kingliam2019 - Tumblr blog

kingliam2019 · 18 hours ago

Text

Love In Every Heartbeat – Chapter 173 – Prayers in the Darkness – Awaiting a Miracle

*warning* mention of childhood cancer *⚠️

Casey swallows a lump in her throat as Ethan crouches in front of her. “Pippa’s doctors want to speak to you both to discuss the next moves. If you’d like I can go and sit with Pippa in PICU until you get back.”

The words hang in the sterile air, a lifeline and an anchor all at once. Casey manages a shaky nod, her hands gripping the fabric of her jeans until her knuckles blanch. Ethan’s presence, steady and quietly attentive, gives her just enough courage to stand.

“I—thank you,” she whispers, voice rough around the edges but threaded with gratitude.

Ethan gives her a small, reassuring smile before rising. “She’s in safe hands. Go hear what they have to say.”

Nodding, Casey is grateful. “Thank you, Ethan. Could you please give her her tubal feed and her medications? They’re all late. She needs 30ml of Morphine and 20ml of Gabapentin and 15ml of Tizanidine and 25ml of Ethosuximide and 25ml of Valproate and her Clobetasol Propionate on her shoulders and her arms for the rash.”

She shudders, worry etching lines across her face. “She’s already running late.”

Looking at Raf, Casey finds his hand, squeezing it as if to anchor herself to something solid. Her gaze returns to Ethan, the urgency clear in her trembling voice. “The Ethosuximide and Valproate are really important as she’s still having seizures, even though she’s unconscious.”

Ethan’s eyes soften, absorbing every instruction with calm precision. “I’ve got it,” he assures her quietly. “I’ll take care of everything, and I’ll let you know if there’s any change at all.”

Casey manages a faint, wavering smile—a flicker of hope amid the shadows—as she and Raf turn toward the corridor, hearts heavy with dread but buoyed by the smallest measure of relief.

Casey stands up, waiting patiently as Raf reaches for his crutches and slowly gets to his feet. “You ok?” she murmurs, holding her hand out to steady him.

Raf’s lips curve in a weary smile, determination shining through the exhaustion in his eyes. “Yeah,” he breathes, though the word is thin and fragile, like spun glass. He steadies himself, fingers flexing around the worn grips of the crutches, and lets out a slow exhale that’s half fatigue, half resolve.

Casey threads her arm through his, their movements instinctively synchronised after so many days and nights spent on the precipice. Together, they step toward the corridor, the hush of the hospital swallowing their footsteps. Every echo down these linoleum halls is a drumbeat of hope and fear entwined—a prayer stitched silently into the fabric of the night.

She squeezes his elbow, offering strength where words might falter. “We’ll get through this,” she whispers, and though her voice is quiet, it carries the fierce certainty of love refusing to surrender.

Side by side, Casey and Raf move through the labyrinth of corridors, every fluorescent light overhead painting their shadows long and uncertain. The hospital's muted hum becomes a backdrop to the wild thrum of their hearts. At the end of the hallway, a door glows faintly beneath a strip of golden light, marking the threshold to answers—or more questions.

As they approach the room where Dr. Green, Dr. Hargrove, and Dr. Edwards wait, Casey feels her breath catch in her throat, every step amplifying the tension coiled in her chest. Raf’s grip on her tightens, a silent promise that they face whatever comes together.

Despite Ethan’s words echoing in her mind—Pippa is improving, she’s still fighting—fear threads coldly through Casey’s hope. It’s the fear of almost, of not-quite, of holding on too tightly to a fragile possibility. Yet even as dread seeps into her bones, another part of her refuses to let go of the stubborn spark that things might yet turn for the better.

Pausing before the door, they exchange a glance, hearts hammering with anticipation and trepidation. Then, with a shared breath, they step forward into the uncertain light, ready to face what the doctors have to say.

The hush in the room is immediate and total as Dr. Kimber Edwards rises, her expression composed yet edged with gravity. She gestures gently toward the semicircle of chairs, her presence both commanding and kind—steady hands accustomed to carrying the weight of families' hopes.

“Please, take a seat. There’s a lot to discuss.” Her voice is low and measured, each word unfolding with deliberate care.

Casey swallows hard and guides Raf to a chair, her fingers lingering on his shoulder before she sits beside him. The air feels charged, every detail—clipboard on the table, the gentle tap of Dr. Hargrove’s pen, the faint, persistent hum of the lights—etched into sharp relief.

Dr. Edwards waits until everyone is settled, then folds her hands atop the file in front of her. For a moment, she studies the page as if gathering her thoughts, then looks up, meeting Casey’s gaze with a quiet fortitude that promises truth, no matter how heavy it might be.

“We’ve reviewed Pippa’s latest scans and bloodwork,” she begins, the words both anchor and storm. “There have been some changes, and I want to walk you through everything carefully. We’ll answer every question you have.”

The room feels suspended, every heartbeat marking the space between fear and hope—a liminal place where possibility still flickers, fragile as dawn.

Casey nods, “Dr. Ramsey mentioned there are lesions on Pippa’s abdominal MRI but no new tumours. Does that mean the T-Cell infusion is working?”

Dr. Edwards’s eyes soften, acknowledging both the vulnerability in Casey’s voice and the hope threaded through it.

She leans forward just slightly, her fingers interlaced atop the file. “It’s a promising sign,” she says, her words cautious but not void of encouragement. “The absence of new tumours suggests that the T-Cell infusion is having an effect—at the very least, it appears to be halting the disease’s spread. The lesions we’re seeing may be residual scarring or inflammation from her body’s immune response. That’s not uncommon with this therapy, though we’ll monitor them closely.”

Dr. Hargrove taps their pen quietly, then adds, “What matters right now is that the aggressive progression we feared hasn’t materialized. Pippa’s immune system is engaged—it’s responding. We’re not declaring victory yet, but these results give us reason to be cautiously optimistic.”

Casey lets out a breath she didn’t realise she was holding, her hand finding Raf’s beneath the table. The smallest shift toward hope glimmers in the charged hush, and for a moment, it’s enough to steady her.

Raf squeezes Casey’s hand, his voice trembling on the edge between worry and urgency. “What does that mean? How do we get rid of the scarring? Will it cause her pain? If it’s inflammation, what can be done about it?”

Dr. Edwards’s expression is gentle, understanding the weight behind each question. “Scarring, or fibrosis, can sometimes be the body’s way of healing itself after inflammation or injury. In many cases, it doesn’t cause pain or major symptoms, but we do keep a close eye on it to make sure it doesn’t compromise function. If Pippa does experience discomfort, we’ll address it right away—whether with medication, physical therapy, or adjustments to her care plan.”

She glances briefly at Dr. Hargrove, who nods in agreement. “As for inflammation, it’s actually an indicator that her immune system is fighting, not just against the disease but as part of the healing process. We have ways to manage inflammation if it becomes problematic—sometimes that means steroids or supportive therapies, sometimes just careful observation if she’s feeling well.”

Dr. Edwards leans in, her voice warm but clear. “The most important thing is that we’re here to respond to whatever comes up. Right now, there’s no sign that the scarring or inflammation are causing her harm. We’ll keep watching, and we’ll keep you both in the loop, every step of the way.”

The reassurance hangs in the air, not erasing the uncertainty but softening its edges, inviting hope to linger just a little longer.

Dr. Hargrove’s answering pause is gentle but weighted, their eyes meeting Casey’s with the steadiness of someone who understands the gravity of being asked for impossible certainties. “Pippa’s brain scan hasn’t revealed any new lesions or areas of concern,” they begin, choosing their words with a careful honesty. “There are still some regions of swelling, likely from the immune activity and the treatments themselves, but so far, nothing that suggests additional tumour growth.”

“The steroids appear to be helping with that swelling,” Dr. Hargrove continues, their voice even but quietly reassuring. “We’re seeing some reduction in inflammation, and that’s exactly what we want at this stage. Steroids can’t erase what’s already there, but they can prevent further damage and help her body recover.”

They hesitate just a moment at Casey’s final, most desperate question. “As for knowing how long it will be until we can say if Pippa will survive—there isn’t a simple answer. Recovery, especially after treatments like these, is often measured in small steps. The next few weeks are critical. We’ll be monitoring her closely, watching for signs that her body is healing and that the disease is staying at bay. Every stable scan, every day without new symptoms, is a good sign.”

Dr. Hargrove’s expression softens further. “We can’t offer guarantees, but what we can promise is that we’ll be honest with you—about what we see and what it means. And right now, there’s reason to hope.”

Casey whimpers. “Weeks?” Her voice is thin, almost lost beneath the soft hum of hospital machines. She glances at Raf, searching his face for the answer they’re both afraid to voice. Will they be home for Christmas with their girls? Will Pippa see Christmas?

The question hangs between them, silent and aching, filling the sterile room with memories of twinkling lights and laughter—hopes suddenly fragile in the face of uncertainty. Raf’s hand tightens around hers, a silent promise and plea, while the doctors’ gentle faces blur at the edges.

Dr. Edwards is quiet for a moment, acknowledging the calendar embedded in every parent’s heart. “Our goal,” she says softly, “is always to get Pippa well enough to go home—to be with her family, especially for the holidays. We can’t say for certain yet, but every day she holds steady brings us closer. Christmas is still a possibility. It’s what we’re all working towards.”

