Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CALLA
PRESENT DAY
The on-call room was small and sterile, with a cot that had seen better decades and a pillow that felt stuffed with regret. I lay there for hours, staring at the water-stained ceiling, replaying the moment in the cafeteria over and over.
The mother. The baby. The way my whole body had betrayed me, crumbling in front of Cassian like I hadn't spent five years building walls specifically to prevent that from happening.
Everything we lost. Everything we could have had.
I'd said that. Out loud. To him.
What was wrong with me?
The words had escaped before I could stop them, rising from some deep place I thought I'd sealed shut years ago.
And Cassian had looked at me with such tenderness, such concern, that I'd wanted to tell him everything.
All of it. The truth I'd been carrying alone since the day our marriage started dying.
But I'd kept my mouth shut. The way I always did. The way I'd been trained to do since childhood, when my mother's illness had taught me that falling apart was a luxury we couldn't afford.
Around four in the morning, I gave up on sleep entirely.
I showered in the communal bathroom, changed into fresh scrubs someone had left outside my door, and went to check on our post-op patients.
Rounds wouldn't officially start until seven, but I needed to move.
Needed to do something with my hands that didn't involve thinking.
The patients were stable. The man Cassian and I had operated on together was already showing signs of improvement, his vitals stronger than they'd been six hours ago. I stood at his bedside, reviewing his chart, and tried to feel the satisfaction that usually came from saving a life.
It wouldn't come. My mind kept drifting back to the bench outside the emergency entrance. Cassian's shoulder against mine. The way he'd looked at me when I asked him not to push.
Please. Not tonight.
He'd let me go. He'd given me the space I'd asked for, even though I could see how much it cost him. That was so Cassian. Respecting boundaries even when he was desperate to cross them.
I finished my rounds and found myself wandering, restless energy driving me through unfamiliar hallways.
Riverside was older than Obsidian, the architecture dated, the paint peeling in corners the cleaning staff couldn't quite reach.
But it had a rooftop garden, I'd noticed during our initial tour.
A small green space on the seventh floor, designed for staff who needed a moment of peace between crises.
I took the elevator up.
The rooftop was empty at this hour, the sky just beginning to lighten along the eastern horizon.
The garden was nothing special, just some potted plants and a few benches arranged around a central fountain that had been turned off for winter.
But the view was decent, the city spreading out below in shades of gray and gold, and the air was cold enough to wake me up properly.
I found a clear space near the railing and started to stretch. Basic movements, the kind I'd learned in medical school when stress had threatened to consume me. Reach for the sky. Fold forward. Breathe.
"Couldn't sleep either?"
I turned. Cassian stood in the doorway, two cups of coffee in his hands, looking as tired as I felt. His hair was damp from a shower, his scrubs wrinkled in a way that suggested he'd slept in them. Or tried to.
"Not really," I admitted.
He crossed the rooftop and handed me one of the cups. Our fingers brushed during the exchange, and I pretended not to notice the warmth that spread up my arm.
"I checked on our patients," he said. "Everyone's stable."
"I know. I checked too."
"Of course you did." The corner of his mouth lifted. "Couldn't help yourself."
"Neither could you, apparently."
We stood side by side at the railing, looking out at the waking city. The silence between us was different than it had been at the cafeteria. Less heavy. More like the quiet between two people who'd said too much and were trying to figure out what came next.
"I used to do this during residency," Cassian said eventually. "Find the highest point in whatever hospital I was rotating through and just breathe for a few minutes before the day starts."
"I didn't know that."
"There's a lot you didn't know." He glanced at me. "A lot I didn't tell you."
I took a sip of my coffee. It was terrible, the same bitter brew from the cafeteria, but I drank it anyway. "Same."
"Yeah." He set his cup on the railing and started stretching, mirroring the movements I'd been doing before he arrived. "Mind if I join you?"
"Go ahead."
We stretched in silence, our bodies moving through familiar patterns.
Reach. Fold. Breathe. It reminded me of the yoga classes we used to take together during our first year of marriage, before our schedules became impossible and self-care became a luxury neither of us could afford.
Cassian had been terrible at it, always fidgeting, always making jokes when he was supposed to be meditating.
But he'd kept going because I'd asked him to.
Because he'd wanted to share something with me.
The sun crept higher, painting the sky in shades of pink and orange. Somewhere below, the hospital was waking up, preparing for another day of chaos and crisis.
Up here, everything felt suspended. Like we existed outside of time, outside of the complications waiting for us on the ground.
"Can I ask you something?" Cassian said, his arms extended overhead.
"You can ask. I might not answer."
"Fair enough." He lowered his arms and turned to face me. "The offer from Daniel Hargreeve. The leadership position at the new trauma center. Are you going to take it?"
"I don't know yet," I said. "I'm still thinking about it."
"What's holding you back?"
You. The word rose in my throat, unbidden and unwelcome. The fact that taking another opportunity feels like repeating the same mistake I made five years ago. The fact that I don't know how to choose my career without feeling like I'm choosing against you.
"It's complicated," I said instead.
"Because of the protocol?"
"Partially."
"And the other part?"
I turned to face him fully. The morning light caught his features, illuminating the green of his eyes, the stubble along his jaw, the way exhaustion had carved shadows beneath his cheekbones. He looked older than I remembered. More worn. But still unbearably familiar.
