm flickers across Sunshine’s blanket, and for one breathless span the metaphor aligns: her body—a world of fragile weather; the umbrella—your steadfast team; every droplet—a survival flagged and named. When the projector’s clouds drift away, she’s already asleep, one tiny fist curled around Cloud’s ear, face lit by the smallest smile, a child who has weathered so much, cradled by the quiet certainty that she never storms alone.

Your first six months at the hospital are lived between breaths held too long and exhaled too quickly. You enter the sterile glow of surgery with textbooks still imprinted behind your eyelids, yet you discover swiftly that anatomy in ink is nothing compared to anatomy beneath your fingertips. Under the stark, humming lights, you learn that a steady hand means nothing without a steadier heart; that the body, when opened, yields not only bone and sinew but stories—fragile and whispered, stark and unforgettable. You learn the mathematics of precision, how the smallest measurement can mean life or loss, and that vulnerability is something your textbooks leave untouched.

But it’s not just technical skill you find scrubbed beneath your nails. Within each procedure—every suture, every exact clamp of a bleeder—you uncover layers of yourself. Hesitation transforms into quiet decisiveness; the tremor in your fingertips steadies into confident grace. You discover your instinct isn’t caution—it’s compassion, and it blooms fiercely. Your capacity to carry pain surprises you: each loss presses its fingerprint into your chest, each success becomes a quiet celebration in the curve of your palms. You become the kind of surgeon whose strength is drawn from empathy rather than distance, whose courage flourishes quietly in the silence after loss.

Around you, the other interns are not just colleagues but family forged by late nights and whispered anxieties over lukewarm vending-machine coffee. Jihoon’s steady humor shines like a sunlit corridor; Hayoung’s soft intensity sketches itself into every careful note she scribbles; Hyejin’s resilience threads gently through the wool she knits during each midnight shift. They fill your days with a companionship as essential as breath. Within hospital walls, among antiseptic scents and fluorescent hums, you find a home that nestles deep into your bones, a place where your fears are shared, your hopes held gently, and your dreams tended by hands as careful as those that wield the scalpel.

Yet of all your teachers, the most profound is the smallest. Sunshine arrived wrapped in quiet tragedy, a newborn miracle cradled by incubator walls, fragile limbs mapped in veins delicate as lace. She teaches you bravery with every rise of her tiny chest, every fluttering blink beneath eyelashes like silver threads. Because of her, you learn that courage means staying—through fevers and midnight alarms, through terrifying silences and small victories that feel monumental. Your hands grow steadier for her, your voice softer, your heart larger. Without conscious thought, you revolve around her axis, her survival a silent religion you practice every day with quiet reverence.

And orbiting alongside you, always at the edge of your awareness, is Dr. Na. He teaches without speaking, his presence quiet yet colossal, a surgeon whose clipped voice hides oceans of care. You mirror him unconsciously, your movements syncing into unspoken choreography, your fingertips tracing paths he first outlines. But the closer you grow to Sunshine’s small, resilient heart, the more his shadow blurs with your own. In the intensity of your shared vigil, your pulse sometimes flutters not from exhaustion or anxiety, but from something deeper—something you will only recognize later, once it has already taken root within your chest.

At the center of it all remains Sunshine, cradled in the quiet pulse of your shared gravity, a delicate bloom facing resolutely toward whatever faint warmth your fingertips and voices offer. She’s a sunflower turning instinctively toward your muted glow, her face open and trusting as petals unfurled beneath the sterile glare. Yet even in her perfect softness, beneath the porcelain silk of her skin and the ink-black lashes that sweep shadows down her cheeks, lingers the hushed tremor of something stolen—innocence pilfered by a mother who slipped away, leaving only fragmented echoes and silence thick as velvet curtains falling closed after the final act.

She holds a secret behind eyes luminous as nebulae, quietly reflecting galaxies you have not yet learned to navigate. Each tiny breath she draws into lungs once too frail for air whispers promises she cannot yet fulfill—promises of survival, yes, but also promises steeped in shadows that creep just beyond your sight. She becomes the axis of your private universe, a small sun around whom your and Dr. Na’s lives revolve unknowingly, pulled into an orbit that masks something darker, more precarious, beneath the incandescent sweetness of her smile. Behind every quiet coo lies the faintest echo of the puppeteer’s strings, threads you cannot see but sometimes feel—tugging softly at your heart, leading you gently, inevitably, toward a deeper ache. You begin to sense, in the hush between her breaths and in the silence that settles when your lullaby fades, that the purity of her existence has always held both light and dark, two sides of the same celestial coin spinning silently through the void.

And Dr. Na, whose guarded eyes flicker briefly behind surgical masks, whose carefully composed expressions hide oceans vast and turbulent, orbits beside you unaware—pulled into the dance, suspended in the strange, cosmic ballet of her gravity. He is a planet eclipsed by shadows of feeling he does not yet recognize, wearing masks like armor against truths he dares not face, truths that quietly, relentlessly press closer, inevitable as tides pulled by distant moons. Yet you are blind to the fracture lines spreading quietly beneath the surface, hairline cracks that trace futures still shrouded in darkness. You hum lullabies, tracing gentle patterns over her skin, believing you hold storms at bay, not realizing those storms swirl already within, readying themselves behind the fragile sky of her chest. She is both the star you chase and the thief who will quietly steal your heart—who already has—leaving behind a void in which you will wander, searching desperately for light that flickers faintly just beyond reach.

You fall irrevocably into love with her luminous presence, her sunflower face turned faithfully toward your warmth, not yet understanding that her survival will demand a cost, a darkness heavy and waiting like curtains poised at the edges of your vision. Her tiny fist grips your finger, impossibly soft and yet strong enough to hold galaxies captive. In that small touch, you sense dimly the ache you are running toward—a heart cracked open beneath fluorescent lights, a surgeon’s quiet devastation, a mask slipping just enough to reveal the raw humanity hidden behind practiced precision. You don’t yet realize she is guiding you toward the storm, her tiny breaths quietly drawing you forward, each gentle sigh a promise and a warning intertwined—telling you that love, like innocence, comes cloaked in both brilliance and shadow, a sweetness stolen quietly, inevitably, beneath your very fingertips.

Sunshine is eleven months old now, a living testament etched delicately into the hushed miracle of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Her third surgery, a meticulous Fontan procedure to reroute the path of blood through her tiny heart, has been deemed an unequivocal success. Every intricate suture, every precise alignment of vessels was stitched by hands steadier than prayer, leaving behind a gentle scar—a silver whisper beneath her sternum. Though there have been nights thickened by uncertainty, days blurred by fevers and episodes of hypoxia that rippled briefly across the screen of her monitor, she’s emerged stronger, brighter. Good nights now outweigh bad, her chest rising and falling in perfect synchrony beneath the pastel blankets, and the soft hum of machinery around her crib has gradually become a song of reassurance rather than caution.

This NICU, a place once stark and foreign, has gradually melted around her like wax warmed by a gentle flame. She’s grown familiar with its rhythms: the lull of distant monitors, the faint rustle of charts in early morning rounds, even the whispered shifts of nurses’ feet over linoleum floors. She no longer startles at every click and beep; instead, her wide eyes trace patterns in the ceiling tiles, curious and calm, each gaze a tiny explorer charting constellations out of sterile hospital lights. The once-alien scents of antiseptic and sterile plastic tubing now mingle seamlessly with softer notes of lotion and freshly laundered cotton, forming an atmosphere of delicate comfort.

Her small, sacred corner in the NICU is a universe unto itself, draped lovingly in soft hues of soft yellow, cream, and gold—her blankets adorned with tiny embroidered stars, stitched meticulously by your hands in quiet midnight hours. The walls of her isolette gleam gently, decorated meticulously with baby-safe stickers—raindrops, clouds, suns, and stars, each one placed with whispered hopes. The mobile suspended above her head spins slowly, turning stars and moons into a gentle orbit that dances across her field of vision, lulling her into peaceful dreams. Beneath these softly swaying shapes, plush bunnies guard her bedside, their velvet noses gently worn from her kisses, ears curled lovingly from her tiny fists that clutch and stroke them as though even at eleven months she understands the fragility of comfort.

Sunshine has warmed not just to the hospital itself, but to the hearts beating softly within its walls. She coos whenever Nurse Chaeyoung smooths lotion into her tiny palms, giggling softly when the nurse playfully taps her fingertips against Sunshine’s button nose. Nurse Yejin, known for her melodious voice, always hums softly while changing Sunshine’s IV lines, each gentle note met with a delighted gurgle from the little girl nestled in the crib. Nurses Mingyu and Sora often linger longer by her bedside during the quieter shifts, telling her gentle, nonsensical stories about brave princesses in faraway kingdoms, their voices wrapping around her softly, like lullabies spoken rather than sung.

And then there are the interns, her beloved companions. Hayoung sketches softly by her isolette, tracing Sunshine’s perfect bow-shaped lips and impossibly delicate eyelashes into her journal, each pencil stroke like a gentle caress. Jihoon arrives bearing miso soup and matcha buns, crumbs dusting the corners of his mouth as he insists Sunshine will eat buns one day soon, his confident assurances earning a delighted wave of her little arms. Hyejin knits steadily, her needles clicking rhythmically, creating soft hats and socks that adorn Sunshine’s tiny feet and head, each knitted row a pledge of devotion. But it’s you, above all, whose presence is now woven intricately into the very fibers of her day. You’re there every night, murmuring softly as you tuck her blanket beneath her chin, smiling as her small fingers curl around your thumb with tender insistence, as though she’s found her anchor in the world. She recognizes your scent, your voice, your heartbeat—your presence a certainty etched deeply into her small, fragile bones.

She shares this delicate space with other tiny souls, her roommates in this fragile kingdom of wires and whispered hopes. She smiles softly at Minho, a bubbly nine-month-old with wild tufts of hair, who waves clumsily from the isolette beside her, both babies exchanging soft gurgles and wide-eyed looks of gentle curiosity. She coos in gentle delight at baby Yuna’s tiny yawns, each yawn contagious enough to prompt Sunshine to mimic the gesture herself, stretching her little arms and releasing an exaggerated sigh, bringing soft laughter from the nurses nearby.

But her favourite presence—undeniably, unmistakably—is Dr. Na. He walks into the NICU quietly each morning, the click of his shoes a familiar rhythm that sparks a luminous change across her cherubic face. Sunshine knows him by the subtle hints—the crisp lines of his scrubs, the deliberate movements of his hands, the soft shift of his shoulders beneath his white coat. Her eyes brighten instantly upon catching sight of him, widening in recognition, sparkling with quiet, adoring expectation. It is not just his appearance, though she studies the sharp line of his jaw and the familiar pattern of his scrub cap—it’s the essence of him, a quiet gravity she orbits instinctively, a healer whose very presence seems to imbue her small universe with warmth.

The moment he nears, Sunshine’s whole tiny body transforms: her little feet kick excitedly, the rhythmic tapping against the mattress a small drumbeat of welcome. Her arms stretch upward, reaching for him with such hopeful insistence it’s as if she believes she can grasp his gentle aura in her tiny palms. Her lips form soft, exploratory syllables, “daa,” “naaa,” little sounds so tenderly formed they tug at the hearts of anyone listening. But when Dr. Na bends low, murmuring softly, asking her about her night or teasing gently about her bunnies, her babbles grow more intentional, more emphatic—as if she’s holding conversations only they can understand.

She is mesmerized by him, entranced not just by the warmth of his voice, but by the scent of him that she recognizes instinctively, vanilla and spice lingering softly on the fabric of his coat. Each time he leans over her crib, she lifts her head eagerly, nose crinkling delicately as she breathes him in, a gesture of recognition so clear that nurses glance away with quiet smiles. When his fingers brush her cheek, she tilts into his touch, eyelids fluttering in quiet, perfect trust. This tiny, luminous child transforms in his presence—calmer, softer, happier, as if she knows he is both her guardian and her greatest comfort.

He checks her diligently each day, changing her ointments himself, his fingers infinitely careful as they glide over her silvery scar, his voice murmuring words as soothing as his touch. Sunshine doesn’t flinch beneath his hands, her tiny fists uncurling, the muscles in her small frame easing into complete tranquility. Even during auscultation, she settles instantly under the gentle press of his stethoscope, her breaths slowing in a measured rhythm matched perfectly to his heartbeat, as though her tiny body recognizes its safest haven.

In these moments, the world narrows down to just them—doctor and patient, guardian and child, healer and healed. Each visit Dr. Na makes is another gentle petal unfolding within Sunshine’s small world, brightening her eyes and softening her heart. Nurses and interns alike whisper quietly of their connection, shaking their heads fondly at how unmistakably she has chosen him. Jihoon teases him about being her favourite, earning only quiet smiles in response, but no denial—because they all see the truth woven between every interaction, delicate and profound.

In this fragile corner of the NICU, lit softly by gentle fluorescents, surrounded by plush bunnies and embroidered stars, Sunshine blooms gently beneath Dr. Na’s care, a sunflower following the quiet warmth of his presence. He is her healer, her gravity, the silent core around which her small universe rotates, unknowingly tethered to him by a bond so sacred it makes everyone pause—watching in awe at the tenderness that flows silently between them, invisible yet palpable, as steady as the quiet heartbeat thrumming beneath his gentle fingertips.

Sunshine’s world narrows each time Jaemin crouches beside her cot, the smooth metal disk of his stethoscope cradled gently, almost reverently, in the careful curve of his palm. It’s the kind of quiet that shouldn’t exist after surgery, the fragile, crystalline stillness woven from shared breaths and whispers of comfort. Every other approach draws discomfort from her tiny frame; nurses’ gentle touches or other doctors’ cautious movements send her squirming, arching, tiny fists clenched tight in helpless protest. But with him, she quiets instantly, a silent blossoming of trust, the trembling petals of anxiety folding inward to shield the precious calm blooming beneath his hands. Her lashes dip low, casting delicate shadows over her flushed, cherubic cheeks, and her breath eases into a gentle tide of recognition, rhythmic and peaceful, as if her body remembers the first time Jaemin listened and chose, unwaveringly, to stay.

There is a sacredness, a secret language their bodies speak as Jaemin threads a central line into her fragile vein. Sedation should erase awareness, yet somehow her hand drifts instinctively toward him, fingers curling around his gloved digit in a grip surprisingly strong and heartbreakingly tender. Nurses pause in quiet reverence, their glances lingering on the silent tether of her tiny palm wrapped around his finger. Jihoon’s voice breaks the hush, soft and teasing: “She knows who her person is.” Jaemin doesn’t speak, the silence deepening as his thumb strokes soothing circles against her hand, holding on longer than clinical protocol requires—longer, perhaps, than he fully comprehends himself.

Sunshine’s vitals become poetry when Jaemin nears. It’s almost mystical, the way her oxygen saturation rises subtly, the tense line on her monitor smoothing the moment he steps through the doorway. On difficult mornings, when alarms pulse frantic signals, he appears like quiet deliverance, his silhouette framed sharply against the pale hospital walls, a still point of certainty amidst uncertainty. Her gaze lifts through the clouded haze of discomfort, finding him with the instinctive precision of sunflower petals tracking the sun, her small body recalibrating gently, her breath easing, heart synchronizing quietly to the measured rhythm of his voice. Jihoon insists it’s mere coincidence, but you see more: you see her cells remembering the timbre of his comfort, his steady presence like gravity pulling her back from the brink.

Post-operatively, Jaemin insists on performing her ointment changes himself, though it defies hospital rotation schedules and clinical practicality. Each time, his movements are carefully deliberate, each tape peeled from her scar with infinite tenderness, as though unwrapping delicate lace. His voice murmurs quiet reassurances, syllables stitched gently into her healing tissue, smoothing the sting of antiseptic, blunting the tug of gauze. Sunshine never flinches, never withdraws—not from him. Her tiny feet wiggle, her head turning slowly to the gentle timbre of his voice, her gaze fastening to the shape of his mouth behind the surgical mask, trusting implicitly the quiet story he whispers into the skin over her heart, letting him retell it until pain fades softly into comfort.

Chart updates become gentle conversations. Jaemin narrates softly as his pen traces careful lines of ink across her records—each measurement a chapter in the quiet narrative of her survival. “Thirty grams today,” he whispers, a faint smile curving beneath his mask, pride softening his eyes. “Someone’s been working very hard.” Sunshine’s feet kick happily, delicate limbs stretching in playful affirmation, and small coos tumble from her lips, punctuating his reports with innocent delight. Jihoon jokes she’s gunning for his job, but Jaemin only taps her name band gently, fingers lingering, communicating devotion rather than mere documentation. Sunshine watches him, eyes wide and luminous, responding as if every softly uttered word knits another stitch into the fabric of her healing.

Even masked, Jaemin’s subtle cologne—notes of vanilla, spice, musk—envelopes Sunshine in gentle familiarity, a fragrance of quiet constancy in her shifting world. Her tiny nose crinkles adorably, lips curling upward into a delighted little sigh—hehh!—each time he leans close, his scent triggering recognition deep within her. Her head turns instinctively, even in sleep, toward the warmth radiating from his skin, her body drawing comfort from the memory woven into his presence. Nurses watch fondly from a respectful distance, softly murmuring, “It’s him. She knows it’s him,” their quiet awe amplifying the tender reverence of the moment. Jaemin remains silent, allowing her delicate senses to confirm what they all know but never speak aloud.

When Sunshine emerges from sedation, Jaemin’s voice is always the first anchor drawing her back from anesthesia’s gentle twilight. He leans close, murmuring softly: “Sunshine,” the syllables a quiet incantation of return, a gentle tug pulling her consciousness through the haze. Her tiny fingers twitch, limbs stretching lazily, mouth parting in gummy yawns filled with sleepy relief. She babbles softly, syllables blurred and slurred yet unmistakably addressed to him—nonsense threaded with love. Her eyes flutter open, finding him first, as if his voice alone carries the magic needed to coax her spirit back from the gentle brink of sleep.

Even off-schedule, Jaemin’s quiet nightly visits leave clear signatures of care. The warmer always dims precisely to the gentle hue she sleeps best under, her favorite bunny—softly worn at the ears—is always tucked exactly at her left side, within easy reach. Her blankets fold crisply at perfect angles, corners symmetrical, edges smoothed with meticulous tenderness. Nurses and interns exchange knowing glances, their quiet smiles a silent hymn to his unspoken devotion. Jaemin never acknowledges their whispers; he merely leaves these quiet gestures behind like fingerprints of tenderness, helping her dreams settle more peacefully each time his shadow passes gently over her sleeping form.

Around eleven months, Sunshine’s babbles sharpen into syllables bearing faint, intentional shapes. Each time Jaemin steps into the NICU bay, she lights up, arms reaching eagerly, her little mouth forming ecstatic sounds: “daa!” Sometimes “nmm,” and once, astonishingly clear—“na.” Jihoon’s startled gaze meets yours in silent astonishment as Sunshine stretches her fingers, desperate to pull Jaemin’s presence nearer, her lips smacking softly as she tastes the shape of his name. Jaemin freezes in gentle awe, caught off-guard by the sacred clarity of her tiny voice calling softly to him, a prayer spoken softly from innocence, puncturing the sterile silence with breathtaking purity.

Sunshine grows fiercely protective of her plush companions—her bunnies become tiny charges entrusted to her loving care. When Jaemin draws near, she lifts them protectively, small hands patting their heads gently, brows furrowing with comical seriousness. She tucks them tenderly beneath her chin, eyes lifting expectantly, as though weighing Jaemin’s approach with serious, infantile judgement. Your whisper, “Egg Yolk, you’re being evaluated,” draws an affectionate chuckle from him as he leans in solemnly, whispering, “I come in peace.” Sunshine giggles uncontrollably, joyful laughter bubbling from her chest, soft and sweet as summer rain, echoing delicately against sterile walls.

Night after night, even on difficult post-operative evenings, Sunshine watches the NICU doors with quiet anticipation. Each soft hiss of automatic doors draws her eyes, hopeful and searching, toward the illuminated entrance. When unfamiliar footsteps pass, she deflates gently, eyes drifting closed in quiet resignation. But when Jaemin’s familiar silhouette appears—steady, quiet, filling the doorway like gentle gravity—her small body relaxes instantly, a delicate sigh of relief parting her lips, her lashes fluttering softly against rosy cheeks. Her tiny chest lifts gently, as if the air itself settles back into harmony, comforted by the quiet certainty of his return.

These threads of tenderness, the careful stitches woven by daily devotion, create a tapestry binding Sunshine irrevocably to Jaemin. Beneath fluorescent lights and sterile walls, their quiet dance unfolds—small gestures, whispered lullabies, careful caresses forming a silent language only they speak fluently. Sunshine’s universe rotates softly around the quiet orbit of Jaemin’s presence, his shadow casting gentle patterns over her healing days, his voice threading through her dreams, his touch tracing invisible paths of comfort across her skin. In the quiet pulse of their shared moments, an unspoken truth blooms silently: Sunshine has chosen him, her tiny heart tethered gently yet irrevocably to the quiet devotion woven within Jaemin’s every gesture. Nurses and interns watch, humbled by the gentle miracle of connection—a fragile child and her quiet healer, bound softly by threads of trust and silent adoration. As Sunshine’s tiny fingers reach instinctively for Jaemin’s steadying presence, her heart beating in quiet synchrony with his quiet breaths, the NICU holds its breath gently, witnessing the delicate, unbreakable bond growing silently, profoundly, between them.

Even though Sunshine’s favorite presence in the universe is unmistakably Dr. Na—her sunflower head swiveling whenever his silhouette enters the bay—night still wedges itself between them like a restless tide. Since her third heart surgery, her sleep has unraveled: low-grade fevers drift in after dusk, her pulse-ox trace stutters, and every lullaby you cradle in your cracked voice frays before it settles. Hayoung tries warm compresses that cool too soon; Jihoon fusses with the fan filter and humidifier settings; you hover for hours, tension climbing your shoulders like vines, while Sunshine claws at sleep, eyes luminous and wet, tiny fist welded to your pinkie as though that fragile link might anchor her to rest.

The air in the NICU grows stiff with exhaustion, monitors ticking, nurses trading looks edged with worry, yet Dr. Na lingers a heartbeat longer at the chart, studying the erratic peaks of her circadian graph, thumb ghosting over the page as if he can smooth the data flat. No one says it aloud, but you sense him rereading her logs after hours, searching for the rhythm that will let her sink peacefully into darkness again. Dawn filters through frosted windows, and a new object sits beside her isolette: a pale-pink device, all rounded edges and soft-mesh speakers, silver accents gleaming like moonlit water. Bunny stickers parade in a ring around its base, and below them, a single gold sun in a tutu, labeled in his precise handwriting—Sunshine, Unit B2. Dr. Na is conspicuously absent, tenderness tucked out of sight. 

Hyejin arches a brow, fishing her phone from her pocket. “Let me see that,” she murmurs, thumbs flying over the screen as she Googles “neonatal lullaby machine price.” Her eyes skim the results. “Wow…” she says, voice low, scrolling. “These start at three thousand dollars.”

Jihoon leans in, pressing his ear to the grille. “It even pulls in audio via Bluetooth,” he says with a smirk. “So you can stream wind chimes or whale songs.” 

Hayoung’s whisper follows: “He’s pretending it’s hospital-issued.” Yet no one believes it.

You situate the machine just outside the isolette’s acrylic wall. It’s a neonatal-calibrated lullaby generator, imported, whisper-quiet: a minute hum floats across the crib like a feather. You toggle through the settings, heartbeat thrum, distant rain, until you reach one titled ‘Twilight Symphony.’ Soft piano enters, joined by silk-thread orchestral strings, a melody that feels less like a song and more like arms opening. At once Sunshine’s frantic kicks slow. Her eyelids drift, hover, fight, then blink in drowsy wonder; your finger brushes her brow, smoothing the fine down of stray hairs. “Dr Na knows just how to make you happy, doesn’t he?” She exhales a brief, underwater bubble of sound. a barely audible pbbtt—and the ward hushes at last. Nurses pause mid-note in their charts, monitors seem to soften their beeps, until nothing remains but music and the sigh of a child surrendering to sleep.

Her cheeks flush with a deeper rose beneath the isolette’s gauzy glow, as if the very warmth of the lullaby has settled into her skin. The music rises gently, a tinkling cascade of piano notes embroidered with whisper-soft strings, each delicate motif spinning like ballet slippers twirling across a mirrored stage. In that delicate hush, every electrical hum and distant footstep recedes until only the princess melody remains, wrapping her in a silken cocoon of sound. She tugs once at your pinkie, an anchoring ritual, and then unfurls those tiny fingers like petals peeled apart by morning light, settling fully into the rhythm’s tender embrace. Her chest lifts and falls in perfect synchrony with the heartbeat pulses of the machine, a duet of flesh and circuitry that hushes her restless stirring into a tranquil dream. Around her, the sticker trail gleams—gold suns, moonlit clouds, ballerina footprints—each tokens of a jeweled vow in the court of Unit B2, proclaiming her gentle royalty even as she drifts toward sleep.

This melody, though born of transistors and clinical precision, feels holy here, an unbidden heirloom forged from circuitry rather than cradle songs. It breathes warmth into the antiseptic air, weaving threads of calm where fever once frayed her nights. The lullaby’s crystalline notes shimmer against the curved walls of her incubator, pooling into silent eddies that wash over sensors and tubes until they too seem to pause in awe. In this sacred moment, love arrives not on the wings of ancestral memory but in an engineered hymn, humming through imported speakers, slipping beneath her fragile brow, and stitching rest back into the fragile seams of her small, brave heart.

Close to midnight, you hear the soft click of the door before you see him. You’re crouched beside the isolette, fingertips gently brushing the speaker grille as the lullaby drifts on, and your heart leaps at the sound of his boots on linoleum. He steps in. scrubs rumpled, mask lowered at the chin. eyes immediately flicking to the pale-pink device. You clear your throat, cheeks flaring so fiercely you’re certain the glow of the isolette will betray you.

“I—thank you,” you babble, voice thick with relief. “It’s… it’s perfect, really. I mean, the decibels, the pulse settings, how did you even find something with a ‘twilight symphony’ mode?” You reach to tuck a stray curl behind your ear, throat tight, all your practiced confidence slipping into shy stutters. “I mean, who even stocks lullaby machines with heartbeat pulses and twilight modes? I looked online just now—these cost thousands. It’s ridiculous how… thoughtful you are, to bring something like this in. I didn’t expect it, and she—” You break off, flushed, because Sunshine’s eyes flutter open and she manages a small, drowsy coo of recognition as if she agrees. She tugs your sleeve once, a gentle insistence that she hears every note. You lean closer and murmur, “See? You love it, don’t you baby?” Her lashes drift shut in contentment, curls brushing your palm in soft reassurance. You look up, cheeks still warm. 

He watches you with that inscrutable gaze, jaw working like he’s chewing on something unsayable. Finally he says, low and clipped, “Monitor her closely.” His fingertips linger by the speaker for a heartbeat too long—an imprint of warmth you wish you could bottle—then he turns, already halfway to the shadows of the nurses’ station. You stand rooted, throat echoing with unspoken gratitude, watching the slight stoop of his shoulders as though every step away pulls at a silent thread between you.

Later in the week, Sunshine babbles toward the machine when its song begins, round vowels that tumble like new planets searching for orbit. Jihoon, mischievous, records his own voice over track three: “Uncle Jihoon loves you, go to sleep!” Sunshine giggles so hard the pulse-ox blips; you shake your head, half scold, half smile. By month’s end the device graduates with her to a crib beyond the isolette. On tough nights she reaches for its soft glow, fingers brushing the bunny stickers until the Twilight Symphony swells again, catching her before she drifts too far from the quiet gravity anchoring her to dreams.

Sunshine is eleven months and five days old—a lullaby’s worth of heartbeats shy of her first birthday—and she remains a pocket-sized cosmos, galaxies tucked into threadbare cotton that never fully dries between hurried wash cycles, forever smelling of bleach instead of backyard sunshine. She has never tasted the metallic tang of playground swings or felt grass bite her knees, never known the delirious, ordinary freedom of toddling from living-room carpet to a parent’s open arms; her calendar holds only the choreography of dawn rounds and lab draws, breakfast bottles served beneath the blue glow of a pulse-ox clip, and lullabies that must compete with the metronome of a vitals monitor. Sometimes you catch yourself wondering—does she sense the absence? Does she know that beyond these walls most children grow giddy on kitchen aromas, drowsy under ceiling fans, lulled to sleep by the reassuring duet of Mommy’s and Daddy’s voices instead of by the whir of air pumps and the rustle of isolation gowns?

Each season that should have shaped her growing body—spring pollen icing her lashes, summer sweat curling her hair, autumn smoke curling through a cracked window—has collapsed into the one sour-sweet smell of antiseptic and plasticized tubing, a scent so constant it has become her weather, her climate, her private atmosphere. The fluorescent bars overhead, too bright to permit shadows anywhere else, carve hollows beneath her lids that whisper of sleepless decades rather than sleepless nights; their hum is the cradle song the hospital can’t turn off. She shares her days with a chorus of other incubators, fragile planets orbiting the same fluorescent sun, each crib holding a story that feels both twin and alien to her own; some babies are swaddled in the soft murmur of visiting parents, others lie in an ache of silence broken only by machines, and you can’t help but ache at the uneven distribution of kisses and bedtime stories. When the elevator doors groan open down the hall, Sunshine lifts her head as if to greet an incoming sunrise, but the light that reaches her is only the elevator’s pitiless glare reflecting off burnished linoleum, and you find yourself choking on the question: does she already understand that the world outside these walls is vast and green and full of laughter she hasn’t heard, or is she still innocent enough to think that childhood begins and ends beneath this unblinking, clinical sky?

Night after night a nurse whispers, “time to go,” and the scrub-green doors swallow Sunshine for “small” procedures that always steal another piece of her tiny future. While other babies learn to crawl across living-room rugs, she crosses thresholds into operating theatres, trading milestones for scalpel lines. Every squeak of the gurney splits your world in two: you are stuck outside, clock-watching; her inside, drifting under anesthesia instead of lullabies. She should be weighing finger-paint messes, not intubation risks, yet each trip robs her of strength she hasn’t even had time to earn. You kiss the soft dip between her brows, promising survival you’re not sure you can deliver, then stand in a corridor that freezes your breath and counts your heart beats like overdue debts. In that cold hush you do desperate math—heartbeats × minutes ÷ prayers—but the sums never add up to a normal childhood. Meanwhile, the notebook in your pocket fills with names of other infants wheeled past you and returned, proof that luck exists but is rationed; you pray her name isn’t the one the universe overlooks.

However, Sunshine rejects the hospital’s careful calculus. She sits now like a monarch on a plastic-cushioned throne, her spine trembling but unwilling to bow, her head bobbing in rhythms that belong to a future dance she intends to master outside these walls. She reaches for her bottle with the conviction of a child who has lived through too many hands doing things for her; the first time she threaded her fingers through its curved handle, the room erupted into an impromptu celebration, nurses cheering, monitors screaming in alarm at their sudden movement, you crying soundlessly because a plastic bottle had become an act of revolution. Those same fingers, once filaments so translucent the veins looked like morning-glory vines, now curl into something purposeful: today they tug at her nasal cannula with mischievous intent, tomorrow they will, you dare believe, lace your own hand on the way to the park. When she grips her threadbare bunny, a pale-yellow relic whose stuffing has migrated into lopsided bulges, the toy transforms under the fluorescent glare: it’s a shield, a pennant, a declaration that she will name her own allies even in a ward filled with sterile strangers. And each time she drags that bunny across the sheets, tiny sparks of static crackle, bright and fleeting, as if the universe is applauding her stubborn will to generate light where none is offered.

Her eyes—vast, dark nebulae rimmed with lashes that tremble like comet tails—search the doorway every time footsteps reverberate down the waxed corridor. In those glassy pupils you glimpse all the worlds waiting beyond the ward: the first-day-of-school chalk dust she hasn’t yet sneezed, the firefly lanterns she hasn’t yet chased, the bruised-orange sunset that will one day wash her cheeks in color more honest than overhead LEDs. One nurse tucks a paper snowflake above her bed; Sunshine reaches, convinced she could catch winter in her fist if given one inch more slack on her IV line. Another nurse wheels in a potted basil plant from the staff lounge; Sunshine leans, nostrils flaring to claim a scent her lungs still struggle to decipher. Loving her hurts precisely because every triumphant milestone—the spontaneous giggle, the first syllable of a babble—carries the echo of something stolen, a cost paid in childhood moments the hospital devours like a voracious clock. You applaud her victories and mourn their context in the same breath: clapping when she tolerates seven uninterrupted minutes of oxygen, grieving that those seven minutes happen inside a room with no window that opens.

Still, beneath the layered clamor of alarms and the rhythmic hiss of the ventilator, there is a quieter percussion—an irreverent, clutch-fisted hope that evades every monitor’s graph. It drums each time she blinks against the fluorescent glare as though rehearsing for sunlight, each time her fingers trace the edge of the crib’s steel rail like a cartographer mapping the perimeter of tomorrow. You imagine a day when her name is called not by overworked residents but by friends across a playground; the only beeping then will be the triumphant countdown of the ice-cream truck reversing out of the cul-de-sac. Until that hour arrives, you measure life not in months or hospital billing cycles but in lungs that continue to rise and fall, in the warmth of her fist closing around your thumb during night checks, in the way her gummy smile unspools the knots in your chest. You mend your frayed courage by threading it through the buttonholes of her stuffed bunny, repurposing fear into silent lullabies, letting the improbable glow of her existence thaw the metallic chill of another fluorescent night—one more night you survive together, chasing dawn through the slats of the venetian blinds.

Today is significant. You and Dr. Na turn the corridor in step, your rubber soles squeaking, his quiet authority announcing itself in the click of his clipboard against his thigh and the hush of after-midnight pediatrics feels almost reverent compared to the perpetual storm of the NICU. Sunshine’s cubicle door stands ajar, its paper nameplate still reading NICU 3-B, but the first thing you see is her face: wide awake, as if she was waiting for you, moon-pale cheeks flushed with anticipation, eyes sparking like two held-back giggles. The instant she spots her favorite silhouettes, your lopsided ponytail and Dr. Na’s tall, muscly shadow, she unleashes a flurry of almost-acrobatic joy: arms pinwheeling, fingers opening and shutting in applause, little bottom trying to levitate off the mattress as if propelled by pure delight. She heaves herself to a wobbly sit, triumph written in that determined pout, only to topple sideways onto her stuffed bunny; she rebounds with an indignant squeak, kicks both feet so hard her ankle-ID band flashes, then tries again. The music box clipped to her crib detects the motion and chirps its tinny lullaby, which only spurs her on. She flaps, she coos, she squeals a syllable that might be “ba!”—or might be the universe giving itself a pep-talk.

Dr. Na leans over the railing and says, “Good morning, Sunshine.” She giggles like she outranks him, and even the IV pump chooses that moment to hush its alarm, surrendering the night’s command to Sunshine’s joyous racket. You and Dr. Na work around her orbit, he releases monitor leads, you gather dangling fluid lines like a bouquet of translucent vines, while Sunshine, now on her knees, throws a one-woman parade inside the crib. Whenever the gurney wheels creak forward, she slaps the mattress in applause, convinced field trips are her personal invention. You baby-talk instructions she doesn’t need: “Hold tight, sweet pea, we’re going for a ride!” She answers with earnest babble, eyebrows vaulted in concentration, as if spelling out coordinates for your journey to the next galaxy. Nurses lean from their stations to wave; Sunshine responds with exaggerated waves of her own, palm splayed, wrist flicking wildly. 

You catch yourself staring at him as he wheels Sunshine’s isolette down the corridor—Dr. Na’s strong forearms tensing beneath his scrubs, the line of his chest defined even through hospital blues, the way his back muscles shift when he steadies the crib like it’s carved from holy glass. He glances over one shoulder, mouth twitching upward in that half-scowl you’ve come to recognize as both rebuke and invitation. “Stop staring at me,” he mutters without turning fully. But you can’t help it. You watch the soft thaw in his gaze as he guides the incubator through the doorway, one hand firm on the rail, the other adjusting the speed with surgeon’s precision. Sunlight shards, from the monitor glow and the dawn bruising the horizon outside the dimmed windows, play across his strong jaw and the curve of his throat. Sunshine’s triumphant kicks set her hospital socks spinning into a blur, and somewhere between the elevator’s hum and Pediatrics East she discovers echo: every delighted squeal bounces off tile and ceiling panels, returning to her doubled, and she shrieks with pleased disbelief. You pass that bank of windows together; outside, a pale dawn bleeds into the sky, and her reflection—fuzzy hair haloed by plastic and light—claps right along with her, as if the glass itself knows how to cheer.

Her new room waits with impossible quiet: soft-yellow paint, a rocking chair you wheeled in at the last minute, and—miracle of miracles—a real crib, not an incubator, its wooden rails wrapped in star-patterned bumpers you and Jihoon stitched last week. Dr. Na positions the isolette beside it like an old shell she’s finally outgrown; gently, you lift Sunshine into her “big-kid bed.” She sits, legs splayed, diaper rustling under a lavender romper printed with cartoon bees, grasping for her bottle with one hand and her threadbare bunny with the other, uncertain which treasure counts as more essential. You settle the pink music box on the headboard; instantly she reaches up, presses the cracked yellow button, and beams when the first notes chime. The room feels enchanted: no constant compressor thrum, no crowd of blinking LEDs, just the faint hiss of oxygen tubing and the soft woof of the rocking chair nudged by Dr. Na’s knee as he adjusts the pulse-ox sensor. Your heart pinches sharp: this is the cozy tableau you always pictured for her, yet it’s only temporary. Paperwork waits in Dr Na’s tote, forms that will place Sunshine with the Kwon family, a couple two counties over in a white-clapboard farmhouse, who own a therapy-dog mutt and three acres of orchard and ran out of tears the day they learned they could not carry a child to term. Wealthy, kind, background-checked to perfection, people who can give her something more enduring than your night-shift affection and Dr. Na’s guarded optimism. Still, you fold the forms shut each time Sunshine’s fingers brush yours; the contact feels like a stay of execution against the inevitable signing-over.

When the last monitor is silenced and the corridor lights dim to peach, Sunshine leans back against her bunny, cheeks sticky from drool and victory, and gazes up at you both as though expecting an explanation. Does she know her universe is changing again? That beyond these walls two strangers are trying to choose a name for her legal name, which isn’t “Sunshine” at all—and discussing paint swatches for a nursery she’s never seen? Will they keep the nickname or replace it with something delicate and store-bought, something that matches the lace on christening gowns and monogrammed blankets? Watching her blink under the unfamiliar hush of her new room, you ache with the knowledge that identity is another thing she’s never been allowed to own: first the hospital bracelet decided who she was, and soon a courthouse stamp will decide who she’ll become. She babbles a soft “da-da?” to no one in particular, maybe you, maybe the empty space above her head and Dr. Na clears his throat, turns away, fusses with the IV pole that no longer needs fussing. 

You tuck Mr. Bunny right against her tiny chest, snuggle him under her chin, and breathe, “There you go, sunshine-peach, your snuggly friend is right here.” She reaches up, those small, star-bright fingers threading into your hair and tugging with surprising conviction, as if her whole soul is saying, stay. You laugh softly, tilt your head so she can fist a thicker lock, and let your thumb smooth the worried little line between her brows. “It’s okay, sweetheart, I’m not going far. You’re my brightest girl, no matter what they scribble on those big scary forms.” She answers with a half-tooth, half-gummy grin that melts you clear through, eyes crinkling like crescent moons. Somewhere out there, a nursery lamp is already glowing warm, practicing the light it will spill across her first real bedroom—but for now it’s just you, her, and the soft hush of this hallway, her tiny hand still tangled in your hair, holding you right where she needs you.

Dr. Na lingers at the foot of Sunshine’s crib, ostensibly tightening the line on an IV pole that hasn’t needed adjusting all morning. His gloved fingers move with practiced calm, but they’re slower than usual, deliberate, stalling. The soft overhead glow paints the cut of his jaw in quiet gold, and every so often, when he thinks you aren’t looking, his gaze slips past the drip chamber to the curve of your shoulder, to where Sunshine’s fist remains tangled in your hair. You feel the weight of his attention before you meet it—an almost-static hum that prickles down your spine. You turn, half-smiling, and catch him mid-sweep of the monitor screen, as if he’s reading vitals that haven’t changed in hours. He clears his throat, murmurs something about “baseline stability,” but the words float, unanchored; there’s no clinical urgency here, only the hush of a man reluctant to leave a scene he finds quietly sacred.

Sunshine gurgles at the sound of his voice, and his eyes—dark, steady—soften. He shifts closer, one palm settling on the crib rail with a surgeon’s controlled grace, knuckles brushing yours as you adjust the bunny under her chin. For a heartbeat, neither of you moves: skin buzzing where it almost, almost touches; the warm exhale of his breath stirring a strand of hair at your cheek. It’s nothing overt, just a current, a subtle pulse of something that sits between professionalism and confession. Then he straightens, a mask of composure sliding back into place, though a faint flush lingers low on his neck. “Call me if she needs anything,” he says, voice low, steady, but as he turns away you see the corners of his mouth fight a smile he doesn’t let surface, and his hand hovers on the doorframe a second too long, as if memorizing the light around you before he slips into the corridor’s cool hush.