Casey nods, swallowing the lump in her throat. For now, hope is a fragile thing, but it’s still there—enough to carry them forward, one uncertain week at a time.

When the meeting finally ends, the room empties with the hush of slow footsteps and unspoken prayers. Casey rises almost before the last words have faded, her limbs iron-heavy with fatigue but propelled by a single longing.

Four hours—each one sharper than the last—since she last touched Pippa’s hand, since she traced the soft curve of her daughter’s cheek and convinced herself, if only for a moment, that warmth meant safety.

Raf helps her gather her things, his own eyes bright with the same urgency. Outside, the hospital corridor seems longer than ever, its fluorescent lights glaring and blurring as they walk. The world shrinks to the familiar beeps and distant voices, and then, at last, to the doorway of Pippa’s room.

Inside the threshold of Pippa’s room, the relentless brightness recedes to a gentler hush. Casey’s gaze falls first on the slim silhouette of Ethan, his hand steady as he withdraws the tiny syringe from Pippa’s IV port, his movements sure but careful, as if reverence alone could protect her. The faint scent of antiseptic and the sweeter undertone of the Clobetasol trace the air—a clinical shield and a mother’s hope blended in a single breath.

On the counter, the row of medication vials stands like a silent tally of vigilance: Gabapentin just given, the morphine vial capped and set aside, saline flushes stacked like pause marks between each careful step. The tubal feed, pale and whisper-thin, spirals down its line to the central vein, a slow, measured promise that nourishment still finds its way in, even when breath and voice cannot.

Casey’s voice is low, but her gratitude is genuine, threaded through with exhaustion. “Thank you for this, Ethan, she missed so much.” She looks first at her daughter’s fragile form, then at the nurse—familiar, trusted—who quietly answers, “She’s had her morphine and Gabapentin, and her Clobetasol’s rubbed in. The tube feed is running, and she’s due her antibiotics at six. Everything else is lined up here.” He gestures to a neatly ordered tray—antivirals, antifungals, the daily multivitamin that seems almost absurd in its ordinariness against the weight of all the others.

Casey nods, memorizing the sequence, the hour. “I can take over if you tell me which ones are left.” Her hands hover above the tray, ready for the ritual, fingers trembling but purposeful. Ethan offers a gentle shake of his head. “I’ll do the next round, and we’ll switch after dinner if you want. She’s… she’s comfortable right now.”

Casey reaches for Pippa’s hand, feeling the delicate warmth beneath her palm—the only bridge left between the world inside and the world that waits. Her voice is barely more than a whisper, raw with uncertainty. “How can you tell?” she asks, her eyes searching Ethan’s face. “I shouldn’t be asking this—I should know—but if Pippa’s unconscious, on the ventilator, how can you tell if she’s comfortable?”

Ethan’s response is gentle, practiced but never rote. He pulls the chair closer, so he can speak without the weight of distance hemming them in. “It’s a good question, Casey. It’s one we ask ourselves every day.” His gaze shifts to the quiet rise and fall of Pippa’s chest, the subtle movements of the ventilator.

“We watch for little things,” he continues, voice steady. “Her heart rate, how relaxed her face is, whether her breathing is easy—even on the vent. If she’s in pain or uncomfortable, we’ll see her tense up, or her numbers will jump. Sometimes she’ll frown or clench her hands. But right now, her body’s at ease. Her numbers are steady, and her muscles are relaxed. We keep her pain medication at a level that lets her rest. If anything changes, we see it right away and adjust.”

He pauses, letting the silence settle, as if honouring the honesty of the question. “It’s not perfect. But we do everything we can. And you know her best—if you ever notice something that worries you, tell us. It all matters.”

Casey’s fingers tighten around Pippa’s, grateful for even the smallest assurance. The grief doesn’t ease, but something steadier—trust, perhaps—blurs the sharpest edge as she sits beside her daughter, listening to the quiet, vigilant rhythm of care.

The hush is broken by the soft, arrhythmic click of crutches and the tentative shuffle of feet. Raf emerges from the bathroom, his silhouette framed by the harsh strip of fluorescent light behind him, shoulders squared in a familiar gesture of determination. The rubber tips of his crutches thud softly on the linoleum as he steadies himself, scanning the room as if to confirm nothing has changed in the moments he was away.

He leans against the doorway for an extra breath, taking in the tableau—Casey bent over Pippa’s hand, Ethan’s gentle vigilance—before manoeuvring himself forward. There is something almost apologetic in the way he moves, careful not to intrude on the cocoon of quiet care.

But as Casey glances up at him, the worry in her eyes softens, and Raf offers a crooked smile, a silent reassurance echoing back at her. The room seems to expand a little to fit him, to accommodate the weight of his concern and the awkward grace of his presence, as he settles in beside them, ready to keep vigil in this fragile, luminous pause.

Casey holds her other hand out, a silent plea for him to come closer. Raf hesitates only a moment, then crosses the last distance on his crutches, the effort measured and gentle. He sets them aside and lowers himself into the waiting chair, his hand finding hers, rough warmth closing over trembling fingers. For a long moment, the three of them are joined in a circle of quiet solidarity—hands entwined, breaths syncing in the dim, vigilant hush—each of them drawing strength from the contact, each invitation wordless, but wholly understood. In this small act, the bleak hospital room grows softer, boundaries blurring beneath the weight and tenderness of shared presence.

Casey bites her lip. “I was thinking about texting Anna to see if Lia has had her bone marrow transplant yet, but I am scared to find out that she’s deteriorating—or worse.”

The words barely settle in the air before her gaze flicks uncertainly to her handbag, which sits slouched and overstuffed at her feet. The phone is in there somewhere, hidden beneath a shuffled stack of magazines, a wadded pack of tissues, a pen that always seems to leak blue ink at the worst possible moment, a half-used bottle of antibacterial hand sanitiser, her little tub of Honeybalm lip balm, and the worn purse with her money, debit card, and the scrawled grocery list she never got around to crossing off. Her notebook jostles next to the portable charger she carries not just for herself but for Raf too, just in case one of them is stranded with only a sliver of battery and too many things unsaid.

For a heartbeat, she imagines reaching in—brushing past the balm, the charger, the messy debris of living out of a bag—and pulling out her phone. She could type out a message to Anna, brief and cautious, and hope for something bearable, something that won’t splinter the fragile hope they’re holding onto here. But her hand stops halfway to the strap.

Casey frowns, her brow knitting as her fingers linger over the strap of her bag. “Do you think I should?” she murmurs, voice barely more than a breath, not sure if she’s asking Raf, Ethan, or the quiet room itself. Her eyes flicker back and forth between the two men, searching for validation, for comfort—or perhaps for the courage to leave her phone buried and the news unknown for just a little longer. “What if Lia’s ill like Pippa?” The question trembles between them, heavy with the weight of dread and longing.

Raf shifts, his thumb tracing slow, grounding circles across the back of her hand, his other hand resting on his knee. He doesn’t answer right away, letting the question settle, honouring the fear in it. Ethan’s gaze softens, empathy flickering in the lines around his eyes. In the hush, the machinery’s steady hum becomes a sort of lullaby, holding them all on the edge of decision.

Slowly, Raf leans in, his voice gentle, the words shaped carefully, as if afraid to tip the fragile balance. “It’s okay to be scared, Case. But whatever you find out, you won’t face it on your own.” He glances at Pippa, then back at Casey. “We’ll carry it together. You decide when you’re ready.”

The room breathes with them, the question still hanging—but now, wrapped in the quiet assurance that, whatever comes, none of them will bear it alone.

After a long hesitation, Casey slides her bag closer with the toe of her shoe. She exhales, gathering herself, and fishes through the muddle until her fingers close around her phone. The familiar weight grounds her, cold glass pressed briefly to her chest before she unlocks the screen with a trembling thumb. Raf’s hand stays in hers, anchoring her, and Ethan’s quiet presence is a silent shield behind her shoulder.

For a heartbeat, the glow of the screen seems too sharp against the hush, slicing through the soft shadows of the room. She opens a new message, her thumb hovering above the keyboard as she searches for words that won’t break what little composure she has left.

At last, she types, her fingers hesitant but steady:

Hi Anna, how is Lia? Any further forward with her bone marrow transplant? Sorry I haven’t been in touch—Pippa is very ill and her condition is critical. She has ICANS.

Each word lands with the weight of confession, of fear, of hope strung thin. The tiny blinking cursor waits at the end of the message, urging her forward. Casey stares at it, rereads her words—vulnerable, raw—and for a moment, she wonders if she should soften them, shield Anna from the bleakness that now shapes her days. But the truth feels necessary, even if it trembles in her hands.

She looks to Raf and Ethan, seeking the silent permission she needs, and finds only understanding. Then—with a breath that feels like a leap—she presses send. The message is gone, carrying with it a sliver of her dread and the fragile hope that, on the other side, someone will understand.

Barely a minute after sending her message to Anna, Casey’s phone buzzes in her palm—a new notification. For a moment, her heart lurches, ready for Anna’s reply, but instead Sienna’s name flashes across the screen. The message preview is a string of urgent questions, crowding together in a block of worry:

How is Pippa? What did the doctors say about her brain scan? Are the steroids working? Did her abdominal MRI give good results?

Casey’s breath catches, the sudden switch from silence to Sienna’s anxious barrage making her cheeks flush with fresh uncertainty. She glances up, catching Ethan’s eye; he raises his brows just enough to ask, wordlessly, if she’s all right. Raf’s fingers squeeze hers, gentle encouragement.