"I don't want to run again," I admitted. "I did that once. Took the fellowship, convinced myself that distance would make things clearer. It didn't. It just made everything harder."
"This is different though. This isn't about running. It's about opportunity."
"Is it?" I gestured between us. "Or is it about me avoiding whatever this is."
Cassian stepped closer. Close enough that I could smell the hospital soap on his skin, could see the flecks of gold in his irises.
"What is this, Calla?"
"I don't know."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
We stood there, inches apart, the city sprawling silent below us. I could feel the pull between us, magnetic and terrifying. It would be so easy to close the distance. To lean forward and let five years of separation collapse into nothing.
But Cassian was with someone else. And I was carrying secrets I'd never told him. And some distances couldn't be closed with a single step.
I turned back to the railing, putting space between us. "We should head down soon. Rounds start at seven."
"Calla."
"Please." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "Not now."
He was quiet for a long moment. Then I heard him move to stand beside me again, close but not touching.
"For what it's worth," he said, "I don't think you're running. I think you're trying to figure out what you want instead of what you think you should want."
I looked at him. He was watching the sunrise, his profile sharp against the brightening sky.
"Since when did you get so wise?" I asked.
"I am a wise guy."
Despite everything, I almost smiled. "That's not how I remember it."
"Yeah, well." He finally met my eyes, and there was warmth there. Warmth and something else, something that made my breath catch. "Memory's a tricky thing."
We stayed on the rooftop until the sun cleared the horizon, not talking, just existing in the same space. When we finally went back inside, Cassian held the door for me, and our eyes met as I passed.
"Thanks for this," he said. "I needed it."
"Yeah. Me too."
He headed toward the elevators, and I watched him go. The set of his shoulders. The way he walked, confident even when exhausted. The man I'd married and lost and somehow ended up working beside again.
"Calla?"
I turned. He'd stopped at the elevator, one hand holding the door open.
"Yeah?"
"You beat me to the rooftop this morning. Don't let it go to your head."
I felt my lips twitch. "Too late."
His grin was the last thing I saw before the elevator doors closed.
I made my way to the on-call room to gather my things before rounds. My phone was on the cot where I'd left it, and when I picked it up, I saw three missed calls from Mireya.
Before I could call her back, an incoming video request lit up the screen. I accepted it.
Mireya's face appeared, her dark eyes immediately narrowing with suspicion.
"You're glowing," she said without preamble. "Why are you glowing?"
"I'm not glowing."
"You absolutely are. I can see it through this terrible hospital WiFi." She leaned closer to her camera. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened. I've been working all night."
"Calla Karras, I have known you for two months, and in that time I have never once seen you look anything other than vaguely murderous or professionally neutral. Right now you look almost happy. Something happened."
I sat down on the cot, aware that my face was probably betraying more than I wanted it to. "Cassian and I talked this morning. On the rooftop."
"Talked."
"Yes. Talked. With words."
"And?"
"And nothing. We talked about Daniel's offer. About the past. About what I want."
Mireya was quiet for a moment, studying me through the screen. "Did you figure it out? What you want?"
"No."
"But you figured out something. I can see it on your face."
I thought about the rooftop. The sunrise. The way Cassian had looked at me when he'd said I wasn't running. The pull between us, undeniable and terrifying.
"I figured out that I don't think I ever stopped," I said quietly.
"Stopped what?"
"Having feelings for him." The words tasted strange in my mouth. True and terrifying. "I told myself I moved on. Built a whole life around the idea that we were over. But being here with him, working beside him, I don't know how to pretend anymore."
Mireya's expression shifted from curiosity to concern. "Calla, he's with someone else."
"I know."
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. I can't ask him to leave her. I can't tell him how I feel. We tried this once and it destroyed us."
"You tried it when you were both young and didn't know how to choose yourselves and each other at the same time," Mireya said gently. "That doesn't mean it can't work now."
"You sound like a greeting card."
"I sound like someone who watched you two operate together yesterday and saw exactly how in sync you still are." She paused. "Riven told me once that the things that are worth having are usually the things that scare us the most. Maybe this is one of those things."
I wanted to believe her. But believing required hope, and hope felt dangerous when I was carrying secrets that could destroy everything.
"There's more to the story," I said. "Things I never told him. Things that would change everything if he knew."
"Like what?"
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
"I can't," I whispered. "Not yet."
Mireya nodded slowly. "Okay. But Calla? Whatever you're holding onto, it's not doing you any favors. Secrets have a way of becoming heavier the longer you carry them."
"I know."
"And Cassian deserves to know the truth. Whatever that truth is."
"I know that too."
My pager buzzed. Rounds were starting.
"I have to go," I said.
"Call me later. And Calla?" Mireya's expression softened. "Make a decision you really want."
"Since when did everyone around me become a therapist?"
"Since you started making choices that clearly need professional intervention." She smiled. "Go save lives. We'll talk later."
The screen went dark. I sat on the cot for another moment, Mireya's words echoing in my head.
Fear doesn't get to make your decisions. Only you get to do that.
Easy for her to say. She hadn't spent five years running from a truth too painful to face. She didn't know what it felt like to love someone so much that the loss of them had hollowed you out, left you walking through life like a ghost wearing human skin.
But maybe that was the point. Maybe I'd been so focused on protecting myself from more pain that I'd forgotten how to live without it.