Lunch rolls around, feeling like a farewell party no one is brave enough to name. Dayoung corrals an extra-wide rolling tray and drapes it with a disposable linen, as though a linen could ever make vending-machine cuisine look refined. Jihoon arrives last, eyes red-rimmed, balancing a foil pan of strawberry shortcake that lists dangerously to one side. cream sliding, sugared crumbs scattering like confetti across Sunshine’s blanket. “Last lunch with our princess,” he warbles, already tearing up again. Hyejin opens her sketchbook to a fresh page, determined to capture every gummy grin, every curl of downy hair, every droplet of formula on Sunshine’s chin. You prop Sunshine against a fortress of knitted pillows, tucking Cloud Bunny under one arm and Butterscotch Bunny under the other. She laughs—an unfiltered, chiming sound—and pats the checkered napkin as though christening her own banquet table. “Mmmm!” she declares, a command for more food or perhaps more adoration; you oblige with a heart-soft “Yes, my bright girl, banquet time!” and guide her hands around the bottle she insists on holding alone. She gulps, pauses to babble at Butterscotch, then smacks a strawberry chunk with unsteady delight.

Jihoon’s tears don’t stop; they glimmer on his lashes like doomed dew. “This is it,” he sniffles, spoon hovering over soup he’s forgotten to taste. “Tomorrow she’s gone.”

You reach a calming hand to his shoulder. “Not gone,” you say, though your own voice trembles. “She’ll be back for monthly check-ups, remember? She won’t leave us fully, plus she’s going to an actual home, we should be happy for her, this will be her first chance to experience a normal childhood.” But as Sunshine’s tiny fist locks onto the sleeve of your scrub top, fingers curling, tugging like she can fasten you in place, heat pricks your eyes. Hyejin chooses that moment to sketch you both, pencils fluttering; Dayoung hums quiet encouragement while wiping strawberry residue from Sunshine’s chin. The music box Sunshine adores so much sits on the tray’s edge, its baby pink speaker humming a delicate harp-and-wind-chime melody. With each accidental press of her thumb the tune restarts, and Sunshine squeals in triumph, a maestro rediscovering her orchestra. The lullaby drifts over plastic rails and swinging doors, turning this ordinary corridor into a soft palace echoed by baby giggles and Jihoon’s sniffly sighs.

Sunshine sits in her brand-new crib, her little fists clutching the rails as she waits for her new parents to arrive. She looks up at you with wide, trusting eyes—an echo of hope in her gaze and you press both hands over your face, “peek-a-boo!” You giggle and her laughter erupts, tiny bells in an empty cathedral. She grabs both your hands with fierce determination and promptly stuffs three of your knuckles into her gummy mouth. Drool glitters on her chin like glass beads; you smooth it away with the back of your wrist, murmuring, “Oh, hungry baby girl.” When you offer her bottle she latches instantly, cheeks hollowing, eyelids fluttering in bliss. Milk beads at the corner of her lips; you wipe it with a napkin no bigger than a postage stamp, then trace the silk-fine wisps at her hairline. Her skin is soft as the inside of a magnolia petal, still almost translucent: veins like faint blue rivers beneath sunrise-pink ponds.

Jihoon’s sniffles fade into gentle background static. Hyejin sketches, Dayoung hums, and the lullaby box loops its filigree melody, harp, distant chimes, the faint click of a ballerina twirling in paradise under the speaker grille. The room feels suspended in warm syrup, each of you orbiting gently around the bright nucleus of one small girl. A faint clang—metal against tile—breaks the syrup’s surface. You pause mid-stroke, thumb still resting on Sunshine’s brow. It’s the kind of sound that doesn’t belong in a ward softened for babies: sharp, arrhythmic, like someone dropping a tray in an echo chamber. Then another clash, closer, as if a faulty heartbeat is advancing down the corridor. Sunshine’s eyes flick to the doorway, bottle still clutched between her fists but forgotten; a single drop of milk rolls down her chin, slow as a comet.

The hallway hushes, a ripple of tension moving through the nurses’ station. You feel it before you see it, an obstruction in the air, a cold draft sweeping ahead of something that has no place near a cradle. She appears in the doorway as though prised from a nightmare’s seam. Bare feet slap the linoleum with slippery, crimson smears, blood painting her soles like ruined lipstick. Her hospital gown hangs askew, neckline torn, one sleeve ripped clean away. She cradles a pacifier on a fraying shoelace to her breast the way Sunshine cradles Butterscotch, knuckles white, wrists webbed with old needle bruises that bloom like nightshade. Hair once intended to be platinum tumbles in split, muddy streaks; every violent turn of her head fans it like a shattered halo. Layers of foundation crack along her jaw, peeling where sweat beads beneath, and her pupils are so dilated they look like collapsing stars.

She staggers forward alone, each unsteady step echoing in the hollow corridor. Her gaze slides past you, never lingering, scanning walls and ceiling lights as though searching for hidden exits. “Glass garden… she lives in the stars… my baby,” she murmurs, voice ragged and hollow, as if the words themselves have been clawed from her throat. The air around her flickers with tension, each breath carrying a metallic tang of fear and old sorrow. Her mismatched bracelets chime softly, hospital tags, a faded club band, a velvet choker once inscribed with ‘Daddy’s Girl’ now threadbare and broken. Foundation cracks along her cheekbones like dried riverbeds, and sweat beads, trembling, at her temples. In that fractured light, she seems to teeter between worlds, an unmoored spirit dragging grief behind her, unseeing eyes cast outward yet never truly meeting yours.

You tighten both arms around Sunshine. She squeaks, startled, but presses closer, her cheek hot against your collarbone, the lullaby still chiming its delicate lie behind her. Jihoon’s spoon clatters to the tray. Hyejin’s pencil stalls mid-line. Dayoung’s humming dies. In that instant, the corridor splits: on one side, a woman crumbling under the weight of ghosts; on the other, a baby wrapped in yarn and hope, eyes wide, breathing clouds onto your skin. And between those worlds, no sound except the soft click of the ballerina turning, turning, turning, unwilling to face what’s coming.

Instinctively, Hyejin, who’ll never admit how deeply she’s grown to love Sunshine—steps in front of you both, her body a trembling shield between the stranger’s pain and the two of you. Hyejin steps forward on instinct, voice gentle but firm. “Ma’am? Are you hurt? Do you need a doctor?”

The woman’s jaw works in a silent scream before words tumble out, jagged and surreal. “Stars, the parasite star, it burrowed through my ribs, I swear—swallowed me whole, then spat me out on the glass garden roof… my baby, my beating star parasite, you stole the glow from inside me.” She clutches the cracked pacifier to her chest, eyes rolling back as though she’s listening to voices no one else can hear. “They fed her my blood but she doesn’t bleed like me—she blooms in the dark, a black sunflower, he made her here, a god trapped in skin…”

Her limbs jerk as though pulled by invisible strings. “Open your eyes—can’t you see? The stars are crawling down the corridor, carving parasites into the walls…”

The woman’s body convulses once more—and then she lunges forward, arms flailing as though reaching for a phantom constellation. Her eyes remain unfocused, tracking nothing and everything at once. Sunshine, enthralled by the sudden movement, lets out a delighted giggle and coos, patting at the air as though playing her own game of peek-a-boo. You press her tighter into your chest, heart hammering, folding her arms across her little torso so she can’t slip—no matter how she squirms in innocent delight. With your free hand, you slide a finger over the silent alarm button at the crib’s foot rail, a discreet plea for reinforcements that only you know you’ve sent. As the soft chime rings down the hall, you rock Sunshine gently, whispering into her hair, “It’s okay, my love. I’ve got you.”

The alarm’s soft chime curls down the hall like a silver thread, too gentle to belong to the dread it heralds, yet the woman hears it as a summons. Her body, until now a marionette of spasms, falls eerily still, head tilting as though to receive a secret frequency. When her eyes slide to Sunshine they widen, black-marble and awful, not with mother-love but with recognition warped into prophecy. It’s as if she’s staring at a cosmic crime scene: a god in a diaper, an executioner sucking on a bottle.

“It’s her,” she breathes, reverence and ruin in the same syllable. “She came out of me. She crawled out of me.”

The corridor hushes so completely you feel reality falter, like a stage whose scenery might peel away at any moment. Her gaze darts to the lullaby machine perched beside Sunshine’s crib, the gentle box whose underwater-princess melody has cocooned the ward for months. She moves with predatory velocity: one lunge, one rip, and the device slams to the tile. Plastic fractures with a scream of its own; wiring spills across the floor like snapped veins, sparks guttering out in forlorn pops. Sunshine’s eyes balloon with confusion. She doesn’t cry—she laughs, a bright, bubbling trill, blinking up at the silence as though the smashed lullaby were playing peek-a-boo and would spring to life again any second. To her, all of this is only a new round of the game, a world still full of wonder, untouched by the shadows collapsing around her.

“That sound kept her from me,” the woman snarls, voice grinding like gravel set aflame. “That’s what made her forget.” Now her pupils hook on the butter-soft blankets you spent nights knitting, sun-colored yarn, crooked stitches that spell half a name. She tears them free, shredding the pastel fabric with clawed fingers. “They dressed her in false skin so I wouldn’t know my own,” she hisses. “But I see her now.” The unraveling strands puddle to the floor like peeled flesh. Sunshine’s tiny mouth quivers, a tremor before the quake.

Then the woman’s fury ricochets into a brutal kick, once, twice, against the crib’s frame. Metal rings out, a bell tolling doom. “They told me she died inside of me!” she shrieks. “They lied. They cut her out. They cut me open and they took her!” She paces, pacing the trauma into physical space, calling the blanket's skin, calling the lullaby box the machine that fed her lies. She smears blood from a split knuckle across the pristine wall. “This is what they fed her,” she mutters, drawing a crude constellation that drips like dying stars. An overturned sharps bin scatters needles, tiny silver stingers glinting beneath fluorescent glare. She claws at the vitals monitor, ranting that it “maps her mind.”

“Born of stars, fed on parasites!” she sobs, delirious. “She was born screaming, clawing through my ribs like a god that wanted out. Now she giggles, plays—who taught her that?!” The scent of antiseptic mingles with burnt sugar and copper, burning your nostrils. Sunshine begins to wail, an animal-raw cry you’ve never heard, worse than post-op nights, worse than chest tubes or morphine wearing off. Her bunnies lie gutted on the linoleum; her blankets hang in ribbons. She sobs so hard her whole body quakes, and something inside you tears.

The woman wheels back, eyes blazing, and lunges straight towards you, straight for the child. Instinct detonates. You clutch Sunshine tighter to your chest, spin, and thrust your shoulder against the advancing figure. The impact knocks the breath from both of you; she staggers but doesn’t fall, hissing curses about glass gardens and stolen gods. Sunshine’s scream ratchets higher, a siren of pure grief, tiny fists pounding your clavicle.

“You don’t touch her,” you rasp, voice shaking with rage you didn’t know you possessed. The woman’s reply is a babble of star-parasite nonsense, a warning drenched in madness, yet you register none of it. All you feel is the hot weight of Sunshine’s terror, her soaked cheeks sliding against your scrubs, your own heartbeat drumming a single vow: no one reaches her whilst she’s in your arms. 

“Let her go, nurse-girl—she’ll hollow you like she hollowed me. She drinks marrow, she drinks dreams, she’ll burrow into your ribs and light her little suns until you burn from the inside.” She steps closer; the overhead fluorescents flicker across the sweat on her brow. “You think she’s laughing? That’s not laughter, that’s the parasite singing. She sang inside me, carved constellations in my blood. When she’s done with you, she’ll crawl back into the stars and leave your body empty as glass.”

Sunshine’s sobs knife through the air, high, desperate, breaking like waves against your sternum. You tighten your hold, rock her, whisper hushes, but the woman only climbs in volume, her threats turning razor-thin: “Give her to me or I’ll crack your shell open myself. I’ll peel the doll-skin they wrapped her in and show you the god underneath, show everyone how she burns. Do you want to watch her set this place on fire? Do you?” She spreads her fingers, nails splintered and slick. “She set my lungs alight, she’ll feast on yours next. Hand her over, little puppet, and maybe the parasite won’t learn your name.” A fresh wail bursts from Sunshine—raw, scraping, furious—while you plant your feet, pulse thundering against her trembling back, and wait for security’s footsteps to thunder down the hall.

Finally, security barrels down the hall in a tangle of radios and clattering batons but Dr. Na is faster, a silent blur in surgical blue. His gaze goes first, instinctively, to Sunshine: your arms locked around her trembling form, her face botched crimson from crying. The moment he sees her alive—safe—his chest loosens, a breath sucked through clenched teeth. He reaches, fingertips hovering to soothe the tears streaking her cheeks but then he looks past you.

The woman. She might as well be an eclipse dragging its own gravity, every fluorescent bulb dims the instant her outline collides with his vision. His breath stops; not held, stolen. It’s as if a long-sealed incision in memory rips open and bleeds across the hall, staining the air between them. Her face is warped, paint cracked, eyes raw but beneath the ruin he maps a familiar constellation: the tilt of a cheekbone once kissed by nightclub neon, the mouth that once shaped his name like smoke. A thousand unspoken midnights flicker behind his irises: velvet couches, chemical laughter, a wrist pressed to his pulse where a hospital tag now dangles like a noose. 

His clipboard slips; gravity forgets him for a beat. Sunshine’s sobs thud against your collarbone, but he hears only the subterranean echo of that past life, the throb of bass, a stranger’s perfume, a promise made too casually to ever stay buried. She stares back with pupils blown wide, a mirror reflecting everything that was abandoned and left: desire, recklessness, a single misstep that grew teeth and learned to howl. And in the wobbling fluorescence he sees the equation complete—child, mother, surgeon—three bodies locked in an orbit he wrote in careless ink and can’t now erase.

His pupils blow wide, shock shattering the practiced calm you’ve watched him wear like armor for a year, this is the only time it’s ever slipped. Horror floods the space between them—dark, electric, cataclysmic. “Jaemin,” she croons, voice a cracked lullaby as the guards wrestle her flailing limbs, “they were the men in white coats, they carved her out, your star-seed, she has your blood, not mine. You injected her into me, remember? Your little god. Your parasite.” Her laugh rasps like a saw through bone. “You promised to save her. You promised—” Words crumble into babble: glass garden, burning galaxy, ribs torn open like creaking doors.

Dr. Na staggers one half-step, mouth slack. “Aseul?” His voice fissures, equal parts disbelief and dread. “Aseul, what the fuck happened to you?” 

She lunges, spitting accusations at the guards—“You stole my baby, white-coat thieves!”—then swings her gaze back to him, eyes glittering obsidian. “Your baby never needed me. She only ever needed you.” For one split second, as the guards drag her backward, her face rearranges itself, painted ruin collapsing into something heartbreakingly familiar. The mascara runs, the mouth trembles open not as a snarl but as a child’s plea, and the madness seems to peel away like wet wallpaper. You glimpse the woman she once was, young, startled, fragile as unfired clay, and her eyes, suddenly lucid, spear Dr. Na with a grief too naked to bear. “Save your child,” she sobs, voice shredding on every word, “save her from the parasite, save her from the voices that live in me!” Security tightens their grip; she reaches anyway, fingers splayed, as if trying to tear open her own chest to show the demons gnawing there. “They want her dead, the shadows in my blood, they’ll crawl out of me and swallow her light!” Her wail ricochets off the polished walls, a strangled hymn of terror and love, before the sedative syringe bites her arm and the doors swallow her whole, leaving only the echo of that desperate command: save her.

The scream dies, hollowing out the air around him until Jaemin hears nothing at all, no heartbeats, no whispers, no soft hum of machinery, only the echo of a voice from a past he thought that he buried deeply. His limbs lock as if crystallized, every muscle freezing as the fragments rain down. The floor feels unsteady, unreal, as the walls ripple like water disturbed by a stone. Your face blurs through his vision, tears glittering down your cheeks, your hands trembling where they clutch Sunshine tightly, her sob piercing him like shattered glass. He’s heard her whimper through morphine fog, felt her shudder when chest tubes were pulled, watched silent tears leak beneath anesthesia tape but this cry is different. It rips out of Sunshine like something torn from the root, a howl so old it sounds ancestral. Her world has been razed in seconds: the lullaby box she learned to command with a single push now lies gutted on the floor, gears exposed like a small mechanical heart that will never beat again; the butter-soft blankets you knitted through night shift after night shift hang in shredded pennants from the crib rail, their pastel threads unraveling across tile like intestines; her court of bunnies, Cloud listing on one torn ear, Butterscotch caved at the belly, Egg Yolk beheaded, sprawl in mute carnage where they used to stand sentry. In Unit B2 the other babies still drift in cotton cocoons, flanked by balloons and family hands and lullabies sung off-key; Sunshine only had these talismans you made her, and now even those have been desecrated.

The memory detonates without warning, blooming behind Jaemin’s eyes in smoky chiaroscuro: a spring wedding at an expansive villa where string lights trembled like distant galaxies and champagne tasted of polite disappointment. He had arrived draped in designer complacency, hand in the delicate grasp of a woman whose hair fell in liquid silk down her spine, her gown stitched with the kind of haute geometry that photographs well but never warms a body. Old friends toasted reunions; old sorrows skimmed beneath the laughter. Something hollow yawned inside him all evening, a vacancy that no vintage could drown. Later—hours, glasses, and smiles too tight—he let himself be pulled to a bachelor party in a velvet-walled lounge pulsing low with bass and sorrow. That’s where he saw her: Aseul, the familiar dancer his best friend had once used as morphine for a broken heart. Glitter dusted her cheekbones like meteor fallout, and her eyes held the bright, panicked shimmer of a creature running too fast to stop. Their gazes locked, a collision of hungers, and something reckless flared alive in his chest. The designer girl with silk hair vanished from his periphery, replaced by red lights and the scent of cheap vanilla and smoke.

Hours later, glossy black hair pooled like ink across pristine sheets while Aseul straddled him, hips rolling with decadent slowness; perfume and sweat mingled into a narcotic fog. Her laughter rang sharp as shattered crystal as she arched over him, fingers clawing his scalp, vodka-sweet breath branding his skin. A cascade of black hair poured like silk over Jaemin’s face, strands tickling his mouth whilst he’d been smothered beneath thighs that tasted of jasmine and salt, her hips grinding slow and deliberate against his tongue. The woman above, elegant, obsidian, rides his mouth with a designer’s entitlement, her hands tangling in his hair, tugging until his jaw aches. Her laughter falls in cool ribbons, scattered through the dark. Below, Aseul arched back on his cock, body a honey-gold vessel painted in sweat and wild streaks of glitter. She bounced on him shamelessly, reckless and ruined, her pulse thundering as she leaned forward, mouth latching hungrily onto the other woman’s ass, tongue slick with need. It was a tangled symphony, Aseul’s moans sharpened by the slick friction of flesh, the other woman’s gasps fracturing through Jaemin’s mouth, hands, hips, everywhere. Perfume and vodka saturate the sheets, breaths threading into the ether—grief and hunger made holy, made obscene, made temporary sanctuary.

He tasted desperation at the seam of her thighs, felt the fever under her painted flesh, sensed the fault lines trembling beneath every whispered dare but he chased oblivion anyway, swallowed her broken starlight like it might fill the void gnawing his ribs. In that darkness he was young and ravenous, willing to drink any ecstasy that promised to drown the ache he refused to name. And even then—between the smoke and her shaking laughter—he knew something inside her was fracturing, a dangerous pulse flickering beneath the glitter. He took it into himself regardless, letting her body become the vessel for every unanswered hunger he carried but never once imagining the night would echo back to him in the form of a crying child cradled in his arms nearly two years later.

And now that ache returns, tenfold and roaring, burning into his ribs, demanding recognition. Sunshine’s wail pierces him, sharper than any scalpel he’s ever held, shattering the veil between past and present. His gaze snaps down to where Sunshine struggles violently in your arms, her tiny limbs desperate and flailing, fingers grasping toward him through a torrent of tears. He moves without conscious thought, propelled by a force deeper than blood, surer than bone. The second his arms close around her trembling form, she clings to him fiercely, little hands gripping his ear like it’s the only anchor she has left in a world that has turned hostile. And in that moment, feeling her sobs vibrate against his chest, feeling her small body mold itself so perfectly to the hollow beneath his collarbones, Jaemin’s entire universe aligns. 

It clicks into place with an undeniable, quiet finality, a truth so stark it aches like a bruise deep in his marrow, yet Jaemin feels no luxury of paralysis. Weakness is a currency he can no longer spend, not when the small, shaking body in his arms has nothing left to cling to but the cadence of his heartbeat. He steadies his breath, corralling the tremor in his hands, forcing every muscle to remember what duty feels like. Regret can howl later; right now responsibility climbs his spine like armor, locking each vertebra in resolve. Sunshine’s sobs hitch into hiccups against his collar, and he realizes the equation of his life has changed forever: her safety before his comfort, her future before his penance, her heartbeat before his own. The debris of shattered lullabies and gutted bunnies litters the floor around them, but he gathers her closer, standing taller, spine ironed straight by purpose. There is no room to freeze—only to move forward, to build a fortress of flesh and certainty around the child who has chosen him. In the fluorescent hush, he plants his feet, recalibrates his pulse, and vows—silently, fiercely—that from this breath onward, every beat of his heart will circle hers like a shield. He whispers into the dark silk of her hair, voice breaking, raw and vulnerable, “You’re mine. You’re mine, baby. I’m going to protect you.”

Around them the ward still crackles with echoes of madness—glass garden, parasite, cut from me—but Jaemin lets the words drain into static. All he hears is Sunshine’s grief: a heartbreaking wail from a child discovering too soon that even handmade miracles can be smashed. He seals his mouth to the damp crown of her head as if heat and skin could solder the fractures in her sense of safety, swearing—bone-deep, marrow-deep—that she will never feel this hollow again. Nurses tiptoe through wreckage, sweeping up the shattered lullaby box like it’s a fallen organ; bunnies are gathered with the tenderness reserved for battlefield dead. Jaemin tightens his arms until her sobs gutter to exhausted hiccups, until the only heartbeat she can find is his—steady, claiming, unbreakable.

She keens again, high, forlorn, as though her tiny body intuits loss before it understands language. The sound needles through his ribs and something inside him crystallizes into ruthless clarity: she is his, and he has failed her already. He draws her closer, her fingers locking around the shell of his ear, last unbroken talisman, and her lungs convulse like sparrows against a cage. Each hiccup shudders through both of them, and he feels the sum of her ruins: the music that once promised sleep, the yarn that once promised warmth, the silly fabric animals that once promised she’d never be alone. He rocks her in slow, tidal circles, voice splintering as he whispers, “Shh, mine, mine—Daddy’s got you,” tasting salt where her tears meet his own.

Facts blur under the roar of devotion. The timeline fits, but bloodlines remain a gamble, Aseul’s life was a revolving door of lovers and long nights. Biologically, Sunshine could belong to anyone. He doesn’t care; chromosomes aren’t the measure of fatherhood. In this luminous, brutal instant he decides: love will outrank DNA, intention will outrank accident. Whether fate drew her from his body or destiny simply laid her in his hands, she is his. He will sign forms, fight courts, rewrite the origin story if he must, because the fierce rush in his chest tells him family is forged in crisis as much as in blood. Found, not given. Chosen, not owed.

He bends to her ear, voice hushed and velvety—words woven more for comfort than comprehension, yet spoken in full, steady sentences. “Sweet girl, I’ll write you new lullabies, notes gentle enough to cradle your dreams. I’ll knit blankets thick with warmth and patience, stitch enough bunnies to stand watch along every edge of your night. No shadow will reach you while my arms are near. If the world bares its teeth, I’ll meet it first and break its bite. Your work is to breathe and bloom. My work is to keep the path clear. Sunshine whimpers, then sighs against him, loved, trusting, the wet heat of her cheek cooling on his collar. Jaemin presses a final kiss to her temple, feeling the place where fear has welded into resolve, and thinks: If lineage is questioned, let them test me. They can measure genes and alleles; they cannot measure this.

His heart, previously fractured and scattered, now holds her with the reverence of myth, a truth written in fate, etched in the cosmos. A slow, sorrowful symphony settles over him, grief mingling seamlessly with revelation, each breath drawn feeling like the first genuine inhale he’s taken in a lifetime. It doesn’t matter how many times Aseul screamed deliriously about parasites and stars, blood and betrayal, beneath the madness and horror lies a single stark thread of truth that Jaemin can’t shake. He doesn’t need tangible proof, doesn’t need lab results or paternity tests, not yet, because the connection thrumming through him now, skin against skin, heart to heart, surpasses anything that cold science could offer. He knows because he feels it—in her trembles, in her heartbeat synchronizing perfectly with his own, in the way she settles into the cradle of his arms like she’s always belonged there, even before he knew she existed, that she was his.

The woman dragged away moments ago was a shadow, twisted and broken beyond recognition, yet undeniably woven through his history. He knew her once, intimately, carelessly, and she planted within him the seed that now blossoms with devastating clarity. All this time, Sunshine—this tiny miracle he’d held first when she emerged broken from that rooftop, beneath dying stars and impossible odds—had been his own flesh and blood. Sunshine, who first opened her eyes to his face as if she knew him, who hushed instantly in his arms as though recognizing the heartbeat that once pulsed beside her in the womb. The thought is too overwhelming to voice aloud. Instead, Jaemin stands rooted in place, chest heaving silently beneath his scrubs, cradling Sunshine as though she’s not just made of fragile, healing flesh but spun from something sacred and luminous, threads of starlight and resilience intertwined into a tiny girl who survived against every conceivable horror.

He shifts slightly, angling himself instinctively between you both and the retreating chaos, and something ancient stirs within him, fiercely protective, dangerously possessive. This child chose him first, before either of them knew who they were to each other, before he recognized the invisible, golden cord of fate looping endlessly around their lives. It’s the sort of mysticism he’d always scoffed at, scorned in favor of clinical rationality. But here, in the sterile halls stained with violence and grief, holding Sunshine close as she buries her tear-streaked face deeper into his chest, all his skepticism fractures into dust. His world realigns around this tiny creature, this impossible child, whose arrival was heralded by loss and tragedy and whose existence now reshapes his entire soul.

Somewhere deep within his chest, beneath layers of ache and realization, Jaemin already knows what comes next: confirmation, bureaucracy, paternity tests, guardianship battles—legalities that cannot be avoided. But those concerns pale in this instant, eclipsed by the profound weight of his newfound truth, a revelation stronger than any evidence could hope to be. He glances down, meeting Sunshine’s eyes, those eyes that always felt familiar but never more so than now, and whispers once more, voice thick and cracking softly, “You’re mine. You’ve always been mine, I’m always gonna fight for you.” She nestles closer, whimpering softly as her sobs fade into hiccuping breaths, small fingers threading through his hair as if claiming him back. And there, beneath the sterile fluorescence and the watchful eyes of nurses, interns, and security still lingering, he cradles his daughter for the first time knowingly, heart breaking open with a love so fierce it threatens to destroy him as it rebuilds him, piece by piece.

Jaemin holds Sunshine tighter than he’s ever held anything, his pulse hammering against his skin in an anxious rhythm. He believes in his bones that she belongs with him—her tiny fingers fit perfectly around his thumb, her soft babbles seem to respond to his voice in a language no one else understands. Every instinct screams at him that this is his daughter, that fate had conspired to place her in his arms, from the first moment he calmed her cries in the NICU to the nights he stayed awake beside her isolette. He’s memorized everything: the delicate curl of her eyelashes, the precise way she smiles when he whispers her name, how she settles only for him when the world overwhelms her. Yet the fear curls deep, stubborn and bitter, because the only way to bring her home is through a paternity test. He hates the thought that genetics could betray what his heart already knows. But one detail anchors his hope: the way her eyes mirror his own, a soft almond shape, dark and knowing. It’s something no one noticed until whispers began that they might be father and daughter.

The gossip spreads like wildfire through the hospital corridors, nurses and interns hiding smiles behind clipboards, whispering in delighted awe whenever Jaemin passes by with Sunshine nestled protectively in his strong arms. He towers over everyone, muscles defined beneath the fitted scrubs, a silent, vigilant bodyguard beside the tiny girl who clings to his shoulders like he’s her personal jungle gym. It’s adorable, the contrast, the strength of him against the fragility of her and the hospital staff melts each time he patiently fixes the little bow in her hair, wipes drool from her chin with his sleeve, or gently rubs her back until she sighs into sleep against his chest. It seems, to everyone who watches, like Sunshine has always known exactly who he is—Daddy—her little hands grabbing at his ear, her excited squeals when he appears in the doorway, her sleepy murmurs in response to his whispered reassurances.

You watch him closely now, cheeks flushed with a heat you try to blame on embarrassment or nerves, but your pulse quickens whenever Jaemin cradles Sunshine in the crook of his arm, whenever he leans down to kiss her forehead, voice dropping into soft baby talk that makes your heart flip dangerously. You flush deeper when he catches your eye, a subtle, knowing smile curling his lips, the silent exchange charged with a tension neither of you have the courage yet to name aloud. Especially the day you take their blood samples for the paternity test, your hands trembling slightly as Jaemin distracts Sunshine with gentle tickles and kisses, giggling and playing until she’s blissfully unaware of the needle prick, cooing softly as he murmurs, “You’re okay, Daddy’s got you,” into her hair.

In the following weeks, Jaemin’s days blur into a whirlwind of meetings with lawyers, detailed discussions about custody and parental rights. Each time he attends these stressful consultations, Sunshine sits contentedly on his knee, oblivious to the tension thickening in the air, absorbed completely in her ever-growing collection of brand new plush bunnies. She babbles softly, reaching out to pat his cheek whenever his voice tightens, as though reminding him why he’s fighting so fiercely. His heart clenches when her little fingers stroke his jaw, a gentle anchor amidst harsh words and cold legal jargon. He knows the road ahead is complicated, but whenever she giggles into his neck or squeals in delight as he bounces her gently on his knee, he’s reassured. He’ll fight endlessly for her if he has to.

He would wade through courtrooms like minefields, baring every secret scar if the blast meant she could sleep unafraid. He would duel bureaucracy with scalpel-sharp patience, carve loopholes in statutes the way he once carved infection from bone. He would mortgage time, reputation, even the marrow of his own certainty, trading away sleep and solace until the ledger of her safety showed nothing but black ink. If the law raised walls, he would scale them hand-over-hand; if another family laid claim, he would stand between, a living bulwark of muscle and vow. Every breath he owns is already pledged, each one a brick in the fortress he’ll build so her heartbeat never has to echo in a room without him.

Finally, the day arrives. Jaemin sits rigidly across from the lawyer, Sunshine curled sleepily into his chest, unaware that the next few minutes will decide her entire future. His stomach twists with nausea as he contemplates every possible scenario: if the test denies their connection, he knows he’ll wage war anyway. He’ll petition, appeal, fight relentlessly to make sure Sunshine never has to endure another moment feeling abandoned or unloved. He’ll use every resource, every argument, because despite biology, he feels in every fiber of his being that this little girl is his daughter. But even as he braces for disappointment, prepares himself for an endless battle, the lawyer looks up from the document and meets Jaemin’s eyes, voice calm but firm as he finally utters the words Jaemin didn’t realize he was holding his breath for: “Dr. Na, this baby girl is yours.” 

Relief crashes through him so hard his knees nearly give. He sinks into the cotton-soft crown of her hair, breath catching on the scent of talc and warm milk and lets the tremor in his voice glide against her ear. “You’re mine, baby girl,” he murmurs, lips brushing her temple like a vow sealed in skin. “Daddy’s here—Daddy’s not going anywhere now.”

Sunshine slumbers against his chest, small lips parted in the gentlest O, lashes trembling each time his breathing shakes. In the hush he presses reverent kisses along her downy crown, one to the soft spot still pulsing with life, one to each curve of her cheeks, another to the bow of her chin. Between kisses he pours out promises in a whisper meant for her dreams. “You have a room waiting, sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice thick and wet with tears. “Walls the color of first light, clouds stenciled across the ceiling so you never feel trapped under a roof. Your crib, dressed in the softest cotton, picked it three times until it felt right and there’s a chair beside it where I’ll sit whenever you stir.” He grazes her button nose with his lips. “There’s a shelf already sagging under storybooks. I’ll read you every single one, even the silly rhymes, until you choose your own.”

He kisses the shell of her ear next. “Outside, a park with swings that squeak like laughter. I’ll run behind you, promise I won’t let go until you beg me to. Saturday mornings we’ll wander the farmers’ stalls, let you taste strawberries warm from the sun. On Sunday evenings we’ll buy flowers for the house: tulips in spring, dahlias in September, white camellias in winter so you always have color. I’ll always buy you flowers, my beautiful girl.” 

Another kiss finds the soft pulse in her neck. “Baths that smell of lavender bubbles,” he breathes, letting each promise glide over her skin like warm water. “Pajamas that are softer than moonlight, so even your dreams feel soft. A night-light shaped like a lighthouse, turning its little beam until morning because even in the dark you should know there’s a door left open for you.” Tears slip from his lashes and vanish into her hair. He doesn’t pause; the vows keep spilling, a steady litany of devotion threaded through gentle breaths. “I swear you’ll grow up knowing seasons by their scents: spring lilac on the breeze, cinnamon in autumn air, the sharp bite of pine at Christmas. I’ll learn lullabies in every key until I find the one that makes you sigh deepest. I’ll hide love notes under every fitted sheet, I’ll play with you until my arms tire.”

His voice wavers, but the words keep coming. “My life is yours now—every breath, every heartbeat, every call shift, every dawn that pries my eyelids open. If you need marrow, I’ll offer bone; if you need shelter, I’ll become stone. You owe me nothing, just open your eyes each morning and let me be the first thing they reflect. Let me stand guard when fevers climb, when nightmares knock, when the world grows loud enough to shake the windows. I’ll meet every thunderclap before it reaches you. I’ll carry umbrellas the size of constellations, learn storms by name so I can spell them into silence. And when you fall—because all children fall—I’ll kneel first, so my hands become the ground that finds you.”

He presses another kiss, this time to the delicate curl of her ear. “You have the most beautiful birthday parties, whatever theme you want, parades for your lost teeth, I’ll teach you the innocence in believing in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. I’ll create galleries for your finger-paint masterpieces. I’ll show you how river water feels against bare feet, how fireworks braid color into night, how forests speak if you hush long enough to listen. I’ll buy you every flavor of ice cream—yes, even the strange ones—because discovery should taste like delight. One day we’ll walk to the ocean’s edge, and I’ll show you how to let the waves lift you like a lullaby. When you doubt yourself, I will list every brave thing your heartbeat has ever done. When you soar, I will cheer loud enough to lift the sky.” His tears blot the sun-yellow dress, tiny blossoms blooming where salt meets cotton and still he whispers, softer, fiercer: “You never owe me a thing, my girl. Just exist. Breathe. Grow at your own impossible pace. Let me love you in the space between each heartbeat you borrow from the stars.”

She stirs at last. A tiny coo flutters from her chest as she nudges herself higher beneath his jaw, clenches a fistful of his  collar, settles with a sigh that sounds suspiciously like trust. Jaemin breaks, silent tears tracking down his cheeks, throat squeezed shut by gratitude and fear. He thinks of the nursery he and Jeno built: the pale-wood crib assembled at 2 a.m. to the soundtrack of whispered jokes; the mountain of pastel dresses, today she wears the yellow one embroidered with sunflower hearts, bought a week ago on a blind, impossible hope; rows of tiny socks rolled like white peonies; jars of organic purées labeled for flavors she hasn’t met; a plush zoo occupying half the floor. Every object back home feels, in this heartbeat, like proof that he has already been living for her long before the test confirmed what his heart decided. He kisses her brow once more, softer than a prayer, and breathes against her skin, “I love you. I love you. I love you,” until the words melt into her warmth and steady both their hearts.

Yet outside the glowing sanctuary of his newfound fatherhood, shadows creep along the edges, a storm brewing in the distance. Across town, the Kwon family nursery, painted pastel and adorned with meticulous care, now echoes with raw, wrenching sobs. Eunbi clutches a tiny blanket to her chest, the fabric slipping helplessly from her fingers as Jiyoung slams a hammer repeatedly into the delicate crib they spent weeks lovingly assembling, wooden slats splintering and cracking with each violent strike. Their dream lies shattered around them, the empty crib symbolic of a loss so profound it tears relentlessly at their hearts, leaving them hollow, bitter, and ready to fight.

At the hospital, Jaemin cradles Sunshine proudly, peppering her small face with kisses as he announces the joyful news, the staff clapping and cheering softly, hearts warmed by the happy ending they’ve all secretly hoped for. His victory curdles in an instant. A lawyer with a black suit, expression bloodless, slides into the room like a shadow with edges, a thick envelope held out as if it carries contagion. Behind him stand the would-have-been parents, a woman hollowed by sleepless grief and a man tight-jawed with silent rage; both watch Jaemin with eyes that shine like broken glass, all fight layered over a sediment of despair. He breaks the seal; the letters on the page slash upward, custody petition, emergency injunction, expedited hearing, each phrase a blade replacing the air in his lungs with iron shavings. The room’s warm fluorescence recoils, bleaching into grayscale; even the nurses’ soft smiles seem to ossify, like flowers flash-frozen mid-bloom. Jaemin feels the sunlight drain from the moment, replaced by a howl of cold wind he alone can hear, and the envelope in his hand suddenly weighs as much as fate itself.

Jaemin glances down at his baby girl, blissfully unaware as she plays happily in your arms, wrapped in the soft, lovingly knitted blankets that now carry twenty-one brand new, carefully stitched symbols and images, one for every staff member who loves her deeply, twenty-one and counting. Sunshine giggles, tiny fingers tracing embroidered motifs, her world safe and warm, unaware that her newfound family, the home she’s supposed to sleep in tonight, now hangs precariously in the balance. 

She’s no longer the abandoned baby left on a rooftop, no longer the lost child waiting endlessly in sterile rooms; now she is the child two worlds are reaching for, cradled in one set of arms while another claws desperately to claim her. Tonight was supposed to be her first night at home, her first night tucked securely beside Daddy. But as Jaemin clutches the harsh legal notice tighter, feeling the cold bite of paper against his palm, he knows the fight has only just begun. Another family, heartbroken and grieving, is coming for the daughter he’s only just found, and Sunshine—unaware and innocent—remains caught blissfully in the crossfire, her future once again uncertain beneath looming clouds.

The night-shift hush thins toward dawn as Jaemin climbs the final stair with Sunshine curled against him, warm and weighty as a sleepy kitten. This is the very rooftop where she was first found, then a fist-sized miracle wrapped in hospital linen, the stars above her as indifferent as broken glass. Now the early light rinses the garden boxes in brushed silver; calendula buds yawn wide, their orange petals blinking awake like tiny suns relieved to keep watch for her. Jaemin settles on the low parapet, tucking her into the hollow of his chest. She’s dressed for the occasion in a butter-yellow pinafore sprinkled with white polka dots, cream tights bunched adorably at her knees, and toy-silk ballet shoes that barely brush his ribs when she kicks. One dimpled hand pats the zipper of his scrub jacket, the other reaches toward the horizon, and she releases a delighted chain of vowels—“ah, da, ya-ya”—as though she’s announcing herself to the sky she’s only now allowed to claim.

He studies her face in the newborn light. Those eyes, dark, fathomless, unmistakably his, catch the sunrise first, twin mirrors pooling liquid gold. Otherwise she shares none of his features; her cheeks are plump crescents dusted rose, her nose a perfect button, her hair a soft corona of honey-brown curls that refuse to part neatly. Yet the eyes are enough: windows where his own childhood stares back at him, equal parts wonder and will. She coos again, puckering her lips into a tiny “o,” and he can’t resist, he presses a kiss to each cheek, feeling their satin coolness give beneath his lips. “Morning, princess,” he whispers, letting the pet name glide like a feather over her ear. She squeals, tiny fists tightening in his jacket, and for an instant the whole hospital below seems to hold its breath just to listen to her joy.

She turns those mirror-dark eyes onto him, pupils blown wide in trust, and he feels the universe tilt: her world is eleven months old, and he is the gravity that keeps it steady. Swallowing a rush of tenderness so fierce it borders on pain, he begins to speak—soft, steady, a father’s dawn-lit monologue. He tells her the calendulas opened just for her, that the city beyond the rooftop is full of parks where pigeons will scatter like confetti for her laughter, that there are bookstores with carpets plush enough for story-hour nests, and a tiny bistro on the corner that already keeps a highchair waiting. “We’ll walk there after your next surgery,” he promises, brushing a curl from her forehead. “No scalpels for Daddy anymore, I’ll just be holding your hand while we count down from ten. I’ll be right there when you wake up, ready to cuddle you and sing silly songs to cheer you up. That’s my job now.”

