For a split second, I thought he might refuse. Thought he might actually try to out-argue gravity. The idea scared me more than the fall would have.
Then something gave — not in his body, but in his resolve. He sat, heavy and abrupt, breath tearing out of him as if he’d been holding it hostage.
Silence rushed in.
His head dropped forward, elbows on his thighs. He stared at the floor as though it had betrayed him. I crouched in front of him again, slower this time, deliberately, so he’d see me coming. I didn’t touch him right away.
“You don’t have to win this,” I said quietly.
His laugh came out broken, sharp around the edges. “I do,” he said. “I don’t get to be… this.”
This meaningnew. This meaningchanged. This meaningneeding help.
I placed my hands on his knees then, steady, grounding. “You’re not losing,” I said. “You’re learning.”
He shook his head, eyes burning. “I don’t want to learn. I want toknowalready.”
That did it. That was the truth about him. The senior attending. The man whose identity was built on mastery. On never being the slowest in the room.
Poor Noelle cleared her throat gently. “That’s enough for today. And for the record — pushing like that? It’s exactly who you were before. We just need to teach him, teachyou, when to stop. Youdidn’t become a different man because of an accident, Doctor Vaughn.”
Desmond didn’t look up. But his breathing slowed. The fight drained out of him in increments.
I stayed where I was, knees aching, exhaustion pressing down on me like gravity of its own. I would go to work again. I would sleep too little. I would learn all of this by repetition, and failure, and love.
But right now, in this moment, I watched him sit with the thing he couldn’t will away.
And I loved him — not in spite of the stubbornness. Because of it. Behind us, the morning waited. And this time, we didn’t pretend it wasn’t going to hurt.
Chapter 43
Desmond
Anya stirred beside me first, groaning something indiscernible, hair a tangled halo across the pillow. She glanced at the clock and blinked awake, slow-motion, like she hadn’t fully remembered what the morning meant.
“PT’s here,” I said before she could even speak, my voice rough, stubbornly casual.
Her eyes went wide, then narrowed, and she kicked the blanket off with a tired sort of decisiveness. “Oh, crap,” she muttered, scrambling upright, fumbling with her clothes. “Do you want to get it?” She asked as I watched her pull back the mess of her hair with one hand while the other grabbed the bag, and I felt that familiar tug in my chest: admiration, guilt, and longing all tangled into one.
“That joke is never funny, Anya. Let it go.” But my lips curled upwards anyway.
We had passed…whatever it wasin the early weeks. Days blurred. Pain and frustration, tears and curses, victories too small to mark, and somehow we were here: me able to stand, walk, even manage the prosthetic myself — but still painfully human enough to flinch at missteps.
The doorbell rang again. She groaned, muttered apologies to me and the universe, and went to answer. I swung my legs over the bed, flexing my limb into the temporary prosthetic, letting the familiar clank and tug remind me that progress was a thing, even if it was slow and stubborn.
The therapist, Noelle, stood there, clipboard at the ready, radiating energy I didn’t have and probably shouldn’t envy. Anya smiled, bleary but steady, and waved me toward the living room.
Doctor Singer was a phenomenal therapist. She’d come highly recommended by the nurses who had been in and out of my ICU room with Anya. And, god forbid, I hope I’d never have need of a physical therapist again, but she would be my first call.
“Ready for round… whatever?” I muttered, and she raised an eyebrow.
“You’re doing fine,” she said, clipped but encouraging. “Let’s just stand and walk.”
I braced my hands on the walker, jaw tight. My body screamed, “Not today,” but my pride overrode it. “Again,” I said before anyone could stop me. “I can do it again.”
Anya froze mid-step, just for a fraction of a second, but it was enough. Her expression softened, a quiet mixture of amusement and exasperation, and I saw the way her eyes lingered on my hands gripping the walker, my shoulders squared like armor.
“Desmond,” Noelle said, voice gentle but firm, but then her lips tipped upwards. “Doctors are always the worst patients.”
