Chapter 23
Luca
The hospital doors open before the gurney reaches them, and the smell hits me hard enough that I almost stumble.
Clean floors, sharp disinfectant, old coffee, the cold rush of air from vents working too hard.
I've been in hospitals before. I know what they sound like.
I know the clipped footsteps, the wheels over seams in the floor, the soft alarms hidden behind closed curtains.
None of that helps when Blake's the one on the gurney with an oxygen mask over his face and my fingers locked around his hand.
I keep walking beside him because nobody's told me to stop yet.
The paramedic on his other side's giving numbers to the nurse who meets us at the doors, and Quentin's already there, moving with them like he belongs to the hospital more than any of us do right now.
A woman I recognize from Wilson's Rebirth pack walks at his shoulder, tall and calm, dark hair braided back, ID badge clipped to the pocket of her white coat.
Dr. Aris. I've seen her at two fundraisers and one emergency consult at Ember House.
I remember her voice more than her face because she speaks to frightened Omegas like she expects them to understand every word.
Quentin looks at me once, and whatever he sees must be bad because his hand closes over my shoulder for half a second before he turns back to the nurses. "Bay Four," he says. "Cardiac team's ready. Medication list and monitor logs are coming through now. Dr. Aris is consulting with me."
I want to ask if that means Blake's worse than they thought. I want to ask if he's dying. I want to ask why his hand's warm now when his face still looks wrong, why his breathing fogs the oxygen mask but his fingers don't move when I squeeze them. Instead, I walk until the doors stop me.
A nurse steps in front of me with a gentleness that makes it worse. "You need to wait here for a few minutes."
"No." The word tears out before I can make it reasonable. My hand tightens around Blake's. "No, I'm his husband. I'm staying with him."
Quentin turns back. He doesn't soften his face, and I know that's on purpose because softness would give me somewhere to fall apart.
"Luca, I need space around him for the first assessment.
You can stand right outside the door where he can hear you if he wakes enough to register sound.
I'll get you in as soon as we can do it without delaying care. "
The nurse eases my fingers from Blake's one at a time.
I hate her for it until she cups my hand between both of hers for one second after she gets me free, like she knows exactly how cruel it is to be kind right now.
Then the doors swing open, the gurney rolls through, and Blake disappears behind a wall of glass and movement.
I stand there with my empty hand still curved around the shape of his.
The hallway doesn't stop. People pass behind me. Someone asks for a chart. A phone rings at the desk. The world continues in all the small administrative ways that feel obscene when the person who taught you how to breathe is behind a closed door with strangers pressing sensors to his skin.
I sit because my knees give me no better option, Blake's sweat dried cold in my palm.
I rub my thumb over the mark without wiping it away.
If I clean my hand, I'll have to admit I'm only waiting now.
Waiting's worse than doing. In the hallway, I had a job.
Keep him flat. Talk to him. Feel his chest rise.
Tell him not to leave. Now my job's to sit in a chair too hard for grief and listen for footsteps that might mean everything or nothing.
The rest of them arrive before Quentin comes back.
Grayson reaches me first with the children clustered around him, one hand wrapped around James's, the other holding Rosalie against his hip while Samuel presses himself against Grayson's leg like he's angry at the whole hospital for existing.
Grayson's face is pale and too open, the way it gets when he's been holding himself together for the children and then sees me and almost loses the thread.
Behind him, Luther comes in with Maceo at his side, Luther's shirt wrinkled and his collar open.
Maceo's got Blake's bag, my coat, three phones, and the terrible calm of someone who's made himself useful so thoroughly there's no room left for shaking.
Luther drops into the chair beside me and pulls me into him from behind without asking.
His arms lock around my middle, his chest warm against my back, his face turning into my hair.
I feel him breathing me in, trying to find Blake through me because Blake's behind glass and wires and people who won't let him in yet.
"They've got him," I say, because he needs something and it's the only thing I have. "Quentin and Dr. Aris. They said Bay Four."
Luther's arms tighten once. "All right."
His voice doesn't sound all right. His scent's pulled back so hard it barely touches the air, and that scares me almost as much as if he were flooding the hallway with panic.