She turns her attention back to the message, rereading Sienna’s words. They’re a mirror of her own fears, each question a reminder of how much hangs in the balance. Her thumb hovers, mind scrambling for answers she barely feels qualified to give.

Her thoughts tumble: Pippa, pale and so small in her hospital bed, the doctors’ cautious tones, the blur of scans and acronyms—ICANS, MRI, high-dose steroids, hope measured out in hours and platelet counts. The brain scan: inconclusive, shadows that might mean improvement or might mean nothing yet. The steroids: working, maybe, enough to bring down the swelling, but not fast enough to chase away the dread. The MRI: no new catastrophes, but no miracles either.

Casey inhales, letting herself settle, letting the comfort of the room—Raf’s hand, Ethan’s quiet watchfulness—steady her. She starts to type, her words slow but careful, each one weighed against the truth and the need for gentleness:

She’s still very ill. The doctors are watching her brain closely—the scan didn’t show anything worse, but they’re not sure yet if the steroids are helping. Her abdominal MRI was okay, nothing new to worry about there. They’re doing everything they can.

She pauses, reading it back, wishing she could offer more certainty, more hope. But all she has to give is honesty, wrapped in care.

She presses send. The silence after feels different—not emptier, but shared. The weight of waiting is a little lighter, knowing that somewhere, Sienna is holding a piece of it too.

The hours soon begin to pass and before Casey knows it, Ethan is leaving for the night as she prepares Pippa’s eight o’clock night tubal feed and bedtime medications.

Casey steadies her hands against the tremor of exhaustion as she draws up the morphine, the measured weight of each millilitre heavy with meaning. Pippa lies curled under hospital sheets, her fist small and limp beside the bright tubing. The cannula at the back of her hand is ringed with purple and yellow bruises, a memory of too many needle pricks—the delicate skin angry and fragile beneath the tape.

Gently, Casey fits the syringe to the line. She presses the plunger, slow and careful, watching the tiny bead of liquid disappear. “We’ll take it one hour at a time, baby. Just one hour.” Her voice is a whisper too soft for the machines to register, but she hopes Pippa hears it through the haze—somewhere beyond the plastic mask and the hush of the ventilator.

She wipes her eyes, blinking grit from the corners, and reaches for the next syringe—the Valproate, 25 millilitres, its label stark against the clear barrel. With practiced motions dulled by fatigue, she swaps out the empty morphine syringe, lines up the Valproate, and attaches it to the port. The medication slips through with a gentle pressure of her thumb, joining the invisible arsenal working inside Pippa’s small body.

One by one, Casey moves through the routine: Gabapentin next, then Tizanidine, Ethosuximide, and finally Naproxen. Each vial, each measured dose, is a silent vow pressed into plastic—a promise that nothing is being left undone. The low whir of machines and the green pulse of monitors are her only audience.

Outside, the corridor hushes as the night deepens, footsteps growing scarce, the world shrinking to the soft sounds at Pippa’s bedside. Casey leans in, pressing a kiss to Pippa’s forehead, letting her lips linger in the hope that some comfort might seep through despite the mask and the wires. She straightens, checks each line, and settles in for the long watch, heart beating in time with the steady, artificial breaths that fill the dark.

Casey turns to Raf, her voice gentle but edged with the insistence of someone who’s learned the hard way not to neglect the basics. “Have you taken your Tramadol today?”

Raf, startled from his vigil, blinks as if surfacing from a deep pool. He rubs his eyes, then offers a sheepish nod. “I think so,” he murmurs, though doubt lingers in the furrow of his brow.

Casey gives him a look—a blend of worry and fond exasperation. She nudges the half-empty bottle on the bedside table toward him. “You need to stay ahead of it, remember?”

Raf manages a tired smile, the kind that says thank you without words. He picks up the bottle, shaking out a tablet, and swallows it dry.

They sit together in the hush, the kind of quiet that pulses with exhaustion and care. In this orbit, medication is lifeline and routine, and looking out for each other is as necessary as breath.

Casey leans her head against Raf’s shoulder, her voice barely above the hush of the machines. “I’m terrified, Raf. What if the lesions aren’t inflammation? What if they’re cancer?”

af doesn’t respond right away. The word hangs in the dim air, heavier than any silence between them. He wraps an arm around her, the movement slow and deliberate, as if careful not to disturb the fragile peace at Pippa’s bedside. His breath is steady, something for Casey to anchor to while her own catches and shudders.

“We don’t know yet,” he says, the words shaped by equal parts hope and caution. “We’ll cross that bridge if we have to. Right now, all we can do is keep going.” He squeezes her arm, grounding her. “I’m scared too. But you’re not alone. We’ll find out together.”

Casey nods, her cheek pressed to the soft fabric of Raf’s sleeve. Grief and dread swell in her chest, but his presence tempers the jagged edge of panic. Pippa’s monitors blink their slow, unyielding rhythm—an indifferent lullaby for sleepless watchers.

For a while, they sit without speaking, letting the night hold their fears. The world beyond the hospital walls narrows to the small circle of light around Pippa’s bed, and in that quiet, Casey lets herself believe, just for a moment, that hope can be as stubborn as love.

The door opens with a gentle click. A nurse steps in, her shoes muffled by the linoleum, clipboard cradled against her chest. She offers a small, apologetic smile before speaking softly, careful not to shatter the fragile calm. “Sorry to disturb you, I need to take Pippa’s vitals and take blood samples. Because of her scans today we didn’t have a chance to take her blood samples to check her T-Cell activity.”

Casey straightens, instinctively tucking stray hair behind her ear, eyes flicking from Pippa’s still form to the nurse. Raf releases his gentle hold, shifting so the nurse can move freely around the bed. The room, already dim, seems to shrink—privacy folding inward, replaced by the quiet necessity of care.

Standing up, she walks over to Pippa’s bedside. “Pippa has veins that are challenging to access and prone to collapse, so a 23 gauge butterfly needle is typically recommended.”

The nurse, whose name tag reads Angela, nods, her expression softening with understanding. “Ok, honey. I can go and change it. I have a 21 gauge needle here.” She holds it up for Casey to see, then tucks it away, already turning toward the door.

Casey gives a grateful, weary smile. “Thank you. The smaller needle makes it easier for her.”

Angela nods again with practiced reassurance. “I’ll be right back with the butterfly.” She steps out, the click of the door gentle behind her, leaving the hush intact.

Raf exhales, a silent thread of tension unwinding between them. Casey sits again, her gaze lingering on Pippa—on the rise and fall of the small chest, on the constellation of bruises blooming along fragile arms. In the steady, blinking light, hope wavers but refuses to vanish, as stubborn and necessary as breath itself.

He looks at Casey, voice softened by worry. “Have you taken your morphine today?”

For a moment, she hesitates—her jaw clenched, gaze fixed on the web of shadows cast across the floor. The pain is there, always, a silent signature etched into her features. Tonight, it’s especially pronounced around her eyes, the consequence of her Endometriosis flaring beneath the strain. She finally exhales, the smallest nod betraying both defiance and resignation.

“I did. Earlier. I didn’t want it to make me too tired,” she murmurs, fingers drumming a restless rhythm against her knee. “I want to be awake, in case Pippa needs me.”

Raf’s hand hovers, uncertain, landing just above hers in a gesture of quiet solidarity. The room, filled with the low hum of machines and the distant shuffle of night staff, seems to breathe with them—a fragile peace, holding pain and hope in equal measure.

Casey shifts, rolling her shoulders as if to ease the ache. “It’s okay. I can manage.” But the lie is thin, gossamer, already unravelling in the lamplight.

He doesn’t push. Instead, he lets his presence fill the silence, an anchor for both of them. In the hush, the struggle is shared: pain acknowledged, but not allowed to eclipse the night’s small, stubborn hope.

Raf strokes Casey’s hand, his touch gentle but probing, testing the boundary between comfort and concern. “What about your Linzagolix?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper, as if afraid that naming the medication might summon its side effects.

Casey’s lips press thin, the question suspended between them. Her eyes flutter shut for a heartbeat, lashes quivering against pale cheeks. “Yeah. I took it this morning,” she says at last, the words weighed with fatigue and something more fragile—gratitude, perhaps, that he remembers.

“It helps,” she adds, though her voice is unsteady, “just… not enough on nights like this.” The admission lands softly, no bitterness in it, only the quiet honesty born of too many hospital vigils.

Raf’s thumb traces a slow, grounding circle over her knuckles. “You don’t have to do this alone, you know.” The light overhead flickers, and in its pale wash, Casey lets herself lean a fraction closer, drawing strength from the warmth of his hand. Outside, the world carries on—inside, they share this vigil, each carrying the other through the hush and the hurt.

Casey’s eyes fill with tears of pain. “I need to heat my gel pack.” She clutches her midsection, breath catching as a new wave of discomfort ripples through her. For a moment, the resolve she’s guarded all evening falters, leaving her vulnerable in the soft lamplight.

She draws a trembling breath, wiping at her cheeks with the heel of her hand. “I’m going to… I need to get up. Walk a little.” Her voice, thin but determined, threads through the quiet. Raf starts to rise, but Casey shakes her head, managing a wan half-smile. “Just the corridor. I’ll be right back.”