Sunshine answers with another babble—higher, brighter—as if the syllables themselves are bloom-tips of happiness. Her yellow dress catches the breeze, fluttering against his forearm like a flag of new territory claimed. He rocks her gently, heart thrumming under her ear, and the rooftop feels transformed: no longer a place of abandonment, but a balcony of beginnings, the first true morning of a life he is determined to fill with warmth, color, and every tenderness he once thought was beyond his reach.

He marvels at how much space she now occupies in his arms—only a year ago she was scarcely heavier than a stethoscope, lungs fluttering like moth wings against his palm, and he held her without guessing the blood-thread knotting them together. Since then she has stretched into herself with stubborn grace: thighs no longer matchsticks but soft rolls snug beneath her cotton tights; fingers once wrapped around a single ridge of his thumb now span two, intent and insistent as they explore his buttons and penlight. Even tethered to surgeries, she has learned to sit unassisted, to fling both arms skyward when she wants lifting, to trumpet her opinions in vowel choirs that echo clear down the ward. Every gram she’s gained feels stolen from the jaws of statistics, a living proof that mercy sometimes chooses the smallest vessels. Looking down at her now—cheeks flushed peach, hair riffled by dawn breeze—Jaemin feels the weight of that improbable growth settle in his chest like a second heart: she is a miracle he once cradled by duty and now embraces by destiny, his bubba, his living affirmation that love can rewrite biology’s bleakest footnotes.

He speaks in a voice barely above the breeze, describing every fragile marvel in her new kingdom. “That yellow flower is called marigolds, baby, it smells like pepper and sunlight. Those are wisteria vines, they’ll drip purple in spring. See that little red light on the horizon? That’s a plane; people inside are chasing morning across the ocean, planes take you from one place to another but in the sky.” She squeals, kicking her star-patterned socks, and he laughs quietly before adding promises: ‘I can’t wait to show you oceans up close one day. I’ll stand behind you on the swing so the world feels safe. When surgeries come, I won’t hold the scalpel—daddies don’t—but I’ll hold your hand until the room stops echoing. You have a family now, and waiting is what families do.”

She gnaws experimentally on the collar of his scrub top, eyes shining wet in the half-light. He brushes a thumb over her cheek. “You hear that heartbeat?” He presses her hand to his chest. “It’s your metronome. Any time you’re scared, sync to it.” Her eyelids dip, a slow blink of trust, and the rooftop seems to inhale around them, old loss exhaling at last into something tender and new.

Footsteps scrape at the service-door landing, and you pause, sudden, breathless, an uninvited guest at a private sunrise. For a moment you only watch: Jaemin’s broad shoulders curved protectively, Sunshine half-dozing against the steady rise and fall of his ribs. The picture is so raw with devotion you almost retreat, but the idea burning your tongue refuses to be swallowed back. You clear your throat; the sound flutters like a nervous bird. Jaemin looks over, one eyebrow lifted. “Why are you up here?” His tone is neutral, but the hand on Sunshine’s back tightens, territorial.

“I—well—sorry,” you start, words tangling. You look ridiculous, an inner voice hisses, but you soldier on. “I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the name we keep calling her, the name on her chart. Sunshine is a lovely name, truly, but maybe not her forever, and it suddenly felt important to me that she has a real name, something chosen, not inherited from circumstance.” Your pulse thrums; Sunshine peers at you, thumb halfway to her mouth. You inhale. “So I made a list, actually several lists. I looked up meanings, syllables, and cultural roots. I wanted something gentle but strong, something that carries light the way she does.” Still no interruption so you forge ahead.

Second paragraph of ramble: “I narrowed it down to names that mean grace, or dawn, or salvation because that’s what she is, isn’t she? Grace for all of us, dawn after the ugliest night, proof that survival can be soft. I kept circling one in particular: Haeun— hae for sun, eun for grace. It feels like brightness but also depth.” Your voice wobbles; you clutch the notebook you’d carried like evidence. “And it sounds musical when you whisper it—try it, the vowel slides like a lullaby. I don’t want to overstep and I made an entire list so you can see if you like any more, because, well, you should decide, obviously, but I wanted to offer it before the paperwork finalizes.”

“I know Sunshine isn’t wrong, she’ll always be sunshine but  children grow and maybe one day she’ll want a name that fits on school forms and passports, something that still holds the light but also lets her be whoever she chooses beyond this rooftop story. Haeun does that. And if you like, Sunshine could stay her nickname, a secret code between all of us who knew her first.” You exhale, cheeks burning, gaze fixed on the note pad rather than his unreadable eyes. Silence stretches; only the whir of rooftop vents and the faint click of IV tubing sway. Then Jaemin lowers his chin, looks down at the baby blinking up at him as if awaiting her own verdict. He whispers the syllables once—“Ha-eun”—testing shape and sound. Sunshine coos, a pleased gurgle, and pats his chest like a seal of approval. Something eases in his shoulders; he kisses her hairline. “Na Haeun,” he says again, fuller this time, letting the consonants anchor against his surname. A soft, incredulous smile cracks through the fatigue. “I like it.”

He gathers her under his chin, bunching the sunflower blanket until its yarn presses a soft sunflower seam between them, and shifts so that dawn’s first blade of gold slices over the horizon and crowns them in trembling light. The rooftop inhales, petals quiver, air tastes of tin and morning dew and suddenly the hum of generators, the drone of distant traffic, the courtroom thunder that waits below all fall away. Only three pulses remain: his, heavy as cathedral bells; hers, quick as sparrow wings; yours, somewhere between, stitching the moment closed.

He lowers his forehead to hers, skin to skin, sunrise to sunrise and lets her name float out on a breath like pollen: Haeun. The sound drifts upward, latching to the breeze, a firefly syllable that makes even concrete feel fertile. Calendula heads turn as though summoned; shadow pulls back from the parapet like a curtain, and the city beyond seems to pause, leaning in to eavesdrop on the vow wound inside that single word. There will be gavels and ink, families fractured into legal shards, nights when fear scratches at the door louder than lullabies. But none of that exists in this sliver of honey-lit stillness. Here, a father plants his heartbeat in a child’s ear. Here, a baby tucks her fist into the fabric of his collar as if anchoring dawn itself. Here, a witness stands one pace away, feeling the earth tilt just enough for hope to spill forward like warm milk. As long as the horizon keeps leaking gold, you hold your place in an impossible orbit: Haeun, newborn sun, pulsing warm against your collar; Jaemin, once a planet of stone, now lit from the inside by her fire; and you, the steady moon that keeps their tides from tearing loose. Together you rise above the waking city like a brand-new constellation—three bright points soldered by miracle—burning the night’s leftover ghosts into pliant, honey-soft clay, ready to be shaped into whatever tomorrow you dare to build.

comment to be added to the tag list. two more parts coming.

author’s note

surprise !!! to my back to you lovers—did you catch that name reveal at the end? and what did you think of haeun’s tragic, tangled backstory? she’s always been more than just a hospital legend or a little miracle in a yellow dress—she’s got her own storm, her own origin, and her own kind of magic. i hope this chapter made you ache for her even more, because she needs all the love you can give her. she’s our sunshine, our ballerina, our little magic bubba. :((( just so you know—this isn’t the end. not even close. the fic will have at least three parts (possibly more if you all yell loud enough), and yes, i promise the slow burn between mc and jaemin is about to catch fire. if you felt the ache and the longing in this part, buckle in: it’s only going to get more intense from here. their story is just starting, and i can’t wait to share it with you. it was wrong if i made mc or jaemin fuck in this chapter considering the main events, plus she may be a virgin so !!!! yeah next chapters about to be very interesting

now, if you made it this far, i’d love it if you left me a comment, reblog, or even a like. i read every single one and they mean so much to me—it’s genuinely the best way to let me know what moved you, what you loved, or even what broke your heart. writing is a little lonely sometimes, it always takes me restless nights, and hearing from you makes it all feel worthwhile, like sharing a secret or lighting a candle for these characters. so don’t be shy! every little note is treasured and makes me want to keep going. thank you for reading, and for loving these messy, magical people with me. <3

taglist — @yukisroom97 @fancypeacepersona @jaeminnanaaa17 @shiningnono @junrenjun @honeybeehorizon @neotannies @noorabora @oppabochim @chenlesfeetpic @kynessa @awktwurtle @euphormiia @hi00000234527 @yvvnii @sunwoosberrie @ppeachyttae @dee-zennie @ballsackzz101 @neonaby @kukkurookkoo @antifrggile @dedandelion @fymine @zoesruby @yoonohswife @jessga @markerloi @ryuhannaworld @yasminetrappy @sunghoonsgfreal @jaemjeno @lovetaroandtaemin @yunhoswrldddd @dowoonwoodealer @enhalovie @jenzyoit @sunseteternal @dewyspace @markiesfatbooty @raysofpolaris @sunseteternal @oppabochim @markerloi @xiuriii

[colouredbyd]

—So You'll Bury Your Own

brother!sirius black x fem!sister!reader x brother!regulus black, james potter x reader

synopsis: being a Black means learning to ache in silence, to carry what burns without letting it show. but healing, you find, is quieter still — braided through soft hands, old names, and voices that stay. and some burdens, it turns out, are lighter when carried together.

cw: Chronic illness, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, emotional breakdowns, grief, physical pain, mental deterioration, identity loss, emotional neglect,hospital scenes, overdose, allusions to death, trauma responses, self-hatred, references to childhood neglect, emotional repression, siblings reconnecting. happy ending!!!

w/c: 9k

based on: this request!!

a/n: i absolutely love this <3 it healed a lot in me </3 also who knew that wiseman would inspire this fic

part one part three dalia analyses of this!! masterlist

You just stare at him.

Like the world has turned inside out and dropped you in the heart of something you can’t name.

Sirius.

Your brother.

Not in memory or in ghost-form or in a stitched-up version from your loneliest dreams — but real, here, breathing raggedly in the doorway like he’s just clawed his way through hell and found you at the center of it.

His eyes are so red they look bruised, lashes wet and clumped like he’s been crying for hours and still hasn’t stopped. His chest rises and falls with frantic rhythm, the kind that doesn't belong to a boy but to someone broken wide open.

His face—he’s all wrong and all familiar. Pale where pride once sat. Crushed in the mouth. Swollen beneath the eyes. And still your brother. Still him.

You can’t move.

There is blood in your limbs but it no longer listens to you. Because you had made peace with leaving — with slipping out of this world like ink in water, quiet and unnoticed. You weren’t supposed to have to see the aftermath.

You weren’t supposed to look into the eyes of someone who would’ve stormed the afterlife itself to find you. You weren’t supposed to see what your absence would’ve done.

And then he moves.

It’s not a walk. It’s not even a stumble. It’s a collapse forward, all motion and desperation, arms reaching before words can form. He crashes into you like the air gave out between you both — a falling star, a scream unspoken, a thousand things too late.

His body slams into yours and you don’t even brace. There’s no time. The weight of him sends you both backward, tangled, breathless, hitting the floor in a clumsy, too-human heap.

“S—Sirius—” you try, but his arms are already around you, fists clenched in the fabric of your sleeves like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.

He breaks.

Right there, right on your shoulder — his face buries into the curve of your neck like he’s never needed anything more, and the sound that tears from him is not a sob but a shattering. A noise pulled from the bottom of something that’s been hollowed out for far too long.

He cries with no elegance. No walls. No words. Just shaking and gasping and trembling and shaking again, the way grief does when it finally finds room to land.

“Don’t,” he whispers, cracked and hoarse and still so loud in your ear. “Don’t do that to me. Don’t leave. Don’t ever—”

You don’t answer. You don’t know how to.

You lie there beneath him, cold and burning all at once, and let him shake against your chest like a boy who never learned how to lose. His hands are curled into your shirt, and he’s trembling so badly it rattles your ribs, and you’re still stiff, still hollow, still bleeding nothing where everything should be.

And yet something—just a thread, just a ghost—shifts inside you. Not forgiveness. Not hope. Just the smallest, aching realization that someone came back for you. Not the version you wore in front of others. Not the one who smiled through it. But you. This broken, fading, raw thing. You.

“I didn’t know,” Sirius chokes, pulling back just enough to look at you. His hands cup your face, shaking. “I didn’t see it—I didn’t see you. And I’m your brother, and I—I should’ve known.”

You blink, slowly. He’s crying again. He hasn’t stopped. His face is wet and shining and messy and full of something awful and pure, and you hate him for making you feel something like warmth in a moment meant for ruin.

“I wanted to go quietly,” you whisper. “Without… hurting anyone.”

“Well,” he breathes, voice a rasp, forehead pressing against yours, “you failed miserably.”

And you laugh. Not because it’s funny. Because it hurts so much that your body can’t tell the difference anymore.

His hands are on your face before you even register the movement — warm, trembling, cradling you like you’re something breakable he’s just now learning how to hold. His thumbs brush over your cheekbones, as if trying to memorize the bones beneath your skin, as if looking at you isn’t enough — he has to feel you, anchor you, prove to himself that you’re still here.

He tilts your face gently to the side, and his eyes are scanning you in that frantic, desperate way people do when they’re checking for injuries.

You can see it behind the wet lashes, behind the tears still falling without his permission — fear. Bone-deep, soul-hollowing fear. Like he’s still waiting to wake up and find you gone.

“I’m okay,” you whisper, though your voice cracks at the edges, and your hands find his wrists, fingers curling tight. “I’m here.”

But then your gaze drops.

Blood.

It’s on your sleeve. On the floor. And smeared, thin and sharp, across the creases of his palm where glass must have shattered during the fall. His hands — the same ones that shook when he held your face, the same ones that once reached for yours across a thousand childhood halls — are streaked crimson.

From hugging you. From clutching too tightly. From crashing to the floor through spilled potion and broken glass and years of silence.

Your breath hitches. “Sirius—your hands—”

He looks down as if only now remembering. As if he felt nothing, so loud was the panic. Then he just shakes his head, jaw tightening.

“Doesn’t matter,” he mutters, voice thick. “Doesn’t—nothing matters, not like that. You—” His voice breaks. “Why would you do that?”

He says it like he already knows. Like he doesn’t want to understand but can’t stop asking. His hands are bleeding and he still brings them back to your face, gently now, softly, like he’s afraid to hurt you more.

“Why would you do that, huh? Why wouldn’t you tell me? Why wouldn’t you let me in—?”

You try to speak, but he’s still unraveling.

“I should’ve been there. I should’ve—I should’ve written, or called, or showed up. I should’ve—fuck, I should’ve never left you like that. I thought—” He lets out a laugh that isn’t a laugh at all.

“I thought you hated me. You stopped talking and I—Merlin, I thought you were siding with them. With Mum. With everything. I thought you’d already made your choice.”

You blink slowly. Your throat feels like it’s wrapped in wool and fire.

“I was always punished for speaking,” you say, quiet. “Every time I raised my voice, she crushed it. So I stopped. I thought you knew that.”

Sirius flinches like you’ve hit him.

You don’t stop. The words are small and soft but each one scrapes from the hollow of your chest like glass. “I never stood against you. I never could. You’re my brother, Sirius.”

His eyes close. Something in his face folds. You watch the weight drop onto him like a cathedral crumbling — years of guilt, years of leaving, years of assuming you were just another echo of their mother’s hate.

And it’s not anger in his face. Not shame, even. It’s heartbreak. The kind that comes from realizing all the stories you told yourself to survive were lies — and someone else paid the price.

“I thought you hated me,” Sirius says again, but quieter now. “I thought you meant it when you stopped looking at me.”

“I never meant it,” you whisper, voice breaking like tide on rock. “I didn’t know how to mean anything anymore. She—she made me small. I was just trying to survive without disappearing.”

He laughs again, and it cracks down the middle. “Funny. I thought I had to disappear to survive.”

Your fingers twitch against his wrists. He still hasn’t let go of your face.

“I left because I thought staying would kill me,” he says. “I ran and ran and kept running and you—I told myself you didn’t need me. That if you did, you would’ve said something. Looked at me. Anything.”

“I was always being watched,” you murmur. “Every word cost something. And I—I thought you chose to stop seeing me.”

“I never stopped seeing you,” Sirius snaps, but not out of anger. Out of grief.

“I saw everything. I saw you shrinking. I saw Mum turn your light off room by room and I—fuck, I didn’t know how to stop it. I didn’t know how to stay and fight and still be whole.”

Your voice is a rasp now. “So you left us behind?”

“I left them. I thought you—” He swallows. “I thought you hated me for leaving Regulus behind. For not taking you with me.”

“I didn’t hate you,” you say. “I missed you.”

He blinks hard. The tears are falling again. “I missed you too.”

You look at his face, streaked in red and salt. His hands still tremble against your jaw. And something like grief twists inside you.

“I used to sit in that hospital bed and wait for you to look at me,” you say slowly. “You’d be right there for him, for Remus. Right there. And you’d never turn your head. Never once.”

Sirius opens his mouth, then closes it. Guilt flashes, molten and ugly, through every line of him.

“I thought if I looked at you,” he says at last, “I’d have to admit what I did. What I didn’t do. And I couldn’t. I was a coward.”

“I was your sister,” you say, and your voice is trembling now too. “And you didn’t see me.”

“I see you now,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll never stop being sorry.”

You nod, slowly, something cold sinking back into your spine. Something you can’t name. You press your lips together, watch his face — his bloodied palms, his storm of regret, his cracked voice.

“You’re my brother,” you say, like a truth, like a wound. Then, softer: “But your eyes were cold.”

He flinches like you’d whispered a curse, like your words shattered something brittle he’d been pretending was still whole.

His hands fall from your face not in anger, not in defense, but with the trembling reverence of someone letting go of a relic they finally understand they never deserved to hold.

For a moment — no, for longer than that — the silence between you crackles with everything that was never said. It hangs there, aching, bruised, begging not to be buried again.

And then, so soft it sounds like it’s breaking as it leaves him, he murmurs, “I know.”

His eyes drop. Because he can’t bear to meet yours — can’t bear for you to see that some part of him is still winter, still cold, still tangled in the darkness he chose over you. Because if he looks long enough, he knows you’ll find it.

The frost in him that never thawed.

You let him lead you through the quiet halls, your body still trembling with the aftershocks of everything you almost gave away. The weight of his arms was both a cradle and a cage — holding you upright, steadying your faltering steps, but also reminding you of every absence, every silence stretched too long between you.

You didn’t want to be seen here like this, didn’t want anyone to know the shape your desperation had taken. The last thing you wanted was whispers or pity trailing after you like ghosts.

So when he murmured low, voice rough with everything unsaid, “I won’t tell Madam Pomfrey, not a word,” you felt a fragile shard of relief crack open inside you. You nodded, almost too tired to speak, trusting him with the only secret you’d dared carry alone.

The infirmary smelled of antiseptic and old magic, the steady ticking of the clocks a quiet reminder that time was passing — though you wished it would stop.

Madam Pomfrey was busy with another patient, a boy from the Quidditch team, his arm wrapped tightly, grimacing in pain. She glanced at you with a practiced eye, reading the silent plea in your posture, but didn’t press.

Instead, she reached for her supplies and glanced at Sirius with a knowing look — one that said she’d seen this before, and she was ready.

Sirius sat beside you, his fingers curling protectively around yours as the bandages wrapped tightly around his palms. You noticed then the thin lines of blood tracing down his wrists from the broken glass he hadn’t bothered to mention.

You wanted to reach out, to ease it somehow, but your fingers felt too heavy, too fragile. You only watched as the tension in his jaw softened, the brief flicker of pain he tried to swallow.

When Madam Pomfrey turned her attention to you, checking your pulse and watching your breathing with that sharp, clinical care, you closed your eyes and let her work, feeling the cold press of her hands and the warmth of the potion she dabbed gently on your skin.

It soothed and stung all at once — like the pain inside you, raw and real and aching in every breath.

Sirius didn’t say much; his quiet presence was steady, but you could feel the storm behind his eyes, the fight he was waging not to unravel in front of you.

And then, just as quietly as he’d come, Sirius slipped away. His steps were soft, careful, as if leaving you was its own kind of punishment. You heard the faint creak of the infirmary door closing behind him and the hollow echo of footsteps fading down the corridor.

You were left with the sterile quiet, the ache in your chest, and the fragile promise that some secrets could stay locked between two broken souls — even if only for a little while.

You don’t ask where he went. You don’t let yourself wonder, because wondering leads to hope and hope is still too sharp. Instead, you sit in the hush he left behind, your hands folded in your lap like you’re still praying to be seen.

Madam Pomfrey moves quietly around you, fingers gentle on your wrist, eyes soft but heavy with knowledge she never speaks aloud.

“Not all wounds bleed, dear,” she says at last, voice low as if confiding something sacred. “Some sit in the marrow. Some take root in the bone.”

You nod, barely. It aches to move. It aches not to.

She touches your shoulder, not to fix but to reassure. “Warmth helps. Rest. Tea with thyme and a bit of honey. And something that sings. Even quiet pain needs a lullaby.”

You don’t have the heart to tell her your voice went quiet the day your brother stopped looking at you like you were still made of light and not just what remained of it.

The silence hangs fragile between you, stitched with the clink of glass and the soft rustle of linen — until it’s broken.

Screaming. Outside. Sharp and sudden like lightning cracking bone.

“Stop!” It’s Sirius. Loud, desperate. His voice shatters the calm like a stone through stained glass.

Madam Pomfrey snaps her head toward the door, already moving. “Stay here,” she instructs, tight and brisk, years of practiced authority kicking in.

“I swear, these boys will be the death of me.”

You don’t stay. Of course you don’t.

Because you already know.

You swing your legs over the cot slowly, every limb trembling with fatigue, but your heart beats fast and wild. The shouting grows louder. The door flies open before you can reach it.

And then —

He’s there. Regulus.

Not the polished version the world sees, not the cool shadow of a perfect Black heir. But a boy unraveling, wild-eyed and furious, his robes twisted, hair falling into his face, hands shaking with rage. “Where is she?” he’s demanding, voice fraying at the edges.

“Regulus—” Sirius tries, but Regulus ignores him.

He storms through the infirmary like a storm, tearing open curtain after curtain, ignoring the protests of beds still occupied. “Where is she? Where is she—”

You don’t move. You can’t.

The curtain pulls back with the soft, traitorous hiss of fabric betraying silence — and the world goes still.

You don’t lift your head. You don’t need to. The air has shifted — the way it does before a storm, or after a prayer that’s gone unanswered. You feel him before you see him. Regulus.

He doesn’t say your name.

He doesn’t have to.

His presence hangs in the room like breath held too long — like grief trapped behind ribcages and white-knuckled resolve.

You can feel the way he’s looking at you — not straight at your face, not at your hands or the thin sheet drawn over your knees, but lower. There, at your back.

At the braid.

The one you wore like a memory. Like a keepsake. The one only two people in the world ever loved. Sirius had tugged it. Regulus had braided it.

And now his eyes are stuck to it like it’s something sacred. Something ruined.

You look up — and your lungs forget what to do.

He stands at the foot of your bed like a ghost unsure of its haunting. Pale, gaunt in the way that says he hasn’t slept properly in months. His eyes — they look like frost bitten into storm clouds. Wet, wide, unblinking.

His hands hang by his sides. Trembling. Shaking like he’s holding back an entire tide of something unspeakable.

Behind him, Sirius stumbles in, breathless, voice sharp and breaking in one syllable: “What the fuck, Regulus?”

Madam Pomfrey snaps to attention. “I will not have a shouting match in my infirmary—”

But Regulus doesn’t even flinch.

And Madam knows. You see it on her face — in the way her mouth thins, the way her eyes flicker to you, then to him, then soften. She nods once, tight-lipped, and vanishes behind the heavy oak door, leaving only the three of you in the thick, trembling stillness of what’s left unsaid.

Regulus hasn’t moved.

You’re sitting upright now, your hands shaking in your lap, your shoulders curved inward like you could make yourself smaller, less breakable, less seen.

Still, his gaze doesn’t leave the braid.

The silence is unbearable.

“Reg—” your voice barely carries. It’s scraped raw, soft as snowfall. “Reg, please…”

He blinks — once — and you see the glisten in his lashes.

“Say something,” you beg, your voice catching, shoulders trembling now too. “Don’t—don’t look at me like that.”

But he does.

Like the braid is a funeral ribbon. Like you’ve carved something cruel into his chest just by standing there. Like he’s looking at the girl he grew up with — the one who used to hide poetry under her pillow and sneak cold apples from the kitchens — and seeing a stranger in her place.

You curl in on yourself. Press the heel of your palm into your eye to keep it from spilling again. But it’s no use. A sob leaves you — not loud, but enough to shatter something between you both.

Still, Regulus says nothing. He just stares. Hands trembling. Heart, you think, doing the same.

And it hurts.

Like watching a star collapse in real time.

Like remembering, all at once, every word you never said to him. Every letter you never sent. Every ache that grew between you in the years of silence and split loyalties and all the things you weren’t allowed to feel.

You want him to yell. To say you betrayed him. To say you ruined everything. Anything.

But he’s silent.

And it is the loudest thing you have ever heard.

Regulus steps forward, his movement hesitant yet inevitable, like the slow breaking of ice under a restless sky. His hands tremble ever so slightly, fingers curling and uncurling as if trying to grasp the edges of a fragile truth too sharp to hold.

His eyes, those dark pools of silent storms, lock onto yours with an intensity that both roots you to the spot and threatens to tear you apart.

Then, with a voice low and steady, carrying the weight of all the things left unsaid, he asks: “Is it true? Did you really try to kill yourself?”

The words hang heavy in the air, unsparing and raw, stripped of any softness or mercy. There is no sugar-coating here, no gentle circumspection — only the brutal, shattering truth laid bare like bones picked clean.

And as the question falls from his lips, you feel the coldness of it seep into your skin, like frost creeping into bare flesh. You realize in that moment that this is real — it’s not just a secret you’ve carried alone in silence, not just a shadow lingering at the edges of your days. It’s a living thing now, given breath and shape by his voice.

Even Sirius flinches at the sound, his shoulders stiffening as if struck by a sudden gust of pain he had tried to ignore. You stay still, breath caught in a fragile pause between surrender and denial, because hearing it named aloud—so plainly, so fearlessly—removes the last veil of distance and forces you to confront the ache in its full, terrible clarity.

Sirius steps in front of you before you can say anything — before you can find the voice buried beneath the wreckage of what Regulus’s question unearthed.

There’s a rage about him, but not the cruel kind — it’s blistering and desperate, the fury of someone watching something they love be handled too roughly.

He shoves Regulus back with a hand to his chest, not hard, but enough to draw a line between grief and guilt.

“That’s not how you ask,” Sirius hisses, voice shaking. “She’s still bleeding inside. You don’t get to storm in here and demand—”

“Don’t tell me what I get to do!” Regulus snaps back, eyes flaring, voice rising like a tide he can’t hold back.

“You don’t get to disappear for months and suddenly pretend like you’re the only one who cares!”

“I never pretended,” Sirius growls, taking a step closer. “You think I didn’t care? I found her. I was the one who—” His voice breaks, sharp and ugly.

“You weren’t there, Reg.”

“You left us!” Regulus’s voice is full now, a hurricane of sorrow and betrayal. “You left me. You left her. Don’t stand there and talk about who was there when you made it so we had to survive without you.”

Sirius recoils as if struck, and something bitter twists his mouth. “You think I wanted to leave?” His voice drops, not quieter, but heavier.

“You think I could stay when everything was falling apart and I couldn’t tell who was lying and who wasn’t and she stopped writing back and you—”

“I never stopped writing!” you finally choke, but neither of them hears you.

“You shut down!” Sirius shouts at Regulus. “You looked at me like I was the enemy!”

“You were the enemy!” Regulus yells, chest heaving. “You ran off to play rebel with your new family and left us behind to clean up the mess. You didn’t even say goodbye.”

Sirius takes another step forward, his face crumpling, years of anger and guilt and heartache tightening into something sharp.

“Because I didn’t know if I’d survive it. I didn’t know if I could say goodbye to you both and live with it.” His voice is raw now, splintering around the edges.

“I didn’t know who you were anymore. She stopped answering. You stopped talking. And I—I thought I’d lost you both.”

“And now she’s—” Regulus can’t finish it. He gestures helplessly toward you, voice cracking. “You almost lost her forever, Sirius.”

“I know!” Sirius roars, turning on him so suddenly you flinch. “You think I don’t know? I found the bottle. I found her barely breathing. I thought—” His hands shake as he rakes them through his hair.

“I thought I was too late. I thought she was gone. And I would’ve deserved it. Because I—I wasn’t there when she needed me.”

Silence swells between them for a breath, just long enough for the weight of it all to settle in the bones of the room.

And then Sirius turns to you, voice breaking as he points — not at your pain, not at your wounds, but at your heart. “She’s my sister,” he says, low but blazing. “She’s not blood. She’s more than that. She’s mine. And I let her down.”

Regulus stares at him, stunned.

And then his voice comes quiet. Shaken. Hurt in the most childlike way.

“And I’m your brother too.”

The words land like a blow, not loud, not sharp — just unbearably true.

A single tear carves a path down Regulus’s cheek. He doesn’t wipe it away. Doesn’t move at all. Just stands there, blinking, like Sirius has punched the breath from his lungs.

His chest rises unevenly, and he stares at the floor like it might hold some answer to everything they've both broken.

The silence has weight — not the soft kind, but the kind that drips like melted wax onto already raw skin. No one speaks. You can feel it tremble in the air between them, like a wire pulled too tight.

Regulus moves.

He yanks his tie loose with shaking hands — not neatly, but frantically, like it’s choking him. The fabric hits the floor with a soft, pitiful flutter, and he’s already reaching up to press trembling fingers into his eyes, but it’s too late. The tears come anyway, and this time, he doesn’t stop them.

“I’m your brother too, Sirius!” he finally bursts out, voice raw, like it’s been clawing its way up his throat for years.

“I was your brother before any of this — before you ran off and left us! Left me!”

His chest is heaving now, sobs breaking free without rhythm, and you’ve never seen him like this. Never seen his composure shatter so utterly.

“I was twelve!” he chokes, stepping back from Sirius like being near him burns. “I was twelve and you were everything. You were brave and stupid and loud and you laughed in the face of everything I was too scared to even whisper about. I wanted to be like you. I worshipped you.”

He laughs then — hollow, broken — and runs a hand through his hair, tugging too hard. “And then you left. You left. Didn’t even look back. Do you know what it did to her? To me?”

Sirius tries to speak, but Regulus cuts him off, eyes wild now, shining with the kind of grief that never found a place to settle.

“She stopped coming to me after you left,” Regulus says, softer now but still shaking.

“At first, I thought she was angry. But then I realized — she thought I’d leave too. She looked at me like she was waiting for it. Like I’d vanish just like you.”

Your breath catches, and Sirius goes still.

“And it killed me,” Regulus whispers. “Because I would’ve never left her. I never planned to. But she didn’t believe me — not really — not after you. And I hated you for that. I hated you because the moment you left, I started losing her too.”

His voice wavers again, breaks apart into something smaller.

“You weren’t just her big brother, Sirius. You were mine too.”

His hands are shaking at his sides, open like he doesn’t know what to hold onto. You think if he grips one more thing too tight, he’ll bleed. Maybe he already is — not from the cuts on his palms, but the ones he's carried since that day Sirius walked out the door and didn’t look back.

There’s a long, aching pause. Neither of them knows what to do with the grief in the room, so large it might swallow all three of you.

Your sobs are choking out of you in stuttering, fractured waves. “I—I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t trying to… I just didn’t know how to—how to stay,” you gasp, every word struggling past the agony clawing up your throat.

“I thought I was doing you a favour—both of you—I thought you’d be better off without—”

“Don’t,” Sirius breathes, pulling you tighter against his chest, his voice trembling. “Don’t say that. Don’t you ever say that again.”

“I didn’t know how to ask for help,” you cry, fingers curling into Sirius’s robes, your whole body shaking from the force of grief finally spoken aloud. “I thought if I stayed quiet… if I just stayed small… maybe I wouldn’t ruin anything else.”

“You were never ruining anything,” Sirius whispers fiercely, like it physically hurts him to hear your words. “You’re not a burden, you’re not a mistake, you never were—”

“I’m sorry,” you sob again, looking past his shoulder at Regulus. “Reg… I’m sorry I stopped coming to you. I didn’t know how to face you after Sirius left—”

And that name, that ache, it cracks something in Regulus.

“You stopped coming to me because of him,” Regulus says quietly, like a wound being reopened. “Because you thought I’d leave you too.”

You nod, shame making your spine curl. “Everyone always leaves. I didn’t want to find out if you would.”

Regulus’s mouth trembles. “And you thought dying would hurt less than asking me to stay?”

You can’t answer, not really. So instead, you reach for him again. And this time, when his fingers catch yours, it’s with no hesitation.

He sinks to his knees beside Sirius, and for a second, the three of you are just breathing. No yelling. No silence. Just breathing.

“I hated you for it, Sirius,” Regulus says, the words escaping like they've been burning holes in his throat for years. His tie dangles from his fingers, forgotten, his shirt rumpled from the fall, his eyes rimmed red and shining with unshed fury.

“I hated you so much I could barely breathe some days. You were my brother. You were mine before anything—before Gryffindor, before your damn rebellion, before you decided we weren’t enough.”

He’s trembling now, voice cracking around the edges, the sheen in his eyes spilling over in quiet, furious tears.

“You were my brother, and you left. You left me in that house—left me with Mother and her silence and Father and his rules, and her. You left me to rot in a mausoleum while you carved out your freedom and never once looked back.”

Sirius says nothing. Not yet. His jaw tightens, but he’s still holding you, knuckles bone-white, like if he lets go now, you’ll disappear for real.

Regulus steps closer, shoulders heaving. “She stopped coming to me after you left. Did you know that? She used to come to my room at night and braid my hair with shaking hands. She used to hum under her breath when the walls got too loud. She used to talk about you like you hung the stars. And then one day she just stopped.”

Your breath stutters. You remember those nights. You remember stopping, too.

“I’d wait for her,” Regulus continues, voice barely holding. “I’d wait with the door cracked open just enough. I’d leave out her favourite books. I even carved her a charm to put on her braid—she never came for it. I thought maybe she was angry at me, too. But no, it was worse. She was afraid I’d vanish the same way you did. So she pulled away before I had the chance to prove her right.”

Sirius’s voice finally scrapes out. “I thought she hated me. I thought she stopped writing because she picked your side—because she believed everything they said about me.”

“She stopped writing,” Regulus hisses, “because every time she opened her mouth, someone hurt her for it. Because silence was safer. Because she learned that words were dangerous the night you left and didn’t say goodbye.”

You flinch.

“I kept hating you,” Regulus breathes.

“Because hating you was the only way I knew how to stay angry enough to survive. But you were the first thing I ever loved. And when you disappeared, something broke in me so violently I don’t think it ever healed. You were supposed to be the one thing I could count on.”

He swallows hard. Drops his tie to the floor like it weighs too much to carry.

“You broke her. And when she stopped needing me, it broke me, too.”

The words hang there like smoke. Sirius stares at the ground, breathing hard through his nose, mouth pinched like he’s keeping something back. Your body aches from sobbing, but something still lingers on your tongue.

The silence that follows is not empty—it is thick with the ache of unspoken years, of letters unsent and hands unheld, of nights curled around longing with no one to listen.

It’s the kind of silence that trembles, like the earth before the rain. You can barely hear the ticking of the infirmary clock beneath the weight of it.

Regulus stands frozen, tear-streaked and shivering in the dim light, and Sirius is still kneeling at your side, his arm locked protectively around you as if anchoring you to this moment. His chest rises and falls with breaths he doesn’t know how to take.

And then, without warning, Sirius rises.

Not with fury or resistance—but with something quieter, something breaking.

He crosses the small space between them in three slow steps and stops just short of touching. Regulus doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t breathe. His eyes are glassy and far away, like he’s still half-waiting for Sirius to turn around again and leave.

But Sirius doesn’t leave.

He steps in and wraps his arms around his little brother, the motion a little clumsy from all the years they went without it. His chin presses to the curve of Regulus’s shoulder. His fingers tremble where they cling to the back of his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Sirius whispers. “I’m so—Reg, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t know how much I left behind.”

At first Regulus stands stiff, every muscle locked tight like he might shatter from the touch. And then—

He sinks into it.

It’s not graceful. It’s not easy. It’s like grief wrestles with his spine before it lets him bend. But he does.

He leans into his brother’s chest and fists both hands into Sirius’s robes and lets out a sob that sounds like it’s been trapped in his ribs since he was twelve years old.

You watch them with eyes swollen and raw, your own heart a wounded bird beating against its cage. And before you know what you’re doing, you’re moving too—rising to your knees, crawling toward them like the gravity between the three of you has finally won.

Your arms wind around both their waists. One arm around Sirius, one around Regulus. A knot in the center. A lifeline in the dark.

None of you speak.

There are no names, no rebukes, no conditions.

Regulus's breath hitches against your shoulder, his fingers curling gently into your braid, like he's afraid it might vanish if he lets go. Sirius presses his forehead to yours, eyes clenched shut like he's praying through skin.

And you—weary, weeping, but breathing—you press your face into the space between them and let yourself be held.

No one wins this grief. No one walks away clean.

Because the Black name had always been a curse stitched into your skin—an inheritance of fire and frost. It did not cradle its children; it claimed them. Moulded them into altars of silence and expectation. And each of you—Sirius, Regulus, and you—had carried that name like a wound in a different place.

For Sirius, it had burned in his throat. It turned into rebellion, into shouting matches that ended in slammed doors and broken photo frames, in the kind of departure that tasted like ash and gasoline. He had to run because if he didn’t, it would consume him.

And so he ran, not knowing that the fire followed. That the emptiness he left behind in that cold manor turned into something sharp and echoing in the hearts of those who stayed.

For Regulus, it had lived in his bones. It didn’t scream. It whispered. Dutiful son. Perfect heir. He learned early how to fold pain into silence, how to smile with his teeth clenched. He bore it all—every twisted tradition, every expectation, every tightening collar—as if it were his penance.

Because someone had to stay. Because someone had to be the mirror their mother could still admire. But in the quiet, in the dark, it splintered him. You saw it. You saw how it hollowed him out, day after day. But he never asked for help. Because what right did the golden son have to ache?

And you. You were the secret between them. The one who did not shout, and did not stay, but simply endured. You curled your pain into the softest parts of yourself and made it quiet. Made it poetic.

The ache lived in your music, in your gaze, in the way you held them both from a distance even when they stood beside you. You became a ghost before you even had the chance to disappear.

The Black name haunted all three of you—but in different languages. In different ghosts. And maybe that was the cruelest part: the way it kept you from seeing each other’s pain. Because you were so busy hiding yours.

Because if you looked too closely, if you let them look too closely, they would see it. The ruin. The breaking. The unbearable weight of being born into a war you never asked for, under a name you didn’t choose, with a future you were too kind to believe in.

But now, here you are. All three of you.

No longer hiding. No longer running.

You’re a knot of limbs and sobs, of shivering hands and raw apologies.

Regulus clutches Sirius like he used to when they were children, when the thunder was loud and the manor darker than death. Sirius strokes the back of Regulus’s head like he’s trying to remember how to be someone’s brother again.

And you—you are cradled between them, your hand buried in Sirius’s collar, the other tangled in Regulus’s robes, anchoring both of them as much as they are anchoring you.

No one speaks for a long time.

Because words, for once, are not big enough.

Because grief has hollowed each of you into temples, and maybe—just maybe—this is where the gods of your childhood finally fall.

You pulled back slowly, like peeling yourself out of a dream that you weren’t ready to leave, your arms slipping away from their warmth, your body still trembling with the echoes of everything that had been said—everything that hadn’t.

The air between you had changed. It was quieter, softer, like the hush that falls after a storm, when the sky is still bruised and wet but the thunder has finally tired itself out.

You sat back on the narrow infirmary bed, your breath uneven, lashes damp, and stared down at your fingers twisting in your lap. The silence returned—not sharp this time, not cold, just cautious. And then, you said it. Quietly. Like it was just another thing to survive.

“Mother wrote me.”

They both froze. Regulus’s jaw tensed, Sirius’s shoulders stiffened behind you. You didn’t look up.

“She wants us to meet for Christmas.”

A long pause. Then, a tired exhale. Regulus ran a hand over his face like he could wipe the family out of him. Sirius just sighed—one of those long, too-heavy exhales that sounded like defeat wrapped in dry laughter.

“Course she does,” he muttered. “’Tis the season.”

And then, Sirius said, “C’mere.”

You blinked, confused, still folded in on yourself.

“What?”

“C’mere,” he said again, voice softer now, coaxing.

You turned, hesitant. Sirius was already shifting back on the bed, scooting until his back hit the wall and his knees spread apart just enough to make space for you between them.

It was a tight squeeze—three nearly grown bodies on a cot meant for a single patient—but somehow, you all managed.

“Closer,” Sirius said.

You let out a faint, bewildered breath but inched toward him anyway, letting him guide you. You ended up with your back resting against his chest, his arms gently encircling your waist, the steady thrum of his heartbeat against your shoulder blades.

It was strange—comforting, anchoring—like being wrapped in the kind of warmth you had long given up believing you’d ever feel again. His chin settled lightly atop your head.

