Chapter 17 #3
“Two millimeters distal,” Jesse murmured to me. His fingers moved like the punctuation to Novak’s sentences—clamp here, pressure there, landing almost as soon as she asked.
I adjusted, and the view cleared.
Time slipped away like a falling tide. The world had narrowed to the glint of a clamp jaw, to bright lights on baby-pale skin, to the choreographed precision of hands much more experienced than mine.
My mask was damp against my face, hair stuck to the back of my neck, shoulders burning.
I fought to keep my breath and fingers steady.
“Now,” Novak said, an hour or five later. And—
Oh.
The room inhaled, locking pins clicking as the split table eased apart.
Each twin became their own island of blue drape and light.
The space between them was no wider than a step, but it felt…
enormous. Sacred. I blinked hard behind my mask, caught Jesse doing the same, the moment cutting sharp and clear.
Across the room, I heard Tay’s voice go urgent. Fuck—a slick of red where there shouldn’t be.
“Bleeder,” Dr. Lee said, calm as a winter lake. “Suction, Ruiz. Visual, now.”
She moved, fast and sure. Tay’s clamp dropped in the exact right place, and Lee tied off. I remembered how to breathe.
The grind returned—slow hours and tiny, precise cuts, broken into segments when we rotated for short breaks.
“Drink,” Jesse said at some point, and I needed a second to register the squeeze bottle pressed into my glove.
It pinged a distant echo of him telling me just that—after the lights came back on, after we’d kept a baby breathing when the power went out, before we’d crashed into each other like magnets.
“Thanks,” I said, hoarse.
The faintest softening around his eyes hinted at a smile. He turned away, kept moving.
Minutes, hours. Time moved in increments measured by each readout of the vitals. Voices issued clipped commands as my back became one big ache that I ignored. We hit the pivot for Twin B—small, fragile bile ducts glared where we’d hoped for more. Novak didn’t even sound disappointed, just prepared.
“No cowboy nonsense,” she said. “Temporary setup now, full reconstruction once things have healed. We give this child the best chance.”
Behind me, a nurse murmured something about biliary drains. I filed it under things I’d need to look up later.
We closed one abdomen, then the other—neat, tiny sutures that hid a medical miracle.
Or maybe it only felt that way to me, young and naive, awed by the idea of two parents hearing “it went well” and grabbing it with both hands, turning it over until it widened their lungs and they could breathe again, finally.
Twin A rolled out first. Twin B followed, and the room went quiet.
Novak broke it. “Good work,” she said, and for the first time, emotion shone through her voice—relief and pride, something soft I’d never heard from her before.
“It’s moments like this that remind us why we do the things we do, even if it comes at a price.
You all stepped up today. Go home. Rest. Be proud. ”
My throat clicked as I swallowed, fumbling as I tried to peel off my gloves. I’d been one tiny part of a much bigger effort, but—God. I had been there. And now two tiny babies were rolling toward recovery.
Yes, I was ambitious—but if that were my only fuel, I could have tried to be a lawyer or pilot. Not that someone like Travis would ever get the difference.
I hit the scrub sink and let warm water run until I could feel my hands again.
Jesse appeared next to me, close enough to imagine the heat of his body.
I glanced over just as he did, his eyes bright with post-adrenaline.
He looked younger like this, lighter in a way that I recognized because I felt it, too.
One corner of his mouth hitched up. I bit my cheek against a smile.
We filed out into the corridor after the others, too warm after the chill of the OR.
My shoulders ached. What time was it? Twelve hours after we’d started?
Fifteen? Late enough that night had fallen, darkness pressing in against the windows.
Everything seemed disjointed—my thoughts, the happy buzz that reached all the way down to my toes.
We did it.
Jesse walked ahead of me, so I saw it when Novak stopped him with a hand on the shoulder. “Solid assist, Dr. Maddox,” she told him.
It might as well have been a job offer. My chest went hot as he dipped his chin, and even from ten feet away, I could feel how that simple praise would sit inside him for days.
Novak moved on, already reaching for her phone to make arrangements for the next steps, while Jesse stood rooted to the spot, looking like he was ready to burst into a million glittering pieces.
“Congrats,” I whispered as I passed him.
He looked up at me—exhausted, elated, almost silly with relief. We were the last ones, everyone else a few steps ahead already, so I was the only one who caught it when his mouth curved up into something wild and reckless.
“Finn.” His voice was pitched low like a secret. “Come home with me?”