The old ache is fierce as she stands, but movement is a language her body still remembers, even when it hurts. The soft click of the door closing behind her is a small punctuation in the hush. Outside, the corridor is washed in a blue-tinged glow—night staff shifting quietly, the world beyond the windows holding its breath.

Casey steadies herself with one hand on the wall, following the spill of faint light and the distant echo of wheels on linoleum. Each step is a negotiation: pain measured against purpose, fragility against the persistent need for agency. She walks slowly, letting the rhythm of her stride push back against the ache, if only for a moment.

Near the end of the corridor, the patient kitchen glows invitingly, a haven of chipped mugs and half-empty biscuit tins. Casey slips inside, the familiar hum of the microwave greeting her. She retrieves her gel pack from her pocket, its weight a promise of coming relief. With careful movements, she places it on the turntable, the gentle whirring of the microwave filling the small space with a sense of forward motion—a small act of care, wrestled from the shadows of a difficult night.

Walking into the kitchen, Casey is relieved to see the microwave is free and she shuffles towards it. The simple luck of an unoccupied appliance feels like a small victory—a fleeting reprieve in a night carved up by discomfort. She slides her gel pack inside and presses the familiar buttons, the soft hum rising to fill the quiet kitchen. The overhead light casts a gentle halo across the scuffed linoleum, and for a moment, Casey lets her shoulders drop, surrendering to the stillness.

As she waits, the seconds spin out, measured by the slow revolution of the gel pack. She stands by the counter, her pulse aligning with the soft hum of the machinery, each heartbeat contributing to a growing sense of composure. The warmth of the room, the faint scent of tea bags and stale biscuits, the distant shuffle of a nurse’s footsteps—all of it combines into a fragile sense of normalcy.

When the microwave beeps, Casey flinches, startled by its insistence. She pulls open the door, cradling the pack in her hands, feeling the heat seep into her palms—a promise of relief, however temporary. The gel pack radiates warmth so intense it stings, and Casey’s breath hitches as she nearly drops it. She scans the countertop, eyes darting past mismatched mugs to the battered drawer beneath the sink.

Fumbling with the handle, she tugs it open to find a tumble of dish towels inside, their faded patterns a testament to a hundred late-night emergencies. She selects the softest one—a threadbare blue—and wraps it carefully around the gel pack, cocooning the heat in gentle layers. The fabric muffles the burn, transforming the pain into something manageable, touchable.

Casey closes her eyes for a moment, palms pressed around the makeshift bundle, letting the warmth bleed into her aching midsection. The kitchen, for all its clutter and loneliness, holds her steady. She lingers beside the humming fridge, gathering herself before returning to the corridor—a slow inhale, a prayer for strength, and the knowledge that even small comforts can carry her through the longest nights.

Walking out of the kitchen, Casey cradles the bundled gel pack to her midsection, each step a careful negotiation between exhaustion and duty. The corridor is quieter now, the blue lights dulled by the late hour, and her shadow stretches ahead of her—thin, uncertain—along the wall.

She moves quietly, the familiar burden of the gel pack pressed against her, feeling the warmth seep through layers of towel and fabric, a fragile barrier between herself and exhaustion. The corridor’s hush carries her onward, past the muted glow of the nurses’ station, until she reaches the door she knows by heart.

Inside, the room is unchanged—a half-world preserved in artificial light and the steady whisper of machines. Pippa lies in the centre of it all, unmoved, her small body mapped with plastic and medical tape, the silent choreography of survival playing out in translucent tubing and electronic blinks. Casey stands for a moment on the threshold, watching the gentle rise and fall of her daughter’s chest, the curve of her lashes on pale skin, the impossibly still tableau that has become the sum of their nights.

Tonight, a thin catheter threads from beneath Pippa’s hospital blanket, draining urine from her bladder, a silent safeguard for her lone, overburdened kidney. The steady drip into the collection bag is both a reassurance and a sorrow—necessary, clinical, the only way to keep infection at bay since she cannot empty her bladder on her own. Its presence, like so much else in this room, is quietly monumental: a small plastic lifeline, a reminder of all that must be watched, protected, cherished.

From the adjoining bathroom comes the muffled sound of movement: Raf, changing into pyjama bottoms and his usual faded grey t-shirt, a uniform he’s settled into during these hospital nights by Pippa’s side. At home, he would have simply worn pyjama bottoms, bare-chested against their cool sheets. And before all of this, in the years before illness carved out new rituals, he and Casey would sometimes sleep unclothed, tangled together after love, careless and warm in the hush of their own bed, no need for barriers or boundaries.

Now, their lives are stitched together with new routines—layers of fabric, layers of caution. As Raf steps quietly back into the room, the soft cotton of his shirt clings to his shoulders, and he glances at Casey, at the way she cradles the gel pack, at Pippa’s stillness. Grief and tenderness move between them, silent but ever-present, as they settle in for another night of watchfulness and hope.

Casey gazes at Raf, waiting for him to hobble over on his crutches. “Has Linda been in to take Pippa’s blood sample?”

Raf hesitates, shifting his weight awkwardly, the soft tap of his crutches a cautious metronome in the hush. He shakes his head, glancing toward the sealed vials and bundled forms on the shelf. “Not yet. She said she’d come after the obs round.” His voice is low, as if wary of waking the sleeping child or disturbing the fragile spell of calm that has settled over the room.

Casey nods, worry flickering across her face, her hand unconsciously tightening around the wrapped gel pack. “They’re running late tonight,” she murmurs, eyes tracing the thin line of tubing nestled against Pippa’s skin. For a moment, she’s transfixed by the steady blip of the monitor, the faint green graph of her daughter’s heartbeat, so constant it’s almost soothing.

Just then there’s a knock on the door and Ethan walks in. “I’m leaving for the night but I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”

His entrance is gentle, careful—Ethan, with his tired eyes and reliably calm presence, always seems to know how to slip into tense spaces without breaking them. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his scrubs and offers them a small, sympathetic smile, the kind that doesn’t quite lift the heaviness from the room but tries its best to ease it.

Casey manages a nod, gratitude threading through her exhaustion. “Thanks, Ethan,” she says, her voice soft, steadied by the simple assertion that morning will come, that someone will return.

Ethan casts a glance at Pippa, then at the machines, as if by habit, checking the quiet codes of wellness and warning. He lingers for a breath, the hush thickening, before turning to Raf with a brief, understanding nod. “If you need anything, just buzz—someone will come.”

Raf gives a half-smile, his fingers drumming anxiously against his crutch, and Ethan lets himself out, leaving the door to click softly behind him. For a moment, the silence settles in again, almost companionable, stitched through with the promise of return.

Three Weeks Later

The days have blurred into one another—sunrise dissolving into sunset behind hospital glass, the world outside slipping quietly from autumn’s gold into the tentative chill of winter. Three more weeks pass, and now it’s the middle of November, the city’s first strings of Christmas lights blinking awake in the distance. Inside, the corridor feels suspended in its own season—neither autumn nor winter, only the endless present of waiting.

Pippa is still here, fighting to survive, her small body curled within the cocoon of blankets and wires. She has not woken. The doctors call it ICANS, spell it out—immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome—an inscrutable enemy that slumbers and stirs in turns. The steroids have been increased again, each dose a double-edged hope, chasing swelling from her brain but stealing something else each day: colour from her cheeks, the shape of her voice, the lightness that once filled her dreaming body.

Casey and Raf sit in the narrow waiting area outside radiology, the air thick with the smell of disinfectant and stale vending-machine coffee. Raf’s crutches rest beside his knees; Casey’s hands are folded so tightly in her lap her knuckles have gone white. The minutes drag and flutter, chased by the occasional echo of distant footsteps or the squeak of a gurney wheel. Somewhere behind thick doors, Pippa is having her repeat MRI scans—brain and abdomen this time—images built from the hum of magnets and the patience of hope.

Other families come and go, voices low or brittle, and still Casey and Raf wait, bracing themselves for the familiar procession: Neurologists with their measured words, Oncologists with their cautious optimism. The world outside is already dressing itself for Christmas, but inside, time is counted not in days but in doses, in scans, in the rise and fall of Pippa’s chest beneath the beeping, watchful machines.

Raf stares at the muted painting on the wall, its colours faded by years of fluorescent light. Casey’s thumb absently traces the seam of her sleeve. They exchange no words—what is left to say, when every word is just a scaffold for fear or prayer? All they can do is wait, tethered to each other and to Pippa by the invisible filaments of love and stubborn hope, as the world keeps turning towards winter, and the promise of morning, and perhaps, a moment of mercy.

Outside the hospital, the city glows faintly with holiday lights, but Ethan’s world is reduced to the muted carpet and humming radiator of his hotel room. He stands by the window, phone pressed to his ear, gaze unfocused on the snow-dusted parking lot below.

He hadn’t thought he’d be gone this long—two weeks, he’d promised Meredith, maybe three at the most. Now a month has passed. Each day he’s called home, and each day the distance between them seems to lengthen, a fault line growing wider with every update about Pippa’s fragile, flickering condition.

The medical board at Edenbrooke has been remarkably accommodating, granting more time than Ethan dared hope. It is with Meredith he struggles, her patience worn thin by the steady drip of bad news and Ethan’s helpless refrain: I’m needed here.

Tonight, the exhaustion in her voice is a weight he cannot lift. “Mer, I can’t leave,” he says, pacing between the bed and the window, the room claustrophobic with worry. “Pippa’s condition is still extremely critical. Please, you have to understand—I’m needed here.”