Regulus sat in front of you on the edge of the bed, your knees brushing his. He reached out without hesitation, took both your hands in his.

His fingers were cold at first—always a bit colder than yours—but the longer he held them, the more the warmth seeped through. His thumbs traced slow circles into your palms, grounding you like a spell.

He looked at you. Really looked.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said. His voice didn’t tremble this time. It cracked, low and quiet and sincere.

“You’re my twin. I shared a womb with you. I share a name with you. Yeah?”

You blinked, and the tears started again, slowly.

“I’d share this pain too. All of it. If I could carry it, I would. If I could cut it out of you, stitch it into myself, I wouldn’t even hesitate.”

You didn’t know how to speak. It was like something was pressing into your ribs from the inside.

“And even if I can’t take it away—the heaviness in your bones, the ache that never seems to leave—I’ll be here. I promise. So please…” his voice faltered now, eyes wide and raw and flickering with something close to desperation,

“Don’t leave me. Not you.”

And behind you, Sirius was moving. Slowly, carefully. His hands, rough from years of fighting, from running, from surviving, were suddenly so gentle it nearly broke you.

You felt them reach for your braid—loosened and half-undone from the night before, frayed at the edges but still clinging together in the way you had always worn it. The way you had been taught to wear it. One braid. One girl. One legacy.

Sirius touched it like it was something sacred. Not a symbol of tradition, but of the little girl he left behind.

He began to undo it—strand by strand, knot by knot. His fingers trembled sometimes, and you weren’t sure if it was from guilt or grief or some ancient combination of the two.

The braid began to fall apart, softly, like snow thawing under sun. And with every loosened piece, you felt something in you unclench. Something that had been tight for years.

You cried.

But not with sobs. Not this time.

You cried in silence, the kind that shudders through your body like a song without lyrics. And you didn’t even know if it was because of Regulus’s words or Sirius’s hands.

Or maybe it was both. Maybe it was that they were both still here. Still trying. Still holding what pieces of you hadn’t crumbled away.

Your braid came undone completely, hair falling over your shoulders like the end of a chapter you’d been too afraid to close.

Sirius pressed his forehead to the back of your head, and whispered, “There you are.”

Regulus was still holding your hands, his eyes on your face like he was reading scripture.

The silence between them grew tender, no longer sharp or fragile, but thick with the kind of quiet that comes after all the shouting is done — when the hurt still lingers but the love is louder.

Sirius’s hand brushed a loose strand of hair from your cheek, tucking it back gently, reverently, like he was afraid to let it drift too far from him.

Then, his voice—low, half a murmur, half a tease—broke the hush.

“As much as I think you’re the prettiest girl to ever walk the bloody halls of this castle,” he said, fingers still combing lightly through the freed strands, “you’re much prettier with your hair out.”

You blinked up at him, tears still dewing the corners of your lashes, breath catching softly.

“I mean it,” Sirius continued, resting his chin atop your head again. “Don’t like seeing your hair all braided up. Not after what it came to mean. I’ll always undo it for you if you want. Every time. You can let it be free. You can let yourself be free.”

His voice was steady, but there was something quietly broken in it—like he knew how deeply the braid had rooted itself in you, like a chain dressed in silk.

You leaned into him just slightly, comforted by the closeness, and from across you, Regulus tilted his head, watching the two of you with something unreadable in his eyes.

Then he said, “Didn’t know you were capable of being soft, Sirius.”

There was a beat of stillness—then Sirius scoffed, a quiet huff of laughter breaking through the grief. “Hey, she’s my little sister. Of course I’ll be soft with her. I’m not a complete arse.”

Regulus raised an eyebrow. “Could’ve fooled me.”

You laughed. Not a big one, not a loud one. But it slipped out of you all the same—shy, fragile, like something trying to live again.

Sirius smiled against your hair. “You’re not exactly the poster boy for softness either, Reggie.”

Regulus rolled his eyes, but there was no venom in it. He looked at you again, watching as your hair fell like a shadowy veil around your shoulders, framing your face the way moonlight sometimes wraps around ruins.

Regulus was just opening his mouth to make what you knew would be a smug, likely sarcastic jab—something about Sirius finally learning tenderness in his old age—when the door to the infirmary creaked open with the subtle force of a hurricane.

Madam Pomfrey entered, arms crossed and expression half stern, half deeply fond. “As much as I find all three of you Blacks absolutely adorable,” she said, voice sharp but eyes twinkling,

“I’ve got a bleeding student here who needs tending to, and not a circus on my floor.”

Sirius snorted and slowly slid off the bed, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “Yes, Madam.”

Regulus followed, brushing the wrinkles from his robes as he stood, offering you a glance to make sure you were still steady. You nodded at him—quietly, gratefully—and the two of them stepped aside, giving Madam Pomfrey space to begin bustling about her potions and gauze.

You watched them for a moment, Sirius leaning against a cabinet with the ease of someone who had made chaos his home, and Regulus, stiff at first but slowly softening, arms loosely crossed, shadows beneath his eyes fading just a little as he watched his brother from across the room.

Then—something bloomed in your chest.

Without a word, you reached out, grabbed Regulus’s hand, and pulled him toward the door.

“What—?” he started, confused but not resisting, his fingers lacing with yours on instinct. “Where are we—?”

“Shh,” you said through a smile, tugging him through the corridor. “Just come with me.”

He followed. He always did.

You found an empty classroom bathed in slanting golden light, one of those quiet, forgotten rooms that still smelled like ink and chalk and childhood.

You rummaged for parchment—crumpled, half-used—and sat down cross-legged on the floor, folding and creasing with all the reverence of a sacred rite.

Regulus crouched beside you, watching you fold the paper with wide eyes, something flickering in them—recognition, maybe. Hope.

“Is that…?” he began.

You didn’t answer—just smiled, and when you were done, you stood, clutching the fragile little crown in both hands like it was made of gold. Then you stepped out of the room and started back toward the infirmary.

Regulus didn’t say a word, but he followed close behind. And just before you entered the room, you heard him whisper under his breath, voice barely audible, like something stitched from memory:

“Long may he sulk, long may he scream, but today he’s our king, crowned with dream.”

You almost burst out laughing.

Sirius looked up from where he’d been talking softly to Madam Pomfrey, clearly startled by your sudden return—and even more so by the smile on your face.

“Oi—what’s going on?”

You grinned as you approached, heart blooming with something fragile and bright. And with a kind of ceremonial grace that belonged in a castle rather than a school infirmary, you lifted the crinkled paper crown and gently placed it on his head.

He blinked at you.

And then you said, “Happy birthday, Siri.”

For a moment, the world didn’t breathe.

Sirius looked between you and Regulus, the memory dawning slow but sure, the kind that blooms in the bones before the mind catches up.

You’d done this every year as children—the crown, the phrase, the quiet sweetness buried in a house that knew so little of it. It was tradition, rebellion, and love all wrapped in paper creases.

He laughed. Softly, shakily. “You remembered?”

“Of course we did,” Regulus muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “You never shut up about your birthday.”

Sirius turned toward him, eyes damp and mouth tugging into a crooked smile. “You used to say it was a national holiday.”

“It was a national tragedy,” Regulus corrected dryly.

But there was no edge to his voice.

You watched the two of them smile—awkwardly, almost shyly—and you couldn’t help the way your own heart ached with it. Like something was being stitched back together with trembling hands. Not perfect. But mending.

And in the soft golden light of the infirmary, Sirius Black wore his paper crown like a boy who had lost too much but finally found his way home.

Regulus cleared his throat, the faintest quiver still lingering in his voice as he straightened, a tentative smile breaking through the storm of emotions clouding his face. 

“You’ve still got another year to annoy me—don’t waste it.” he said, voice steady but warm, the words carrying more weight than a simple greeting—an unspoken promise folded into each syllable. 

 “Happy birthday, Siri,”

-

The days had slipped by like snowflakes melting on warm skin, soft and silent, until Christmas had quietly wrapped the world in its chilly embrace.

Over a month had passed since that fragile moment in the infirmary, since crowns and whispered apologies had begun to stitch together the frayed edges of what remained of them.

Now, you sat on the edge of your bed, the weight of leather and cloth gathered around you as you packed your bags, each fold and tuck a quiet act of farewell — not just to this house, but to the lingering ghosts that had lived here with you.

Regulus’s calm presence was steady nearby, Sirius’s laughter still echoing faintly in the halls, both shadows woven into your thoughts as you prepared to leave, to find a different kind of family with the Potters.

The room was quiet in that in-between way — not sad, not soft, just filled with waiting. You stood by the mirror, fingers combing uncertainly through your hair, still not quite used to the way it fell freely now, unbound and loose around your shoulders like a secret you hadn’t told anyone yet.

Then came the knock, sharp and unapologetic, followed by the door creaking open before you could answer.

“There she is,” came the familiar voice, warm and arrogant and so full of light it almost hurt to look directly at it. “My absolutely favorite Black.”

You didn’t turn, just rolled your eyes at your reflection — though you didn’t hide the faint tug of your lips.

James Potter leaned against the doorframe, a walking sunbeam in boots far too muddy for the castle floors, his hair as unkempt as his sense of timing.

“You know, I’ve been emotionally devastated all week. Not one rude comment. Not even a single ‘Potter, get out.’ It’s been tragic, truly.”

You hummed softly. Your fingers trailed through your hair again, then dropped to the edge of the mirror. You looked... softer now. Or maybe just quieter.

James tilted his head, and for the first time in a while, that ever-glowing grin faltered. “Hey... you alright?” he asked, pushing off the door.

“You’ve gone suspiciously quiet on me, and I’m not used to being ignored this elegantly.”

You finally turned to him, something shy in the movement, something almost scared. Your eyes met his, steady but hesitant, like you were holding a secret between your teeth.

“Hey, James?” you said, voice smaller than usual, not sharp-edged or full of fire, just a bare whisper of a question.

He blinked, shoulders straightening instantly. “Yeah?”

You shifted, hands wringing in front of you, then took a breath like you were diving underwater. “Do you still... want to go on that date?”

It took him a second. A full second of stunned silence. Then:

“Wait. Wait—are you—are you saying yes?”

You nodded once, unsure, your cheeks burning.

James's entire face lit up like a starburst, bright enough to outshine the gloom in the corners of the room. “You’re saying yes?” he repeated, his voice climbing in disbelief, in utter delight.

“Are you messing with me? Because if this is some elaborate Black twin prank, I swear I’m not above falling for it, but I’ll go down dramatically.”

“I’m not messing with you,” you said, softer.

He stared at you, eyes wide, heart probably thudding too loud in his chest. “You’re actually agreeing to a date with me.”

You gave him a tiny, tired smile, the kind that meant I’m trying, I’m healing, I’m still here.

And James Potter — hopelessly besotted James Potter — just raised both hands in triumph, beaming like a boy who just got the girl of his dreams. “Merlin, it’s a Christmas miracle.”

You laugh — really laugh — and it startles you. The sound rises out of your chest too fast and too free, like it’s been hiding somewhere behind your ribs all this time, waiting for permission.

It echoes in the room like light catching on water, and for a moment, you forget you were ever someone who cried quietly in an infirmary bed with your braid too tight and your voice locked behind your teeth.

James is just standing there, watching you like you’re something he almost lost and just remembered in time.

That grin he always wears — cocky and bright — softens. His eyes crease, not with mischief but with awe. He reaches forward without speaking, without rushing, and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear.

His fingers are warm, callused from Quidditch and writing too fast. His touch is so gentle it makes your throat ache.

Then, without asking for more, he leans in and kisses your cheek.

It’s soft. Not flirty, not teasing, just… soft. Real. Like he’s placing something in your hands that he wants you to keep.

“I like seeing you like this,” he says, and his voice is quiet, like he’s afraid to shatter the fragile thing blooming between you. “Not just laughing. Letting yourself laugh.”

You don’t answer. Not because you don’t want to, but because something in your chest is blooming too fast, too wide. Instead, you just hand him your bag.

He grins again, like he’s won something, and slings it over his shoulder as if it weighs nothing. “Come on, Black. Holiday awaits. And I plan to win Best Company, Hands Down.”

He holds the door open for you with an exaggerated bow. “After you, m’lady.”

You roll your eyes, but smile. You step into the corridor with him, your shoulder brushing his — and then you see them.

Sirius and Regulus. At the end of the hall. Arguing.

It’s not the argument that stops you. It’s how they look.

Sirius, of course, is chaos incarnate — shirt untucked, sleeves rolled, hair like a stormcloud. Hands moving wildly, voice sharp and amused all at once.

But Regulus.

Regulus looks like something cracked open.

His hair is a mess. Not windswept, not styled, just… undone. Soft curls tumble over his forehead like they’ve finally forgotten who they were supposed to impress. His shoes are scuffed. His collar is open. There’s no tie strangling his throat. His robes are wrinkled, like he didn’t bother smoothing them, like he didn’t think he needed to.

He doesn’t look like the perfect Black heir anymore. He doesn’t look like he’s trying to.

He looks like a boy who finally gave himself permission to breathe.

They’re arguing over something stupid — wrapping paper, probably, or the wrong gift for Euphemia — but it’s the kind of argument you only have with people you’re allowed to love. You watch them, your hand still in James’s, and something in you loosens further.

You hadn’t realized how tightly you were still holding it.

James gives your fingers a squeeze. Doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.

You glance up at him. He’s still looking at you like you’re some new season he’s waited years to feel again.

They’re laughing.

It startles you, how soft it is. How human. It doesn’t echo like a curse. It doesn’t shiver like a cracked bone. It simply exists — this light, fragile thing — between the two boys you once thought you’d never see whole again.

Sirius is half-doubled over, clutching his side like he might fall from how hard he’s laughing. Regulus is shaking his head, cheeks flushed, that rare, real smile tugging his mouth wide open like a secret he forgot he still had. The moment stretches golden and unreal. For once, they look like boys.

Just boys — whole, breathing, and free.

You stand a few paces back, James at your side, his hand warm in yours. His thumb traces soft circles over your skin like he's writing a lullaby without words. You don’t speak. You just watch.

And as you watch, you feel it stir in your chest — not pain, not fear, but grace.

The quiet, trembling kind. The kind you thought had died the day you pressed a chair beneath the doorknob and tied your braid so tight it ached. The kind that says: You made it. Somehow, gods, you made it.

The three of you — Sirius, Regulus, and you — you carry the name Black like a birthright and a burial shroud. Like a blade tucked under the tongue.

You’ve all learned how to wear it in different ways: Sirius ripped it off like shackles, Regulus wore it like a crown turned collar, and you — you simply bore it in silence, braid by braid, day by day, trying not to crack.

Some days, you still feel it in your bones — that ache, deep and dull, flaring like a ghost during the cold. You know it will come back. Soon, probably. In quiet moments when the room goes still and the world presses in. It will whisper that old hymn of despair.

But now, you know something else too: that it will pass. That not all pain means ending.

You’re glad you wore the braid that day. Glad for the heaviness of it. Glad it was that braid, tight and tired, that gave you away, because Sirius noticed.

Because Sirius knew. Because your brother — dramatic, angry, wild Sirius — looked at a single twist of hair and saw the truth. That you were vanishing.

And he came. He ran to you.

You glance at James, who is still watching you with that half-smile, like he knows exactly where your mind has wandered.

His fingers tighten around yours as if to say: I’ve got you. I’ll keep holding on.

In front of you, the two boys who share your blood — your name, your ruin, your love — are laughing. And suddenly, you want to laugh too. You want to live.

You lean gently into James’s shoulder, and the three of them blur before you: your brother who left and returned softer, your brother who stayed and came undone, and the boy who never stopped waiting at your door.

It’s strange how grief makes architects of all of us. How you learned to build your life on ash and memory. How you learned to survive the kind of love that comes with a coffin.

You don’t know what comes next. Only that your breath still fogs the glass. That your feet, somehow, still move.

So you do.

You walk — not away, not forward, but through. Through ash and memory, through the long echo of a house that taught you silence before speech, duty before desire.

A house where your name was an heirloom of ruin. Where hands pulled your hair into braids too tight, too perfect — a crown of obedience woven strand by strand.

But not now.

Now your hair spills loose down your back — untamed, unburdened, soft as defiance.

You carry the name Black not as a chain, but as a hymn — a quiet song for all the broken things that chose to live.

You carry Sirius’s laughter like a lantern in your ribs. Regulus’s sorrow like a psalm in your throat. You carry what’s left of your childhood in the curve of your spine.

You carry yourself.

You carry the body that was taught silence. The body that ached in invisible ways. The body that stayed — even when the wind begged it to leave, even when the mirror didn’t look back.

You carry the illness no one could see, the exhaustion that braided itself into your bones.

You carry the love you couldn’t let in — James’s hands, James’s gaze, James’s waiting — all the gentleness you almost believed you didn't deserve.

And still, you walk.

You do not braid your hair.

You do not say goodbye.

But when the frost climbs the glass again — when the old house calls to you in the voice of your mother, your fear, your past — you will not answer.

You will not kneel.

You will not weep.

You will not look back.

You will gather your ghosts by name — every echo, every ache, every version of yourself that once begged to be small. And you will lay them down, one by one, with the care no one gave you.

And so —

you’ll bury your own.

I don’t usually write these; But this is for anyone still wearing their braids — the ones woven by expectation, by blood, by a family that taught you to stay small, quiet, grateful. If you know what it is to carry a name like a burden, to sit before a mirror with aching hands, trying to undo what the world once made of you — this is for you. For the ones who learned survival through stillness. Through obedience. Through being what was asked. I still wear mine too, Some days more tightly than others. But there is freedom in the unbraiding. In letting your hair fall wild. In choosing your own shape. Your own silence. Your own story. May your hands one day learn to unweave without trembling. May your softness survive. You are not alone. And you are allowed to be free. —with love, dalia

[lunarcowgirl]

don't leave me here without you | one

yeah yeah fuck me, jack abbot x f!doctor!reader

you can read part two here and part three here

dr abbot finds your resume and thinks you are leaving the pitt - absolute disgusting and pathetic behaviour ensues, its all very endearing.

~~~

from the office of the author: DOn't even LOOK at me, I'm embarrassed. the pitt consumes my every waking thought so I'm going to make that everyone else's problem :)

this is my very first fic!!! it is a work of fiction!!!!! i do not know anything about being a doctor!!!!!! inaccuracies are none of my damn business!!!!!!!!!!

i can’t help but love the emotional constipation of jack and robby in this show, and i was feeling inspired by jack, so this is my attempt at unpacking a bit of it. reader is indeed reader, but i have formed a bit of a character in my head, so pls forgive me she does get a last name late in the piece. hope you enjoy!!!!! maybe more soon!!!!! <3

warnings: cussing, jack being pathetic, snooping based behaviours, mentions of loss of bodily function/traumatic injuries, mentions of war, mentions of covid, a spider may or not be guilty of a crime, miscommunication i fear, bad grammar from yours truely, bit o' angst

word count: 2.1k

Dr. Jack Abbot thought he was doing a very fine job not staring at you all shift long, thank you very much. It had gotten harder since you’d changed the way you’d done your hair, letting the blonde grow out. When the lights hit the top of your two fastidiously tied french braids it set the crown of your head on fire, like the sun itself sat behind you in some kind of imitation of a halo. angel indeed. You’d pierced your left ear again, yet another little golden hoop in the soft shell of cartilage at the very top. Every now and then, he would see you reach for it, as if to scratch an itch, but catch yourself before you could touch the still healing wound. The smallest, prettiest crease would form between your eyebrows, and your hand would curl into a tight fist of frustration. You were going to be the absolute death of him.

The last trauma had been difficult; damage to the neck not only making finding an airway close to impossible, but suggested a grim future for the patients ability to move as he once did. Walking was now in question. Fucking e-scooters, they were starting to offer up more victims than motorbikes. It had been an excruciating emotional dance to explain to the teenager’s recently widowed mother, that her 15 year old’s life would now be dramatically different, that she was going to have to take on a new burden. The quiet, contained grief in her eyes, not breaking contact with his, was just about all he could take for this shift.

It was easy then, to justify a little bit of gratuitous selfishness in front of the board; the easiest place to catch a glimpse of you. This shift you’d remained calm and switched on, as you always were, but something was clearly scratching at your mind. Standing dutifully behind Jack as he spoke to the mother, gently answering her questions, offering sincere condolences, introducing her to Kiara had all been done with perfect form. but when it was done, you had all but fled back to the nurses’ station, logging onto one of the computers at break neck speed.

This is where you now sat, chin resting on your linked fingers, eyes in a predatory narrow. Without meaning to, without really realising it was happening, Jack let himself drift slowly around the desk. On his journey closer to you he let his hands fall into nonchalant, non-suspicious motion. Adjusting the cord of the landline, running his finger over some forms to see if they needed his signature, flicking on a tablet to consider the chart on it. He didn’t really have the time to think too hard about it, but some small voice in the back of his head told him he looked like a fucking idiot. Jesus Christ, he’d committed now.

To get a decent angle of your screen he would have to step back a little from the desk, making it pretty damn obvious he was snooping. If it was only a glance, just a few seconds, he should be in the clear. Mindful not to get to close (you seemed to have eyes in the back of your head when it came to him, probably since he was your attending), he took one last scan of the room to check no one was clocking every last shuffle he was taking.

Pursing his lips with arms crossed tightly across his chest, he stepped back swiftly, eyes flicking down your screen. The majority of it was taken up by a word document, your name is bold letters across the top. Underneath was a jumble of dot points, places and years and accolades and societies—a resume?

A resume…your resume. You were leaving?

His heart went somersaulting into his stomach, bouncing off his ribs on the way down.

When had you decided this? Where were you going? When were you going to tell him?

Jack felt anger and grief and confusion and jealousy all at once in his veins like some kind of poisonous cocktail. What was he, some kind of teenager? What had he ever done to deserve an explanation from you? You, who was so wonderful and so clever and so funny and so so beautiful. You who had only ever weathered his grumpiness and sour expressions and poorly timed criticism with grace and patience. You who’d never figured out how to be a pessimist, who never let the bad days win. The thought of your absence was more painful than he could have ever expected — it scared him goddamn shitless.

“Dr Abbot?”

Dr Ellis had materialised out of nothing on the other side of the desk, one eyebrow cocked. Jack nearly tripped over his own feet to get away from you and the scalding sensation of shame burning across his face, “Ya?”

“Uh, can I get your eyes on a case in South 15? We’ve got a 10 year old, lethargic, sweaty, confused. Her parents are insistent she hasn’t ingested anything.”

Your head snapped up, finally divorced from whatever hypnotic pull the resume had on you.

“Does she have control over her extremities, fingers?”

Ellis frowned, “She was moving them a lot, almost obsessively. I figured if might just be a reaction to the confusion and being in a strange place.”

You stood in one fluid motion, hands quick to grab a pair of gloves, feet quick to dance around the station to get to Ellis’ side.

“Mind if I join? I think we need to look for a spider bite. Funnel-weavers are usually—”

And with that the pair of you were gone, walking shoulder to shoulder into the fray like soldiers in arms, conversing in low, practised tones. Ready to tackle whatever the inside of that room held; the scariness of having to diagnose quickly, the stress of terrified parents breathing down your neck. It didn’t matter how bitter-of-heart Jack had become after all the years of carnage, there was still a part of him that sang at the sight of a well-oiled team. It was selfish, he considered, to believe your leaving would effect just him. Every last doctor, nurse, support worker, radiologist, technician, transport aide, frequent flyer and desk clerk would mourn your loss. Perhaps the endearing Mel King most of all. She had taken to your cheerful demeanour and calm teaching style like someone drowning does to oxygen. In the time Langdon had been a voluntary inpatient, you had been a much needed rock in the stormy wake of that revelation. Another loss could send her off kilter again, and the ER needed her…badly.

So where exactly were you planning to run off to? Surely you wouldn’t go overseas again, not after what had brought you home the last time...

Morality was telling him to just walk away, to busy himself in some problem that likely was currently yearning for his help.

They hadn’t reached out had they? Could they convince you to go back?

He wished Bridget would just call for him, that Shen would bustle in with all his careful questions. But wishing would not make it so. And he had fought so long, all his life. The older he became, the easier it was to just surrender. To drift. The computer was about to fall asleep, locking it to the world. One swift movement of the mouse sealed his fate. He was a shameless snoop, a betrayer of privacy - your privacy.

It couldn’t be denied, the resume was impressive. Very, very impressive. How many graduating honours could one 30 something year old have? And the places you’d been, you’d practised - how many names could you possibly stack next to each other? Some of them he hadn’t even seen with his eyes, even after all the time in the camouflage pants that chaffed like you wouldn’t believe. You’d seen the very worst Covid had served up in Mexico City and Rio, you had been at the very front in Ukraine, in Afghanistan, traipsed all the way across North Africa and South America and just about every island in Indonesia. Pittsburgh, even with its fair share of tragedy, felt so foreign on the page next to all the adventure and danger. It would be easy to think that you had simply become bored, and wished once again to go somewhere that you could stem the flow of blood. Jack thought the blue beret would match the new blonde hair quite nicely.

“Dr Abbot?”

He froze. That voice. How long had he been staring at the carefully typed words, wishing they would reveal an answer?

There was no way, no way at all that he could gracefully and silently retreat from this one. He was elbow deep in the cookie jar, no better than a child, spited at not being told the grown up’s secret. He looked behind himself with humiliating slowness, feeling infinitely small and ashamed. The small crease between your brows had deepened into a valley he could not dig himself out of.

“Dr James.” He said, his voice sounding all together too loud and too far away, “If you are walking away from a computer in any circumstance other than a complete emergency, you must log off, there is confidential information of patients that must be protected from wandering eyes.”

“Wandering eyes?” You let a laugh escape, entirely hollow.

And then, with more steel then he had ever heard, “Can I speak with you privately for a minute?”

“Fine.” He said, straightening with an angry click from his back. Too old for all this high school shit. You made a point to lean past him, and log off with a few aggressively passive aggressive snaps of the keys.

He trailed behind your long, mechanical strides, deeply unsettled by the stiff set of your shoulders. Maybe you’d developed the ability to be negative in the time to took to stomp from the nurses’ station to the family room door, which you promptly shoulder charged open. Once it was safely closed behind both doctors, you whirled on him.

“What the hell were you doing looking at that?”

“Like I said, you need to log off—”

“Bullshit, Jack!” You looked wild, eyes impossibly wide, “There was no reason for your face to be 2 inches from the screen to log me out. Or have your eyes completely given out since the start of shift?”

If there was no way to dodge the bullet, he may as well try swallowing it, “What exactly do you plan on doing with that document? You gonna flee the country again? Run from all us sorry fucks here in the Pitt?”

You recoiled, like the venom in his words had actually struck your skin. Jack watched them sink in, the sizzle of their marks.

You shook your head once, looking down at your sneakers, the 10-year-too-old linoleum floors.

“I can’t believe you. I cannot believe you.” The words were pulled straight from your chest at the end of meat hooks.

Jack opened his mouth to strike again, but your gaze shot upwards and locked onto his. The attacks died on his tongue.

“All I have done since I set foot in here was try and get close to you Jack Abbot. I have offered you my full attention, my utter respect and confidence and trust, all my effort, all my energy, everything I have.” You took an incredulous step backwards, unsteadied by your own words and the weight of them now sitting between you, “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you, I would ride right on back into all the shit and misery all over again if that is what you asked of me.”

Something that looked frighteningly like a tear slipped down your cheek and off your chin.

“And what do you offer in return? You push and push and push me away.” The words wobbled now, exhausted from the revelation.

“What right do you have,” You gasped, “to now act betrayed about this? To declare you’ve always cared? Like its me that’s hurting you?!”

Killshot.

Jack’s mouth pressed into a hard line, a terrible burning spreading through the back of his eyes, a horrible pressure on his chest. All that time he had been pretending not to look at you, you had been staring straight through him into his very soul. Seeing every ugly inch of his insides. He wanted to run, he wanted to throw up, he wanted to fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness at your feet.

Bridget rapped sharply on the door of the window, her face grave, “Car pileup on the highway, multiple traumas, 4 minutes out.”

By the time he turned back to you, your face had been schooled back into cool neutrality, a deep breath filling your lungs. Before Jack could reach out and touch you, you were gone, like you were never even there.

~~~~~

um, so yeah I guess? more soon! x

| next

[astrolook]

💥 The Parts of the Natal Chart That Only Activate in Crisis💥

Note: These are all my personal observations and patterns I've noticed over the years. Take what resonates with you more and leave the rest. Lemme know in the comments if it hits home! A single placement or aspect isn't enough to conclude and the whole chart has to be analyzed!

8H personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars)

These planets don’t activate or play a significant role when ur life’s going well. They show up when you’re stripped, raw, broken open, or deeply connected.

If it's Sun -> It activates when u r experiencing an ego death, an identity crisis, a near-death experience, or being seen too deeply by someone (aka feeling exposed). Your strength doesn’t show up until after you've been humiliated or broken. You unconsciously test people: “Will they still love me when I’m ugly?” You don’t know who you are until life takes everything you thought you were. Finally, you would become someone with nuclear-level confidence, but only after destruction.

If it's Moon -> Ur emotions naturally live underground. It activates when you experience betrayal, heartbreak, ur parent's death, or su*cidal thoughts. Your calmness is often trauma-induced freeze, not peace. Being too close to someone feels threatening to you. You pull people in just to push them out. You absorb other people’s feelings but bury your own like a corpse. You bond through mutual wounds, not joy. Trauma familiarity > comfort. You don’t cry often, but when you do, it’s a full exorcism. Finally, your intimacy with someone would feel like a rebirth, but after a mental breakdown.

If it's Venus -> It activates after loss of ur innocence, through heartbreak, abuse, betrayal/ cheating and trauma bonding. Often triggered by transformational love or a long period of abstinence. You r terrified of shallow connections, so u knowingly get into toxic dynamics. Sometimes, you test love by destroying it to see if it survives. Once you heal, you become dangerously attractive. People feel you’re real because you’ve died for love and survived.

If it's Mercury/ Mercury Rx -> It activates through revelations, true colors of the people around you, manipulation and secrets exposed. Often explodes when things are unsaid for too long. Silence or when u r putting up with things/people. You speak in metaphors/indirectly as reality feels unsafe. You intellectualize pain so you don’t have to feel it. You're scared of being misunderstood, but even more afraid of being fully known. Your thoughts turn self-destructive when not expressed. Once healed, ur voice becomes powerful but only after you’ve used it to destroy something you put up with for way too long or kept under wraps.

2. Chiron conjunct the IC or Moon

You r parented by absence and pain is ur native language. It activates when u move out, when someone loves you well and u panic, after a breakup, or when you go “home” (physically or emotionally) and regress by 10 years. Actually, you don’t remember being comforted, you just remember being managed. You can be hyper-aware of everyone else’s moods but can’t name your own. Need feels like weakness. But you secretly crave someone who doesn’t need you to be strong. Finally, relationships would stop being distractions and start becoming mirrors. You start learning that healing isn’t fixing, it’s feeling. It's about recognizing that it was never your fault that you were wounded in the first place.

3. 12H planets (Sun, Mercury, Mars)

If it's Mercury/Mercury Rx -> You think in full novels but speak in broken drafts. You can articulate everyone else’s problems except ur own. You lie by omission, not to manipulate others but to stay safe. Silence is easier than risking misunderstanding. You keep secrets from yourself and dissociate mid-convo. When u go thru a mental breakdown, nobody would know. Finally, when activated, you either become a psychic, a poet, a writer, or someone who never speaks again. Your choice.

If it's Mars -> You let people cross boundaries because you can’t find your ‘no’ fast enough. You explode alone. Then say nothing in person. When you finally express anger, you scare yourself. You express rage in slow motion. Finally, when activated, you take up space and will learn to say 'NO'. You won't put up with BS anymore or won't let anyone walk over you.

If it's Sun -> You feel invisible to yourself. Compliments feel fake. Criticism feels like truth. Your sense of self is more fantasy than experience. You learn from others' mistakes. You don't know what you want in life but you KNOW what you don't want. You stand for everyone except yourself. You don’t feel proud of anything unless someone else says it first. You disown yourself. Finally, when activated, you would stop managing ur visibility. You will start saying what you mean. You won't care if you come off messy, loud, or bitchy but it will be real than ever.

4. North Node in the 4th/8th/12th

In the 4th -> Every success would start to feel emptier the more you ignore ur home life/emotions. You over-function in crises and under-function in your own healing. It activates when career feels like a prison, when u want to cry alone in a locked room, when silence is the only thing that feels honest. After healing, you won't give a sh!t about others' opinions about ur life and start living true to yourself and become the "home" you always wanted to have.

In the 8th -> You r not secure, just armored. You keep it “light” in relationships to avoid losing control. The universe will rip things away from you until you stop gripping. You can’t bypass emotional death with logic and self-help books. Healing lives in surrender. The version of you that survives will not be the same. Being witnessed while transforming is the real shadow work.

In the 12th -> Here, stillness makes you panic and silence feels like failure. You r scared of being ordinary. You're addicted to fixing yourself but you've never actually stopped long enough to feel yourself. You’ll try everything but surrender. You believe in healing, but don’t trust the parts of it that can’t be tracked. You’re haunted by the part of you that you’ve never dared to meet. Even if u resist, your transformation will come anyway. You r here to return to "source". You will realize it thru your dreams and visions and it will take u on a path that's beyond ur comprehension.

5. Saturn conjunct Moon

For u, neediness = weakness. So you built a structure around your heart. A moat. A fortress. A goddamn prison. When someone tells you, “It’s okay to feel that way,” and you freeze like they’re speaking a language you forgot. It activates when your coping mechanisms start looking like self-abandonment. You never learned how to feel freely, you learned how to hold it together. You r emotionally mature for sure but you r emotionally underfed too. Once activated, you stop holding the world together and will start holding yourself. You will stop chasing strength and start chasing softness. You give your inner child the safety they never had and that changes everything.

6. A 6H stellium

Seriously, the toughest of all. You didn't choose the grind. The grind chose you. You r the system. The function. The routine. Until one day…you break. It activates when u realize that you planned your entire life around what others need from you or how you can provide them. It activates when a health crisis forces you to stop “pushing through.” When you realize you’re more familiar with structure than softness. People would call you reliable, not soft. Be honest! Don't you have coping routines, backup routines, and burnout recovery routines? You attract problems and solve them to feel useful. Finally, when activated, you will realize that that structure isn’t supposed to punish you, it’s supposed to protect you. You will rewrite your routines around what nourishes you and makes you truly happy. You will no longer feel the need to fix others.

I left some placements as I can't write everything in a single post. Will do a part 2 if u guys want one.

💌For readings, check out my pinned post for pricing! ✨💌🪐

[totallyprentiss]

There’s something quietly, heartbreakingly tragic about Emily Prentiss—about the way she’s been yearning to be loved for her entire life, and doing it so quietly, so subtly, that some people might not even notice.

It started young, with the coldness of Elizabeth Prentiss, all polished diplomacy and razor-sharp expectations, offering nothing soft for Emily to fall back on. No warmth. No trust. Just pressure and passports and places that never quite felt like home. She was always the new girl. Always trying to prove herself. Always chasing something that looked like belonging.

And then she was fifteen and pregnant - not because she was reckless, but because she was desperate. Desperate to be wanted. To be liked. To feel anything real in a world that felt so far away from her. She couldn’t even tell her mother. Not about the boy, not about the pain, not about the choice she had to make. That’s where the loss began. Quiet, unspoken, already buried under years of pretending everything was fine.

And then it just.. keeps going, doesn’t it? This pattern of aching. Of reaching. Of being the one who loves harder. Wanting to adopt Carrie not just out of duty, but because she needed to prove to herself that she could love. That she had love to give. That she was more than her job and her trauma and her silence. She wanted to believe she was capable of being someone’s person. But how do you believe that when no one ever chooses you?

Sure, she’s liked. Respected. Admired, even. But she’s never been the one anyone picks when the room is full. She’s the one people lean on, but never the one they stay for. And she carries it all with so much quiet grace you almost forget how much it must hurt. The guilt over Declan, even when she did everything right. The way she watches families from a distance, eyes soft and sad like she’s looking at a life that was never meant for her. The way she looks at JJ sometimes, wishing she had what she has. Maybe it’s just Paget’s quiet acting but it’s there.

Don’t even get me started on that damn moment in Season 15 - Emily staring at the baby stroller by that coffee cart like she’s mourning something she never even got the chance again to have. That one second of vulnerability, of wondering what if—and we move on like nothing happend.

I get it. I really do. The writers want her to be this… symbol of strength, the woman who married her job, who doesn’t need a partner or a family to be whole. And I guess that’s fine! some people really do find joy in that life. But if that’s the road you want to take her down, then at least make it look like she’s okay. Like she’s content. Like she’s not carrying all this silent grief behind her eyes. Because right now? She just looks tired. Dude they even took her freaking cat!

She deserved so much more. She still does.

[loveemagicpeace]

🌊Healing / powerful placements🌊

Pluto in 12th house-This is a very strong placement. You have a lot of ability to help and your transformations are very powerful. You have a lot of contact with your subconscious and can see and feel things that they do not feel. You can see deep into others and see what is hidden behind them and their energy. You know other people's secrets very well and can predict what they are. A person may not even need to tell you what they are feeling or what they have been through and you can see right through them. In life, you can witness many events that are transformative and life-changing. You can help people change their lives. Throughout your life, you may have experienced many emotional transformations and events that changed everything for you, but you always rise like a phoenix from the ashes. You can see the souls and feel the souls of other people. You may have a great ability to help discover how their soul feels and what they really need. You can endure a lot of hard things in life, you are a very strong person and many people don't see that. You are very good at hiding your power and not letting anyone take your power away from you. Many people will want to take your strength away from you. Pluto here acts like a shadow alchemist—working behind the scenes of your consciousness. It digs up what has been buried, repressed, or denied, and forces eventual confrontation, release, and rebirth. You may not appear powerful on the surface, but you hold deep inner strength that emerges in times of crisis. Your presence can be quietly intense, magnetic, and healing without you even trying. Much of your power is spiritual or energetic—you affect others on an unconscious level. Natural psychic ability, dream messages, and intuitive downloads may be part of your daily experience. You might be a spiritual alchemist, transmuting your own suffering into wisdom and helping others do the same.

Pluto in 8th house- You have a deep connection to the dark world and there is a lot of power within you. Many transformations related to intimacy, death and endings. This placement marks a soul that is not here for a superficial life. You’re here to experience profound transformation, emotional intensity, spiritual awakening, and the mysteries of life, death, and rebirth. You don’t do casual. Your connections are all or nothing, and you want to merge completely with someone’s soul. Sexual energy can be healing, intuitive, or even psychic. You often feel that intimacy is a spiritual experience. You’re meant to go deep into the psyche—yours and others’. This makes you naturally skilled at psychology, therapy, healing, or shadow work. Healing for you doesn’t come from “moving on”—it comes from going through the darkness, owning it, and rising again like the phoenix.There's a need to learn how to let go—of control, fear, attachments, and wounds from past lives or trauma. You may have experienced power struggles, betrayal, or loss early in life—this teaches you how to stand in your true inner power. You may have psychic gifts, especially around sensing hidden energies in people or places.

Mars in 12th house-is one of the most mysterious and spiritually charged placements. This placement holds immense hidden power, but it often takes time, solitude, and self-awareness to fully unlock its gifts. You’re meant to heal the aggressive or repressed aspects of masculinity within yourself and others. You may be drawn to energy healing, tantra, subconscious work, past life regression, or helping others release suppressed pain. You’re especially gifted in working with people who are lost, imprisoned (mentally or spiritually), or misunderstood. You might get flashes of action or energy in dreams, and your energy can manifest in mystical or symbolic ways. You might heal from karmic violence or persecution, learning to make peace with your own inner fire.

Neptune in 12th house-There is a depth and a high subconscious that you carry with you, you can have a lot of contact with spirituality, dreams and dreams can be important or give you messages. You are like a bridge between this world and another, and you often feel more at home in the spiritual or dream realm than in the physical world. Maybe sometimes you don't fully understand this energy, but you can be very creative with it and you can create things you wouldn't have thought of. Sometimes you can surprise yourself with how creative and intuitive you are. Art, poetry, music, and other symbolic forms speak to your soul—your spirit communicates through these channels. This makes you a powerful healer, but also vulnerable to energetic burnout, illusion, and confusion. You may have past-life memories or a subconscious pull toward spiritual traditions, mysticism, or healing arts. Neptune in the 12th is a soul placement—you’re not just here to live a life, you’re here to dream, feel, and heal in ways most people can’t begin to understand.

Chiron in water signs( Scorpio, Pisces, Cancer)-You have a natural ability to heal people and their wounds. You can help people look deeper into themselves and help them with their wounds. People can feel comfortable and more relaxed around you, and they may also feel like they can trust you more. Chiron carries deeply emotional and intuitive healing power. Water signs are connected to feelings, the soul, and the unconscious, and Chiron here indicates that your wounds—and your healing gifts—come from and move through the emotional, intuitive, and spiritual realms. Chiron in Cancer-You have a unique gift for creating emotional safety for others. You heal through emotional presence, softness, and offering people the care you once longed for. Chiron in Scorpio- You are a deep emotional alchemist—able to guide others through their darkest, most painful transitions. Gifted at transforming pain into power, shame into sacredness, and trauma into wisdom. You’re a natural healer for those dealing with death, grief, sexual trauma, or spiritual crisis. Chiron in Pisces-You are a mystic, dreamer, and empathic healer. You help others remember their divinity, reconnect with unconditional love, and surrender to spiritual flow.

