Anya
The nurse found me exactly where she hadn’t officially been told to look.
Not in the staff lounge.
Not in the locker room.
Not on my way out.
I was just… sitting on the floor in a quiet corner of the hallway, back against the wall, knees drawn up, arms wrapped loosely around them like I was holding myself together by muscle memory alone.
My clothes were wrinkled and my pants blood-streaked. I looked like I had been plucked straight out of a Doctor Sexy Romance Series.
I hadn’t changed because I hadn’t left.
My badge was clipped crookedly, like I’d tugged at it too many times without realizing. My hair was pulled back, but loose strands had fallen free. And I knew I had to look tired in a way that sleep wouldn’t fix.
I looked up when I sensed someone near me, stopped a few feet away.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. It was one of those moments where the truth was already in the room. “Dr. Volkov,” the nurse said gently, finally.
I swallowed, steeling myself. “I’m off shift,” I said automatically. Like a defense. Like a rule I could hide behind.
“I know,” the nurse replied.
And my jaw tightened. I glanced back toward the ICU doors without meaning to. My eyes did it before my brain could stop them. “He’s asking for you,” the nurse said.
I closed my eyes. Just for a second. Not in relief.
In surrender.
“What did he say?” I asked quietly.
The nurse hesitated. Just a fraction. Then, carefully, “He said he needs you. He said he’s better when you’re there.”
That’s when my breath caught. My shoulders sagged a little, like the last thin layer of composure had finally peeled away. “And,” the nurse added softly, “he called you my Anya.”
That did it. I pressed my lips together hard, but my eyes still shone. I dropped my gaze to the floor, staring at a dried smear of blood on my shoe as if it might give me instructions on how to navigate this.
“I didn’t go home,” I whispered, the words tumbling out of me like a confession. “I couldn’t.”
The nurse nodded, a knowing look twinkling in her eyes. “I figured.”
We stood there in the quiet hum of the hospital. Machines. Voices. Life continuing in parallel. “He’s not upset with you,” the nurse said. “He was very clear about that. He just… wants you there.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I’m not supposed to—”
“I’m not asking you to break policy, if there even is a policy for this…” the nurse said gently. “I’m just telling you what my patient asked for. What you do with that is up to you.”
“Is he okay?” I asked. My doctor’s voice slipping back out of habit. Out of fear.
“He’s stable,” the nurse said. “In pain. Scared. On morphine. And very aware that you’re gone.”
I nodded slowly, lips pursed, and my hands trembled as I pushed myself up off the floor. I brushed at my scrubs absently, as if I could wipe the blood and the exhaustion and the emotional wreckage away with a few swipes of my palm.
I couldn’t. But I stood anyway. “I’ll go back in,” I said.
Not because I was on duty. Not because of policy. But because I was already his.
The nurse stepped aside to let me pass. And as I walked toward the ICU doors, the nurse watched me go with a look that said one clear, undeniable thing:
This is not a fling.
This is not casual.
This is already a story everyone in this building is going to know.
And me, stupid, na?ve me, with blood on my scrubs and love on my face, didn’t even try to hide it.
I paused with my hand on the handle, just for a second, gathering myself. My reflection in the small window was a mess — wrinkled, blood-stained scrubs, hair half-loose, dark circles under my eyes, face pulled tight with exhaustion and something far more dangerous.
Feeling.
I didn’t fix any of it. Didn’t smooth my hair, didn’t straighten my badge.
I opened the door as I was.
The room was dimmer now. Quieter. The hum of machines, steady and soft. A nurse stood near the monitors, charting, but my eyes went straight to the bed.
To him.
Desmond looked smaller in the hospital bed than I’d ever seen him. Pale. Lines on his face deeper from pain and medication. One arm heavy on the blanket, the other with IV lines running from it. The space where his leg should have been, hidden under layers of sheets and bandages.
And my chest tightened. I moved closer without thinking.
His eyes were half-closed, but they opened when I reached the bedside. Focused slowly. Then—
Recognition.
Relief.
It was unmistakable.
“You came back,” he murmured.
The words were simple, but they landed like confessions.
“I told you I wouldn’t go far,” I said softly. My voice was steady; my hands were not.
They hovered for half a second before I let them land — one on his forearm, the other brushing gently through his hair, as if I were reminding both of us that I was real. That he was real. That this wasn’t a dream stitched together by pain medication.
He leaned into my touch immediately.
Not dramatically — instinctively.
Like his body had been waiting for it. “There you are,” he said quietly.
I swallowed hard and kept my hand in his hair, fingers moving slowly, grounding, familiar. My thumb brushed lightly over his temple, over skin I knew as well as my own. “I’m here,” I whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Desmond’s gaze held mine. “Stay,” he said. “Please.”
“My shift’s over,” I said quietly. “But I can stay for a little while.”
So I pulled the chair closer to the bed and sat, close enough that my knee brushed the mattress. Close enough that my presence was undeniable. My hand stayed on his arm. His fingers twitched once, then settled, as if he were comforted just by knowing I was there.
I realized, with a strange mix of fear and clarity, that this was the moment.
The moment I would never be able to pretend this was casual again.