He hears her ragged sigh, the sound of someone at the end of what they can bear. “Ethan, you’re going to miss Orla’s Christmas pageant. She’s so excited to play Mary. She’s desperate for you to be there.”

He presses a hand to his forehead, guilt blooming in his chest. Meredith’s next words bruise: “You said this wouldn’t come before our girls.”

He closes his eyes, imagining Orla in her costume, clutching a dish towel on her head, her eyes searching the audience for him.

Ethan swallows, feeling the bitter edge of the impossible divide—here, in Wisconsin, a child’s life hangs in the balance; there, at home, his own daughter waits for a father’s promise.

“I know,” he whispers, voice thick. “I didn’t want this, Mer. But if something happens to Pippa and I’m not here—”

His words trail off, strangled by the weight of what he cannot fix.

For a moment, neither speaks. Only the faint crackle of the line, and the ache of love stretched to its thinnest thread, remains. Snow begins to fall again beyond the glass, soft and relentless, as Ethan wonders if there is a mercy in the world large enough for all the ways he is needed, and all the places he cannot be.

He stands silent, shame and longing tangled in his chest as the quiet on the line stretches taut. Then Meredith’s voice, thin and wavering, slips through the static.

“I miss you. The girls miss you. Louisa won’t sleep unless she’s in bed with me because she knows you’re not here. And Orla’s been asking for weeks since she got the part of Mary if you’d be there. I’m also struggling to juggle work and finding childcare. I mean don’t get me wrong, your parents are great, but at their age they can only watch the girls two days a week.”

Each word falls heavy, a litany of absence and need. In the hotel room, Ethan’s shoulders sag. He searches for something—anything—that will bridge the gap: an apology, a reassurance, a promise he can’t keep.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly, but the phrase feels frail, inadequate next to all that’s been left for Meredith to carry alone. He thinks of Louisa, curling into her mother’s side for comfort, and Orla, rehearsing lines with hopeful fervour, her faith in his return stubborn and bright.

Snow taps at the window, insistent and unyielding. Ethan closes his eyes against the cold ache of being needed in two worlds at once, afraid that no matter which way he turns, he will let someone down. He hopes Meredith can hear the ache in his silence, the love wrapped in his helplessness.

“I wish I could be in two places, Mer. I really do,” he murmurs, voice nearly lost in the hush between them.

A sudden, sharp cry cuts through the receiver—Louisa, startled awake in her small room, her distress amplified by distance. Ethan’s breath catches. Instinct claws at him to reach for her, to whisper the familiar lullabies and stroke her hair until her trembling stops. But all he can offer is silence, his presence a ghostly promise scattered by miles and circumstance.

Meredith sighs, “I need to go before Lou wakes her sister. I love you, we’ll speak tomorrow yeah?”

Ethan swallows, the words catching in his throat. He wants to hold her voice a little longer, to imagine the warmth of her hand in his, but he knows she’s already halfway gone, pulled by the needs that wait beyond the doorway. “I love you too,” he manages, the syllables as fragile as breath on cold glass. “Tell the girls I’ll call as soon as I can. Kiss them for me.”

There’s a pause, a hush as though both hesitate to let go, then the quiet click of the line disconnecting. Ethan lowers the phone, staring at the fading city lights outside his window. The room feels emptier than before, the silence stretching around him like winter’s long shadow.

He sits on the edge of the bed, palms pressed to his knees, and lets the ache linger. Outside, the snow keeps falling—soft, tireless, blanketing the world in a hush that feels both merciful and unbearably lonely.

Getting ready for bed, Ethan crawls into the double bed in the hotel room and pulls the quilt up to his chin. The sheets are stiff and cool, untouched by familiar weight or warmth. He places his phone on the pillow beside him, screen aglow, the lifeline between this sterile hush and the world where his absence is a shadow pressed close to those he loves.

He watches the device, waiting for a sign, a vibration, Casey’s name lighting up with news from the ward. Pippa’s face flits through his mind—fragile, defiant, the memory of her laughter now edged with the possibility of loss. The uncertainty needles at him, making sleep a distant promise.

He shifts, listening to the wind chase snowflakes against the window, the city muffled and strange outside. Every sound in the room is magnified: the ticking of the radiator, the hum of the minibar, the faint thump of footsteps from the floor above. But mostly, it is the silence—tense, expectant, punctuated by the phone’s quiet presence—that keeps his eyes open long into the night.

He closes them anyway, willing sleep to come, heart tuned to the waiting, the hope that no call means good news, and that when morning arrives, both his worlds will still be holding on.

At the hospital, Casey sits in the dim break room, the vinyl seat cold against her back as she tips her head toward the low-lit ceiling. The world outside is a hush of snow and sodium lamps, but inside her mind, questions cluster and buzz. Her thoughts keep looping back to Pippa—each fever, each jagged seizure etched into memory with the bitter precision of fear.

It occurs to her, not for the first time, that the pattern isn’t random. Earlier tonight, as she charted vitals and checked the lines, the pieces slid together with uncomfortable clarity: every time Pippa’s tubal feed runs, her temperature climbs, and not long after, another seizure storms through her small body. Can it really be coincidence? The timing is too neat, too cruelly consistent.

Casey looks at Raf as he dozes on the couch and she tiptoes out of the room to speak to the charge nurse about her suspicions, determined to speak to Dr. Hargrove first thing in the morning.

She spots charge nurse Amara Soleil and walks over, her hands wringing with concern. “Excuse me, I am really concerned about my daughter. My daughter, Pippa Faith Aveiro, is in a coma due to ICANS, which is a consequence of CAR-T Cell therapy to help beat Neuroblastoma. She is exclusively enteral tubal fed and after each feed she has a fever spike and a severe epileptic seizure. I am beginning to believe they are connected.”

Amara’s face softens, attentive, though her eyes reflect the fatigue of night shift burdens. “I’ll page Hargrove’s team,” she offers, her voice low but steady, already reaching for a notepad. “Let’s make sure this gets flagged at handover. You’re right to raise it, Casey.”

As she waits for the nurse to respond, Casey wonders how she didn’t see the pattern sooner. The guilt is a needle twisting under her ribs.

After all, she is an award-winning diagnostician. She’s trained to see what others miss, to piece together the scattered clues of suffering into something like clarity. But more than any title or line on her CV, she is Pippa’s mother—she should know everything about her daughter, every threshold of pain, every subtle shift between hope and hazard.

She stands in that liminal, antiseptic hallway, the smell of chlorhexidine sharp in her nose, and allows herself a single, trembling breath. She will not let another night slip by without answers. Tonight, at least, she is awake.

The hallway’s hush surrenders to the pale edge of dawn, and Casey is still standing, bracing herself for the day ahead. The promise of answers hovers in the sterile air: this morning, Pippa is scheduled for another set of scans—a brain MRI to search for any sign that the swelling has retreated, an abdominal MRI to measure the stubborn lesions that started this whole ordeal.

The anticipation is dense, prickling beneath her skin. Even as the hospital stirs awake, the world narrows to a stretch of waiting rooms and windowless corridors, to the steady thrum of possibility. Each image captured will hold the weight of hope and fear intertwined; every pixel a question, every shadow a plea for reprieve.

Casey steadies herself, mind rehearsing what she’ll ask Hargrove, what she’ll demand if today’s results don’t shift the balance. She wants to believe that healing is inching closer, that the machines will confirm her most desperate wish: less swelling, shrinking shadows, some proof that after so many sleepless nights, the tide is finally, mercifully turning.

Amara turns to Casey, her words gentle but underscored by an urgency that matches Casey’s own. “I have put a note in Pippa’s chart that you must speak to Dr. Hargrove urgently tomorrow. I know how stressful this must be for you.”

Casey nods, pressing her lips together to hold back the flood behind her composure. She wants to thank Amara, to collapse into her, but dignity and exhaustion keep her upright. Instead, she offers a tight, grateful smile. “Thank you. I just— I need someone to see what I’m seeing. I can’t shake the feeling we’re missing something critical.”

Amara’s hand hovers, almost touching Casey’s arm before withdrawing—professional boundaries still drawn, even in the quiet dark of shared worry. “The handover team will see the note. And I’ll speak to Hargrove’s fellow myself when the shift changes. We’re with you, Casey.”

The reassurance is a slender thread, but Casey clings to it. She returns to Pippa’s hospital room, her every movement measured, as if any sudden motion could tilt the world off its fragile axis. Raf is awake now, his eyes shadowed, searching her face for news. She mouths, “Tomorrow,” and he nods, hope flickering in the tired lines of his face.

The hospital moves through the delicate choreography of morning. Somewhere, a door hisses open, footsteps echoing over linoleum. The promise of answers, still unfulfilled, trails Casey as she sits beside Pippa’s bed, the hush punctuated by the staccato beeps of the monitors. She folds her hands and waits—not only for the scans, for the neurologist, or for Hargrove, but for any sign that the suffering has an end, that vigilance will finally be rewarded with relief.

Casey gazes at her daughter—so small, so defenceless beneath the tangled architecture of tubes and wires. Pippa’s lashes rest against her cheeks, her chest rising and falling with the slow, mechanized rhythm of borrowed breath. If love alone could summon her back, Casey thinks, she would never have left.

