Anya
Itold myself I wouldn’t hover.
I’d really meant it, too.
But it was a lie I carried into the emergency department with my coffee cooling in my hand and my spine locked so straight it hurt.
Desmond walked beside me, not quite matching my pace, not quite lagging either — his temporary prosthetic hidden under dark scrub pants that still looked a little too new, a little too stiff, like they hadn’t adjusted to the shape of him yet.
He smelled of aftershave and stubbornness.
Everyone tried to be normal. That was the worst part.
Claps on the back that stopped short of his left side.
Jokes that landed a beat too late. Eyes that flicked down and away as if they were ashamed of being curious.
Desmond grinned through all of it, chin high, voice steady, as if he performed the right version of himself long enough the world would forget what had happened.
HR had agreed to let him back on a conditional basis. Equal time spent sitting, doing paperwork, as he spent on the floor. I tried to talk him into more rest and less… mess. But he wouldn’t have it.
Automatically, he moved faster than he should have.
I saw it immediately — the way his shoulders tightened, the way his jaw locked when he turned too quickly to answer someone behind him.
The micro-hesitation before each step, almost invisible unless you knew where to look.
Unless you’d watched him relearn how to stand in his own living room with sweat dripping down his back and fury lighting his eyes.
“Again,” he’d said to the therapist that morning. Again, again, again — like repetition alone could bully his body into obedience.
When he reached for a stack of reports and twisted at the waist, and I saw the flash of pain before he swallowed it. My hands itched to steady him. To take the weight. To remind him that surviving wasn’t failure.
I wrapped my fingers around my coffee cup instead and watched him push too hard.
By hour two, he was pale under the fluorescent lights.
He laughed louder, talked faster, moved sharper — as if momentum could drown out the tremor in his balance.
An intern asked him to demonstrate a piece of equipment, and he did, because of course he did, even when I saw the way his stance faltered when he planted his weight wrong.
“Des,” I murmured when no one was looking, my hand hovering at the small of his back without quite touching. Propriety echoed in my skull — boundaries, professionalism, perception — but my body didn’t care about policies when he winced like that.
“I’m fine,” he said under his breath, not looking at me. His smile never wavered for the room. “I need this.”
I knew he did. God, I knew. He needed proof that the world hadn’t shrunk around him, that he could still be the man who walked into burning buildings and came out laughing.
But halfway through the shift, he misjudged a turn and caught himself hard against a counter. The sound of it — bone and metal and pride colliding — shot through me like electricity.
I broke my promise then. My hand landed on his arm, firm and grounding. His muscles were shaking. Up close, I could see the sweat beading at his temples, the exhaustion pooling in his eyes like dark water.
“Take five,” I said softly. Not a command or a plea. Just a place to land.
His mouth opened — protest already loaded — but then his shoulders sagged a fraction, the performance slipping. He leaned into me just enough that no one else would notice. Just enough that I felt the weight of him, the trust, the raw, terrifying reality of this new version of our life.
“I hate this,” he whispered.
“I know,” I said. My thumb brushed the seam of his sleeve once, quick and secret, a touch so small it could be mistaken for nothing. “You’re here. You’re you.”
We sat in the quiet corner of the break room while the station hummed around us. His leg was trembling from overuse. His hand found mine under the table, rough fingers threading through mine like muscle memory.
After a few minutes he straightened again — always forward, always pushing — and I saw the stubborn light flare back to life in his eyes. He stood slower this time. More careful. Still proud. Still my Desmond.
I didn’t hover when he walked back out.
I just stayed close enough that if the ground shifted beneath him again, he wouldn’t fall alone.