Anya
Ihadn’t realized how far I’d crossed the line until someone else named it with their presence.
The room had narrowed to Desmond’s face. To the warmth of his skin under my palm. To the familiar roughness of his beard against my thumb. To the way his breathing had started to slow when my fingers threaded through his hair, grounding him in something real, something solid.
I wasn’t thinking like a doctor. I was thinking… like a person who loved him.
And that thought landed like a physical blow.
The monitor beeped steadily. A machine to my left sighed. The rest of the world felt very far away.
“Dr. Volkov.” The voice, unfamiliar to me, cut through the bubble, and I froze. My hand was still on Desmond’s cheek. Still in his hair. Still doing exactly what I needed to do — and exactly what it shouldn’t.
I turned slowly.
The charge nurse stood at the foot of the bed, posture relaxed, eyes sharp and kind in equal measure. A woman who had seen every version of this moment. A woman who knew the difference between care and something that blurred too far.
“I can take over for a bit,” the nurse said quietly. “You’ve been here all night. You should step out. Get some water.”
My first instinct was to argue, but I managed to swallow it. And yet… my fingers hesitated, traitorous, reluctant to let go. It felt wrong to stop touching him. Like removing my hands would undo something fragile I’d just managed to hold together.
But I forced myself to move.
Slowly.
My palm slid from his cheek, fingers untangled from his hair. The absence was immediate. Cold. Like someone had opened a door to winter inside my chest.
Desmond’s eyes opened, confused at first. Then sharp. “Don’t,” he said, with a rasp that nearly broke my heart.
Because the word wasn’t loud. It wasn’t commanding. It was raw. And it hit me harder than if he’d shouted. My heart clenched as I leaned toward him on instinct, already halfway back across the line before my brain caught up.
“I’ll be right outside,” I whispered, bending closer so only he could hear. “I’m not leaving you. I promise.”
My hand found his again for just a second. Fingers closing around his. A small, stolen moment of contact I knew I shouldn’t take — and took it, anyway.
If anyone asked, I’d say it was for him.
But I knew better.
His grip tightened weakly around mine.
Then I let go. And it felt like tearing something loose inside of myself.
As I stepped back, the nurse moved closer to the bed, professional, steady, filling the space I had occupied.
I folded my hands together tightly in front of myself; I didn’t trust them not to go back on their own.
My chest felt tight, and my eyes burned. I hated how exposed I suddenly felt. How absolutely obvious it must have looked. And how little I cared in that moment.
At the door, I stopped and glanced back.
Desmond kept his gaze fixed on me.
Not the nurse.
Not the monitors.
Me.
Something passed between us then — unspoken, heavy, unmistakable.
This wasn’t nothing anymore.
I knew it.
He knew it.
Everyone who had been in that room probably knew it too.
I stepped into the hallway before I could second-guess myself as the door swung shut softly behind me. But the hallway felt too bright.
Too loud.
I leaned my shoulder against the cool wall just outside the ICU room and let myself breathe for the first time in what felt like hours. The kind of breath that shook on the way out that left you a little dizzy.
My hands were still trembling. I stared at them for a second, flexing my fingers slowly, as if I could work the ghost of him out of my skin.
It didn’t help. The memory of his warmth lingered.
The weight of his head leaning into my palm.
The way his breathing had matched mine when my fingers were in his hair.
I slid down the wall until I was half-sitting, half-leaning, knees bent, arms wrapped loosely around myself as if I could hold myself together. The sterile smell of disinfectant burned my nose. The distant sounds of carts, voices, and monitors bled together into a dull hum.
My heart was still racing.
Not from the trauma.
From him.
From the way he’d looked at me when the nurse told me to step back. From the quiet, desperate don’t. From the way his fingers had tightened around mine, weak but insistent, as if he was afraid I might disappear if he let go.
I pressed my lips together hard, fighting to keep the tears at bay.
This isn’t nothing anymore. The words echoed in my head, heavy and undeniable.
Before, I’d had excuses.
It’s just stress.
It’s just proximity.
It’s just sex.
It’s just comfort.
It’s all lies.
Because I had sat at his bedside while he slept. I had brushed his hair back from his face like he could belong to me. I had held his face while he learned, in real time, that part of his body was gone forever.
That wasn’t casual.
That wasn’t pretend.
That was the type of intimacy you didn’t get to shrug off later.
I squeezed my eyes tight, fighting off the memories of the night, but the images crowded in any way. My chest ached, and I hated how much I wanted to go back in there. To ignore the nurse. To ignore the rules. To put my hands back on him and pretend that was all that mattered.
A pair of nurses walked past, voices low, eyes flicking towards me for just a second too long. I could see the acknowledgement of this in their eyes.
I felt heat rise to my cheeks.
They see it. Maybe not the complete story. But enough. Enough to know this wasn’t just a colleague's concern. Enough to know I was too close.
I straightened slowly, forcing myself back to my feet. Squared my shoulders, smoothed Desmond’s old sweatshirt like I might be able to smooth out the mess inside me with the same motion.
Get it together, Volkov. That was what I told myself in a hundred different ways.
Doctor. Professional. Composed.
But my pulse wouldn’t slow.
My thoughts didn’t quiet.
Because behind all of it — behind the rules and the optics and the very real consequences — was one terrifying, undeniable truth:
If I lost him, it would break something irreparable in me.
And if I kept letting myself want him like this…
Something else was going to break instead.
Either way, there was no going back to easy.
The door to the ICU room remained closed. And I forced myself to stay in the hallway. But every part of me was still in there with him.