But even in this sanctuary of vigilance, anger coils in her chest, hot and insistent. It is the memory of Sophia—her own twin, flesh of her flesh, once her closest confidante—now an exile by Casey’s own decree. Rage courses through her veins, old and new. Sophia, who had crossed an unthinkable line, who had stood in the hush of a room just like this and, with practiced indifference, snapped a photo of Pippa, her niece, motionless and exposed. Who had sent that image—cold and private, a record of suffering—to a tabloid hungry for tragedy.

There had been no warning. One morning, amid the ritual of waiting, Casey opened her phone to find her daughter’s face staring back at her from a headline. The world had devoured Pippa’s pain in its breakfast scroll. Dignity, once so fiercely guarded, was auctioned away for the price of a bitter secret. Casey’s rage, then, had been incandescent, white-hot—a betrayal more intimate than any wound.

She had severed something inside herself that day, told Sophia never to come back, never to speak Pippa’s name again. Even now, in this sterile hush, Casey trembles with the force of it, her anger braided with grief. She clenches her fists in her lap, feeling the sharp crescent moons of her own nails.

She will not forgive. She cannot. There is a price for such treachery, and it is this silence—a chasm where sisterhood used to live, now echoing with the memory of trust shattered and dignity lost. And as Casey waits, she vows that Pippa, vulnerable and beloved, will never be collateral for anyone’s ambition again.

Raf looks at his wife, voice barely more than a whisper. “Thinking about that photo again?”

Casey presses the heel of her hand to her eyes, fighting a sob. “How could she do that to me? To Pippa? Just for a cheap headline?” The question is old and raw, echoing in the cavern left behind by the wound: not just the photograph, but the betrayal that came with it.

Two weeks earlier, she’d opened her bank app and stared in hollow disbelief at the notification—a deposit from Sophia, the precise sum she’d earned for the photo: $2,700. An apology with a decimal point, delivered without words. No message. No explanation. Just the transaction, as if monetary restitution could mend the fracture, as if the damage could be measured, balanced, and erased.

But the money sat untouched. It burned cold in Casey’s account, a stark reminder that the value of trust, once broken, could not be so easily repaid. Sophia’s silence filled the distance between them like static, each day stretching the absence further, every hour reminding Casey that her family’s pain had once been nothing more than an opportunity.

She looks back at Raf, her voice hoarse. “The money doesn’t make it better. Nothing will.”

Raf reaches for her hand, their fingers intertwining—a fragile lifeline in the hush of the hospital room. “I know,” he says quietly. “We don’t need it. And we don’t forgive her. But we have each other. And Pippa.”

Casey nods, swallowing the ache, and turns her gaze once more to her daughter. The past cannot be undone, but here—amid the vigil, the hope, and the heartbreak—she draws her own boundaries, vowing that Pippa’s future will not be measured in headlines or bank balances, but in the quiet, unstoppable currency of love.

The truth is, although she doesn’t want it—the money will help with bills and the continuing therapy Mia and Isabelle both need. Isabelle, only four, had to start seeing a child psychologist for her night terrors and bed wetting. Mia, at seven years old, has been in therapy for months to deal with her fears that she can’t articulate due to her sister’s cancer.

Casey hates that necessity can dull the edges of outrage, that lifelines sometimes come disguised as the very things that broke you. The deposit sits there, as unwelcome and essential as rain at a graveside, its purpose tainted but undeniable. She wonders if Sophia knew this, if the transaction was meant as both penance and practical mercy—a recognition that pain, once unleashed, never returns to its original owner.

Raf squeezes her hand, grounding them both. “We’ll get through this.” His tone is steady, but beneath it pulses the quiet anxiety of someone doing far too many calculations in the dark. The money his Vovo Juliana had given them for Pippa’s care—$53,000 at the start, all those months ago—had been their lifeline, but it was ebbing away, reduced now to $28,000, and shrinking with every appointment, every prescription, every week spent so far from home.

Soon, that cushion would be gone too, spent on Mia and Isabelle’s therapy and the impossible costs of hope in Wisconsin: the motel room, the rental car, the food they barely tasted, the daily parking fees at the hospital.

Necessity stripped sentiment from every expenditure, turning memory and inheritance into receipts and balances.

Casey stared at the ceiling, letting the numbers flicker through her mind: $2,700 wasn’t much, not compared to what they needed, not compared to what they’d lost. But in the reality of their days, even a small sum could ease a burden, could pay for another session, another week of gas, another little measure of security. It galled her, this gratitude tangled with resentment, the way Sophia’s gesture—so fraught, so incomplete—had become another stitch in the patchwork of their survival.

Still, she clung to Raf’s warmth, to the knowledge that every dollar spent was a promise to their children: that nothing, not even betrayal, would be allowed to shape Pippa’s future or define the legacy of the love that held them together. The hope was fragile, but it was theirs, and for tonight, that was everything.

Casey’s phone vibrated, a small, insistent pulse in her palm. She glanced down, recognizing Jacqueline’s name illuminated on the screen—Pippa’s biological grandmother, still tethered to their lives by love and history, her presence as steady as the seasons. Jacqueline checked in every day, never missing a morning or evening, her texts sometimes a lifeline, sometimes another reminder of the fragile scaffolding that held them all upright.

Today’s message was fretful, lines of worry curling through every word: Any change overnight? Is the swelling less? Has there been more movement? We’re praying. Please let us know. The concern was palpable, almost as if Jacqueline’s hope and fear could travel the distance between Michigan and Wisconsin as easily as pixels on a screen.

Casey’s fingers hovered above the keyboard, trying to decide what truth could be offered. Weeks ago, she’d told Jacqueline the words no grandparent should have to hear—Pippa might not survive. She remembered Jacqueline’s voice breaking over the phone, Peter’s quiet question in the background: Should we come? Should we say goodbye? They’d wanted to be there, to press their hands to Pippa’s brow, to bear witness to her fight and offer the comfort of a familiar lullaby. But it wasn’t time, Casey had said then, not yet.

Now, every new day was a fraction of hope strung between hospital hours and updates. Jacqueline and Peter remained at a careful, aching distance, love stretched taut across state lines, waiting, hoping for any news that could reassure or prepare, depending on which way the tide turned.

Casey typed slowly, measuring each word for truth and mercy. The swelling’s stable, she wrote. No big changes. We’re still here, holding on. I promise I’ll let you know if she asks for you, or if there’s anything you need to do. Thank you for loving her. Thank you for loving us.

She hit send, and then let the phone rest on her lap, feeling the echo of Jacqueline’s heartbreak mingle with her own: a quiet chorus of love, stitched across distance, steadfast in its worry, unwilling to surrender hope.

Raf hobbled quietly out of the room, the uneven rhythm of his steps accompanied by the faint jangle of coins in his pocket. He pressed his palm to the faded wallpaper for balance, then straightened, determined. The corridor outside the hospital room was harshly lit and silent except for the distant beeping of monitors, the hush of tired nurses moving from room to room. He walked toward the vending machine, the one at the end of the hallway, past the worn chairs and old magazines, his thoughts a tangle of longing and silent bargains.

He thought of the Sprite, how Casey liked it cold and sweet, the fizz biting at her throat—the small comfort she allowed herself on nights when sleep was impossible. But more than that, he thought of Pippa, the way her eyes lit up when she was offered a sip, the delighted curl of her smile as the bubbles tickled her nose. It was only ever an occasional treat; Casey was careful, doling out sweetness sparingly, as if hope itself needed to be rationed.

As Raf fed the coins into the slot, he pressed his forehead gently to the cool glass and whispered a prayer, so quiet it was hardly more than a thought: Please, let Pippa wake, let her laugh again, let her taste this bright, clear soda whenever she wants. Promise me she’ll get to have it whenever she asks, as often as she likes. Promise me there will be more ordinary joys, more small, sparkling moments.

The machine whirred, delivered the bottle with a satisfying thunk. Raf took it from the tray, feeling the chill in his palm, and for a moment, standing in the hospital hallway, he allowed himself to believe in the ritual of hope—a bottle of Sprite, a child’s laughter, a future not yet lost.

Hobbling with the bottle curled against the hand grip of his crutch, Raf made his way back toward Pippa’s room in the PICU. The corridor seemed even quieter now, the hush deepening as evening pressed in from the windows at the end of the hall. He nudged the double doors with his shoulder, the familiar squeak echoing a little too loudly, and slipped through just as the nurses prepared to secure the ward for the night.

Soon, the doors would be locked, the hospital folding itself around its patients like a cocoon—inside, the vigil would continue, minute by minute, breath by breath. Raf paused outside Pippa’s room, letting the cold bottle rest against his wrist. Through the glass, he could see Casey hunched over her phone, the gentle flicker of the screen painting her face in pale blue light, her silhouette etched in the soft halo of the bedside lamp. Pippa’s form was small and still beneath a tangle of tubes and blankets, a tiny island of fragility in a sea of careful machines.

For a moment, Raf lingered at the threshold, his own reflection superimposed over the scene inside: the tired curve of his shoulders, the awkward tilt of his crutch, the Sprite bottle clutched like a talisman. He drew a slow breath, then exhaled—steadying himself, gathering hope anew—and pushed open the door, letting its gentle click announce his return to the circle of lamplight and love, to the uncertain, precious hours of the night.