Grayson sits on the floor in front of us because the chairs are taken and because the children need somewhere to go.
James folds himself beside Blake's bag, silent, his eyes fixed on the double doors.
Samuel stays standing, fists clenched at his sides.
"Bear promised," Samuel says, his voice small and furious. "He promised we were going to build the tower part after dinner. He said he only had one more thing, and then he'd help."
Grayson's face crumples for half a second before he reaches for Samuel and pulls him close. Samuel resists at first, all stiff little shoulders and anger because anger's easier to hold than fear. Then he folds into Grayson's chest so suddenly that Grayson has to brace a hand behind him.
"He wanted to," Grayson says into Samuel's hair. "He was trying to get back to you."
"That doesn't make it better," Samuel says, muffled against him.
"I know."
James looks at Maceo instead of the doors. His voice is quiet enough that I almost miss it. "Can hearts be fixed if they know which part's wrong?"
Maceo lowers himself beside him, slow and careful.
He doesn't answer quickly, and I'm grateful because James hates answers adults offer too fast. "Sometimes they can be helped," he says.
"Sometimes medicine helps the rhythm. Sometimes rest helps the muscle.
Sometimes doctors change the plan because the old plan isn't enough anymore. "
James absorbs that with terrifying seriousness. "So they have to find the wrong part first."
"Yes," Maceo says. "That's what they're doing."
Rosalie squirms down from Grayson's lap and comes to me.
Her crown's crooked, and her cheeks are blotchy from crying.
She climbs onto my knees with Luther still wrapped around me from behind, pushing herself into the narrow space like she belongs there because she does.
"Why won't Bear wake up yet?" she asks, her voice thin.
"He always wakes up when I put my cold feet on him. "
The sound I make is almost a laugh and almost a sob. Luther's face presses harder into my hair. I wrap Rosalie against my chest and kiss the top of her crown because I can't answer without breaking open. Grayson does it for me, his voice gentle from the floor.
"His heart got very tired, Rosie. The doctors are helping it rest."
She thinks about that, little fingers twisting in my shirt. "Can I give him my blanket?"
"When they let us in," I whisper. "He'd like that."
Rosalie nods once, satisfied by a job she can understand, then tucks her face under my chin and starts crying quietly.
We wait long enough for time to stop feeling like time.
The hallway changes around us. Nurses pass.
A family comes out of another room crying with relief, and I hate them for one second before hating myself for it.
Maceo takes calls in a low voice near the window and keeps coming back with updates that don't matter because none of them include Blake opening his eyes.
Luther holds me from behind until his arms must ache, and every time I shift, his hands tighten like he thinks I might disappear too.
When Quentin finally comes through the doors, Dr. Aris is with him.
Everyone stands except James, who only looks up from the floor with his whole body gone still. Quentin sees the children and then us, and the tightness around his mouth changes. He looks tired. That scares me because Quentin never lets tired be the first thing anyone sees.
"He's stable," Quentin says.
The word hits the hallway like something physical.
Luther's breath breaks behind me. Grayson bends forward with one hand over his mouth, Samuel crushed against his side.
Maceo closes his eyes for one second, then opens them and looks at Quentin like stable's only the first page of a report he intends to read completely.
I can't make my voice work at first. When I do, it comes out smaller than I want. "Can I see him?"
"In a minute," Dr. Aris says, and her voice is calm without being soft. "He's sedated enough to let the medication work, and his rhythm's responding. He's still medically fragile. That's why Quentin asked me in."
Luther's arms fall from around me because he needs to stand fully. He keeps one hand on my shoulder, heavy and grounding. "What does that mean?"
Dr. Aris looks at Luther first, then at me, then at the others.
She doesn't talk over the children, and she doesn't pretend they're not there.
"It means his current medication's no longer enough for the strain his body's carrying.
We can adjust it, and we're already doing that.
He also needs a much lower stress baseline.
His heart can't keep being asked to absorb acute spikes on top of prolonged pressure. "
Grayson's hand tightens around Samuel. "He took the meds."
"I know," Quentin says.
Luther's jaw works once. "I watched the lunch dose."