Neptune in 1st house- You have a very strong energy, and you can help people with your energy and magic. You may carry with you a special gift that not everyone has. You have a great awareness of your subconscious. You can feel a lot of energy from others. You naturally tune into energies, moods, and frequencies—often without trying. Can be psychic, empathic, or artistic in a way that channels the unseen. You may not realize this, but just your presence has a healing, softening, or otherworldly effect on people. You can be a natural muse, energy healer, artist, or dream-weaver.

Virgo North Node-your deepest soul evolution in this life is about learning to ground your gifts, trust logic and routine, and heal others through practical wisdom—especially after lifetimes of being dreamy, overwhelmed, or overly self-sacrificing (Pisces South Node). Heal through precision: medicine, coaching, editing, organizing, analyzing.Practice rituals that support the body, mind, and spirit (yoga, herbalism, healthy routines). You can be a healer, therapist, mentor, or guide who offers grounded support. You’re a healer of chaos. A bringer of order, clarity, and gentle discipline. Your soul grows when you commit to service, build sacred routines.

North node in 8th / 12th house-with 8th house you’re here to face your fears, surrender control, and merge deeply with others—emotionally, spiritually, and even financially. You evolve through transformation, trauma healing, and shared power. Emotional alchemist: You can help others transform their wounds into wisdom. Death & rebirth guide: You have the power to navigate endings and be a midwife for new life (metaphorically or literally).Sexual healing & intimacy work: Deep connection is your medicine. You're here to dive into the dark, not avoid it—this gives you healing gifts in psychology, energy work, trauma release. With 12th house north node you’re here to release ego, control, and linear logic—and embrace intuition, soul, and spiritual service. Spiritual channeler: Natural psychic, dreamer, or intuitive healer. You can deeply feel and transmute collective pain. Music, art, poetry, dreams—your gifts can come through altered states. You teach people how to let go, grieve, forgive, and dissolve ego.

Saturn in 10th house -You have natural leadership potential, but often feel the weight of expectations—whether from society, family, or yourself. People may see you as serious or mature, even when you're young. This placement often marks someone who will be seen by the public—a person of status, authority, or recognition. You become someone who can lead with wisdom and inspire others through example. Step into the role of mentor, authority figure, or teacher in your field. Create a career that brings real impact, not just success. People may see you as someone who has a lot of experience, knowledge, and maturity. They may see you as someone who is wise.

Saturn in 1st house-You may carry yourself with strong composure and restraint. People sense your inner authority, even if you don’t speak much. You feel a deep, internal pressure to be strong, do better, and stay in control. Many with this placement struggled with self-confidence as children, but grow into powerful presence as they mature. You project strength and maturity naturally. People may take you seriously—even when you're being playful. You’re meant to own your space, not shrink in it. Saturn makes you grow into your identity over time — becoming someone with great gravitas and inner strength. You inspire trust and responsibility. People may look to you for leadership or protection, even if you don’t try to lead. You play the long game. You can rebuild yourself again and again, and come out stronger. This placement can suggest that your soul chose to master the self in this life. You're learning how to carry your own weight and transform self-imposed limitations into a deep, unshakable identity.

-Rebekah🧜🏻‍♀️

[stylesispunk]

The days of you and I | part 1

Jackson!Joel Miller x fem!reader

series masterlist | next chapter

Summary: After Joel’s near-death, you stay by his side, refusing to leave him behind. You both confront the weight of what’s been done and what it means to still have each other for now.

w.c: 4,5k

warnings: angst, mentions of murder and revenge, emotional trauma, grief trauma, survivor's guilt, discussion of death and loss. It contains spoilers from season 2 of the last of us. No proofreading because, you know.

Note: Remember this story is a sequel of this one shot "What remains of us" or you can ignore it and keep reading this one haha.

A/N: Okay, hello. This is a new Joel series because we love Joel here, and he is alive and recovering. This series will have angst, and the topics followed throughout the story will hold onto the path of healing after a traumatic event for the characters. I already have the end for this series, so everything will lead to it. I hope you like it and stay here to read it. Reblogs are really important, and I appreciate them. I'm gonna be out for a days because I have to put an end to the semester before winter break and do my teacher duties.

Also, I created an AO3 account, and I'll be posting fics there too from now on.

The hospital room was very quiet. With that eerie absence of sound that you could feel penetrating your bones, damaging the inside of your body with a pain that pierced your body, seeped into your soul, and oppressed your heart.

Joel still woke up to that silence, as if was chocking him to death and he had decided he have had enough of it.  to the distant hush of an early morning, and a world that carried on without him. The sharp sting in his ribs reminded him he was still alive, though some days, he wondered what for.

His eyes opened slow, the weight behind them too heavy to lift at once. The ceiling looked the same as it had for the past week, wooden beams, a single hanging light. He’d spent more hours staring at it than sleeping. The painkillers dulled the sharp edges, but nothing softened the hollow inside his chest.

And you were still there.

Your silhouette sat by the window, curled into the old chair like you belonged there. As if you were stuck. A book half-read on your lap, a cup of cold tea nearby, and that same tired crease between your brows you probably didn’t know you had. You looked so small in the pale dawn light, so goddamn stubborn.

He should’ve been glad. Grateful you hadn’t left.

But this morning, something cracked inside him.

It wasn’t relief that filled him. It was grief.

His bones were still aching, his legs dumbed under the cover. He didn’t feel like a man no more, but as a lifeless lump lying in bed.

And you deserved better than this version of him, this half-broken thing stitched together by other people’s hands, carrying the weight of mistakes that couldn’t be undone. Joel wasn’t the man you met. Wasn’t the one who held you like you were the only good thing left in the world.

And seeing you here, still choosing him, hurt worse than any wound that other girl that beat him almost to death had left behind.

He swallowed hard, voice rough and unused.

“You don’t need to stay here all the time, you know?”

The words came out more bitter than he meant them to, tasting like rust and regret.

Your head turned, soft eyes finding his. That damn look, the one that exactly saw right through him, the one that made him feel like a man again for a moment.

And for a second, Joel wished you’d leave.

Because it would be easier than losing you piece by piece like this.

You smiled, small but steady, like you always did when you noticed he was awake. That damn smile, it cut through him every time.

“Took you long enough to wake up again,” you murmured, the softness in your voice brushing against the raw places in him he tried to keep buried. You crossed the room, moving to his side like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like it hadn’t been three weeks and one more of watching him drift in and out of fevered sleep and silence.

“You must be feeling tired,” you said, fingertips brushing through the strands of his hair, pushing them gently from his forehead.

Joel didn’t move, but his throat worked around a swallow. It wasn’t fair, you being so gentle. Wasn’t fair that after everything, you were still here, speaking to him like he was the man you remembered, not the one lying broken in that bed.

He closed his eyes for a moment, leaning, barely, into your touch before forcing himself to pull away. His jaw clenched.

Reality blurred at the edges; every breath thick with a kind of grief he didn’t know how to name. Time didn’t move right in this room. It stretched too long, like a cruel joke, dragging him through the sharp fragments of what he used to be.

He wasn’t mad.

He was devasted.

He felt ashamed of the man he was now.

He never experienced a physical pain like this. One that burned inside and out his body.

He hadn’t even noticed his hand was clenching around nothing.

How he could even be useful for this town now that he was gone. Everything left was limb laying on a bed with nothing left but a void consuming him as a whole.

He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, the coppery tang of blood grounding him for a second. His voice, when it came, was cracked and quiet.

“You shouldn’t… shouldn’t waste your time on me, darling.”

A bitter, broken kind of truth. But in his heart, he knew it would be worse than dying to watch you stay, wasting your life on him.

You didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull your hand away, even when his words hung heavy in the air between you like a noose. If anything, your fingers curled more firmly into his hair, a tender anchor to a man too lost to realize he was still here, still tethered.

“I’m not wasting anything,” you said softly, the words steady even as your throat threatened to close around them. “You’re here, Joel. That’s enough.”

He gave a ragged breath, like he wanted to laugh, wanted to scream, but all that came was a low, broken sound somewhere deep in his chest. His gaze dropped to the space between you — his hand, bruised and shaking, lying useless on the blanket.

“Don’t deserve you sitting here, watching this,” he muttered, voice hoarse, eyes hot though no tears came. Couldn’t remember the last time they had.

A long, aching silence stretched between you.

You could feel it, the war inside him. The part that needed you close, needed your touch, your voice, like it was the last thing tethering him to this side of the dark. And the other part, the one too proud, too broken, too wrecked by shame to let himself have it.

But you’d made your choice the moment he opened his eyes a week ago.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you said. Not a promise you made lightly in a world like this.

Joel closed his eyes again. He didn’t answer. But for the first time in days, his hand moved, slow, halting, to brush against yours.

“Did you… really take them all?” he rasped.

Your heart clenched, but you didn’t look away. Couldn’t.

You gave a small, steady nod.

He swallowed hard, the muscles in his jaw twitching. His gaze dropped for a second, his hand flexing weakly against the sheets.

“I don’t regret it,” you said at last, the words steady despite the ache in your chest. “No one deserves what they did to you.”

There was a storm behind Joel’s eyes, a thousand things he wanted to say, but his throat burned too much to let them out. Anger, grief, guilt, some twisted kind of gratitude. It tangled up inside him like barbed wire, tearing at every soft part he had left.

“You didn’t have to…” his voice broke, low and pained.

“I know,” you whispered. “But I would do it again.”

Your fingers brushed against his, and this time, his hand turned, weakly curling around yours. A tremble ran through him, and you felt it in your bones, the weight of his shame, the depth of his sorrow, and somewhere, buried beneath it, the fragile pulse of the man you knew still fighting to breathe.

But the love you felt for him, that was enough to send you into a spiral, where nothing else felt real but the desperate need to save him, the desperation of not losing him because that would have meant losing yourself that day.

Neither of you spoke for a while after that. The room was heavy with the things you didn’t need to say.

You didn’t look away from Joel, but you felt the shift in the room, the familiar presence of Tommy as he stepped in.

“Hey,” Tommy’s voice was rough, softer than usual, like he was afraid to break whatever fragile peace hung in the air. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

You lifted your head, your fingers gently slipping from Joel’s, though his hand lingered in the empty space you left behind.

Tommy gave a small nod toward you. “Gail’s waiting to see you. Said whenever you were ready.”

Your stomach twisted, a cold unease settling in your chest. You gave Joel one last look, brushing a thumb over his hand before pulling away completely.

“I’ll be back,” you whispered.

Joel didn’t answer. Just stared at the ceiling, eyes distant.

As you stepped out, Tommy caught your arm, just briefly, his hand firm but kind.

“I’ll stay,” he murmured. “Not gonna leave him alone.”

You gave him a grateful, weary nod and left, the door shutting quietly behind you.

The room felt emptier after you were gone. Joel let out a slow breath, eyes closing for a moment before shifting to glance at his brother.

“Gail?” Joel’s voice was rough, but clearer now. “She… she going to therapy with her?”

Tommy rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, sighing as he sank into the chair by the bed.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Doctor says it might help. Been… hard for her since it happened. It isn’t just you carrying scars, brother.”

Joel looked away, his throat working around another swallow. The word therapy felt foreign in his mouth, like it belonged to a world he’d never stepped into, one too far gone for men like him.

Joel stayed quiet for a long time after Tommy spoke, the words circling in his head, refusing to settle. His gaze lingered on the window, on the way the morning light edged in like it didn’t belong here.

Then, rough and low, he broke the silence.

“Was she…” His voice caught, and he cleared his throat, hating the weakness there. “Was she hurt? When… when they brought me back?”

Tommy’s face shifted, the answer already written in his eyes before he spoke.

“Yeah,” he admitted softly. “She… she had some bruises. Took a hit to the side’a her face, couple more on her ribs. And there was a wound on her abdomen.”

Joel’s stomach turned, a cold, sinking dread washing over him.

“Abdomen?” he rasped, his hands curling weakly into fists against the blanket. “Christ.”

Tommy sighed, leaning his elbows on his knees, rubbing a hand over his face. “She didn’t give a damn about it. Wouldn’t let anybody touch her. Wouldn’t even let them clean her up ‘til you were stable. Sat right there in that chair covered in her own blood and yours, talking to you like you could hear her.”

He shook his head, a ghost of a sad, fond smile on his face.

“Would’ve fought off half the town if anyone tried to pull her out of here.”

Joel closed his eyes, the guilt pressing so heavy against his chest he thought it might crush him. A sharp breath rattled through him, his throat burning.

“Goddamn fool,” he muttered to himself, a tear he’d never admit to stinging behind his eye.

“She loves you, you know,” Tommy said quietly, watching his brother’s face. “Way you do her. There is no shame in letting people love you, Joel. Even if it hurts.”

Joel didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Not with the knot in his throat, not with the war inside his chest.

But his hand flexed again against the sheets reaching for something, for someone, perhaps you.

The silence thickened again, the kind of quiet that settled deep in your bones. Tommy stayed still, letting Joel sort through whatever storm was building behind those weary eyes.

Then Joel spoke, voice low and cracked, like gravel scraping out of his throat.

“She killed… all of ‘em.”

Tommy’s jaw tensed. He stared down at his hands, lacing his fingers together like it might steady him.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Every last one of ‘em.”

Joel’s throat worked around a swallow, his gaze distant, unfocused, like he was seeing it happen even if he hadn’t been awake for it. Like he could feel the blood she spilled on his behalf soaking into his hands too.

“I should have been the one…” Joel’s voice broke at the edge, bitter and aching. “Should’ve finished it. Not her. Not—”

“She didn’t leave you a choice, Joel,” Tommy cut in quietly, but firm. “You were barely breathing. We didn’t know if you’d make it. You almost died on her arms that night.”

Joel gave a humorless, broken kind of laugh, but there was no light in it. Just sharp edges.

“And now what?” he muttered, a tear sliding down his temple he didn’t bother to wipe away. “She got their blood on her hands. Because of me.”

Tommy leaned forward; his voice steady in that way Joel remembered from years long gone, before the world turned to shit.

“She doesn’t regret it,” he said. “You know that. And neither would I.”

Joel’s eyes finally met his brother’s. A flicker of something there. Grief. Fury. Love. Loss.

“But I do,” Joel whispered. “I regret that she had to.”

Tommy swallowed hard, his throat bobbing.

“You’re not the only one with scars, brother,” he said softly.

“I don’t regret it,” you said, voice steady, though your chest ached with the weight of it. “No one deserves what they did to Joel.”

Gail’s brow lifted, arms folding across her chest. “Murder?” she challenged; one word sharp enough to cut.

You didn’t blink. “Murder’s a simple act these days. Torture?” Your voice turned cold, almost unfamiliar even to yourself. “That’s another thing.”

A beat of heavy silence stretched between you.

“Murder is what Joel committed when he blew my husband’s head off,” Gail snapped, her voice brittle, laced with venom, old grief that still clung to her like a second skin.

“It’s not the same,” you bit out, shaking your head.

“It is,” Gail said, stepping closer. “The only difference is you had the chance to save him. If you hadn’t, Joel would be dead right now. And you’d be mourning him like I mourned mine.”

A fury you hadn’t felt since that day surged hot through your veins. You took a shaky breath, eyes narrowing.

“Fuck you,” you hissed. “You don’t know him. You don’t get to talk about him like that.”

Gail’s face didn’t move, but something in her gaze flickered, something dark, bitter, and quietly resigned.

“I know enough,” she murmured. “Enough to understand what kind of man survives in a world like this. And what kind of woman kills for him.”

You held her gaze, unflinching, the burn of unshed tears pricking at the corners of your eyes, though your face gave nothing away.

“I’m not sorry,” you whispered. “And I never will be.”

“You don’t get it,” you murmured, voice breaking just enough to betray the rawness beneath your fury. “My life would’ve ended.”

The words hung there, fragile and furious all at once.

You swallowed hard, fighting the tremor in your throat. “When they took him… when I saw what they did… there wasn’t a world left for me after that. So don’t stand there and talk about men surviving and women killing like you understand a goddamn thing about what it feels like to have your heart ripped out of your chest and left bleeding in the dirt. Because you’ve been behind these walls, safe, without knowing what it’s like out there.”

Gail’s brow twitched; her gaze steady but dull. “Do you think I haven’t lost people? Do you think grief makes you special?”

“I didn’t say that,” you shot back, your voice tight, shaking now. “I’m saying you didn’t see him. You didn’t watch them tear him apart. You didn’t hear the sounds he made. And you sure as hell didn’t have to put him back together.”

Her jaw clenched. “And now what? Do you think murder fix it?”

“I don’t care if it does or doesn’t,” you spat. “I care that they’ll never touch him again. That they won’t look at Ellie. That no one here will whisper about how Joel Miller should’ve died that day.”

Gail scoffed, a bitter sound. “And what about you? How can you carry this and walk around like it won’t eat you alive?”

“I don’t care,” you said, low, certain. “I care about him.

A beat of silence.

“You think that makes you strong?” Gail asked quietly.

“No,” you whispered. “It makes me his, as I’ve always been.”

Gail’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “You talk like that’s a badge of honor.”

You let out a hollow laugh, shaking your head. “It’s not. It’s a fact.”

She tilted her head, watching you like someone examining a wound too deep to close. “What if you drown into this?”

“I’ll try to save myself” you shrugged.

Another pause. The room felt too small, thick with old grief and new wounds, neither of you willing to be the one to walk away first.

“I loved Eugene so much” Gail said, her voice rough. “And when he died, it didn’t turn me into this.”

You met her eyes, unflinching. “But it made you bitter towards Joel.”

Gail’s jaw tightened, something sharp flickering in her gaze. “He made choices. Ones that cost people their lives. Good people. You act like he’s some goddamn martyr, but he isn’t.”

“And neither was Eugene,” you shot back, your voice low and steady. “Do you wanna talk about choices? Fine. Joel made his. I made mine. And you? You’ve been standing behind walls judging the rest of us ever since we arrived.

Her nostrils flared, a bitter breath leaving her. “I don’t have to like what this world turns people into.”

“Neither do I,” you murmured. “But I’ll fight for the one thing in it that still means something to me. That’s the difference between you and me, Gail. You buried your heart with Eugene. I’m not ready to bury mine.”

A long, heavy silence stretched between you, the old ache of loss clawing at both your throats. And for the first time, Gail didn’t have a sharp reply. She just looked away, jaw clenched, and you took your opening.

You didn’t say goodbye. You just left.

You made your way back through the hallway, your steps slow, heavy, like every word from that conversation with Gail was still clinging to your skin. The air in Jackson felt colder somehow, like the whole town was holding its breath, waiting for something none of you could name.

As a town, you were still recovering from that day.

When you reached Joel’s door, you didn’t push it open right away.

You stood there, hand hovering by the frame, heart hammering against your ribs because, god, he was still here. Still breathing. Still alive.

And it didn’t matter how broken or battered he was, how much rage or guilt sat behind those tired eyes. It was him. And that was enough for you.

Inside, you heard the low murmur of his voice, raspy, weighted with a pain he never used to let anyone hear.

“But how is she really doing?”

“She’s… holding up,” Tommy answered, voice cautious. ”

Joel let out a rough, broken sound. Not quite a sigh, not quite a sob.

“If you ask me, you’re lucky she’s still here after what this world’s done to both of you.” Tommy said.

There was a pause, then Joel spoke again, softer this time, like he wasn’t sure he meant to say it out loud.

“I just… I don’t want her staying because she feels like she has to,” Joel muttered, his voice rough, almost cracking. “She should go, Tommy. Find something better. Hell, anyone better than… whatever I am now.”

Your stomach twisted. A sharp, cold ache settling beneath your ribs. You stayed frozen at the doorway, your hand tightening around the frame, every part of you aching. You didn’t mean to listen, but it was too late. The words were already carving themselves into your chest.

“She’s not here out of obligation.” Tommy said, his tone harder than before. “What would you do if you were her?”

Another pause.

Joel let out a humorless, ragged chuckle, and it hurt to hear it. “It’s not fair.”

“But she gets to decide what’s fair,” Tommy shot back. “And so far, she has decided it’s you.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, blinking fast against the burn in your eyes. Your heart hammered in your chest so loud you were sure they’d hear it.

You needed one more second to pull yourself together. To bury the hurt his words left behind, not because you doubted him, but because you knew where they came from. The same place you’d been sitting in since the day you saw him bleeding out in the dirt.

You swallowed down the knot in your throat, forcing your face into something steady, or close enough to pass for it. Then, with a breath you weren’t sure reached your lungs, you pushed the door open.

“Hey,” you said softly.

Both their heads turned. Joel’s eyes landed on you first, and for a split second, something in them broke open. A flicker of guilt, sorrow, and something heavier, like he knew you’d heard more than you were meant to.

But you gave him a small, careful smile, pretending the sting behind your eyes wasn’t there. Pretending your heart wasn’t in pieces on the floor between you both.

Tommy cleared his throat, glancing between the two of you. “I, uh — I’ll give you a minute.” He patted Joel’s shoulder, murmured something you couldn’t catch, and brushed past you on his way out.

The door clicked shut.

Silence stretched thin in the room, heavy like storm air. Joel shifted uncomfortably on the bed, his hand twitching against the blanket. He opened his mouth, then shut it again.

You crossed the room, sitting down on the edge of the mattress by his side. Close, but not quite touching.

“I was thinking…” you began, “I could ask the doctor if you can leave the hospital and go back home. We surely need to make some changes there with the bed and—”

 “Stop it.” He cut you off, his voice rough but firm. “I’m not going anywhere right now.”

You blinked, caught off guard by the sudden sharpness. “Joel—”

“No.” He shook his head, eyes dark with something you couldn’t quite name. “Not until I’m ready. And right now, I’m not ready to face that.”

The weight in his tone pinned you still. You wanted to argue, to tell him that staying there wasn’t helping him heal, but the raw edge in his voice stopped you.

Instead, you just nodded slowly. “Okay,” you said softly.

He didn’t answer, just closed his eyes, the tension in his jaw slowly easing into something like resignation.

You settled into the chair beside his bed, not bearing the closeness anymore, the quiet between you thick but familiar. Your fingers absentmindedly traced the worn edge of his sleeve, as if hoping to stitch together the frayed pieces of him with nothing but touch.

Joel’s breath was shallow, uneven, and you could feel the weight of everything he wasn’t saying pressing down on the room. The man you knew, the one who’d fought through hell and back was here, but buried beneath layers of pain and doubt.

“I’m scared,” he finally muttered, voice rough and low. “Not of dying... of what’s left after.”

Your heart clenched. “You’re not alone in that,” you whispered. “You know that.”

“What you did—” he began “I didn’t deserve to be saved, baby.”

“I made my choice.” You replied, eyes watering.

Joel’s gaze dropped to your trembling hands, then back up to your face, searching.

“I’m broken,” he said quietly, voice cracking. “Not the same man I was before.”

You shook your head gently, swallowing the lump in your throat. “You’re still him,” you insisted, voice firm but tender. “Wounded, maybe. Scared, sure. But still you. And I’m still here.”

A long pause stretched between you, filled only by the faint rhythm of his labored breathing.

Joel’s eyes glistened, a shadow moving through them as he let out a shaky breath.

“What you did… it’ll haunt you,” he murmured, voice low and rough like gravel. “Same way Salt Lake haunts me. What I did to those Fireflies… what I took from Ellie. Thought I was saving her. Thought it was worth whatever price.” He swallowed hard, jaw trembling. “But it never leaves you. Never lets you forget. Look what they did to me.”

You didn’t flinch. You leaned in, your hand finding his cheek, thumb brushing against the rough line of his beard.

“No,” you said softly, steady. “It won’t haunt me, Joel.”

He blinked, as if the words knocked something loose inside him.

“Because I know what we do,” you continued, voice trembling but certain, “when we love someone enough to tear the world apart for them. I know what it means to save the person who’s your whole heart. And I’ll carry it. All of it. And I won’t regret a single thing.”

His eyes closed, a tear slipping down his temple, and for the first time in too long, he didn’t look like a ghost of himself. He looked like Joel.

“Goddamn you,” he whispered hoarsely. “I don’t deserve you.”

“I’m not letting you go,” you said, leaning your forehead to his.

His breath hitched at the sound of your voice so close, your warmth grounding him in a way nothing else could.

“Baby…” he rasped, like it hurt to say it, like it was both a confession and a plea.

You hushed him gently, your hand brushing through his hair, your forehead still pressed to his.

“It’s gonna take time to heal,” you whispered. “I know that. I’m not asking you to be okay tomorrow, Joel. Or next week. Or even next year. I just need you here. With me. However, you can manage.”

His fingers, still weak, clung to yours like a lifeline. His voice cracked as he spoke again, rough and small.

“I won’t be able to protect you.” You felt it in the way his words splintered under the weight of his shame, the jagged edges of the man he used to be catching against what was left. His eyes searched yours, desperate and hollow all at once.

“I won’t be able to protect you,” he repeated, voice breaking like a man confessing to a sin he could never undo as he closed his eyes. “Not like before. Not the way I should do.”

You swallowed hard, a tear finally slipping free, tracing down your cheek as you gripped his hand tighter, like you could anchor him to this moment, to you.

“You don’t have to,” you whispered, voice trembling but certain. “You protected me for so long, Joel. Longer than anyone else ever did. It’s my turn now. I don’t need a gun in your hand to feel safe. I just need you. That’s it. I just need to feel the beating of your heart under my hand to know you’re still breathing with me.”

His throat worked around a choked sound, his other hand weakly lifting as if it wanted to touch you but couldn’t quite make it, so you guided it to your cheek, holding it there like it was the most precious thing in the world because that’s how it felt.

“I’m still yours,” you whispered against his palm. “Always. However, you come back to me.”

tags 💌: If you want to be removed or you're not interested in the story anymore, please tell me so I can remove you. :)

@heartpatch @jasminedragoon @picketniffler @grayandthyme @ccmoonshine

@theoraekenslover @stcrrjoon @stupidthoughtsinwriting @officialjellydoughnut @dshc99 @eleganthottubfun @mystickittytaco @fvispunk @daydreamzsworld @comicccc

@nosebeers @whirlwindrider29 @person-005 @bunnyofribbon

@ainhoetaaa @missladym1981 @keileighr @callofdiva @pinkcabinet

@tomie-it-girl @shadowpheonix @unknownomgg @22thumbs

@vanishintoyoubby

[littlepeach-world]

Baby on Board

Paring: Frontman/Hwang In-Ho x Pregnant!Wife!Reader

Summary: You and In-ho welcome your beautiful baby into the world.

Warnings: Emotional Intensity, Pregnancy and Childbirth, Past Trauma, Labor and Delivery, little angst idk, fluff, soft!inho, protective!inho, dad!inho, husband!inho

Word count: 1.4k

Notes: Just a short fic while I’m working on everyone’s request. Enjoy! 

Your life has been a tapestry of warmth, compassion, and an unwavering belief in the goodness of people. As you stand at the threshold of a new chapter, about to bring a new life into the world, you reflect on the journey that has brought you and your husband to this moment. His rigid exterior and commanding presence often mask a heart full of pain and love—a heart that you know intimately.

Before In-ho became the Front Man of the Squid Game, his life was scarred by a profound personal tragedy. You never knew his late wife, but you've seen the imprints of his loss in the silent sorrow that occasionally flickers in his eyes. His unborn child, too, was a loss that cut deeply into his soul. These memories, though rarely spoken about, have shaped the man he is today—authoritative, relentless, and emotionally guarded.

Despite this, you've come to understand that his ruthless pragmatism is a shield, a way to cope with the responsibilities that weigh heavily upon him. In-ho’s meticulous nature, his need for control and precision, all stem from his desire to prevent any further chaos or pain. Yet, beneath this exterior lies a man conflicted and complex, grappling with the shadows of his past and the duties of his present.

In-ho may rule the games with an iron fist, but your presence in his life brings a warmth that melts the ice around his heart. From the moment he fell in love with you, it was as if a light had pierced through the shrouded corners of his soul—a feeling he had never experienced before. Your own personality—a blend of empathy, nurturing, and optimism—complements his in ways that only destiny could orchestrate. Where he is methodical, you are spontaneous; where he is guarded, you are emotionally open.

Your relationship with him is a delicate balance of yin and yang. Your love is the sanctuary where In-ho can shed his armor, finding solace in the tenderness you offer. Through your creative pursuits and gentle spirit, you bring joy and beauty into his otherwise dark world, creating a space where both of you can breathe freely.

When you revealed to In-ho that you were pregnant, he was initially shocked, the news surfacing deep-seated fears and emotions. But that shock quickly turned into an all-encompassing happiness, deepening the love he felt for you. The idea of bringing a new life into the world—and into his life—was a prospect that filled his heart with newfound hope.

From that moment forward, In-ho became even more overprotective. His attention to your needs and desire to be near you at all times intensified. Never wanting to be away from you, he shadowed your every move, ensuring safety and comfort surrounded you, almost as if it were his new mission. This vigilant presence revealed the depths of his transformation—a man once cloaked in detachment, now a devoted protector with love as his guiding force.

Inho did everything for you. Whether it was cooking your meals, washing your hair, or changing your clothes, he took on each task with unwavering dedication, determined that you should never have to lift a finger. He found immense pleasure in caring for you, meticulously attending to even the smallest details of your life to ensure your absolute comfort and well-being. Through his actions, Inho demonstrated the profound love and commitment that drove his every movement and decision, showcasing a depth of affection that transformed not only his life but yours as well.

The day you go into labor is a whirlwind of emotions. In-ho, usually so composed and in control, becomes your pillar of support despite his visible nerves. As the contractions grow stronger, you see the cracks in his confident façade. He hates seeing you in pain, and each twinge of discomfort you experience reflects in the worry etched on his face.

He holds your hand tightly as you make your way to the hospital, his words of comfort doing as much to soothe his own fears as they do to ease your anxiety. “You’ve got this,” he whispers, his voice a steady anchor in the chaos. “I’m here with you every step of the way.”

In the delivery room, the world narrows to just you, In-ho, and the impending arrival of your baby. The pain is intense, and as you push with all your strength, In-ho’s supportive voice fills the room.

“You can do it, my love. You're so strong,” he says, kissing your forehead.

Through gritted teeth, you sometimes snap at him, the pain overwhelming your usual patience. “You did this to me, In-ho! I hate you right now!” you yell, tears streaming down your face.

In-ho only holds you tighter, a gentle smile on his lips. “I know, sweetheart. I know. You're doing amazing, and I love you so much,” he assures, his voice unwavering as he brushes a strand of hair from your face.

Finally, with one last push, the room fills with the sound of your baby’s first cry. Relief washes over both of you. In-ho kisses you deeply, tears of pride in his eyes.

“I’m so proud of you,” he murmurs against your lips. He then looks toward the doctor, who is offering him scissors to cut the umbilical cord.

His hands tremble slightly as he takes the scissors, but his resolve is clear. With a determined and loving expression, he cuts the cord, solidifying his role as a father. The doctor then takes the baby to perform the standard tests and clean them up.

In-ho refuses to leave the baby’s side, his eyes never straying from the tiny, precious form. He watches intently, his heart racing with every movement and sound, ensuring that everything is perfect. He holds his breath as the doctors perform their tests, only releasing it when told that everything is fine.

When the doctor hands you the baby first, In-ho’s heart swells with pride and love as he watches you hold your newborn for the first time. He’s overcome with emotion, tears stinging his eyes as he sees you cradling the tiny life you both created.

You gaze at him, a silent understanding passing between you, knowing that this moment is as monumental for him as it is for you. After a few precious moments, you gently pass the baby to him.

His breath catches in his throat as he gazes into the eyes of his newborn for the first time. A soft gasp escapes his lips as his eyes fill with tears.

"Hello, little one," he whispers, his voice filled with awe and tenderness. He brushes a gentle finger across the baby's cheek, marveling at the soft, delicate skin. "I love you more than words can say." The look on his face is one of pure adoration and vulnerability, a side of In-ho rarely seen by the outside world.

As you both sit on the hospital bed, you, still exhausted, lay your head on In-ho’s shoulder while he cradles your newborn for the first time. Tears stream down his face, unable to contain the flood of emotions.

“Thank you for letting me be a dad,” he whispers, his voice breaking. “I vow to always love and protect you both, no matter what.”

Together, you gaze at the tiny, fragile life you've brought into the world, with a sense of completion and wholeness. The strong and determined man you fell in love with remains, but now he has also become a loving husband and devoted father. Inho reflects deeply on how empty and mundane his life was before you came into it, realizing with gratitude how you, have illuminated every shadowed corner of his existence.

Even with his steely resolve, he often feels unworthy of someone as extraordinary as you. He questions what you see in him and marvels at his fortune of ending up with someone so perfect. Inho silently vows to cherish and adore you like a queen for all the days of his life, promising to honor and protect you and your newborn with every fiber of his being.

Your journey together, sculpted by balance, unwavering support, and profound understanding, stands as a testament to the enduring power of love. Inho has never experienced a love as deep and transformative as the one he shares with you and your child. The connection and devotion he feels are unparalleled, a symphony he wishes to nurture forever.

In a world often enveloped in darkness, your love is the light that guides him—a beacon of hope and warmth he desperately clings to. As you both embark on this new chapter, you face the future hand-in-hand, with a bond so strong that no tragedy can sever it.

[gukcnt]

04 | SHADOWS OF OBSESSION ⭒ JJK

a criminal's obsession with a shy medical student starts a passionate mix of desire and darkness. As their worlds collide, secrets get exposed and possession turns into love. In a world filled with betrayal and the weight of their own pasts, can they find a way to survive together? or will their twisted bond ultimately destroy them both?

pairing — criminal dom!jungkook x student sub!femreader

genre — criminal au, dark romance, forbidden attraction, enemies to lovers, murderer!jungkook, stalker!jungkook, innocent shy!reader, virgin!reader, medical student!reader, violence, stalking and obsession, contrast of worlds, crime, thriller, smut, lots of angst, fluff

warnings/tags — 18+, explicit smut, angry!jungkook, possessive!jungkook, toxic!jungkook, consensual non consent, emotional vulnerability, trauma bonding, emotional connection, isolation and loneliness, intrusion, romantic gestures, domestic intimacy, fear, power dynamics, d/s dynamics, argument, confrontation, crying, cursing, rough sex, aggressive sexual acts, several non-detailed sexual scenes, spanking, hair pulling, bondage (use of ropes), making out, hickies/marking, bruising, multiple orgasms, fear, pain play, pain and pleasure play, solo female masturbation, masturbation using a teddy bear, degradation, oral sex (f. receiving), eating out, face riding, face sitting, fingering, clit stimulation, cum swallowing, tongue fucking, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, creampie, loss of virginity, dirty talk, praise kink, use of words like "slut" and "whore", body worship, breast play, nipple play and sucking, voyeurism, she gets chased by jungkook, elements of shame but she gets turned on by it, jungkook watches reader masturbate, slight cum and breath play, aftercare, kidnapping, mentions of physical harm

wc — 9.2k

a/n — lmafaosdh y'all are gonna hate me for this chapter ;((

series m. list | main m. list

────୨ৎ────

The air in your apartment was thick with your desperation, a wet sheen clung to your skin as you stepped out of the shower. The steam surrounding you after the hot shower, along with the smell of your floral shampoo.

Your body alive, every part of you pulsating just like your tingling pussy that had been wet constantly, an ache reminding you of the criminal that you swore off your life.

Every bodily reaction of yours occurred with the memory of Jungkook's touch, his rough hands and tongue, made you hate yourself more.

You tried a lot these past few weeks to forget about him, to move on, but every memory of him clung to you stubbornly, you couldn’t get rid of it. You couldn’t focus on studies, couldn’t do anything.

And with each day that need was burning further.

You wouldn’t ever beg for him, or so you told yourself. Yet today you needed release, needed to feel a fraction of how he made you feel.

The innocent girl in you is gone, in place, the temptation took over.

The towel wrapped around you felt suffocating; cheeks flushed from the barrier between you and the need in your core.

You stood in your bedroom, the room dark in the night. The only source of light was the single lamp on the table, giving a faint glow to the room.

The knowledge of what's gonna happen raised goosebumps all over your skin.

You let the towel drop slowly as it pooled at your feet. Your naked body was exposed in the empty room, nipples puckered instantly in the cool air, even the slightest air felt too much on your sensitive skin, and you squeezed your thighs together.

Your pussy dripping with arousal, slickness coating your inner thighs, body constantly craving the euphoric feeling only a certain man could give you

Tonight the silence was there, but you felt him, your body having a mind of its own to know his presence whenever he is near.

jungkook.

Your stalker.

He was watching you from the shadows—his presence undeniable, a dangerous heaviness that made your heart race, your clit throbbing.

Your eyes fell on the large teddy bear he’d given you a few weeks ago. It sat on your bed, being the only witness of your unraveling.

A gift from a monster.

You approached it, your breath hitching as you climbed onto the bed, the sheets dipping under your weight.

Your hand trembled as you reached for the teddy, pulling it to you, fur brushing against your naked skin, which felt like a tease that made you gasp.

You hugged it tightly, your breasts pressing against its softness, nipples grazed its fur, and instantly jolts of pleasure went through you, making you pant.

You dug your nose into the fur, and it felt like it carried a slight scent of him, or you didn’t know if you were going crazy imagining things—cigarettes as always and musk, your pussy clenched.

Your chest heaved as you laid the teddy down and straddled it with a huff, body going on its own, controlled by desire.

Your thighs spread wide, your heat settling against its plush belly, the fur brushing against your sensitive folds. The sensation was immediate and instant—a soft friction that made you moan.

You knew he was there, watching, and the thought felt like a challenge, you were trying to lure in the predator who'd haunted you.

You were the prey, calling him, tempting him enough to break his restraint.

Your hips started rocking slowly, experimentally, fur rubbing against your clit as your slickness soaked into the teddy, shame and embarrassment in the back of your mind, forgotten.

“jungkook.” you whined, voice trembling as your eyes fluttered shut, giving in to your need.

Your movements grew bolder, hips grinding harder, and the fur was now fully slick with your arousal, providing the perfect friction for your throbbing clit.

Your moans grew louder along with your occasional gasps and whimpers, body trembling as you chased the pleasure.

Your breasts bounced with each thrust, nipples aching, needing stimulation and your hands clutched the teddy's fur as if it was his skin, the thought intensifying your pleasure, the teddy helping since you needed to hold onto something.

“Oh God… mmmhah.”

You moaned shakily, voice high and desperate with agony as the ache increased, reminding you of his absence.

You imagined him taking you for the first time—eyes dark as he would plunge his thick, hard cock inside you, finally filling you and taking every bit of your sanity.

The thought pushed you closer, your hips started rocking faster and harder, moans now unrestrained and breathy.

“More, more, please, yes.”

You sobbed, voice cracking, your nails dug further into the teddy, thighs trembling.

The fact that the teddy didn’t tear under the force of your hold shocked you.

Your climax was close, tightening in your belly, head falling back, mouth parted in ecstasy, pussy pulsing harder as your brows were drawn together in pained pleasure.

You were very aware that you were taunting him, calling for him.

In the dark jungkook stood, body rigid, cigarette forgotten. His eyes were locked on you, cock hard and straining against his jeans.

The sight of you—naked, needy, fucking his gift—drove him close to a feral animal.

Your body a feast for his eyes, tits bouncing with hard nipples, pussy dripping and soaking the teddy given by him.

He was angry, so very angry, his blood boiling.

And he was going to make you regret it.

His hand itched to grab you and spank you so hard that you’ll feel it for days, not being able to sit, and he was going to punish you in every unimaginable way possible.

He’d promised to stay away, to let you live, but you were breaking him, piece by piece, with every moan and rock of your hips.

That’s it.

“You little slut.” he snarled, his voice a dangerous rumble as he stormed inside the room, no longer holding back.

His sudden presence shocked you enough to stop your movements.

He grabbed your hair, fisting it tightly, pulling your head back, the pain making tears well in your eyes as a scream tore from your throat.

Your eyes flew open, locking into him, few tears escaping, and even in that situation your pussy clenches at the sight of him after his absence for so long—tall, muscular, tattooed hand gripping your hair, his eyes wild with lust.

“My innocent petal.” he growled, face only a few inches away from you, his breath reeking of cigarettes and whiskey.

His hold on your hair not loosening, despite your winches and whimpers as he holds you in the lewd position, you straddling the teddy, arousal very much evident for him to observe.

“Acting like a needy whore, begging to be fucked. You think you can tease me like this? You think you can break me?”

Your breath hitched as hurt flashed through your eyes from his words, with desire, body trembling under his grip. You were exposed, vulnerable, arousal dripping down your thighs, tits heaving.

You hated him, hated yourself.

But the fire in his eyes and the way he gripped your hair so punishingly made you wetter; his words, even though degrading, made you angry, but also made you needy.