As the night deepened and monitors blinked softly in the gloom, Casey felt the gentle buzz of her phone against her thigh—a vibration so slight it might have been imagined. She glanced down, half-hoping, half-dreading, and saw Anna’s name. Her pulse stuttered; she took a breath, bracing herself for whatever news might be waiting.

Anna’s message was short and raw, typed in the halting rhythm of someone living too close to hope and heartbreak. Not yet, Casey. Still waiting. The registry’s searching everywhere. Thank you for checking in. How’s Pippa tonight?

Casey’s heart twisted. She pictured Lia—six years old, all bright eyes and dimpled cheeks, the kind of laugh that could fill a playground, the careful crayon drawings she’d given Pippa in happier times: princesses with wild hair, animals with hearts in their paws, the two of them stick-figure best friends holding hands. Lia’s hair had been her glory—soft golden waves that danced when she spun. Now, like Pippa, she wore a smooth, brave crown of scalp, her small face somehow larger, more luminous in its vulnerability.

Casey tapped her reply, her fingers trembling. Still holding on. Stable tonight. Raf just brought a Sprite—a little ritual, you know. Pippa’s asleep, but I’ll tell her you and Lia said hi. I wish so much I could do more, Anna.

She hesitated, then added: I hope the right match is out there, somewhere close. You’re both in our hearts.

She pressed send and let her hand fall, the weight of two mothers’ longing settling over her like a blanket—heavy, but warm in its solidarity. In the hush of the room, she gazed at Pippa, then at the silent phone, and felt love stretch outward—threading between hospital wards, between two little girls who had once braided each other’s hair and now waited, side by side, for a miracle.

Raf crossed the last stretch of linoleum and eased himself down beside Casey, careful not to disturb the hush. He offered the chilled bottle with a small, crooked smile, his eyes searching hers for some flicker of reassurance, some hint that the world outside this room was still turning.

“Here, sweetheart,” he murmured, the words gentle, too big for the small gift he pressed into her hand. The plastic clicked faintly against her palm. Casey blinked, startled for a moment by the unexpected tenderness—then she managed a weary smile, grateful for the effort, for the gesture, for the cold sweetness that cut through the hospital’s heavy air.

“Thank you,” she whispered, tightening her fingers around the bottle. For a moment, the ritual held them—a slender bridge across exhaustion and fear, a reminder of ordinary comforts in a place where nothing felt ordinary anymore. Raf settled his crutches at his side, letting the silence close gently around them, and together they watched over Pippa, the soft fizz of hope lingering between them as the night pressed on.

Casey turned to Raf, her gaze lingering on the lines that sorrow and sleeplessness had etched around his eyes, on the steady patience of his presence beside her. He was not only her husband, not simply the father of their girls, but for thirteen years he had been her steadfast companion, her confidant, her anchor—the axis about which her life spun, even as everything else threatened to fly apart.

She reached for his hand, tracing the shape of his knuckles, memorising the warmth there. In the hush of the dim-lit room, it struck her again how he was the one who gathered her pieces each time she felt herself shattering, who grounded her when the world grew impossibly dark and terrifying. He held her together quietly, with glances and gentle touches and unspectacular, relentless love.

In his presence, hope did not feel foolish. She leaned her head lightly against his shoulder, eyes closing for a moment, grateful for the comfort that words could never quite convey. Whatever the next hours might bring, she knew she would not face them alone.

After a while, Raf’s breath evened out beside her, a steady rhythm that soothed the jagged edges in Casey’s chest.

The room was a small, suspended world—machine lights blinking gently, the faint shuffle of nurses’ shoes in distant corridors, the insistent hush of the hospital at night. Casey let her thumb run absentmindedly over the condensation on the Sprite bottle, her mind drifting between memory and the present, between the ache of waiting and the fragile balm of togetherness.

On the bedside table, Pippa’s stuffed rabbit kept its silent vigil, long ears askew, soft fur worn thin by too many anxious fingers. Casey reached out, smoothing the toy as she’d once smoothed Pippa’s hair, careful and slow. She thought of all the ordinary nights she’d taken for granted—bedtime stories and the gentle weight of her daughter curled against her; nights when hope wasn’t something you had to fight for.

Raf’s fingers tightened around hers, anchoring her back to the moment. She wondered if he could feel her gratitude in the way she squeezed his hand, the way she stayed close. They didn’t need to speak; the language of shared endurance was enough.

Outside, a taxi’s headlights swept briefly across the window before vanishing, and somewhere down the hall, a monitor beeped in protest—life, stubborn and unyielding, carrying on. Casey drew a long, careful breath. She listened to Pippa’s slow, even inhale, and promised, silently, that she would hold this vigil for as long as it took. That she would keep weaving hope, however thin, into the fabric of every hour until dawn.

For a moment, the future shimmered—uncertain, but not unreachable. The world had narrowed to this room, this family, this night. But within that smallness, love endured, bright and patient, threading itself again and again through the darkness.

Casey lifted the bottle, letting a bead of chilled condensation slip down her wrist, and took a small sip. The sweetness lingered on her tongue, a tiny defiance against the sterile air. “I’m missing something,” she said, a smile flickering at the corners of her lips.

Raf’s brow furrowed in instinctive concern, the old habit of vigilance never far from the surface. But the mischief in Casey’s eyes soon gave her away. “Oh? What’s that?” he asked, the tension dissolving as he watched her.

Instead of answering, Casey rose and padded softly over to him, her bare feet silent on the linoleum. She settled herself in his lap with practiced familiarity—a gesture made awkward by hospital chairs but effortless by love. Her arms twined around his neck, and she looked at him with a light that was all laughter and longing. “My kisses,” she murmured, pressing her forehead to his.

There, in the hush broken only by the distant beeping and the gentle breath of their daughter, Casey pressed her lips softly to his—once, twice, as if to remind the world (and perhaps herself) that sweetness and solace could still be conjured, even here. Raf’s arms circled her, pulling her closer, anchoring them both in the small, precious warmth they’d made together.

For a moment, the night receded, leaving only the fizz of soda, the hush of love, and the promise that, no matter how dark the hours became, they could always find their way back to one another.

But beneath her brave gestures and gentle defiance, Casey’s heart thudded with a quieter dread. She felt, bone-deep, the cracks that stress can carve through love: the way Pippa’s illness had made every hour sharp-edged, the way Raf’s sadness curled like mist in the corners of their conversations. There were moments, lately, when she’d caught him gazing past her, eyes shadowed, lost in a landscape she could not cross. She worried that if she reached for him, her hand might close on emptiness.

So, she clung fiercely to these small rituals—the cool bottle, the softness of the rabbit, the warmth of his arms. She whispered promises, not just to Pippa but to herself: that she would not let the weight of grief and worry hollow them out. That she would find ways, even in exhaustion and fear, to reach him—through laughter, through the gentle press of her lips, through every act that said we are still here, together.

Tonight, as she nestled closer, she made a silent vow. She would not let this darkness scatter them. She gathered every hope, weaving a net strong enough for them both, waiting for the day they could step into a world transformed by enduring love.

Casey let her hand drift to Raf’s cheek, her thumb tracing the faint sandpaper roughness along his jaw. She smiled, a spark of playful tenderness brightening her tired eyes. “You need a shave,” she teased, her voice light against the hush.

Raf caught her hand in his, grinning sheepishly. “That obvious?” he replied. The gentleness in his gaze belied the weariness beneath; for a moment, the weight of the world seemed to slip from his shoulders.

Casey laughed softly, the sound muffled against Raf’s shoulder. “Honestly, I’m one to talk,” she admitted, glancing down at her own arms with a wry smile. “I should probably break out the epilator again.” The thought brought a flicker of ordinary life into the hospital hush—a reminder of routines outside these walls. She always preferred the whirring little machine, how it left her legs and underarms smooth for weeks on end, no stinging nicks or accidental slips like with a razor. It was a small, practical luxury, the kind of thing that felt like a promise to herself: that her body, even weary and worried, still deserved gentleness.

She nudged Raf, inviting his laughter. In this space where so much felt uncertain, these confessions—the need for a shave, the need for a touch of care—were another quiet way of saying: we are still ourselves, and the world beyond this fluorescent limbo will be waiting when we’re ready to return.

Casey’s eyelids fluttered, heavy with exhaustion that seeped deeper than her bones. She stifled a yawn, but it slipped out anyway, soft and apologetic. “I need to close my eyes,” she admitted, voice trailing into a hush. Then, as if the night itself might overhear her worries, she added in a smaller voice, “But I’m really scared that Pippa will have a seizure when I’m asleep.”

Raf’s hand tightened gently around hers. For a heartbeat, neither spoke—listening instead to the fragile quiet, the steady monitor beeps, the slow promise of breath from their daughter’s crib. Casey’s confession hung between them, raw and real, a thread spun from love and terror.

He brushed a stray wisp of hair from her forehead and pressed a kiss to her temple. “You don’t have to do this alone,” he murmured. “I’ll keep watch for a while. Rest, even if it’s just for a few minutes.”

Casey hesitated, torn between relief and guilt, between her body’s desperate need for sleep and the relentless vigilance of a parent’s heart. She looked at Pippa—tiny, fierce, impossibly brave—and then back at Raf, searching his face for reassurance.

“Promise you’ll wake me if anything changes?” she whispered.

Raf nodded, his gaze steady. “Always.”

