Page 96 of Priest

My fingers curl around the sonogram photos.

“You didn’t want to build a life just to poison it,” he goes on. “Didn’t want to wake up one day and realize you’d turned into the thing you’d run from.”

The room feels smaller.

“She deserves to know that,” he says. “Maybe not the details. Maybe not every scar. But the truth of why you’ve been holdin’ your breath your whole damn life.”

I swallow hard. “She already knows I don’t do easy.”

“That ain’t the same as knowin’ you were tryin’ to be better,” Deacon replies. “Or that every rule you made was you swearin’ you’d never be him.”

I look up at him then. Really look.

“You think she’ll understand?” I ask.

He studies me for a long moment, like he’s measuring the distance between fear and faith. “I think,” he says finally, “that if you don’t trust her with the truth, you’re still lettin’ Joker make your choices.”

That lands like a punch I don’t dodge.

The monitor hums steadily beside him, grounding and constant, proof he’s still here even as exhaustion starts dragging at the edges of his face. He studies me for another long second, eyes heavy but clear.

“You already know what you want,” he says quietly. Not a question. A statement. “That ain’t the problem.”

I don’t answer. Don’t need to.

“The problem,” he continues, voice roughening as his strength ebbs, “is you tryin’ to love people without lettin’ them see where you came from.”

My jaw tightens.

“You survived somethin’ most men don’t,” he says. “And instead of lettin’ that make you cruel, you tried to make yourself… contained. Predictable. Safe. Nothin’ wrong with that, except you kept the wrong things out.”

I look down at the floor, the weight of it pressing hard against my ribs.

“But you don’t build a future by pretendin’ the fire never touched you,” Deacon adds. “You build it by showin’ the scars and trustin’ the right person not to flinch.”

My chest gets too tight to hold steady. I push out of the chair and turn toward the door, needing the distance even though there’s nowhere far enough to outrun what he’s putting in front of me.

“Priest,” he murmurs, fatigue finally winning.

I stop with my hand near the door.

“You’re not him,” Deacon says, voice barely above the hum of the machines. “You never were. What you built for us, with us, proves that.”

I don’t look back. The weight of it presses hard against my ribs.

“I saw the way she looks at you,” he adds, like he’s stating a fact no one bothered to argue with. “She saw you without the armor. Saw the parts you keep locked down.”

My jaw tightens.

“And she didn’t flinch,” Deacon continues. “Didn’t try to fix you. Didn’t ask you to be anyone else.”

The room goes quiet except for the machines and the rough pull of his breathing. I stay where I am, hand still near the door, every word finding a place I’d rather leave untouched.

“If you keep livin’ like you might be him,” he finishes, voice fading as the meds pull him under, “you’ll lose the only person who ever saw you bare and chose you anyway.”

I stand there until his breathing evens out.

Then I step into the hall with the sonogram photos still in my hand and his words burning holes through every wall I ever built.