You had enough of this, his torment too much in your life.

You summoned every ounce of courage, your hand lashing out and slapping his face, the loud sound echoing in the room.

“Get out!” you screamed, voice raw as tears streamed down your face, body shaking with anger and something else you couldn’t name.

“Leave me alone!”

His head snapped to the side, jaw clenching, eyes darkening to a dangerous black. For a moment he was still, looking at you like a predator sizing up his prey, his anger palpable from where he stood.

Then he released you suddenly, shocking you as his gaze never left you.

You took the chance to quickly scramble off the bed, your naked body glistening with sweat and arousal and your heart pounded with fear.

You ran, bare feet hitting a floor. You ran far away from him, breaths coming out in sharp pants, your mind feeling hazy in fear and need.

The apartment was dark, all lights off, and you couldn’t even see where his presence was, and it increased your terror along with the arousal gathering in between your legs.

You felt exposed running like this in such a bare state, arousal dripping on the floor leaving a trail behind you making it easier for him to find you, and everything was too quiet, you couldn’t hear any noises or his movement that signaled that he was following you.

Your heart beats faster, yet the fear made your clit throb in the same rhythm as your heart.

You stumbled into the living room, body trembling. You glanced back, expecting him to be on you, but he wasn’t.

You knew you messed up this time, big time; you slapped him.

And he was so very angry; you messed with the monster, and he wouldn’t let you escape this time.

Soon you started to hear his heavy footsteps. He moved slowly, his presence a dark promise of what is about to occur, what he is going to do to you and it made your heart race.

His eyes were intense, his lips curling into a sneer.

“Run all you want, baby,” he purred, voice mocking along with dripping anger, “you know you can’t escape me. You’re mine, and you know it.”

You tripped suddenly, foot catching on the rug, and you fell on your knees on the floor, your breasts bouncing at the process, a gasp falling from between your lips.

A lewd feast for his eyes with you being exposed and scared.

You whimpered as you looked up at the man who was unrecognizable now in anger, towering over you. He growled lowly, the sound primal and he slowly stepped towards you.

Approaching.

His cock was hard and aching, very much visible with the large bulge straining his jeans. His hands were clenched as he looked down at you, eyes never leaving you—your trembling form, glistening pussy, tits heaving for him only.

And he wanted to keep that sight memorized forever, your fear fueling his desire further.

“You think you can play me?” He said, shadow now completely covering your form, almost heavily.

“You think you can spread your legs, moan my name, and I'll just break? You’re a fucking tease, and I’m done playing nice.”

You scrambled back, hands slipping on the floor, your heart pounding in fear, tears falling freely.

“It’s time to give you a good lesson for being such a naughty girl.” he coos at you, lips lifting into a slight smirk.

“Look at you, trembling naked and exposed for me, those nipples hard and your pussy dripping sultrily, leaving a trail all over the floor.”

His fingers gestured at your body, making you whimper and look away as you bit your own fist in shame and arousal, his words fueling you more.

“I bet if I spread those thighs of yours, I will find that tight cunt clenching for me, yeah?” he rasped.

You were scared, so scared, but your body betrayed you further and further with his words.

Craving the very monster, you feared

His presence was overwhelming—the smell of his cigarettes, sweat, and rage—surrounding you, making you dizzy.

You wanted to scream, to beg, but your voice was gone, your body under his claim on its own, and your slap had just ignited his growing anger further.

Your back hit the counter, no longer able to back away from him.

You were trapped.

And the knowledge made your heart beat out of your chest, you could see the satisfaction it gave him knowing you had nowhere to go, not being able to escape his wrath.

He crouched, hand reaching for you, his fingers grazing your ankle possessive and slow, like a slow anticipation before attacking fully.

You whimpered, body trembling as you squeezed your thighs together trying to stop the ache.

Your heart screamed for him to take you, to ruin you, even as your mind begged you to run. The tension was cracking between you heavily, his anger and your need mixing together.

And you knew the night was far from over.

You let out a cry, Jungkook didn’t waste any further time, and he picked you up in an instant in the air and threw you over his shoulder, knocking the breath off your chest from how fast it happened.

Your cries filled the quiet room, but he didn’t listen. His hold was tight but not bruising, enough to not give you any place to bulge or breathe.

Your naked body trembled, bare body resting on his shoulder, his hands gripping your ass just a little away from your pussy, and it was too much. Your heart pounded, wondering what he would do to you.

You were slapping and scratching his back, squirming, your body aching from the struggle as you gave up, finally tired.

“I hate you, just let me go!” you sobbed.

The words were like a knife, and they only fueled his rage even more, his grip tightening even more, anger palpable and your pussy clenched.

Dripping slick right on his shirt, you writhed ashamed, but his animal growl told you otherwise and he started he walked in fast strides, reaching your bedroom.

He tossed you onto the bed; and you fell on the bed with a gasp, the impact caused your breasts to jiggle, his eyes fixed on them. He didn’t wait any longer before moving.

His hands were quick and rough as he pulled out a coarse rope from his pocket and pinned you down in bed with one hand, his strength knocking the breath out of your chest.

He pinned your wrists above your head, used the ropes to tie them to the headboard. The rope was tight, bruising your delicate skin, leaving red marks that stung with every movement.

Your chest heaved as your breath shook, hard nipples begging for attention that you both craved and feared.

Your legs were laid spread due to the force of his hold, pussy swollen under his gaze from the days of unfulfilled need, and it was slowly growing too much to bear.

You were utterly exposed, trapped, and vulnerable to go nowhere, and you felt like a toy that he could use and treat however he wanted, and the realization made your breath hitch in a mix of panic and anticipation.

jungkook’s eyes roamed all over you with his dark eyes, you didn’t meet his eyes, whimpering as tears spilled on the sheets, and his jaw clenched so tightly the muscles twitched.

“You hate me?” he snarled, the gravel sound vibrated through the room, sending goosebumps all over your skin.

“You think you can say that and get away with it? you’re mine, petal and you’ll fucking learn it sooner or later.”

His words were full of anger that wrapped around you in a thrilling way.

You whimpered pathetically, body squirming under his intense gaze. It felt like he was touching you and undoing you with his stare alone.

Your slick coated on your thighs was the shameful proof of how his dominance undid you.

He leaned down, breath hot against your neck, lips brushing against your skin, his ragged breaths showing just how affected he was by this as well.

His teeth sank in soon, hard, and the ache was sharp—a sudden burst of pain and pleasure that made you gasp out.

“ahh!”

Your body arches off the bed, wrists pulling against the rope.

He sucked the bitten spot, tongue lapping over the bruised flesh, leaving a deep purple hickey that throbbed along with your racing heart. His weight over you not giving you any space to move at all

He moved like he had all the time in the world, savoring his meal before he went all in on you. He moved to your collarbone, teeth grazing the flesh before he bites again, another mark forming under his mouth, and the sting, along with a dark pleasure, had you moaning.

“jungkook, please.” you gasped, not knowing if you were begging for mercy or for him to keep going.

He didn’t stop, not paying attention to your words, lips trailing to your breasts, hands rough as he gripped a handful of your tit, cupping it before he squeezed hard enough to make you wince, your nipples hardening further on his palm.

“Nghhh… god.” you whimpered as he leaned down and bit the sensitive skin just above your areola, teeth sinking in, and you cried out a loud, broken sound.

Your mind dizzy, not being able to catch up to the pain and the pleasure that he was igniting inside you.

Your body slowly being marked by his hickeys, a brand of his possession, as he soothed each bite and burn with his warm tongue, and the contrast of his roughness and tenderness had you gasping for air, not being able to breathe.

He moved to your other breast, making sure to lavish his attention everywhere. He left a trail of his marks everywhere along with your cleavage, each one a reminder of you being his.

Your chest now covered with red and purple bruises from him as he took his time marking you, while you breathed your whimpers of pain and need.

His hand suddenly came down on your ass, delivering a sharp spank that caught you off guard with the pain, and the burn jolted you, pussy clenching around nothing.

“Oh, fuck jungkook!” you cried.

The curse slipping out of your mouth made Jungkook growl, hating such words in your sweet mouth.

He gripped a handful of your ass and squeezed tightly, voicing his disapproval through actions.

“You like that, hmm?” he gruffed.

“My innocent little girl, so fucking needy for a monster.”

Another spank, harder and it was too much for you to bear, tears spilled as your sobs filled the room, hips bucking instinctively.

The pain was intense, but it melted into a throbbing pleasure that had your arousal drip onto the sheets, arousal pooling onto the sheets, your body trembling.

You sobbed, wrists tugging at the ropes, plush lips open at all times due to the sensation of pain and pleasure and the sting on your wrists from the rope was adding to the sensory overload.

It felt like your body was alive on sensation only.

jungkook’s eyes were feral as he got off you, his chest heaving as he saw how your pussy weeping for him and it drove him a little over the edge of madness. His eyes locked on your face as you lay there panting, even though he hasn’t done anything yet.

He stripped, movements quick and desperate. His underwear went away next, and you gasp seeing him naked for the first time.

Your breath stopped.

His cock sprang free, massive and intimidating, you gripped the headboard, heart thudding that you had nowhere to escape but to take this monster of a man. The veins were pulsing, and the tip was leaking, glistening with precum.

You gasped, eyes widening, fear filling your chest at the sheer size of him and the huge power he held even by doing nothing.

You were seeing his tattoos in their bare beauty for the first time. His body a work of art from the tattoos and full of scars from his past—tattoos all over his chest and abs, hard muscles all over.

Oh God—he was a demon.

And you were his sacrifice.

Your pussy clenched at the thought of him inside you, and you gripped the headboard tighter, something to ground yourself.

He knelt between your legs, hands gripping your thighs and spread them as wide as they would go, you huffed at how exposed you felt, body stretched to its limits, his fingers digging into your soft flesh, leaving bruises that matched the hickeys he gave you.

“Untie me, please, ahh—”

His mouth lowered on your pussy, interrupting your words, and you screamed at the overwhelming feeling, tongue lapping at your clit with a hunger that almost felt violent.

His lips were restless and rough, sucking hard, teeth occasionally grazing your sensitive bud, and you saw stars behind your vision, having no control of your body as he made you feel sensations you didn’t know were possible.

Your hips bucked on his mouth, moans loud and desperate, body writhing under his assault.

“Fuck, my baby... you taste like heaven.” he grunted against your pussy.

Voice muffled, his tongue plunging inside you, fucking you with a rhythm that had you on the edge. His fingers soon joined his tongue, two at first stretching your virgin walls for what's about to come, and you were tight and resistant despite getting finger fucked by him several times before.

The burn was intense but so fucking good.

He curled them, hitting a spot. “Oh! mmh—please, jungkook, it’s too much—” your cries filled the room, wrists pulling harder against the ropes, skin cutting in the process.

“I can’t—please!” you sobbed, body shaking as your climax started building.

He didn’t stop.

His tongue kept going, lips sucking your clit until you shattered all over his mouth, pussy gushing, your cries raw and broken.

He hummed satisfied against you but didn’t let up, drawing out every shudder and whimper, eyes locked on yours, dark and possessive, as he drinks in your release like it was his lifeline.

He needed it to survive.

You were now basically drooling all over the pillow, mind hazy and he pulls back, lips glistening, his chest heaving, and you could feel his cock twitch against your thigh.

“You’re mine.”

He rasped, eyes burning with something beyond anger—obsession, need, something twisted.

“Say it, petal. Say you’re mine.”

You were panting, body trembling, mind confused with pleasure and fear as your lips moved automatically, submitting to him.

“I’m yours.” you whispered.

Your voice shook, heart pounding with your words, knowing it was true and also knowing it was your final undoing.

He growled, satisfied by your answer, his hands gentle now, a huge difference from his earlier roughness.

He untied your ropes, fingers brushing over your raw wrists, his touch soft and almost gentle as tears prick your eyes from his rare softness that is only directed towards you.

A whimper lodged in your throat when he placed a kiss against each of your wrists before he positioned himself between your legs.

His cock at your entrance, his tip teasing your soaked folds.

“I’ve got you.” he murmured, voice a low rumble, his eyes locking on yours, searching for any sign of pain.

You nodded, breath hitching. Your body was tense but ready, pussy aching for him despite all the fear you experienced.

You needed him so much.

He pushed in slowly at first, and the tip stretched you; the burn was so intense along with the sharp pain, enough to make you wince, nails digging into his shoulders.

He froze, jaw tight as his eyes looked at yours, soft with concern, a gentleness you’d never seen in him.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice strained as well from the feel of your tight pussy wrapped around him, even though he isn’t fully in yet.

His hands cupped your cheeks, thumbs brushing your skin.

“Yes.” you gasped, voice breaking as your body struggled to adjust.

“You are so tight for me, petal, wrapped around me like you were made for me.”

His rough words tightened you around him further, making him groan and he gripped your thigh, shushing you.

He lets you get used to it for a bit, being patient and surprising himself in the process because he doesn’t remember the last time he was even a little bit patient.

The pain soon eased into a strange, pleasurable feeling, and you whined, digging your face into his chest.

“Please, jungkook….”

He groaned at your request, control fading and he plunged deep in one swift motion, cock filling you, and the stretch was overwhelming, your pussy clenching around him, getting full for the first time, blowing your mind until you felt dizzy.

“Ah hah… oh God!” you screamed, biting down on his shoulder to keep yourself tethered from the pain.

He didn’t waste any more time as the bed shook, the headboard slammed against the wall from his powerful, relentless thrusts, each one driving him deeper inside you.

He hits spots inside you that you didn’t know existed and you almost felt him inside your stomach.

His growls were feral, his eyes locked on where you were joined as he watched his cock disappear into your pussy, slick and glistening with your arousal.

“ohs” and “ahs” left your mouth, each noise weeping with each of his thrusts, noises uncontrollable, pleasure and pain mixing together, nails digging into his back leaving marks that only encouraged him to go faster, drilling inside you

The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room along with your cries, creating an obscene music that you were sure the neighbors could hear, but you were too high on pleasure to quiet yourself.

“my perfect little girl taking my cock so well” he lashed out his words, hips puncturing each of his words inside you, making you cry further on his shoulder, his anger simmering and obsession consuming him further from the feel of your pussy, finally owning every part of you.

His eyes locked on your face, taking in all your pained and pleasured expressions, never getting enough, his control snapping whenever your eyes would roll at the back of your head whenever he hit that spot inside you.

“You drive me fucking insane, you know that? I want to ruin you, keep you, lock you away, and own this slutty cunt so that no one else can have you.”

You wailed, body arching as your orgasm started building again, body weak from all the highs it experienced.

“jungkook, I'm—I'm going to come!” you let out an agony filled scream, body shaking as the intensity overwhelmed you.

“mm, you are close? come for me then, petal.” he growls.

Thrusts growing quicker as his hands grip your ass, lifting you to meet his thrusts, balls slapping against your swollen pussy.

“Let me feel you, let me have you.”

His words burned you even more and you shattered, orgasm ripping through you, pussy gushing around his cock, cries filling the room as your body convulsed.

He kept going, not giving you a break, thrusts relentless as he chased his own release, your pussy milking him.

You were overstimulated, body shaking with aftershocks and the force of his thrusts started building your second orgasm before you even realized, throat aching from all the noises you let out.

“Fuck, I’m gonna come.” he groans, own voice breaking as his hips slam into you, cock pulsing and he comes, hot and thick release, filling you, his hands holding your hips, not letting you escape.

Your pussy clenched around him, drawing out every drop.

His release triggered yours, and you came again, for the third time tonight, cries broken body trembling and the overstimulation made you sob, tears falling when he slowed, his head dipped, tongue entering your mouth, kissing you, tasting you.

He swallowed your cries as his thrusts gentled, cock barely softened when he pulled out, giving you a break that he knew you needed more than anything. You winched at the emptiness, a surge of your release mixed with his dripped out of you.

The sight made his nostrils flare, wanting to fuck them back inside your gaping cunt, but he knew you already had too much.

Your pussy stretched enough for him, and it was visible before his eyes.

He could fuck you all night long if he wanted, but it was your first time and he didn’t want to push you beyond your limits.

He collapsed beside you, breath ragged and he pulled you to his chest, his fingers rubbing your red wrists again almost like he felt guilty for hurting them, but there was also a sense of satisfaction in his chest that he was the one that marked you, made you feel pain and pleasure.

Something that only he was allowed to make you feel and no other man.

The thought made his hands twitch with the need to kill someone that didn’t even exist.

He focused on you, still panting and drooling on his chest. He carried you to the shower, the water warm and soothing against your achy body.

His eyes were soft while he washed you, cleaning all the release, paying attention to your sore spots, a stark contrast to the monster who’d claimed you moments ago.

You were quiet, body exhausted, your heart heavy too tired to speak as you depended on him completely, letting him do whatever he wanted, being his personal doll.

He wrapped you in a towel once the bathing was over, picking you up in bridal style, not letting you walk or use any of your energy.

Your hand clutched his chest as he laid you back in bed, the soaked sheets changed by him, and the warmness of it made you purr unknowingly.

He stood there looking down at you, eyes unreadable, his expression intense as he looked at you like his possession, you looked up at him clutching the sheets to your breasts, your shyness consuming you once again even though he thoroughly saw and used every part of you.

Even parts that you didn’t know existed yourself.

Your body feeling more his than your own.

“What do you want from me?” you croaked, eyes searching his, needing answers, needing something to hold onto.

“Why are you doing this?”

His eyes turned dark and haunted at your question, jaw clenching.

“I don’t know.” he said.

Voice raw with an emotion he didn’t understand.

“I don’t know what this is, but I just know that you—you’re mine. I need to have you, whether you want it or not.”

You swallowed, throat tight from his words, body still tingled from his touch, heart torn between fear and a need you hated yourself for not pushing away.

You curled into him when he laid beside you, your hand resting on his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart meet the same rhythm as yours, his hand awkwardly resting on your waist, not used to such domestic acts.

But you knew.

His heart, the criminal's heart that was made of stone but one that, in its own broken way.

Beat for you only.

۶ৎ

The days following jungkook’s claiming of you were delicate, something that stretched between obsession and something softer.

Something neither of you could name

Your apartment, once hollow and lonely with your presence, was now filled with a new rhythm—his footsteps, his voice, and the faint scent of cigarettes along with musk that lingered in your place permanently.

He was no longer just a shadow in your life, his darkness has folded into your light, something that didn’t belong together.

Yet they mended like they were meant to be.

The weight of his gaze was there constantly and his frequent touches because he couldn’t stay without touching you even for a minute.

Along with all that, there were several unspoken questions that hung between you, but you didn’t dare bring them up, not wanting to ruin the normality you had with him.

Not wanting him to close the shell he let down for you, even if it hurts.

Your small apartment seemed to shift in order to accommodate him.

Your couch, the same one that you treated him on several nights before, had gotten used to him.

It bore the imprint of his broad frame along with his leather jacket that was draped over its arm lazily, laying his claim all over your house in a way that even your place got used to.

The kitchen, where once you’d cooked alone in between study sessions, now carried the memory of him standing at the counter, tattooed hand clumsily chopping vegetables for a meal he insisted on making for you after you forgot to eat.

The sight of his broad frame and muscles flexing as he did something so domestic as cooking, you knew he never did for anyone, made your heart flutter.

Your bedroom with its pink sheets and light-colored walls was no longer just yours—his presence had claimed it, his scent almost permanent on your bed.

His shadow always lingering but now visible for you.

jungkook was different now, edges still sharp, but there were still moments of vulnerability from him that caught you off guard.

He spoke more, his voice deep and gravelly, always filling the quietness of your life.

You knew that each of this was slowly cracking the stone wall of his heart.

And you were grateful.

By even getting pieces of him

۶ৎ

One evening as the sun dipped, you sat on the couch, knees tucked under you, a medical textbook forgotten on your lap.

jungkook stood by the window, a cigarette burning between his fingers, smoke curling in the air when he exhaled. His body clad in a black tank top that showed off his hard, muscled body along with his tattoos, the sight making your thighs squeeze together unknowingly.

“Do you ever think about your parents?” he broke the silence, voice almost hesitant, as if the question came out against his will.

You saw the tension in his shoulders and the way his jaw clenched as he waited for your answer.

You swallowed, throat tight, his question brings back memories of your loss that never really left you.

“Every day,” you admitted breathily, voice barely there.

“They died when I was sixteen. Car accident. I… I used to think if I’d been with them, maybe I could’ve done something to save them—I don’t know, but I was at school studying for a stupid biology test.”

A whimper left your lips, fingers twisting the fabric of your sweater, helping you to ground yourself against the ache in your chest.

“It’s silly, but I still dream about them sometimes, like they never really left me… like they’re just in the next room, waiting for me.”

“It’s not silly.” he rasped before turning, dark eyes locked onto yours, intense and for a moment it felt like it was just the two of you and the world disappeared.

Your pulse quickened at his authoritative tone and his need to comfort you, his own eyes holding the trauma of his past.

“Mine didn’t die,” he said bitterly, “they just didn’t want me. Left me on the streets when I was eight, said I was too much trouble. I learned fast that no one’s coming to save you. No one loves you unless you make them.”

He took another drag of his cigarette and looked back outside the window, his words were like a knife in your heart, cutting you further and further.

Oh, jungkook…

Everyone in his life abandoned him, and that’s why he was here so hardened, so guarded that he stopped believing in life itself and you realized just how alike both your stories are, yet different.

How he struggled all on his own with no one to lean into—you always thought that you suffered the most, but now hearing his story made you realize exactly how the universe always treated the ones who didn’t deserve it badly.

“I don’t know how to be soft, petal. I don’t know how to be what you need.” his words brought you out of your thoughts.

The nickname—petal—sent a shiver down your spine.

A reminder of how he saw you.

Fragile, delicate, yet something he couldn’t stop touching.

You stood, bare feet carrying you towards him, your heart pounding. You felt the weight of his gaze like a physical touch as he looked directly in your eyes with intensity.

“I don’t need soft,” you crooned, hands shaking slightly. “I just need you to be you, jungkook. The real you, not the monster you think you are.”

His jaw clenched as he stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray.

“You don’t know what you’re asking for.” he growled, stepping closer.

His presence was overwhelming for you despite seeing him almost every day now.

He was basically a wall of heat and muscle.

“I’m a criminal, a killer. I've got blood on my hands and I'll never wash it off. You’re… you’re light, and I’m the dark that’ll destroy you.”

You reach out with your trembling hand, resting it on his hard chest, you can feel his warmth seeping off the fabric of his tank top. His heart pounded beneath your palm, always wild.

“Maybe I want it.” you whispered, voice small as your eyes searched his, shyness gone for the first time, eyes glistening slightly.

“Maybe I’m tired of being alone, of being the good girl who’s always scared. You make me feel alive, jungkook, even when I'm terrified of you.”

He froze, breath ragged, and for a moment you thought he’d pull away, retreating to his usual nature.

But then his hands were on you, rough and desperate, cupping your face, fingers tracing your features.

His callouses against your soft skin, and you closed your eyes, leaning onto him, body constantly craving him and the rare gentleness he let out sometimes.

“You’re gonna ruin me,” he muttered, gruffly, lips a few inches away from yours.

“I don’t believe in love, petal. It’s a fucking lie, a trap for the fools. But this—this thing I feel for you—it's worse. It's like I need to breathe you in just to keep you going.”

Your heart squeezed as tears spilled down your face from his vulnerability. You gripped his wrists, nuzzling on his palm, anchoring yourself to him, your cheeks warm.

“Then breathe me,” you whispered.

“I’m here, jungkook. I'm not running. Not anymore.”

A groan left his lips, pained, and he pressed his lips against yours, kissing you, not the hungry, devouring kind that he gave you before, but something softer and deeper, and it almost melted as deep in as your soul.

You not being used to it.

His lips were warm, tasting of smoke and whiskey as you both got the chance to explore each other without rushing anything, his tongue gentle while he explored your mouth, coaxing soft whimpers from you.

The room spun, the distant hum of the city fading until it was just him—his heat, taste, his heartbeat against yours.

He pulled back, forehead resting against yours, breath mingling with yours, your hand clutching his top.

“I don’t know how to do this.” he rasped, vulnerable in a way that made your chest ache.

“I don’t know how to be close to someone without breaking them.”

Your fingers tangled in his hair, dark strands soft and thick, his eyes falling closed with brows furrowed together, an act you found out that he loved with no words spoken, something that steadied him to reality.

“I’d rather be broken by you than whole with you.” your voice shook as you finalized

He growls, a sound of frustration and need, pulls you into his arms tightly, almost suffocating you.

You buried your face in his chest, leaving tear stains onto the fabric, the steady thump of his heart comforting you.

His scent enveloped you like always, so uniquely him, grounding you in a way nothing else could.

۶ৎ

Over the next few days, he showed you pieces of himself, of a man shattered by the cruel world, and you knew how hard it was for him to even give those fragments.

He took you to his cabin in the forest, the same forest where he took you that day to give you the best day of your life. The air and environment here were very different than what you were used to. The air smelled of earth and wood, trees surrounding you everywhere.

His place was very different compared to yours, walls lined with shelves of some books and mostly several weapons. It lacked any furniture or accessories.

The place just seemed livable, but it was void of any life… something that suited jungkook.

A single bed sat in the corner, dark sheets rumpled from his restless nights. The fireplace was casting a warm glow over the room, and his smell was even heavy here, surrounding you with him in his own world.

He told you about his past, each word a wound laid bare for you to see, his voice low and halting.

“I was a kid when they left me.” his deep voice uttered, sitting on the cabin's porch, you beside him as you both looked at the night sky adorned with stars.

His leather jacket was slung over your shoulders because he knew how easily you get cold.

“didn’t even look back. I survived because I had to, because I learned to fight, to take what I needed. The streets don’t care about you—they’ll eat you alive if you let them.”

He lit a cigarette as you looked at him, admiring his rough beauty that was full of scars telling his story without any words.

“No one ever loved me, petal. Not my parents, not the gangs I ran with. I'm not built for it and I cannot give it to anyone.”

Your knees draw up as you hug them, your body leaning against his shoulder, both of you hearing the chirp of crickets.

“I understand,” you said, softly, “my parents loved me, but they’re gone, and I’ve been alone ever since. We’re not so different, you and I. We both know what it is like to lose everything.”

His eyes met yours, dark and searching, and for a moment you saw the boy he’d been, the one who’d begged for love and found only betrayal.

Your heart hurt in a way you didn’t know was possible, heart bleeding for the young boy he had once been.

“You’re wrong,” he grunts, voice almost angry.

“you’re still soft, still good. I'm… I'm a fucking mess, baby. I’m tainted with blood, and you—you’re the only thing keeping me from falling apart.”

You reached for his hand, fingers small against his, as his hand gripped yours tightly.

“Then let me hold you together.” your voice trembled with emotion.

“I don’t care if you’re a mess, jungkook. I don’t care if you’re a criminal, a monster. I see you and I'm not afraid.”

He pulled you into his lap, arms wrapping around you as your legs circled his waist, his breath hot against your neck, leaving small, open mouthed pecks that had you shivering with parted lips, your head falling back slightly.

Your breasts pressed against him, both your hearts racing together, connected.

“You should be afraid.” he murmured, lips brushing your earlobe before biting it making you moan.

“I could ruin you, petal. I could break you, and I wouldn’t even mean to.”

You pulled his face away from your neck and cupped his face, his skin warm and you felt the tension in him.

He was in a war between his need to protect you and his need to possess you.

“I’m not asking for soft jungkook. I'm asking for you.” you croaked.

He kissed you hungrily, his fingers sliding under your shirt, tracing your soft skin before he undressed you with an urgency.

The porch creaked underneath you both as he made love to you under the starry night. The sounds of the forest mingle with your breathy moans and whimpers along with his occasional groans.

You melted into him, body against his hardness, your heart finally open to his darkness.

۶ৎ

In the days that followed, he did things for you—small acts that spoke louder than words.

He’d make your coffee just the way you liked it and making sure to serve it to you in your favorite pink mug, especially during your late-night study sessions.

He never stopped the habit of leaving you pink roses even though now he was very much into your life. He’d leave pink roses on your pillow every morning, the sweet smell reminding you of the days when he’d stalk you, how it terrified you yet excited you.

One night you fell asleep on the couch, your head in his lap, and he stayed didn’t move you away or remove himself, his fingers stroking your hair, touch awkward but meaningful in a way only for you.

He didn’t know how to cuddle, didn’t know how to be gentle, but he always tried, fingers trembling as he held you, his heart full of fear and want for you.

۶ৎ

“You’re making me soft.” he muttered one morning, standing in the kitchen, hair messy from sleep, only wearing underwear after a night of intense passion.

His body still adorned with your scratch and bite marks, something that happens when he drives you closer to madness with the pleasure and pain.

You blush and avert your gaze, focusing on stirring the sugar into your tea. The regular routine you both fell into gave you a peace you’d never known.

“Maybe you were always soft.” you teased with a small giggle, but your voice turned serious.

“You probably just needed someone to see it.”

He scoffed, but there was a flicker in his eyes, something close to hope.

“Don’t get your expectations up, petal,” he said gruffly, stepping closer and pulling you to his chest with a yank, making you gasp as you held onto his bare chest.

“I’m a bastard. Always will be.”

“And I’m still here,” you huffed, heart laid bare for him easily.

“So, deal with it.”

He laughed, a rare genuine sound that warmed the room, and he suddenly picked you up, throwing you over his shoulder, making you let out a scream as both your hearty laughs filled the air while he carried you back to the room.

You knew he was a criminal, he had blood on his hands, had no mercy, but you saw something beneath that.

You saw a man, the one who cared, who made you feel alive, who knew what you liked and disliked, memorized the small details of your life, and who would burn anything and anyone just to see you smile.

And you cherished it, every moment, every rose, and every awkward touch because it was him.

Your jungkook.

Your home.

۶ৎ

The night was alive as you returned from a bike ride with jungkook. Your heart a bubble of joy from the experience, the freedom that only he brought into your life.

His kisses, fierce and consuming, still clung to your lips along with the memory of his hands on your body that left you breathless, claiming you with all of him.

He’d promised to take you to classes tomorrow and to watch you sleep, his presence a twisted comfort you’d come to crave.

But then he’d said he had to leave for “work.”

The word twisted something inside you.

It wasn’t unusual for him to sometimes leave to deal with something that he’d never mention to you, no matter how much you insisted, saying it’s better if you don’t know and saying you are too soft for it.

It wasn’t the promise of his return that unsettled you—it was something else, you couldn’t explain, as if the word carried a weight of something that you couldn’t fathom.

It didn’t happen before, you never felt like this before he left.

A chill settled in your bones, a bad feeling you couldn’t shake as you watched him ride away, the roar of his bike soon fading.

You stood outside your apartment for a minute as you hugged jungkook’s hoodie tighter around you, oversized fabric swallowing your frame, smelling of his very presence.

Your fingers clutched the fabric, heart still racing from the ride, his touch, and the way he’d made you feel alive in a world that often felt too heavy.

Now that he was gone, that dread returned as you moved slowly, climbing the stairs to your apartment, bringing out your keys.

The moment you pushed open the door, the air suddenly felt heavy and wrong, like someone had invaded it. Your apartment, that was usually warm, was replaced by a stillness.

The scent hit you first—not jungkook's familiar cigarettes or musk but something else, something like rust or blood.

Your pulse quickened in fear as you breathed shakily, gripping your hoodie closer, the fabric shielding you against the growing terror.

Your breath hitched as your eyes scanned all over the space, the couch, and your room.

Nothing was out of place—no overturned furniture or broken things—but the wrongness was very palpable and it was making your skin crawl.

You took a small step forward, hands trembling as your fingers fumbled for the light switch, wanting to turn it on, but before you could reach it—a creak.

Your blood ran cold, body freezing, eyes fixed in the darkness, and you swore you heard a low, guttural chuckle, and it was enough to make your knees buckle in fear.

“jungkook?” you whispered, hoping with all your might it was him, that he came back and didn’t leave you and was just playing a silly prank on you.

But the silence that followed was worse, and you knew deep in your gut that it wasn’t him.

This wasn’t his darkness, his twisted devotion.

This was something else, something that wanted to hurt you.

You backed away, your heart pounding, breaths coming in short, panicked gasps. Your mind screaming at you to run, call for help, but your feet remained still, frozen in fear and knowing that if you decided to run, it would worsen the situation.

The creak came again, closer now. Your scream lodged in your throat as a man stepped into the light.

He was enormous, towering over you. There was a big scar on his face that looked like a slash from a knife, his teeth crooked as he looked at you.

His lips curled into a smirk, revealing yellow teeth that sent a wave of nausea through you, stomach twisting as you stumbled back, hip hitting the couch.

“So jungkook’s been preying on you, little girl,” he said voice dripping with malice and he took another step forward.

“Guess his priorities changed, huh? he got himself all soft for a pretty little thing like you. But it's time to take his silly little pet away.”

His words stole the air from your lungs, body shaking beyond your will.

Your mouth opened, jungkook’s name a desperate plea on your lips, a scream for the man who’d claimed you, who’d promised to protect you… one that you feared in the past but now you desperately needed it.

“No, please,” you whimpered, tears welling in your eyes as you shook your head.

“Who are you—"

He laughed, a harsh sound that made your skin prickle with disgust.

“Oh, how cute, you’re begging already.” he taunted, eyes raking over your frame.

“He’s got you all wrapped up, doesn’t he? but jungkook’s not here, sweetheart and I’m not as patient as he is.”

Your knees gave out, sinking onto the floor, hands scrambling to find something, anything, to defend yourself, but there was nothing—only the rug beneath your fingers, the door at an impossible distance.

Your tears fell as your chest heaved, trying to breathe against the terror paralyzing you further.

“Why?” you choked out, “What do you want? I don’t know anything, I swear. I—”

He crouched down, face level with yours, his breath making you want to throw up.

“I want jungkook to hurt,” he said, voice venomous.

“He’d been like a thorn in my side too long, thinking he’s untouchable, hiding behind his little obsession with you. But you—you’re his weakness, aren’t you? break you and I break him.”

He laughed loudly and your heart shattered, the realization falling over you. You were a weapon held against Jungkook, and the thought of him—being hurt because of you was unbearable.

“No.” you sobbed.

He lunged faster than you could react, hand clamping over your mouth as you screamed beneath his hand.

“Shut up.” he snarled, his other hand gripping your arm, yanking you to your feet. Your body thrashed, screams muffled, but he was too strong, his strength bruising you.

He laughed, his fingers tightening.

“Fiery little thing,” he mocked, “jungkook trained you well, didn’t he?”

You bit his hand hard, teeth sinking into his flesh, and he roared, releasing you, and you stumbled back vision blurring with tears, your mind set on getting to Jungkook, wanting him to come protect you like he has always done.

You turned to run, feet slipping as your hands finally reached the door, for freedom, for him.

But the man was faster, his arms wrapping around your waist, a sob of fear and pain escaping you as he backhanded you hard enough that it split your lips, blood dripped as the metallic taste filled your mouth.

“You’re not going anywhere.” he growls, your mouth opened for another scream, voice raw, body shaking as you fight with all you can, nails clawing at his arm, drawing blood.

But the man only laughed at your weak attempt, his hand reared back carrying something heavy and before you know it, a sharp, blinding pain exploded in your head, consuming you.

Your vision blurred, the world fading as you fell on the floor.

Your last thought was of jungkook—his promise, his obsession—and the hope that he’d find you before it was too late.

Everything went black, jungkook’s name a whisper on your lips.

────

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[luvendiary]

aftermath / f. weasley

fred weasley x reader

summary: after the battle of hogwarts, st. mungos is left in chaos. you -amongst your other duties- are tasked with taking care and rehabilitating your former classmate, fred weasley. a/n: i got carried away with this one. i'm sorry. i cornered my med-friends, and made them tell me everyhting about how their internships work. this might be the last fic out for a short while. idk. also, for the sake of any misunderstandings, i want to say clearly that there is in fact no beauty in war. the beauty is found in the humanity regular civilians show with each other (and not the polititians who do not care about the people). warnings: not proofread. no use of y/n. 11k words.

There was no beauty in war.

Most people could agree on that.

You however, found that, whilst this was true, there was a twisted sort of beauty in how it pushed people to be better.

Better for the sake of others.

You found it ironic how in such desperate times, St. Mungos was flooded with speeding healers. Not to get out, but to get to the people that need them.

You felt it in the air, amidst all the despair and sadness. Something full of light, heavy and somehow the lightest thing emerging from all of this. A sort of energy that propelled you forward. 

To keep on giving even when you thought you were empty yourself. 

No one gives what they don’t have, you had to remind yourself as you rushed through the halls of the hospital to attend to the newly ingressed patient.

After the attack on Hogwarts, St. Mungos had become a center for chaos. Injured people were being rushed in like ants to a nest. Rooms were at double their capacity, and some of the halls had been closed off so that the healers could work on the patients lying on makeshift stretchbeds.

You were not a healer, not by any means. You had been studying to become a healer for barely two years, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

No one can give what they don’t have.

It was like a mantra, repeating in your head over and over again. You would keep giving, until you were physically unable to. You gave what you could. Your hands. Your focus. Your body, moving even when your mind lagged a half-step behind.

“Room 9,” your supervisor barked beside you, brisk and commanding in that no-nonsense tone she had adopted since the war began. “Critical injury. Blunt force trauma, internal bleeding, possible paralysis. Triage reports loss of consciousness, delayed pulse. You assist, I lead.”

You nodded once, not trusting your voice.

As you reached the double doors, you could already hear it — the noise.

Voices. Too many. A sharp argument. A stifled sob. Shuffling feet. Someone swearing softly under their breath.

You pushed into the room and stopped dead.

Red hair.

Everywhere.

A sea of it.

Some standing, others pressed tightly together in the corner — pacing, holding hands, murmuring prayers. One woman, pale with grief, clutched the arm of a man whose eyes were red-rimmed and hollow. A girl with hair the color of flame had blood on her shirt. A boy with wide shoulders and a trembling jaw stood guard at the door like he couldn’t move if he tried.

Your stomach dropped.

You recognized them.

The Weasleys.

Your supervisor didn’t falter. She pushed through the gathered crowd like a current, cutting straight to the center of the room where a stretcher floated — and on it, barely conscious and covered in dust and blood, lay Fred Weasley.

You froze. Just for a second.

The air around him buzzed with unstable spellwork — holding charms layered clumsily by field medics trying to keep him together until someone more experienced could take over. His shirt was soaked dark at the ribs. His legs hung limply. Blood trailed from his temple into his ear.

He looked nothing like the boy you remembered from Hogwarts.

And yet, it was him.

Fred.

You could still hear the echo of his laugh from the back of Charms class. Still remember how he used to lean back in his chair until Flitwick told him off. Still remember him and George — always George — like a matched set.

George.

Your eyes searched the crowd — and landed on him.

He was standing near the stretcher, face pale beneath the grime, a hand braced on the edge of the bed as if holding his twin there by force of will.

And as soon as he saw you, he stilled.

Recognition flickered behind his eyes.

You hadn’t spoken much at Hogwarts — but enough. Enough to know you were in the same year. Enough to know what Fred’s absence would do to him.

And George must have known you were here to work, because his eyes widened and he mouthed one word:

Please.

Your throat tightened, but you nodded. Then turned to your supervisor.

“I’ll clear the family.”

“Do it fast,” she replied, already lighting the tip of her wand and muttering diagnostic spells. “He’s bleeding into his abdomen. If we’re lucky, the lung’s only partially collapsed. We need space.”

You moved quickly. Efficiently. Gently laying a hand on Molly Weasley’s shoulder. She flinched, eyes wet and wild.

“I need you all to step into the hallway,” you said, your voice low and firm. “We’re going to take care of him. I promise.”

Arthur helped his wife up. Ginny followed, reluctantly. Bill put a hand on Ron’s shoulder to guide him out. You murmured reassurances, not lies, but not quite truths either.

George didn’t move.

“George,” you said firmly, stepping close. Your eyes said everything your mouth didn't have time to. 

We’ll do everything we can. 

His jaw clenched.

“You need to let us work.”

His gaze flickered to Fred. Then to you.

You didn’t say anything else — you just looked at him, steady and calm and holding your fear back because he couldn’t bear yours too.

Finally, he exhaled shakily and let go of the stretcher.

And as he walked out, his fingers brushed your wrist. A silent plea. 

Then the door shut behind him.

And you turned back toward the stretcher.

Fred lay deathly still, face slack, breath shallow.

Your supervisor was already working, wand moving in tight, efficient arcs.

“Hold this,” she ordered, conjuring a steadying brace over Fred’s side.

You moved forward — and didn’t hesitate.

Fred Weasley was bleeding.

And you were going to make sure he didn’t die.

The days that followed the battle blurred together like smoke.

St. Mungo’s never truly slept anymore. The halls remained full, even as the chaos started to ebb. Some patients were discharged. Others were moved to long-term wards. The air still buzzed with grief, and those who worked there, yourself included, were stretched thinner than a helping flashcard for a final exam.

Healers walked like ghosts between rooms. Some hadn’t changed robes in days. Others wept silently into their sleeves when no one was watching.

You didn’t cry. Not because you weren’t exhausted. Not because you weren’t grieving. But because you couldn’t. There was no time.

After the surgery — after the bleeding was stopped and the enchantments sealed his ribs — he had been placed in a shared ward, but eventually moved to a private recovery room. Too many people knew him. Too many stared.

It became your job to monitor his potions. His pain levels. His progress.

And his silence.

He hadn’t woken up in the first three days.

His vitals were stable, but his body was worn down — more than you’d realized at first glance. When you changed the bandages across his chest, you saw the bruising from the wall that had collapsed. You saw the way his legs twitched when touched, like the nerves weren’t quite reconnecting properly.

You wrote down everything. Monitored spells. Adjusted doses. You were careful. Steady.

You also started talking to him.

Soft, pointless things. How the tea was always too bitter in the staff lounge. How the lift on the east wing kept jolting between floors. How the portraits in the hallway outside his room complained about the groaning at night.

You weren’t sure why you did it.

Maybe because silence made the wounds feel bigger. As if they hadn’t closed yet.

You were also the one who received the Weasleys when they came to visit. You kept them informed. Made sure they had water. Chairs. Tissues.

Molly Weasley cried every time she saw him. Arthur held her hand like it was the only thing anchoring him. The others came in shifts. Bill brought books and read aloud. Ron sat with his head in his hands. George never stayed long.

He lingered outside the room more than inside it. Sometimes you’d pass him in the hallway. He’d look at you — hollow-eyed — and nod. Not with familiarity. Not even with trust. Just… desperation translated into hope. The silent plea that you wouldn’t let him die.

And you hadn’t.

Fred Weasley didn’t wake on the fourth day either.

You checked his legs for movement, gently rolling the damaged joints. You administered Skele-Gro and Stabilizing Draughts. You wiped the sweat from his brow and replaced the charm on his sheets to keep them cool.

You didn’t expect the change when it happened.

It was early morning. You were doing your rounds, charting his numbers on a clipboard. Your fingers were halfway through counting his pulse when you saw his eyes flutter open.

Just a sliver. A twitch.

Then more.

He blinked blearily up at the ceiling.

You froze — your breath caught somewhere between shock and relief — before leaning forward immediately.

“Fred?”

He blinked again. Swallowed. His voice rasped like it had clawed its way out of gravel.

“...Great,” he said with effort. “An angel.”

You let out a breath that was half a laugh, half a sob, your hand pressing lightly to your chest as your heart knocked against your ribs.

“You’re awake,” you said softly, as if saying it too loud might undo it.

“Only halfway,” he croaked, squinting up at you. “The ceiling’s still spinning.”

“It’s your brain. And the concussion.” You smiled in spite of yourself, voice tight as you checked the charm readings again. “Don’t try to flirt.

He closed his eyes, a pained crease forming between his brows. “Shame.”

That was enough to do it.

You turned your face away, biting down on the sudden stinging in your eyes. It wasn’t the flirting — not really — it was the life behind it. The voice you hadn’t heard in days. The tone that meant he was there, even if battered.

“Don’t go anywhere,” you said quickly, the words leaving you in a rush as you turned and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind you with trembling fingers.

You heard him mutter something along the lines of “funny”.

You didn’t make it far. Just to the alcove near the nurse’s station — barely out of sight. You pressed the heels of your hands to your eyes, breathing through it. You gave yourself sixty seconds. No more.

And then you wiped your face, straightened your robes, and floo-called the family.

When you stepped back into Fred’s room a few minutes later, he was still awake — barely — and trying very hard to sit up with a determined frown on his face.

“Oh, no you don’t,” you said, sweeping forward to place a firm hand on his shoulder. “If you strain the spellwork on your spine, I’m going to put your bed on a permanent incline.”

You noted the tension immediately — the way his fingers twitched against the blanket, the way his head turned slightly, looking for you. Like he was trying to catch his bearings through a fog. “You’re cruel.”

“I’m doing my work,” you replied.

Fred narrowed one eye at you, already slipping lower on the mattress. “You always this bossy?”

“Only with idiots who have the patience of a tea kettle.”

You could tell he was trying to suppress a smile as he turned his head away from you. 

“You got a name, or should I keep calling you ‘angel’?” he said after a while.

You raised an eyebrow despite yourself and moved to the side of the bed.

“You should try resting instead of flirting,” you said, voice neutral but not unkind. “The nerve damage in your lower back was extensive. You’re straining already.”

His smirk cracked for just a second. You saw the flicker of pain behind his eyes before he blinked it away.

“So angel it is?”

You didn’t answer, instead you checked his vitals in the silence and gently charmed his pillow higher so he could lie at a better angle.

That’s when the yelling started down the hall.

You didn’t need to look.

You met them in the hall before they could burst through the door. Loud. Red-haired. And utterly frantic.

“Is he—? Can we—?” Molly Weasley’s words tangled together.

You held up a hand gently, but firmly.

“He’s awake. Talking. A little weak, but aware.”

The hallway seemed to exhale.

You continued quickly, before the relief turned into assumptions. “But—he’s not ready to go home. The impact did extensive damage to the lower part of his spine. He… can’t feel or move his legs right now.”

Silence.

You gave them a moment, then said gently, “He’ll need extensive rehabilitation. Magical therapy, possibly nerve regeneration. It’s going to be a long process.”

Arthur nodded, face pale but steady. Molly clutched at his sleeve.

You looked toward George last.

He stared at you. Jaw set, unreadable.

“Is he in pain?”

“No. We’re managing that.” You paused, then added, “He’s in good spirits.”

George swallowed. Then gave the smallest, sharpest nod you’d seen all day.

You turned to the door and opened it, stepping aside so the family could filter in.

And for the first time in days, the room wasn’t quiet.

It was full — of laughter, of tears, of hands touching shoulders and kisses to foreheads and Fred’s voice muttering, “Bloody hell, stop fussing, I’m not dead.”

You stepped back into the hall and let them have their moment.

But even as you turned away, you felt eyes on you.

And when you glanced back, Fred was looking straight at you over the shoulder of his mother.

He smiled.

You didn’t smile back.

But the tears still came.

You waited until his bruising had faded.

Until the swelling in his ribs had gone down and he could sit up without gritting his teeth. You waited until the bandages were gone, until the spells holding his bones in place no longer hummed faintly beneath his skin. Until his vitals held steady even when he laughed too hard at something George said.

And only then did you bring up the next step.

“So,” you said one morning, casually flipping through his chart. “I had a chat with your attending healer. We’re ready to begin rehabilitation. If you’re up for it.”

Fred, who had just finished muttering something rude about the texture of his breakfast porridge, perked up immediately.

“Rehab?” His eyes lit. “As in — out of this bed rehab?”

You nodded, lips twitching. “That’s part of it, yes.”

He beamed like you’d just told him the Canons were naming a stadium after him.

“Well, then what are we waiting for?”

You took a small step back as he hastily shoved aside his blanket like he was about to sprint a marathon. Of course, his legs remained stubbornly still beneath him.

He caught the look on your face and sobered slightly. “Right. Okay. Bit overconfident. But still—anything’s better than being trapped in here.”

You hesitated.

“It won’t be easy,” you said carefully, gently. “The spell damage to your spine was severe. The initial stages may not feel like progress.”

Fred gave you that same lopsided grin he’d been perfecting since he was fifteen. “I’m stubborn by genetic design.”

You arched a brow. “That’s not a medical trait.”

He winked. “It’s about to be.”

The first few days were surprisingly smooth.

He cracked jokes through the posture tests. Mocked the magical resistance bands. Named the spell-laced chair that helped him sit upright (Bertha).

You helped guide his hands when his grip shook. Stabilized his torso when he swayed too far to the left. Every time the faintest spark of sensation returned to his feet, you both looked at each other like you'd just seen magic for the first time.

But then came the harder days.

The ones where nothing changed. Where the spells didn’t tingle. Where the potions tasted metallic and useless. The days where Bertha wouldn’t budge no matter how hard he strained.

By the second week, the shine had dulled.

“Is it supposed to feel like this?” he snapped once, his voice uncharacteristically sharp as he flung the charm-assisted brace to the side. “Like I’m trying to move a mountain with my bloody eyelids?”

You didn’t flinch. But you didn’t reach for the brace, either.

You just said calmly, “Yes. That means you're doing it right.”

He exhaled hard, head falling back against the cushion. “Then why does it feel like I’m going nowhere?”

He didn’t look at you when he asked. That was new. He always looked at you.

You watched him closely. The sweat on his brow. The tension in his jaw. The way his hands — the parts of him that still worked — kept curling into frustrated fists.

“You’re not going nowhere,” you said softly. “You’re moving. It’s just slower than you want.”

“That’s rich,” he muttered. “You try sitting still for sixteen hours a day while your body forgets how to function.”

Your mouth opened — then closed again. You didn’t say anything. Not about your own long shifts. Not about the way your legs shook sometimes after standing too long in surgery. Not about the ache in your own spine from sleepless nights bent over charts.

Because that wasn’t what this was about.

This was about him.

So instead, you bent down, picked up the brace, and set it gently back on the table.

“I’ll come back in an hour,” you said, voice neutral. “We can try again. Or not. Your call.”

You turned to leave, hand on the doorknob.

Before you stepped out, his voice caught you — a little hoarse, a little small.

“I’m trying,” he said.

You looked back.

“I know,” you replied.

The next few days were measured in breaths he didn’t want to take.

Fred was trying — he was — but trying meant facing failure every morning and calling it progress. It meant forcing himself to smile through clenched teeth. It meant hearing his own voice crack when another spell failed to stimulate the nerves in his legs. It meant pretending it didn’t matter when it did. So much.

You never pushed. Not once.

You offered, instructed, encouraged — and when he got short with you, snapped at his own body like it had betrayed him, you simply nodded.

You were kind.

That made it worse.

He would’ve rather you yelled. Got mad. Shoved it back in his face that he was being impossible.

But you never did.

One afternoon, he threw the cane you’d helped him balance with across the room. It hit the far wall with a clatter and dented the plaster. He didn’t say anything after. Just stared at the space where it had landed, jaw locked, chest heaving.

You crossed the room silently, picked up the cane, and leaned it against the table.

Then you walked out.

Not angrily. Not in defeat. But like you knew — finally — he needed a moment where his failure wasn’t seen.

He hated it.

He hated how empty the room felt when you were gone. How quiet everything became. Not the good kind of quiet. Not peace.

Absence.

When you came back twenty minutes later, he didn’t look at you right away. Just muttered, “Sorry.”

You paused at the door.

“I know you are.”

That was all.

You didn’t ask anything of him. Not even an explanation.

He didn’t mean to say it — he really didn’t — but it broke loose before he could swallow it back.

“I don’t want you to leave.”

Your eyes lifted, surprised, but you didn’t come closer.

He leaned back against the padded chair, exhausted and sweaty from a session that had ended in nothing but anger.

“I know I’m being… hard to work with,” he muttered, lips twisting bitterly. “And you shouldn’t have to put up with it. But you being here—” He broke off, swallowed. “It’s the best part of my day. The only part that makes me forget I can’t bloody walk.”

Silence.

He had never been a fan of silence, but he hated it now.

You walked over — not with pity, never with pity — and knelt in front of him. Carefully, deliberately. Not looking away even when he did.

“I’m not leaving.”

He looked at you then.

“I was never going to,” you said. “But I’ll give you space if you need it. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to feel this.”

Something flickered in his eyes. Guilt. Relief. Something close to breaking.

You reached for his hand — not in sympathy, but as an anchor.

“I’ll stay,” you said. “If you keep trying.”

His fingers curled around yours, slow and tight.

“I will.”

You smiled.

“Deal.”

It changed after that.

Not all at once. Not with any dramatic shift.

You started staying longer.

Not just for rehabilitation sessions or medical charts. Not just for leg stimulations or potion rounds. You came by in the late afternoons too — when the ward had quieted and the other healers were in the break room, feet up and heads back. When the sun filtered through the windows, making Fred’s bed feel less like a sickbed and more like a quiet place to sit. To talk.

Sometimes you brought your lunch and sat cross-legged at the end of his bed. He made a game of guessing what you’d packed.

“Leftovers,” he’d say without even glancing. “Smells like disappointment and cold peas.”

You’d laugh, show him the curry your father had made the night before.

“Wrong. Smells like love and spices. Try again tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow I’m bribing someone in the kitchens to sneak me biscuits. I can’t keep living like this, angel.”

Once, you caught him staring at your sandwich until you tore it in half and offered him a piece.

“I don’t need charity,” he said, but took it anyway. “But I will need your father’s recipe.”

“Don’t push it, Weasley.”

Some days you’d come in later, after shifts, just to sit for a few minutes while the potions settled in his system. He noticed the lines under your eyes then. The way you stood like your spine was one wrong move away from collapsing. The way your fingers ached as you rubbed your temples.

“You’re working too hard.”

“Says the man who got crushed by a castle.”

He didn’t laugh — not right away. But his eyes crinkled. The corner of his mouth pulled.

Touché.

You told him once that your parents were worried. That your mum had written three letters in one week, asking if you were eating, sleeping, “seeing anyone — not romantically, just to talk to.” You rolled your eyes and said you were fine.

Fred looked at you for a long moment.

“You can sit with me,” he said eventually. “Whenever you need to not talk.”

You blinked.

“I mean, I’ll probably still talk,” he added, teasing again. “But you can ignore me if it helps.”

You didn’t ignore him. Not once.

He started keeping track of things. Not medically — emotionally. Like how many cups of tea you’d had that day (he scolded you if it was more than four), or what color robes you wore most often (he claimed blue made you look intimidating, “but in a hot, terrifying way”).

You began bringing small things to help pass the time.

A deck of cards. A soft, squishy ball you could toss back and forth. He caught it with both hands at first, awkward and slow, but determined.

He missed often.

You didn’t laugh. Just tossed it again.

After a few days, he got faster. Grinned when he caught it one-handed and tossed it right back with a bit of flair.

“Finally,” he muttered. “Some dignity.”

“Don’t get cocky.”

He started calling it your game. Insisted no one else was allowed to play it with him.

“It’s catch Fred. I’m pretty sure everyone has played it at one time or another.”

“When I get out, I’ll patent it and it’ll be our game.”

You showed him how to roll his shoulders without straining the rest of his torso. Sometimes, while you were talking, you’d adjust the pillow behind his back or check his leg splints mid-conversation — like it was second nature now. He’d murmur thanks, barely even noticing.

Sometimes he did notice. Like when your hands lingered a second longer than usual, or your eyes lingered on the way his freckles crept over his collarbone.

He’d glance at you.

You’d pretend not to see.

Once, during one of your evening check-ins, you found him asleep. The ball you’d brought rested at his feet. Your book — the one you’d been reading aloud on breaks — lay open beside him. His head lolled slightly toward the light, mouth parted just slightly.

You didn’t wake him.

Instead, you sat beside him in the darkened room and read aloud anyway. Just a page or two. Quiet and slow.

When you marked the spot and stood to leave, his voice broke the stillness.

“Keep reading.”

You froze.

Turned.

He didn’t open his eyes, but there was a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“I sleep better when I hear your voice.”

You sat back down.

You kept reading.

And slowly, day by day, the ward stopped feeling like a ward.

It became a halfway place. A sort of purgatory between what he’d lost and what he was still learning to become.

You were part of that, now. The part that tethered him when nothing else did.

“I think if I ever walk out of here,” he said one rainy evening, as you were playing chess, “you’ll have to come with me. I would have left a part of me here if not.”

You didn’t answer right away.

He turned his head then, eyes meeting yours.

You stared at him for a moment, his gaze unwavering. 

“Check, Weasley,” you said finally.

He grinned, staring at you through squinted eyes. 

George came by more often, now.

Not regularly. Not in any predictable rhythm. But he would appear — sometimes at dusk, sometimes midmorning, sometimes at the tail end of visiting hours — like he was still trying to get used to the idea that his brother was here. Alive. Whole in ways that defied all logic, and broken in others that logic couldn’t mend.

You always tried to give them space when he came.

You’d tidy up, pretend to be busy reorganizing potions or updating charts that didn’t need updating. Sometimes you’d quietly excuse yourself — “I’ll just step out,” — but Fred would shake his head lightly.

“You don’t have to,” he’d say.

But for George, you did.

At least at first.

The first few visits were painfully quiet. George would sit by the window, arms crossed tight across his chest, as if keeping something inside from shattering. Fred would make a comment here or there — light jokes, like pulling thread through scar tissue — and George would answer in monosyllables.

Once, when Fred made a joke about his potions tasting like troll sweat, George huffed a laugh.

It startled both of them.

Later that week, you came in to find George already sitting at the edge of the bed, one foot bouncing, staring at the game ball in his hands.

You opened your mouth to quietly leave, but Fred’s voice cut through.

“Angel,” he said simply. “Stay. Don’t ruin my progress.”

George looked up at you then. There was something almost unreadable in his expression. Like he was trying to figure out what you were to Fred, and what Fred had become since he last saw him whole.

You offered a small nod and sat in the chair across the room. Didn’t say anything. Just watched.

They talked.

It was light, and strained at times, but better. George complained about the shop. About how everything felt wrong now — too quiet, too easy, too hard, all at once.

Fred asked if he’d replaced him yet.

George rolled his eyes. “You’re irreplaceable,” he muttered. “Unfortunately.”

Fred grinned.

You looked away after that. Not because it hurt — but because it felt like something sacred.

But George noticed. He turned toward you after a pause, his voice low.

“He talks about you a lot,” he said, almost like it was nothing. “Says your tea’s awful. But you make up for it with good aim.”

Fred scoffed. “Don’t let her ego inflate. She already thinks she’s smarter than me.”

“I am smarter than you.”

George chuckled — a sound more whole than the last.

He came back more after that.

He started bringing things from the outside — magazines, Honeydukes bags, ideas for their next invention written on scraps of parchment…

You still gave them space. But less now.

Sometimes, George would stay while you worked on Fred’s stretches. You’d press on tight muscles while Fred tried not to flinch, as George recounted his day at the joke shop whilst bouncing the foam ball against the wall.

You always stayed a bit later after his visits. Not because Fred had asked you too. He wouldn’t, not knowing how thinly you were spread. But you knew he needed it. He never said anything, but the way he looked after you was confirmation enough. Eyes tired but steady.

“Thanks for staying.”

You shrugged, not looking up from the chart. “He’s your brother.”

“He’s half of me,” Fred said, and the weight of those words settled in the room.

You looked up then. You nodded, once. 

George started talking to you more.

It was subtle at first — a nod that lasted a little longer, a quip aimed your way instead of just Fred. He didn’t speak to many people at the hospital, and you knew why. The weight of everything sat on his shoulders in a way that no one else could truly understand.

But he spoke to you.

“You always come back,” he said once, catching you outside the room as you wiped your hands on your robes after a shift.

You glanced up, startled. “Would you prefer I didn’t?”

George tilted his head, thoughtful. “No. I just… don’t know how you do it.”

You offered a tired smile. “I ask myself that every day.”

His eyes flicked over your face — searching again, the way he always did — before nodding once, as if satisfied.

“Fred’s different with you.”

Your stomach fluttered, unsure of how to respond.

“I mean that in a good way,” George added, shifting on his feet. “He’s... lighter. You’re good for him.”

“I don’t know if I’m good for anyone lately.”

“Tell that to the guy in there who throws a fit when you’re ten minutes late with his lunch.”

You snorted. “He’s dramatic.”

“He’s a Weasley.”

Fair enough.

After that, George started sitting closer when he visited. Sometimes he’d bring two coffees instead of one — and hand you one without comment. Other times, he’d walk with you partway through the ward when he was leaving.

You never spoke about Fred directly. But it was understood between you.

Then one day, you walked into Fred’s room late.

Only by fifteen minutes. But late nonetheless.

You looked like a wreck.

Hair half-pulled back, smudges beneath your eyes, and your usually straight posture had curled in on itself like a wilted stem. You didn’t even try to smile when you walked in — you just dropped the chart on the side table, rubbed your face with both hands, and sank into the chair by the window.

Fred watched you from the bed, eyes narrowed slightly.

“Rough day?” he asked gently.

You made a sound — not quite a laugh, not quite a groan.

“My mentor snapped at me in front of the full staff. One of my patients yelled because the bandages were too tight. Another cried because they didn’t want to do another round of physio. And my parents floo-called to tell me they think I should take a break. For my ‘sanity.’” You mimed air quotes. “And then I spilled pepper-up potion on my sleeve, so now I’m itchy and jittery.”

Fred raised a brow. “That’s it?”

You let out a shaky breath, a helpless smile threatening your mouth. “That’s all before lunch.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then Fred reached to the side of his bed, fiddled with something out of sight — and produced the little foam ball you two used for catching practice.

He lobbed it gently toward you. You caught it on instinct.

“Ten points to the decaying healer.”

You looked up at him — half annoyed, half charmed. “You’re a menace.”

He shrugged. “Your words. Personally, I think I’m a delight.”

You tossed the ball back at him. “You’re lucky I’m too tired to hit you harder.”

“I’m lucky you come here at all,” he said, quieter this time.

And something in your chest pulled tight at that.

Fred watched you for another second, then patted the bed beside him.

“Come on,” he said, “five throws each. Winner gets bragging rights. Loser has to admit I’m objectively better looking than Lockhart.”

You snorted. “I’d rather be hexed.”

But you joined him anyway — perching at the foot of the bed, legs dangling, tossing the ball lightly back and forth. The rhythm settled something in you. Predictable. Easy. Safe.

After a while, your shoulders started to loosen.

You didn’t win the game — mostly because he cheated with a well-timed distraction — but you didn’t care. Not really.

And later, as you leaned back in the chair with your eyes half-closed, Fred watched you.

You didn’t see the way his expression softened. How his smile dropped into something quiet and sincere. How his thumb absently traced the edge of the ball in his lap, like he was holding something fragile. 

He didn’t say it yet.

But he was starting to fall for you.

Perhaps he had been falling for a while now.

Hard.

Rehab had been brutal.

Fred had tried to put on a brave face. Had thrown out his usual snark when the mediwitch asked him to try the support bars again. But he’d barely lasted a minute before the tremble in his arms turned into a full collapse, knees buckling beneath him as his legs gave way.

You’d caught him before he hit the floor — arms tight around his waist, easing him back into the chair. But it had taken everything in you not to show what it felt like to watch him fall.

He didn’t say anything as you helped guide the chair back into the room.

Didn’t look at you when you adjusted the angle of his brace.

Didn’t thank you when you handed him water.

So, you gave him space.

You finished the notes in silence. Asked if he needed anything. When he shook his head, you stepped out — quietly, gently — and told yourself it was what he wanted.

You didn’t expect him to knock on the ward’s glass an hour later.

It was late. Past curfew. Most patients were asleep, and the halls had gone still.

You looked up from the chart you were reading and blinked in surprise.

Fred was sitting in the wheelchair at the door to the staff wing. Alone. Slouched slightly, with a blanket thrown haphazardly across his lap. He looked tired.

“I told the nurse I had to pee,” he said when you opened the door. “Then I bribed her with a Honeyduke’s chocolate bar from my drawer.”

You stared at him. “Fred—”

“I know. But I needed air.” His eyes flicked up to yours. “I needed you.”

The breath caught in your throat.

You stepped out into the hall.

The light was dim. The usually fluorescent lights, now a bit softer on the eyes. 

You sat on the floor across the halfway, knees pressed up to your chest. He wheeled his way next to you.

He rested his forearms on the armrests, silent for a long beat.

“I’m not angry at you,” he said quietly.

You blinked. “I didn’t think you were.”

“I wanted to be. When you stepped out earlier.” His jaw flexed. “It’s easier to be angry at someone than it is to admit I’m… failing.”

You shook your head. “Fred—”

“I know. I know it takes time. I know I’m lucky to be alive. I know it could be worse. But sometimes I sit in that bed and I feel like… like my life has been cut in half and I’m meant to smile through it.”

He swallowed hard. His hands were clenched tight in his lap.

“And then you walk in and ask me what kind of soup I want, or throw a bloody ball at my head, and for a few minutes, I forget how broken I feel.”

You didn’t say anything. Just watched him.

“I don’t want you to go when it gets hard,” he continued. “I know I’ve been an arse. And I’ll probably keep being one. But if you stay... I’ll try. Even when I want to quit.”

You moved then — slowly — standing from your chair and walking the short distance to him. You crouched beside the wheelchair, resting your hand lightly on his.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you said softly.

His hand turned beneath yours, fingers curling around your wrist.

You stayed like that for a moment — quiet and steady — before you stood up and opened the door to the healer’s ward once again.

“Tea?” you offered with a small smile.

Fred snorted. “You’re an angel.”

You didn’t feel like it, not with the heavy bags beneath your eyes. “Your words, not mine.”

He drank. You did too.

And when you finally escorted him back to his room, he didn’t ask for help to the bed. He shifted himself, slowly but determined, and gave you a look that made your chest feel too full.

“Sleep well,” you said at the door.

“Only if you promise to come back tomorrow.”

“When have I not?”

You hadn’t slept much.

The night before replayed in your mind on a loop — the words he said, the way his voice had cracked just slightly, like he’d been holding that weight in his chest for too long. The way he’d looked at you like you were something steady. Something safe.

It haunted you, in the best and worst ways.

You’d turned it over again and again in your head — what he needed, what he wanted, what might help even if it didn’t feel like help at first.

By the time morning came, you’d made up your mind.

You found your senior healer in the apothecary wing, elbow-deep in the delicate task of rebalancing nerve-healing draughts. You waited until she was done pouring and cleared your throat softly.

“I think Fred Weasley might be ready to go home,” you said, voice quiet but certain.

She looked at you over her spectacles. “You think so?”

“He’s physically ready. The wounds are closed, and he’s managing his pain. The paralysis won’t change overnight, but he’s stable. Emotionally…” You hesitated. “He needs to be around his people. Somewhere familiar. I think it’s the next step in his recovery.”

She was silent for a moment, then gave a slow nod. “Bring it up. If the family agrees and we can organize home support, I’ll sign off.”

And just like that, the idea was real.

You had no idea how Fred would take it.

He’d said he wanted you to stay. That he didn’t want to face the hard parts without you. And yet… you couldn’t ignore the spark that lit in his eyes whenever George showed up. Or the fact that no matter how steady you were, there were things family could give that you couldn’t.

So, you walked back through the familiar halls, ready to talk to him.

You didn’t expect the smell of burning toast.

The closer you got to the room, the clearer the sound became — clattering, muffled curses, and something that suspiciously resembled a pan hitting the floor.

You paused in the doorway.

Fred was sitting in his chair, grinning like a madman, a lopsided apron tied around his waist. George was by the counter in the little kitchenette of the room, waving a dishrag like a flag and coughing dramatically.

“I said keep an eye on the toast, not burn it!” Fred barked, laughing.

“I was multitasking!” George wheezed.

There was a bowl of eggs that had definitely once been scrambled, but were now a strange rubbery texture which you were sure was not edible to anything with a pulse. A pan full of what may have once been tomatoes sizzled on the stovetop, and there were suspicious splashes of something orange on the wall.

You couldn’t help it — you burst out laughing.

Fred looked over and caught you in the doorway. His eyes brightened immediately.

“Just in time for breakfast!”

“Did you set something on fire?” you asked, stepping in and surveying the kitchen.

“Technically no,” Fred said. “Everything was contained. There was a brief emotional fire when George forgot the salt—”

“Emotional fire?” George scoffed. “You threw a spoon at me!”

You were still laughing as you shook your head, brushing a stray curl back from your face.

“I was actually coming to talk to you about something,” you said, glancing toward Fred as you moved to open the window and let some of the smoke out.

Fred turned toward you, wiping his hands on the apron. “This sounds serious.”

“It’s not bad.” You leaned against the windowsill. “I think you might be ready to go home.”

George froze, halfway through peeling a very sad-looking banana.

Fred’s smile faded. Not immediately, but gradually, like sunlight slipping behind a cloud. “Home?”

You nodded, keeping your voice steady. “You’re strong enough. We’d set up home care, rehab would continue with a specialist visiting daily. Your family’s willing. It’d… be a change of pace. Maybe help.”

Fred was quiet.

You could see the gears turning behind his eyes.

“I thought you said you weren’t going anywhere,” he said, not unkindly.

Your throat tightened, but you managed a small smile. “I’m not. You are. And I think it'll help you. You need a familiar space. A burnt breakfast every morning if that’s what it takes.”

He looked down at his hands.

You didn’t press.

Instead, you gave them a soft nod. “I’ll let you two talk. Take your time. I’ll check back in later.”

You stepped back, gently shutting the door behind you.

You didn’t go far — just outside the room, where you leaned against the wall and tried not to feel like the rug had been tugged from beneath you. It had been your idea. You knew it was right. And yet… it ached.

Inside, you could hear their voices, lower now, more serious.

You couldn’t make out the words, but you could imagine.

And still, even through the ache, a small part of you smiled.

Because for all the setbacks and scars and late-nights… Fred was alive.

And he was loved.

And you had helped him get here.

That, you reminded yourself, was more than enough

The last night in the ward was a quiet one.

Too quiet.

You had made your rounds as usual, marking notes on your clipboard, double-checking potion times, restocking bandages. Most of the long-term patients were asleep or sedated. Those who weren’t were staring blankly at the ceiling, or out the windows, waiting for morning.

Waiting for something to change.

Fred was scheduled to go home just after breakfast. You were told the Weasleys would be arriving early. Arthur had insisted on it, claiming Molly wouldn’t sleep a wink until they had him under their roof. George had promised pancakes. Ginny had apparently insisted on bringing tea from her personal stash.

You’d smiled when you heard all of that.

You weren’t smiling now.

You stood outside Fred’s room with your hand on the door for a good thirty seconds before you pushed it open.

He was already awake.

Sitting in bed, propped up on one elbow, staring down at his lap. His hair was slightly damp from a recent wash. The tray of food you’d left earlier sat untouched on the small rolling table near his side.

The air felt strange. Still, but tense. Like a storm brewing in reverse.

You tried to keep your voice light. “That porridge must be particularly bad today for it to be untouched.”

He didn’t answer.

You stepped in, setting your clipboard down gently. “Mind if I do your check-up now?”

He just shrugged. A single shoulder, lifted without effort or interest.

You moved quietly. Checked his vitals. His pulse. Asked if he’d been feeling lightheaded, any sharp pain, nausea. He gave one-word answers or nodded. Didn’t meet your eyes once.

You tried again, a little smile tugging at your lips. “Tomorrow, first thing, you get to breathe real air. Try not to miss the smell of antiseptic too much.”

Still nothing.

You exhaled softly. “Alright. I’ll just—”

“I’m angry.”

The words came suddenly — not snapped, but solid. Firm.

Your hands stilled over the cuff you’d just fastened around his arm. You looked up, heart slipping sideways.

“I can tell,” you said quietly.

Fred’s jaw tightened. “You didn’t even ask me.”

“I talked to my senior. I had to—”

“I didn’t say ask her. I said me.”

The silence stretched.

You straightened slowly, lowering your hand and giving him your full attention. “My work is to take care of you. To do what’s in your best interest. You’ve been needing this — your family.”

He finally looked at you. There was no humor in his eyes now. Just something sharp and tired and burning underneath.

“I meant what I said,” he told you. “About not walking out of here whole.”

You tried to diffuse it with a small smile. “Technically, you're not walking anywhere. Not yet, anyway.”

But the moment the joke left your mouth, you wished you hadn’t said it.

Fred didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smirk.

Instead, he turned his face away. “You always do that.”

You blinked. “Do what?”

“Make it easier for you. Easier for me. Like if we don’t say it out loud, it won’t hurt as much.”

There was a long, full pause.

You crossed your arms, pressing your lips together for a moment. Then said quietly, “I am sorry you’re angry. But I’m not sorry for doing what was best for you. That’s my job, Fred.”

He let out a humorless breath. “I don’t need a specialist. I don’t need more strangers in white coats. I need you.”

You looked down at your hands. “I can’t be with you all the time.”

“I’m not asking for all the time,” he said, frustrated now. “I just don’t want it to be work for you. Because it sure as hell was not just rehabilitation for me. ”

You felt your chest tighten.

“I don’t want to go back to waking up without anyone to talk to,” he went on, voice quieter now. “Or being told how to feel about everything. You… you just sat with me. Even when I was a mess. Especially when I was a mess.”

“I only did what anyone would’ve done—”

“No, you didn’t.”

The words cracked like a whip.

You looked up. His eyes were glassy, but there were no tears. Just weight.

“No one stayed the way you did,” he said. “George tries, and I love him for it, but he’s grieving too. My mum walks in and sees me as a boy again. The rest of the world looks at me and sees someone who should be dead.”

His hand clenched on the blanket. “But you… you looked at me like I was still me. Even when I wasn’t sure I was.”

You didn’t know what to say. So you didn’t. You stepped closer, sat gently on the edge of the bed.

“I’m scared,” he said after a moment, the anger softening into something quieter. “And I don’t want to be scared alone.”

You reached out and, for the first time that night, let your hand rest on his.

“I’ll visit,” you said. “I’ll owl before I come. I’ll check in. I’ll bring that ridiculous throwing ball if you want me to.”

Fred sniffed. “I hate that ball.”

You gave a small smile. “I thought it was supposed to be our game.”

He chuckled. “Alright,” he said. “But I’m holding you to it. You’ll come by.”

“Regularly.”

“And you won’t make it weird.”

“When have I ever?” you replied, though you avoided his eyes as you smiled.

Fred laughed again, for real this time.

You sat there in the soft glow of the moonlight slipping in through the high window, your fingers still resting against his knuckles.

You’d get up in a moment. You’d finish your rounds. He’d leave in the morning.

But just for a moment longer, you both let yourselves sit with the anger. With the ache. With whatever was happening between you two. With this thing that didn’t demand answers, just presence.

It took you two weeks to go.

Not for lack of invitation. Fred had owled the day after he left St. Mungo’s — his handwriting barely legible, the ink smudged in spots like he’d pressed too hard. He said the house was loud, chaotic, smelled like cinnamon and broom polish. Said George had already stolen his pillow and Ginny threatened to hex his tea if he kept bossing people around.

He signed it simply: "Still waiting for that visit. Don’t make me throw the ball at myself."

You had smiled, reread it three times, then folded it neatly and tucked it into your coat pocket like it was something fragile.

But still, it took you a week.

Because seeing someone in a sterile room under white sheets was different from seeing them home.

Because something about crossing that threshold — stepping into his world instead of him being tucked away in yours — felt… enormous.

But you went.

The walk up to the Burrow was just as strange and crooked as you remembered from childhood stories. Smoke curling from the chimney. Gnomes scampering under hedges. Someone laughing somewhere near the garden.

The front door was already open when you reached it.

You raised your hand to knock anyway.

“I was beginning to think I wouldn’t see you again.”

Fred’s voice floated from the sitting room.

You turned, startled, and there he was — wheeling into view from the corner, dressed in a soft jumper, his hair slightly mussed like he’d been trying to fix it and given up halfway. He looked better. Healthier. Not completely healed. His movements were still stiff, one hand resting over his leg like it didn’t quite belong to him, but the color in his face was warmer. There was light in his eyes again.

“Still dramatic, I see,” you said.

He smirked. “Only on Mondays.”

“It’s Thursday.”

“Then you’re lucky.”

You stepped inside slowly, blinking at how the house seemed to breathe. It wasn’t just lived in — it was loved in. Blankets strewn on couches. Socks tucked half under the coffee table. A plant hanging sideways from a bent curtain rod.

You smiled. “It looks like it’s about to collapse.”

“It almost has. Several times,” Fred said cheerfully. “Mum says if the magic ever gives out, we’re going down with it.”

He motioned to a chair. You sat, smoothing your coat. He watched you carefully, without saying anything for a minute too long.

Then, “You look tired, angel.”

“Work didn’t stop when you left.”

“I’d like to think I was more than work.”

You smiled, then looked away, your fingers curling together in your lap. “I wasn’t sure if I should come. I didn’t want to… overstep.”

Fred tilted his head. “Why would you think that?”

“I’ve seen people leave St. Mungo’s and never want to look back. Sometimes they don’t want reminders. Or… witnesses.”

Fred’s expression softened.

“You’re not a witness,” he said. “You’re a person I want around.”

Your throat tightened slightly.

Before you could answer, the sound of heavy footsteps echoed on the stairs.

George appeared, hair damp from a shower, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He paused when he saw you, one brow raising like he wasn’t expecting you so soon.

You waved. “Hi, George.”

He gave a nod that wasn’t unfriendly, just slightly cautious. “Hey.”

Then he looked at Fred. “Mum’s finishing lunch. You want to come into the kitchen?”

Fred glanced at you, then back to his brother. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

George didn’t say anything for a second, but then he nodded again and turned to go.

“See? I’m a reminder.”

“He’s just figuring you out,” Fred said. “You scare people. In a good way.”

You huffed. “I’d say the ward lights wash me out. Make me look sick rather than scary.”

“Intimidating,” he deadpanned. “Truly terrifying.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then, softer: “I missed you.”

You looked up, your throat suddenly thick again. “It’s only been two weeks.”

“I know.” Fred gave a small shrug, his fingers picking absently at a loose thread on the arm of his chair. “Still felt too long.”

The moment hovered before you offered a soft smile, one he returned, a little lopsided, a little shy. For all his wit, for all his easy humor, Fred could still be earnest in a way that tugged at something deep beneath your ribs.

You leaned back in your seat. “The owl helped.”

“Yeah?”

You nodded. “I kept it. It’s still in my coat pocket.”

Fred leaned back on his chair. “I knew I would grow on you eventually.”

“Hard not to, Weasley.”

There was a pause, but this one was comfortable — filled with the low hum of magic in the walls, distant clinking from the kitchen, and the occasional thump of someone moving overhead. You watched as Fred’s gaze drifted to the window beside him. Sunlight spilled in, catching the faint auburn in his hair and warming the pale skin of his cheek. He looked peaceful, or as close to it as you’d ever seen him.

You opened your mouth to speak — maybe to ask how he’d really been sleeping, maybe to admit how strange it was to be here and feel like you’d never left — when George’s voice rang out again.

“Oi, you staying for lunch?”

You startled slightly, blinking as you registered the words.

Fred looked smug.

“I was getting to it,” he called back.

There was a muffled snort, followed by the unmistakable clatter of a spoon hitting the floor. Someone — possibly Ron — swore loudly in the background. You could just barely hear Molly’s exasperated “Language!” echoing from the kitchen.

Fred turned back to you. “So? Are you staying?”

It was a loaded question, as if there was more on the table than just food. “I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

Fred’s eyes didn’t waver.

“You know you’re not.”

You glanced toward the kitchen, where you could still hear soft chatter and the scrape of chairs.

“I didn’t bring anything,” you said, a little lamely. “Not even dessert.”

The Burrow became a second home before you ever realized it.

At first, you had thought your visits would taper off — that Fred would settle into his recovery and you’d fall back into your usual rotations, long days at St. Mungo’s, long nights collapsing into bed. But somehow, your feet always found their way to the crooked path leading to the Weasleys’ door.

The first time you arrived uninvited — with an old book under your arm and half a plan to read it in Fred’s room while he ignored the pages and made sarcastic commentary — no one batted an eye. Molly had handed you a mug of tea, murmured, “You’re in time for supper,” and Arthur had already started setting another place at the table.

From then on, it just… kept happening.

You were there for Ginny’s birthday in August. She roped you into a backyard Quidditch match you had absolutely no business participating in, and you nearly tripped over a garden gnome during takeoff. Fred hadn’t stopped laughing about it for a week. You threw cake at him in retaliation. George joined in for the second round.

You were there when Bill brought his daughter to visit and introduced her to the whole family for the first time. Fleur had insisted on brushing her hair while you held her, and Fred had whispered, “You’d be terrifying with one of your own.”

You’d arched a brow. “That sounds dangerously close to a compliment.”

He’d shrugged, trying not to smile. “Blame the baby. They bring out my softer side.”

And then there was the summer afternoon that stuck in your mind long after it ended.

It was late July, the sky a pale, hazy blue, and the garden buzzing with lazy bees and bursts of laughter. Someone — likely Percy — had enchanted the radio to play soft jazz, and you were lying on a blanket in the grass with your shoes off and your head tipped back to soak in the sun. Fred sat a few feet away, sketching patterns in the dirt with his wand and occasionally flicking it toward unsuspecting gnomes. His legs were stretched out in front of him, slightly stiff but stronger — the kind of stronger that came from months of stubbornness and sheer grit.

“Reckon I could walk to the shed,” he mused aloud.

You turned your head toward him. “That shed is a death trap. Pick a different goal.”

He looked over at you. “Fine. Walk to you, then.”

You raised a brow, amusement curling in your chest. “That the new benchmark?”

He tilted his head thoughtfully, then grinned. “It’s always been the benchmark.”

You rolled your eyes but didn’t deny it.

That was the summer you started leaving a toothbrush at the Burrow.

You stopped knocking when you came in. Molly started calling your name when she needed help peeling potatoes. Ginny nicked your nail polish. Arthur grinned every time you brought up something Muggle-related just to watch his eyes light up with curiosity.

And Fred… Fred started asking if you’d be there tomorrow before you’d even said goodbye for the night.

By autumn, your jumper was hanging on a hook by the kitchen door. Halloween arrived with carved pumpkins bobbing in the orchard and enchanted skeletons that chased Ron around the kitchen. You helped Molly string bewitched cobwebs over the windows while Fred supervised from just outside the kitchen, providing you with the most useless kind of commentary. George charmed every apple in the bobbing barrel to shriek like banshees, and you caught Fred watching you laugh.

Somewhere, as the weather became colder, the space you took up in the house shifted— from guest to something else entirely. Not official or labeled. But known. When Fred was too sore to come down for breakfast, you were the one Molly handed the tray to without being asked.

When Christmas came, you received a handmade jumper with your initial stitched in gold thread.

When New Year’s arrived, they asked you to bring your family.

You hadn’t expected it, honestly. You’d mentioned your parents once or twice, but never in detail. Still, the invitation came in the form of a cheerful note from Molly, complete with a floo address, a time, and a subtle but unmistakable, “We’d love to meet the people who raised you.”

Your parents came. It was awkward at first, your mother clutching a tin of biscuits like a peace offering, your father blinking at the enchanted cookware, but quickly swept into the warmth of the Burrow like they belonged there. Arthur cornered your dad to discuss plug sockets. Your mum helped Ginny in the kitchen and was thoroughly impressed by her wandwork with icing.

And you?

You found Fred near the edge of the living room, watching the chaos unfold with a fond sort of exasperation.

“You made it,” he said, straightening when he saw you.

“Of course I did,” you said. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

He was standing — with a fair bit of effort — but standing nevertheless. He leaned slightly against the frame of the door, a cane in one hand and something careful in the way he held himself. 

You blinked at him, taking it in. “Fred…”

“It’s New Year’s,” he said casually. “Figured I’d start it standing.”

You didn’t answer right away.

Instead, you crossed the room slowly, until you reached him. Your hands snaked around his waist, steadying him without making it obvious. 

He glanced down at you, expression unreadable for a moment, before a quiet smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Hi,” you said softly, tilting your head up to meet his eyes.

“Hi.” His voice was warm. Steady, despite the cane in one hand and the slight tremor in his knee.

For a moment, neither of you moved. You could hear George laughing behind you, the low thrum of the wireless switching into something slow and familiar. Fred’s fingers twitched at his side, his eyes flicking briefly toward the center of the room where Arthur had just pulled Molly into a waltz that was more affection than grace.

“Dance with me?” he asked.

You blinked. “Are you sure?”

He tilted his head, mock-offended. “Are you saying no?”

“I’m saying your Healer’s going to be very cross with you if you faceplant into the soup.”

Fred snorted. “Good thing she’s off-duty tonight.” His voice dropped just a little. “And mine, apparently.”

You stared at him for a second longer, then held out your hand.

He took it without hesitation.

You helped him into the center of the room. His free hand found your waist with surprising familiarity, and your arm curled lightly around his shoulder, careful of the still-healing muscle beneath his jumper.

The music was slow. A string-heavy tune that didn’t require any real movement, just soft swaying and shared breath.

Fred leaned in slightly. “You’ll have to do most of the work.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” you murmured.

That earned you a grin.

You swayed together, the world narrowing a little. Not in a dizzying way, but rather in a peaceful one. Like all the noise of the Burrow, all the flying candles and floating paper stars and loud Weasley laughter, had dropped to a quiet hum.

“This is nice,” Fred said eventually, his chin brushing your temple.

“It is.”

“Mum’s probably getting suspicious.”

You blinked, drawing back just enough to see his face. “Suspicious of what?”

He smirked. “That you’re not just performing healer duties anymore.”

You laughed, quick and involuntary, your forehead pressing briefly to his chest. “You think?.”

He hummed.

“What makes you say that?”

“You keep showing up for one,” he whispered back.

You laughed and carefully ran your fingers through his hair. You decided against reminding him how he would owl you every time you went more than two days without visiting. 

“I think the way you kept making mistletoe appear under every door during Christmas and kissing me, might have tipped her off as well.”

He grinned down at you. 

You bit back a smile. “You’re lucky I like you.”

Fred pulled back just enough to meet your eyes. “I know.”

The music faded, replaced by a more upbeat tune, and someone behind you — George, by the sound of it — whooped loudly and dragged Percy into a clumsy two-step.

You started to step away, but Fred’s hand held firm at your waist.

“Don’t let go just yet,” he said.

“So you like me too,” you teased, but didn’t pull away.

Fred gave you a look, one of those crooked, lopsided half-smiles that always seemed to undo you a little. Mischief around the eyes, affection under the surface.

“I’ve been told it’s fairly obvious.”

You raised a brow. “Oh? By whom?”

“Mum. George. Ginny. That one weird mirror upstairs that whispers truths when you walk past it too fast—”

You snorted. “That thing’s cursed.”

“Cursed and correct,” he said, grinning.

Your heart tugged, just a little, at the ease of it all. The comfort. The slow, stubborn way he folded you into his life and refused to let you back out.

“And here I thought you were just using me for my medical expertise,” you said lightly.

“Oh, absolutely,” Fred said, mock-serious. “The way you check my bandages? Riveting. Can’t get enough.”

You stayed there with him in the middle of the room, just swaying a little to music that no longer matched your pace, his cane braced lightly against the side of your foot, your arms looped around each other like muscle memory.

And then, with the timing of someone who’d clearly been lurking and waiting for it, George called from across the room: “Oi! Should we start planning the wedding now, or are you still pretending this is about physical therapy?”

Fred didn’t miss a beat. “It’s intensive therapy, George. Leave us be.”

You giggled, pressing a hand against Fred’s chest and helping him reach for his cane.

“Do you see what you’ve done?” you murmured.

“I do,” he said, clearly pleased with himself.

Fred took the cane from you with practiced ease, but didn’t move right away. His hand lingered at your waist, thumb brushing a small, absent pattern against your side.

“C’mon,” he said at last, nodding toward the doorway. “Let’s go before George ropes Percy into a conga line again.”

You smiled and moved with him, matching your steps to his pace without thinking. You’d long since stopped counting it as effort.

Just as you reached the edge of the room, he paused, fingers still laced loosely with yours.

You turned to look at him.

He was already watching you.

“Thanks for showing up,” he said. 

You tilted your head, sneaking your arms around his waist once again. This time, stepping on your tippy-toes to press a chaste kiss to his lips.

“When have I not?”

That made him smile. He pulled you closer by the waist and pressed a kiss on your jaw, which tickled you.

“Happy New Year, angel.”

You didn’t say anything back. Not because you didn’t have a thousand things you could’ve said, but because in that moment, none of them needed saying.

[ughbrie]

tethered | caleb

⤜ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ- “Do you even realize,” he whispered, his voice low and uneven, “what you’re doing to me?”

You barely had a chance to respond before he closed the distance between you, his lips crashing against yours with a fervor that left no room for hesitation. The kiss was deeper, more desperate than before, as if he needed it, needed you, to steady the chaos inside him. His fingers tangled in your hair, holding you in place, making escape an impossibility—not that you wanted to.

“You don’t get it,” he rasped, his voice breaking as his grip on you tightened. “I'll never let you go. Not again. Not ever. Not after this.” His hand moved to your jaw, tilting your face up so you couldn’t look away. “I’ll do whatever it takes. Whatever it costs.”

(Or... a continuation of Caleb's limited 5 star memory: 'Painful Signal'.)

⤜ ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ- caleb x female reader

⤜ ɢᴇɴʀᴇ- angst, smut, & fluff

⤜ ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ- 6.9k

⤜ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ- nsfw, mdni, dom!caleb, spoilers and references to caleb’s myth/lore (lucid dreams) and bond story (rain's embrace), continuation of caleb’s limited five star memory (painful signal), themes of depression and trauma, mentions of the explosion, mentions of death, angst (slight-ish), possessive and obsessive behavior, implied virginity loss (mc and caleb), breast play, oral sex, fingering, sex toys (is caleb’s bionic arm considered a sex toy?), marking (biting), dirty talk, penetration (p in v), rough sex, unprotected sex, size kink, creampie, overstimulation, and mentions of ownership.

⤜ ɴᴏᴛᴇ- hiii, caleb finally urged me to post my first fanfic here, lol. when i played through his myth and five star memory, i couldn't help but feel that their interaction needed to be explored more. at first, i wanted to end this with just angst but i couldn't help it, i had to give caleb what he deserved after all. also english isn't my first language but i hope you enjoy!

"If that's what it takes to feel you, I'll accept it." he said, his voice steady but lined with an ache that made your heart clench.

The cold, unyielding touch of Caleb’s metal fingers sent a chill through your skin, a sharp contrast to the warmth of your hand. His grip was deliberate, almost tender, as though he feared you might vanish if he let go.

You studied his face, the shadows beneath his eyes, the faint tension in his jaw. “But most of the time, I wish your pain could be lessened,” you murmured, your gaze drifting to the metal arm. A pang of guilt and sorrow surged within you, each thought of what he must have endured hitting like a blow. Images of him being in pain clawed at your mind.

You pulled your hand away, an instinctive retreat from the weight of it all. Caleb’s expression faltered, the fleeting moment of connection slipping from his grasp. His longing was palpable, but you couldn’t bear to stay still. Anger bubbled in your chest, white-hot and unforgiving.

“Is this the Fleet’s doing...?” you snapped, your voice trembling as fury replaced grief. “They won’t get away with this.”

The thought of what they had done to him—what they had stolen from him—burned in your veins. You turned sharply, ready to storm out, the resolve to confront his tormentors burning within you. But before you could reach the door, Caleb’s left arm shot out, his grip firm but careful, pulling you back into the solid wall of his chest.

"You think you can just... come and go as you please?" His voice rasped, low and raw. His hold tightened, and you felt the tremor in his body—the weight he carried, the pain he bore alone.

Caleb’s left arm anchored you against his chest with unrelenting force, his breath ghosting over your neck. “It’s even more painful,” he rasped, “when you take risks for my sake.”

His words carved through your anger, leaving only the hollow ache of understanding. "Is that so?" you whispered, your voice softer now, like a balm against the storm raging within him as you met his intense, stormy eyes.

Turning to face him, you let yourself fall into his fractured orbit, your arms slipping around his waist. You lunged forward, the force of your embrace tipping both of you against the edge of the hospital bed. The cool sheets crumpled beneath you, but the world outside ceased to exist. His chest rose and fell rapidly beneath your touch, but he didn’t resist.

"Then hold me, Caleb. Do it tightly. Use your right hand," you murmured, pressing your face into his chest. The plea hung in the air like a fragile doll wanting to be held.

His hesitation lasted only a moment before he obeyed, his arms closed around you—one warm, one cold, both unyielding. His bionic arm caged you as though it were the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.

"You're the only one," he murmured, his voice thick with emotion, "who can ease my pain."

His grip told you everything his words could not: the fear of losing you again, the torment etched into his very being, and the solace he sought in your presence. As the machines hummed on, the pain and anger dulled, replaced by the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against yours.

You looked up at him, tears pooling in your eyes, threatening to spill over. The weight of your emotions clawed at your chest, raw and unrelenting. The memories of the explosion tore through you—flames consuming your home, the screams, the suffocating realization that Caleb and your grandmother were gone. And now here he was, alive but scarred, his very existence rewritten into something both familiar and foreign.

"I thought I lost you," your voice cracked, trembling under the strain of your confession. "For so long, I thought you were gone…" A tear slipped down your cheek, and you saw the flicker of guilt in his eyes—a storm of regret and longing that mirrored your own.

Caleb’s jaw tightened, and his hand—the bionic one—cupped your cheek with surprising gentleness. The cold metal was jarring against your skin, but there was a tenderness in the gesture that spoke of his desperation to keep you within reach.

"I never wanted to leave you, pip-squeak." he murmured, his voice strained. His thumb brushed away the tear trailing down your cheek. "It tore me apart."

His voice dropped, gravelly and harsh. "But knowing that there are people out there who’d use you, hurt you, for what you are—"

Your breath hitched, and the words struck like a hammer, cracking open wounds you thought had scarred over. "You don’t understand," you whispered, your fingers holding him tighter. "Losing you wasn’t just pain—it was like losing a piece of myself. And then to find you like this…"

Your gaze dropped to his bionic arm, the sharp edges glinting in the artificial light. "I can protect myself, you know, I would've preferred that you didn't have to go through all of this pain if it meant I had you by my side—"

His grip on you tightened, his other hand moving to cover yours, grounding you. "I understand you more than you think," he said darkly, his eyes narrowing. "Do you think I don’t remember the look on your face every time you put yourself in danger? Every time you thought someone else’s life was worth more than yours?" 

You flinched at the ferocity in his tone, but his words wrapped around you like chains. "Caleb…" you began, but he cut you off.

"No," he said sharply, his bionic fingers brushing against the back of your neck. "You don’t get it. If someone hurt you—no, if they tried to take you from me—I’d bury the world if it meant keeping you safe."

A shiver coursed through you at the steel in his voice, the unspoken promise in his words. His lips pressed into a thin line as he searched your face, looking for a flicker of understanding—or perhaps forgiveness.

Tears finally spilled down your cheeks, and your voice broke as you asked, "But what about you, Caleb? What about the pain you carry? The things they did to you?" Your hand hesitated before resting on his bionic arm. "You can’t shoulder everything alone. You shouldn’t have to."

His gaze softened for a moment, the harsh edges of his demeanor cracking under the weight of your plea. "I don’t care about the pain, it doesn't even hurt anymore," he admitted, his voice low. "I’d endure it a thousand times over if it meant you’d never feel an ounce of it."

"But I feel it anyway," you said, your voice barely above a whisper. "Seeing you like this, it's like they tore everything from me too."

Caleb’s breath hitched, his grip faltering for the first time. His forehead pressed against yours.

"I know pip-squeak, but I’m not going anywhere," he said finally, his voice a raw promise. "Never again. Even if I have to take you far away from this world, you’ll never lose me. Do you understand?"

The tears in your eyes blurred Caleb’s face as he held you tightly, the cold press of his bionic arm against your back a constant reminder of the lengths he had gone to. But as the emotions churned within you, they pulled loose a memory, vivid and sharp from one of your nights in Skyhaven after your reunion.

The rain had fallen in heavy sheets that night, soaking the park. You sat there, drenched despite your jacket, while Caleb loomed over you, holding an umbrella that shielded you both from the downpour. His presence was as overbearing as it was comforting, and the tension between you had been as thick as the storm clouds above.

"How long do you plan to lock me up this time?" you had asked, your voice sharp with frustration and resignation. "A month? A year? Or forever?"

Caleb didn’t flinch at the accusation, his expression calm, though his eyes betrayed a flicker of something deeper—possessiveness, maybe even desperation. He leaned in closer, his face mere inches from yours, the rain hammering on the umbrella above.

"If every problem pulls me further away from you," he said quietly, his voice as steady as the storm around you, "then I’ll spend a lifetime searching for the answers."

You had stared at him, a mixture of anger and confusion twisting in your chest. "But until that final moment," he continued, his voice softening, "we’ll always be together."

His words had left you bristling, torn between disbelief and the undeniable sincerity in his tone. You’d wanted to push back, to defy the invisible chains he always seemed to wrap around you. "What if my friends and colleagues from the Association come looking for me?" you demanded, testing the limits of his resolve.

He laughed, the sound low and quiet, yet it sent a chill down your spine. His eyes had glinted with something unsettling, a mix of amusement and absolute certainty. "In that case," he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, "I’ll hold a funeral they can attend. So they’ll think you’re gone forever."

Before you could respond, he had gently extended his hand to you, palm up, waiting for you to take it. The rain fell harder around you, but beneath the umbrella, there was an unsettling kind of stillness. Hesitantly, you had reached out, your fingers brushing against his, and the tension in his shoulders had eased the moment you accepted his touch.

Now, standing here in this room with his arms wrapped tightly around you, the memory struck you like a bolt of lightning. You realized that Caleb had always been this way—possessive, protective, willing to go to unimaginable lengths to keep you safe. Even when you were children, when the world felt so much smaller, he had been the same. You remembered the time he locked you in the attic of your grandmother’s house to protect you from the neighborhood bullies.

It was in his nature—this fierce, unwavering obsession with keeping you close, even when it hurt you both. The realization was a heavy one, bittersweet in its clarity. Despite it all, Caleb hadn’t truly changed at all. He was still the boy you grew up with, who would do anything to shield you from harm, even if it meant breaking you to keep you safe.

Caleb’s arms tightened around you, bringing you back from your reverie, his embrace almost desperate as if holding you harder might stop the storm of emotions swirling inside you. But you didn’t speak. The silence stretched, heavy and palpable, and for the first time, Caleb’s confidence seemed to waver.

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly, his voice laced with unease. He pulled back just enough to look at you, his intense gaze searching your face. “You’re… too quiet. Did I say something that—”

You didn’t let him finish. Acting on impulse, you reached up, your hands trembling slightly as you cupped his face. His words died in his throat as your lips pressed against his, soft but firm, silencing his uncertainty.

For a moment, Caleb froze, his breath catching as if he couldn’t quite process what was happening. Then, his right arm shifted slightly, careful not to press too hard against you, while his other hand slid up to cradle the back of your head, fingers threading through your hair. The kiss deepened, his initial shock giving way to something raw and unspoken.

“Why did you...” he began as he pulled away slightly, his voice a whisper, but he didn’t finish the question. He didn’t need to. The answer was in the way you looked at him, your eyes still shimmering with tears.

“You’re here, alive.” you murmured, your voice unsteady. “I can't lose you again and regret not doing that sooner."

The tension in his shoulders eased slightly, but the unease didn’t fully leave his eyes. “You’ll never lose me,” he said once again, his grip tightening as if to emphasize the point. “Not now, not ever. I won’t let it happen.”

You nodded and leaned in to kiss him again, but he frowned, his jaw hard. You paused, "What is it?"

Caleb’s gaze burned into yours, his resolve visibly trembling as if your kiss moments ago had shattered something fragile inside him. His grip tightened, anchoring you against him, while he cradled your face with a tenderness that stood at odds with the intensity in his eyes.

“Do you even realize,” he whispered, his voice low and uneven, “what you’re doing to me?”

You barely had a chance to respond before he closed the distance between you, his lips crashing against yours with a fervor that left no room for hesitation. The kiss was deeper, more desperate than before, as if he needed it, needed you, to steady the chaos inside him. His fingers tangled in your hair, holding you in place, making escape an impossibility—not that you wanted to.

“You don’t get it,” he rasped, his voice breaking as his grip on you tightened. “I'll never let you go. Not again. Not ever. Not after this.” His hand moved to your jaw, tilting your face up so you couldn’t look away. “I’ll do whatever it takes. Whatever it costs.”

His words were suffocating, wrapping around you like a second skin. You could see it—how deeply the thought of losing you terrified him, how far he was willing to go to keep you with him, even if it meant crossing every line.

“Caleb...” you murmured, your voice barely audible. But he silenced you with another kiss, softer this time but no less intense, as if trying to convince himself that you were still there, finally his, and no force in the world could take you away.

When he pulled back, his gaze bore into yours, unwavering. “I can't hold myself back,” he rasped, his voice trembling with conviction. "Not anymore."

“I’ve tried,” he continued, his voice raw and unsteady. “When we were younger... I’ve tried to give you space, to let you breathe, but with every second you were away from me, I felt like the world took it as a chance and ripped you away from me.”

His forehead pressed against yours, his breath warm and shallow. “You’re all I have left. Do you understand that? If I lose you... there won’t be anything left of me.”

The intensity in his words sent a shiver through you, a mixture of fear and something far more complicated swirling in your chest. You opened your mouth to speak, but he cut you off.

“You’re mine,” he said, the possessiveness in his tone leaving no room for doubt. “No one else’s. And I’ll do whatever it takes to keep it that way.”

Caleb’s gaze darkened, his restraint visibly unraveling as the tension between you swelled to its breaking point. Without warning, he surged forward, capturing your lips in a fiery kiss that left you breathless. His grip on you was firm, almost possessive, his bionic arm pulling you impossibly closer while his other hand slid up to cradle the back of your head.

His lips trailed away from yours, brushing down to the curve of your jaw and then to your neck, the sensation sending shivers to coarse through your entire body. His breath was warm against your skin, each touch of his lips a mix of desperation and barely-contained need. For a moment, it felt like he might lose himself entirely, his control slipping with every passing second.

But just as his teeth grazed the sensitive skin of your neck, he froze. His arms are still around you, not quite sure if he wanted to pull you closer or to push you away. He leaned his forehead against your shoulder, his breath heavy and uneven.

“I…” His voice was hoarse, trembling with the effort to hold himself back. “I need you to tell me if this is okay.” He pulled back just enough to meet your gaze, his eyes burning with a dangerous mix of longing and uncertainty. “If you want me to stop, say it now. Please. I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you.”

His control was slipping, but he was still giving you the choice. You smiled softly. Oh, Caleb.

You reached up, your fingers trembling as you cupped his face, your thumb brushing across his cheek. "It's okay," you whispered, your voice soft but firm. "I want this... I want you."

A quiet, broken sound escaped him, like a weight had been lifted from his chest, and before you could say another word, he leaned in again, this time more urgently, his lips claiming yours with a desperate intensity. 

His lips moved down to your neck again, this time without hesitation, his kiss filled with a mixture of tenderness and something darker, more possessive. His breath was hot against your skin, and his control, once so fragile, seemed to finally break as he gave in to the overwhelming need to have you.

Caleb lifted you up by the waist, placing you gently on the narrow bed, his bionic arm carefully maneuvering you onto your back while his warm hand slid up the curve of your side.

You felt his gaze on you, dark with hunger and unbridled with lust. It wasn’t just the way his eyes lingered—it was the sheer intensity of it, as though you were his axis, the very thing that tethered his sanity that's currently on the brink of snapping. It sent a shiver down your spine, your body betraying you with a tremor you couldn’t suppress.

"I've always wanted to mark you, you know." he murmured, his voice a low rumble. "To leave something on you that everyone would see."

Leaning in, he began trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses along the slender column of your neck. His lips brushed over your racing pulse before he latched onto your throat, sucking and nipping until he left a vivid hickey blooming across your flesh.

As if satisfied by his work, he hummed, the sound reverberating through your skin. "Now, I can leave as many as I want."

Pulling back, he pressed a quick kiss on your jaw as his hands reached beneath your shirt, slipping past the material to meet the soft swell of your breasts covered by your bra.

You trembled, the cold metal of his right arm harsh against the warmth of your skin. Suddenly, his touch retreated as if seared, hyper aware of every reaction you've been making.

He asked, his voice low. "Are you alright?" Hesitant, he reached out with his right arm only to pull back and reach out with his left hand instead. He cradled your jaw, and you could feel the tremor of his fingers against your skin.

You covered his hand with your own, giving it a gentle squeeze as you gazed up at him with a reassuring smile. "Yes, Caleb," you murmured softly, your voice barely above a whisper. "I just... I haven't done this before..."

Your words seemed to reassure the storm brewing within him, a desperate hunger that couldn't be sated. He crashed his lips against yours in a bruising kiss, his tongue delving into your mouth with a fervor that stole your breath away. His hands kneaded your breasts roughly through your shirt, his bionic fingers leaving faint indents on your skin as he groped and squeezed.

"It's alright, baby. I'll take care of you." he muttered in between.

He tore his mouth from yours, his breathing ragged as he stared down at you with wild, almost feral eyes. "You drive me crazy," he growled, his voice rough with desire. "I can't... I need..."

He couldn't seem to find the words, his mind too consumed with lust to form a coherent thought. Instead, he acted on instinct, his body moving on its own accord as he ripped your shirt off, you couldn't be bothered to react, your mind hazy. Your bra followed soon after, the flimsy material no match for his desperation.

You gasped as the cool air hit your bare skin, your nipples pebbling under his heated gaze. He groaned, before whispering to himself, "I can't believe you're real."

You wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but as he drank in the sight of you, you could see the way his eyes glinted with a primal hunger that sent a bolt of electricity straight to your skin.

"Caleb," you breathed, your voice heavy with want. "Please..."

Please what? You weren't sure, but you knew that you needed him. Needed to feel him, skin to skin, heart to heart. You needed him as much as he needed you.

He didn't need to be told twice, Caleb lowered his head, his mouth latching onto one of your hardened nipples. He suckled greedily, his teeth grazing the sensitive bud as his metal hand pinched and rolled the other between his thumb and forefinger.

Your back arched as you cried out, your fingers tangled in his hair. "Caleb—"

He lavished your breasts with attention, alternating between licks, nips and bites until your skin was flushed and aching with need. He looked up, his hot mouth still wrapped around one of your nipples, "Hmmm?" he hummed, his eyes dazed.

"P-Please... I need—"

His hips rocked against yours, stopping your train of thought, the rough fabric of his pants rubbing deliciously against your core. The layers of clothing separated you still, but you could feel the heat of him.

A low, deep chuckle rumbled through his chest, vibrating against your sensitive skin. "Please, what?" he murmured, his voice a sinful purr as he nuzzled into valley between your breasts. "Come on, baby. Tell me what you need..."

You shook your head, heat creeping up your cheeks. "You're so—annoying. Y-You know what I want..."

Gently, he lifted your waist to swiftly pull your pants off, you barely got the chance to register the action, only to feel the cold air as it enveloped your bare legs.

As if sensing your surprise, you felt him smile against your skin before inching down. He placed a single, open-mouthed kiss on your navel before trailing his lips lower, his breath hot and heavy against your aching core. Your hips jerked, a needy mewl escaping your lips as you felt the first brush of his tongue against your clothed sex. He licked a slow, deliberate stripe over your folds, the damp fabric of your panties the only barrier between his mouth and your dripping flesh.

A low groan resonated from deep within his chest as he tasted you, the flavor of your arousal seeping through the thin material. “Fuck, baby…” he growled, his voice muffled against your sex. “I dreamed of this so many times, I can’t believe I’m finally tasting you for real..”

You closed your eyes, shuddering because of his words. Caleb had always been teasing and confident, but hearing him say those words when everything had been innocent and playful between the two of you ever since made your stomach clench.

Slowly, he peeled your panties off, tossing them carelessly to the side. Exposed and bare, he could see your glistening folds, swollen and practically weeping with need. 

“You’re so wet,” he murmured, his tone devoid of teasing or malice—just an honest observation, quiet and unfiltered. 

You shivered. His eyes, sharp and unyielding, flicked back to meet yours, and the intensity in them made your heart skip. There was no judgment, no amusement—just an unwavering focus that left you feeling raw and exposed.

He reached forward with his left hand, his thumb pressing against the seam of your folds, and you felt the slick coating his digit as he swiped up, and there he started to circle your clit with heavy pressure.

"Fuck—" you whined, the foreign pleasure making you throw your head back.

Caleb chuckled, purring, "There, there...."

You could practically feel him smirking without even having to look at him and you wanted nothing more than to wipe the smug off his face. But you'd do it another time, now you'd let him take his time with you.

Leaning down, Caleb left open-mouthed kisses along your inner thighs, his tongue a warm, wet brand against your sensitive skin.

"Spread out like a feast, just for me," he murmured, his voice a low, reverent rumble. He breathed hotly against your dripping slit, feeling your body jerk in anticipation. Slowly, teasingly, he dragged the flat of his tongue along your folds, a long, languid lick that had your hips bucking.

"Caleb..." you breathed, your body starting to squirm.

"Stay still." he ordered, his voice muffled.

You peered down and saw how tightly his hands gripped your thighs, you're sure he'd leave a bruise. He was holding you open, keeping you exposed to his ravenous mouth.

You felt his lips seal around your entrance as he sucked, his tongue pushed inside, delving deep, the slick muscle stroking your velvety walls with unhurried, sensual glides. Then, his lips found your clit once more, wrapping around the throbbing bud as he suckled gently, his tongue flicking against it with maddening slowness. You could practically feel it pulsing against his mouth, the evidence of your growing arousal impossible to ignore. He lapped at it, circled it, teased it mercilessly until it was swollen and straining.

You wanted more. Needed more.

You reached out, your fingers tangling in his hair, tugging almost painfully as you ground your hips against his face, desperate for some much-needed friction. But he held you still, his strong hands gripping your thighs, keeping you immobile.

Each pass of his tongue sent jolts of electricity zipping up your spine, your body arching and writhing in a futile attempt to escape the overwhelming pleasure.

As you teetered on the brink, he pulled back, his chin glistening with your juices. Before you could voice your protest, he circled your entrance teasingly, the pad of his metal thumb tracing the swollen rim, dipping inside just barely before retreating again. Each brush against your sensitive flesh drew a breathy moan from your lips, your hips undulating helplessly, chasing his touch.

"I want to see you wrapped around my metal fingers..." he groaned, his voice a low, approving rumble. He eased a single finger inside your fluttering channel, the cool metal a delicious contrast to your scorching heat. Slowly, almost torturously, he pushed it deeper, inch by excruciating inch, until he was buried to the knuckle. He paused there, letting you adjust to the intrusion, feeling your silky walls clench around the digit.

With agonizing slowness, he began to move, pumping his finger in and out of your dripping sex. Each drag against your walls, each curl of his knuckle against that special spot deep inside, dragged a broken moan from your throat. He was relentless, his pace unhurried, determined to take you apart piece by piece until you were nothing but a writhing, wanton mess beneath him.

"Y-you're so tight," Caleb grunted, his finger pumping faster, harder, plunging into your soaked heat. "I love how you grip me like this." His words were punctuated by the lewd squelches of your arousal, your walls clenching desperately around the invading digit.

A second finger joined the first, stretching you wider, filling you fuller. He pumped them in tandem, in deep, rolling thrusts that had your back arching and your toes curling against the sheets. All the while, his thumb circled your clit, the rough pad rubbing against the sensitive bundle of nerves until it throbbed and pulsed with need.

"Ohh...!" you cried out as he curled his fingers just right, brushing against that special spot deep inside.

He groaned in approval, the sound rumbling through his chest and vibrating deliciously against your sensitive flesh. "That's it, baby... let me hear you," he encouraged, his voice a low, sinful purr.

"Caleb... hah... I can't... I'm close..." you gasped, your chest heaving with each ragged breath.

Caleb pulled back, he gazed up at you with hooded eyes. "Not yet, baby," he murmured, his voice a low, authoritative rumble. "I want you to come on my cock, nowhere else."

He sat back on his knees, his hands gripping your hips as he tugged your body towards him, positioning you at the edge of the bed. With one swift, powerful movement, he tore off his pants. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of his boxers, and with a swift, impatient tug, he shucked them off, freeing his straining cock.

It bobbed before you, long and thick and so hard it curved slightly towards his stomach. The broad head was an angry red, the skin pulled taut and flushed, the slit in the tip dripping with the evidence of his arousal. Your mouth watered at the sight, your tongue darting out to wet your lips as you imagined how he would finally feel inside you.

Caleb gripped himself, his left hand wrapping around the thick shaft, stroking it slowly, deliberately. "You want this, don't you, pip-squeak?" he growled, the head of his cock nudging against your entrance, the tip catching on your swollen, slick folds. "You want me to fill this greedy little pussy until you're stretched wide and all mine?"

He rolled his hips, rubbing the underside of his shaft against your clit, the textured skin catching on the sensitive bundle of nerves until your vision nearly whited out from the intensity of it. Your hands flew to his shoulders, your nails digging into the hard muscle as you arched into him, your body crying out for more.

"Please, Caleb," you whimpered, your voice thin and reedy with need. "I want... I need..."

"Tell me," he demanded, his voice a low, commanding bark. "Tell me what you need, baby. Beg me for it."

Almost desperately, he added, "Please... please..."

Your stomach ached as he pressed harder, the head of his cock pushing insistently against your entrance, the crown popping inside your slick heat, stretching you around his girth. The sensation was exquisite, the promise of what was to come making your toes curl and your thighs tremble.

"I need your cock," you gasped out, your voice raw and desperate. "Please, Caleb... I need you inside me."

A dark, wicked grin split his face, his eyes glinting with a feral, hungry light. "That's my girl," he praised, his voice a low, sinful purr.

He leaned in, his lips pressing a soft kiss against your jaw, he whispered, "I'm going to fuck you until you can't walk straight, until all you can feel is me, deep inside of you."

With that, he surged forward, the thick head of his cock splitting you open, sinking into your welcoming heat with a low groan that rumbled through his chest. Your back arched, your nails digging into his shoulders as you took him inside, your velvety walls stretching deliciously around his invading length. He didn't stop until he was buried to the hilt, his heavy balls nestled against your ass, his cock pulsing deep inside your core.

You gasped, "Oh..." The unfamiliar stretch made your thighs tremble.

Caleb paused, giving you a moment to adjust to the feeling of being so utterly filled, so completely stretched around his thick cock. He peppered your face with soft kisses, murmuring words of praise and encouragement against your skin.

"You feel incredible," he whispered, his voice rough with emotion and restraint. "So tight and hot and perfect around me."

The uncomfortable stretch didn’t last long, your body slowly adjusting as the tension turned into something else entirely. The yearning grew, your thoughts clouded by need. Every second of stillness felt unbearable, the ache for him to move consuming you.

Hurriedly, you whispered, your voice trembling with anticipation, “You can move now…”

Slowly, almost hesitantly, he began to move. His hips pulled back, the drag of his length against your walls sent sparks of sensation crackling through your nerve endings. And then he pushed forward again, harder this time, his length plundering your depths with a newfound urgency.

A broken moan tumbled from your lips as he set a steady rhythm, each powerful thrust driving the breath from your lungs and stoking the heat building in your core. The pain began to recede, replaced by a pleasure so intense it bordered on overwhelming.

"Hah... C-Caleb-!"

"That's it, baby. You're taking me so well..."

Caleb could feel your body starting to relax, could feel your hips beginning to move in tandem with his. Emboldened, he increased his pace, his thrusts growing harder, more insistent as he chased his own release. The obscene slap of flesh against flesh filled the room, punctuated by your needy moans and his grunts of exertion.

"Do you feel how big I am, pip-squeak?" he purred, flexing his hips to emphasize his point. "I'm so deep inside this sweet little pussy. Filling you up in a way no one else will ever be able to."

His hand slid down your body, your skin flushed and heated beneath his touch. He cupped your mound, his fingers brushing against where you were joined, feeling the way your lips stretched obscenely around his girth.

"I love seeing your tight little cunt so full," Caleb growled, his eyes glittering with a predatory light. "It's like this hungry little hole was made just for my cock."

"C-Caleb....!" you whined, lips parted open. His words made your skin hot and your brain go hay wire.

You could feel every rigid inch of him as he hilted inside you, his heavy balls nestling against your bottom. Your body had never felt so full, so deliciously stuffed. It was almost too much, the stretch pushing you to your limits, until you swore you could feel him in your throat.

He let out a choked groan, his breath hitching as he clung to the moment. "W-Wait," he stammered, his voice thick with need, "I need to feel more of you..."

Your body trembled under the weight of his words, a soft, helpless mewl escaping your lips. "M-More..?" you echoed, your voice barely audible, laced with vulnerability and the same yearning that reflected in his gaze.

Caleb pressed a wet kiss on your cheek and gripped your thighs, his large hands easily encircling your slender legs as he pushed them up and back, folding you nearly in half. He raised them high, draping them over his broad, muscular shoulders until your knees were pressed against your chest and your ankles crossed behind his neck.

Caleb leaned down, bracing his elbows on either side of your head as he pistoned in and out of your dripping sex. His hips slammed against yours, the new angle allowed him to plunge even deeper, the head of his cock kissing your cervix with each driving thrust.

He captured your lips in a searing kiss, his tongue delving into your mouth to tangle with yours. You could taste yourself on him, the flavor of your arousal lingering on his lips and tongue as he explored your mouth. Your hands flew to his hair, gripping the strands tightly as you kissed him back with a fervor that matched his own.

"That's it, baby," he panted against your lips, his voice rough and urgent. "Take my cock. Fuck, you're so deep like this. I can feel every inch of this tight little cunt squeezing me."

Caleb's mouth trailed hungry kisses along the column of your throat, his teeth grazing your sensitive skin. He latched onto your shoulder, biting down until you cried out, your fingers scrabbling at his back. The sharp sting of his teeth piercing your flesh pushed you closer to the edge, your pleasure spiked with a hint of pain. Your sex rippled around him, the velvet walls squeezing his pistoning length as he fucked you with wild abandon.

"Caleb!" you keened, your head thrown back, your body bowing off the bed. "I'm going to... I'm going to come!"

"That's it, baby. Come for me," he urged, his hips slapping against yours with renewed fervor. 

Your world exploded into a million pieces as your orgasm crashed over you, your sex clamping down around him like a vice. You cried out, seeing white. Your nails raked down his back, leaving red welts in their wake as you clung to him, anchored against the overwhelming feeling of your orgasm.

But even as you trembled and shuddered through the aftershocks, Caleb didn't stop. He continued to pound into you, his length plundering your walls as he chased his own release, the wet squelching sounds of your spasming cunt being fucked senseless echoing the walls. Your body knew the sensation was almost too much to bear, your sensitive flesh crying out for respite as he drove into you again and again.

"I can't... it's too much..." you whimpered, your voice thin and reedy as your trembling hands pushed weakly against his chest, though you lacked the strength to follow through.

"Shh, I've got you," Caleb murmured, his voice a mix of strained need and steadfast reassurance. He leaned in, pressing his forehead gently to yours as his movements slowed slightly, yet his intensity didn’t waver. "I need to fill you up, baby," he whispered, his tone low and fervent. "I just need to... let me take care of you."

You whined softly, tears brimming in your eyes as the intensity of it all overwhelmed you, your toes curling. Caleb’s gaze softened, though the desperation lingering in his expression didn’t waver. He leaned in, brushing his lips tenderly against your damp cheeks, kissing your tears away as if to soothe the overwhelming sensations within you.

"I know it’s too much, b-baby," he murmured, his voice a mix of huskiness and gentle coaxing. "Just take it for me, yeah? You're doing so good for me..."

His hips slammed against yours, the rhythm growing almost sloppy now, driven by sheer desperation, yet each movement was still hard and fast, claiming you in every way. His breath was hot against your skin, his lips trailing wet, possessive kisses along your jawline.

"You’re mine," he murmured, the words rough and trembling with unrestrained emotion. His voice dipped lower, almost a growl, as he repeated with fervent intensity, "Just mine. Finally mine."

You closed your eyes, your heart pounding as you wrapped your arms around his nape, pulling him closer, as if anchoring yourself to him. Your voice trembled, raw with emotion, as you whispered hoarsely, "I'm yours..."

The words seemed to shatter something within Caleb, unraveling the last threads of his restraint. Just hearing you say you were his was enough to push him to the brink, his entire being consumed by the overwhelming need to claim you.

"Fuck, I'm coming," he grunted, his hips slamming against yours one last time. "Here it comes, baby. Take it all."

You felt a sudden warmth spread through you as Caleb reached his peak, his release surging inside you in long, pulsing waves that left you breathless. The intimacy of the moment consumed you, your body trembling against his as you held onto him, feeling every shudder that rippled through his frame.

Caleb kissed you again, more gently this time, before he carefully lowered your legs from his shoulders, easing them down to rest on the mattress. His movements were slow, deliberate, as though he feared breaking the fragile moment you shared. He collapsed beside you, catching himself on his elbows to keep from resting his weight on you accidentally.

The room was quiet except for the soft rhythm of your breathing, mingling with Caleb’s. The air was warm, the atmosphere tender, as the fiery passion that had consumed you both finally ebbed into a calm serenity. His bionic arm rested protectively against your waist, his other hand brushing gentle circles along your shoulder as he held you close, your bodies tangled together.

“You okay?” Caleb’s voice was a low murmur, his lips brushing against your temple as he spoke. There was a vulnerability in his tone that made your heart ache.

You nodded against his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing beneath your cheek. “I’m okay,” you whispered, your voice tired but content. “What about you?”

He let out a soft laugh, the sound rumbling through you. “I should be asking you that, pip-squeak.” he replied, pressing a lingering kiss to your hair. “But... yeah. I’m good. Better than good.”

There was a pause, and then his bionic fingers moved, carefully tracing patterns against your skin. The coolness of the metal felt strangely soothing, a contrast to the warmth of his body. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, the edge of worry creeping into his voice.

You tilted your head to look at him, your hand coming up to cup his jaw. “You didn’t hurt me,” you reassured him softly, meeting his eyes. “Not even for a second.”

He visibly relaxed, his shoulders easing as he pulled you even closer, tucking your head beneath his chin. “Good,” he said, the word more to himself than to you. “Because I’d never forgive myself if I did.”

For a while, the two of you simply stayed like that, wrapped in each other’s warmth. Caleb’s fingers absently played with your hair, his touch grounding and soothing. He whispered small things now and then—how much he loved you, how he’d never let anything hurt you, how you were his whole world. You answered with quiet hums, your heart swelling with every word.

As exhaustion finally began to tug at you, you felt him shift, “Sleep,” he murmured, his voice a soft command. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

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