Casey allowed herself to lean into him, eyelids drooping, letting the warmth of his embrace and the rhythm of his words form a fragile shelter against the fear. And as her breathing slowed, she held tight to the hope that love—watchful, stubborn, undiminished—would guard them all through the night.

Raf turned in the soft hospital light, gaze drawn helplessly to Pippa’s delicate face. If not for the tube tracing the curve of her cheek, pushing air into her tiny lungs, she could have been simply sleeping—lost in a peaceful dream, untouched by the wires and the sharp scent of antiseptic. His heart tightened at the sight, fierce and aching, as he bent closer to her bed.

His voice cracked as he gazed at Pippa, so heartbreakingly small beneath the tangle of wires and the pale-blue hospital sheets. "Please come back to us," he whispered, the words trembling between hope and despair. "Mama and I are waiting for you to wake up. Your sisters are waiting, too. When you wake up, I promise I’ll read you your favourite stories—over and over, as many times as you want. You can have your pink juice. Just wake up, please, baby. You have to wake up."

He pressed his lips to the back of her hand, his breath shaky, and blinked hard against the sting of tears. The monitors kept their quiet vigil, each beep a reminder of the fragile thread tethering her to the world. Raf closed his eyes, willing all the fierce, aching love in his chest to reach her somehow—carried on a father’s plea, a promise spun of stories and juice and the ordinary, miraculous business of waking.

He bowed his head, the sharp ache of helplessness pressing against his ribs. Words rose in him, tangled and urgent, spilling out in a whisper barely louder than the hum of the machines. “Please God, please don’t take our little girl. She is so precious. I will do anything, give anything, if you just let her come back to us.” The plea was rough-edged and unvarnished, hope and despair braided together in the cracked syllables.

For a moment, Raf allowed himself to believe his prayer could slip through the sterile air, past the walls, into whatever mystery held the balance of life and breath. He pressed his brow gently to Pippa’s small knuckles, the warmth of her skin a silent answer.

He stayed there, unmoving, heart thundering with love and fear, waiting for a sign—any sign—that somewhere, someone was listening.

Casey slowly straightened, a grimace flickering across her face as she rolled her stiff neck. The thin, unfamiliar pillow and the angle of the hospital chair had left her muscles knotted and aching, but she ignored the discomfort—her gaze instantly seeking out Pippa, fragile and still beneath the threadbare hospital blanket.

“How is she?” she murmurs, getting up and moving the few steps to where Raf is sitting by their comatose little girl’s bedside, praying for a miracle that might never come.

She sees the haunting look in Raf’s eyes again, the look that sends her heart spiralling with fear. “Talk to me,” she pleads. “What are you thinking?”

Raf doesn’t answer for a moment. He brushes his thumb gently over Pippa’s hand, careful not to disturb the IV taped to her skin. His chest rises and falls with the effort of holding himself together. “I don’t know,” he whispers finally, his voice rough. “I keep thinking if I say the right words, or… if I love her enough, maybe she’ll come back to us. But I’m so scared, Case.” His eyes glisten as he looks up, searching her face for something that will steady him.

Casey stands up, and walks the maybe, twelve steps around Pippa’s bed between her chair and the chair Raf is sitting in on the other side. “Look at me,” she whispers, gently lifting his chin to meet her gaze. “I don’t think anyone could love her more than you do. This isn’t because we don’t love her enough. That’s not why this happened. We just have been so unlucky that the ICANS happened. And I know you’re scared, but as long as you’re here, when our baby girl does come back to us, she’ll know that Daddy’s been here waiting for her.”

She keeps her hand at his jaw for a moment, thumb brushing against the stubble there—a small, grounding anchor.

The silence in the room stretches, thick but not empty, filled with the weight of unspoken fears and the fragile hope she’s trying to kindle between them.

Raf lets out a shuddering breath, his hands trembling as he clasps Pippa’s. “I just… I don’t want to let her down,” he manages, voice barely above a whisper.

Casey bends, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head before kneeling beside his chair. “You couldn’t, not if you tried. All you can do is stay—just like you have. That’s enough. That’s everything.”

Together, they hold vigil at Pippa’s side, two hearts bound by love and the impossible ache of waiting, refusing to let go of hope even as the machines hum on and the dawn creeps softly toward the window.

Casey’s gaze lingers on Pippa’s bare head, now gently wrapped in a soft, patterned headscarf—an effort to preserve some small piece of dignity for their sweet girl, who always hated the way people’s eyes would linger when they saw her without hair. The scarf is bright, chosen with care, a whisper of normalcy and colour in the sterile hush of the hospital room. As the first light of morning finds its way through the blinds, the fabric glimmers faintly, a quiet defiance against all that has been lost and all that hangs suspended in the uncertain air.

Her voice is quiet, “She hates it when her head is bare. Do you remember when they were performing the electroencephalogram last month and they had to put the leads on her scalp? She cried so much, asking when she could have her scarves back because she was scared the nurses or doctors would stare.”

Raf nods, “I know, and the time she had those infected blisters—when she couldn’t wear them either, she would hide away when the doctors and nurses came in.”

Casey closes her eyes briefly, as if bracing herself against the memory. “She always tried to smile, even when she was embarrassed. Remember how she’d wrap herself in the blankets, peek out and ask if it was ‘safe’ yet?” A small, bittersweet smile flickers across Casey’s lips. “And then you’d draw silly faces on her socks, so she’d have something else to show the nurses.”

Raf’s mouth tugs upward, barely. “She’d put her feet in the air like she was putting on a show. She’s so brave, Case. Braver than either of us.”

Casey squeezes his hand, her grip warm and sure. “She gets that from you. From us.” The silence settles again but feels softer, threaded with shared memories rather than just fear.

Outside, the light grows brighter, the world moving on its relentless course. But inside this room, time hangs suspended—a sacred pause filled with the ache of love, the fragile stretch of hope, and the quiet resilience that only a family can muster.

Raf traces a finger along the edge of the scarf, his voice trembling but steady. “We’re still here. We’ll always make it safe for her.”

Casey rests her head against his shoulder, and together they breathe in the promise of morning—waiting, loving, and holding on.

She lets out a soft sigh. “I don’t know how, but as long as we have each other, no matter what happens, we’ll make it through,” she whispers, tenderly rubbing her hand over Raf’s bicep and shoulder.

Raf turns just enough to meet her eyes, his own brimming with a fragile certainty. The hush in the room holds them close, cocooned against the world’s uncertainties. “We will,” he murmurs, as if saying it aloud might make it true. Outside the window, morning gathers itself in amber streaks across the glass. Within the room, their hope weaves itself anew around Pippa’s small, unconscious form—threading through the hush of machines and the gentle cadence of their breathing.

“Even if it’s hard,” Casey adds, her thumb tracing idle circles on Raf’s arm, “we’re not alone. She’ll feel that, won’t she?”

Raf nods. “She always does. She’s never let go of us—not really. And we won’t let go of her.”

For a moment, the burdens feel lighter, as if love itself could buoy them above the tide of grief and uncertainty. Together, they sit in the growing light, steadfast as the day begins, holding fast to each other and to the fading promise that, somehow, together, they will find their way through.

Soon, the gentle sounds from outside signal the shift change—the soft thud of shoes in the hallway, distant murmurs as the day shift nurses arrive to relieve those who watched over Pippa and the ward through the dark hours. The world outside keeps its rhythm, but within this small room, every change feels monumental, a fresh breath in the tight space of their waiting.

Casey glances at the clock, her voice soft but steady. “We need to start Pippa’s first tubal feed. If I hand you the saline solution, could you flush out her Hickman line as I get her formula?”

Raf nods, rolling his shoulders as if bracing for the familiar, sacred choreography. He accepts the saline from Casey’s hand, the touch brief but grounding, and moves to the tray where the sterile supplies are laid out with quiet precision.

Meanwhile, Casey stands, stretching out the stiffness from her vigil, and crosses to Pippa’s bedside. She brushes her palm just beneath the edge of her daughter’s headscarf—gentle, featherlight, careful not to disturb the IV or the nest of wires. “Good morning, Princess,” she whispers, her lips curving into a smile meant for both of them.

As she knew it would, there is no response from Pippa. The little girl remains still, nested in blankets, her small form dwarfed by the machinery that keeps vigil with them. Wires coil at her side; the faint rise and fall of her chest is the only answer.

Casey walks toward the door, pausing just long enough to catch a glimpse of Raf as he limps to the counter near the sink, the bottle of saline solution glinting in the fluorescent wash of early morning. Their eyes meet—a flicker of reassurance—and then he turns his attention to his task.

The hallway is quieter than she expects, muffled and still, as if the world outside their room hesitates to intrude on the fragile hope within. Casey’s footsteps are soft but purposeful, echoing faintly over the polished linoleum as she makes her way to the patient kitchen. The familiar scent of disinfectant and something faintly sweet—perhaps a lingering trace from a child’s snack, hastily cleared away—lingers in the air.

She opens the fridge, cold air brushing her face, and begins scanning the shelves for the three unopened bottles labeled with Pippa’s name, her room number, and date of birth—a quiet, bureaucratic ritual that’s become second nature. Hospital policy: everything is accounted for, every line of ink a safeguard, every sticker a small anchor of control in the chaos.

Near the back, tucked like treasure behind a stack of apple juices and another child’s half-eaten pudding, she spots the bottles: three squat, 200ml containers of PediaSure, still chilled, their white plastic glinting beneath the harsh refrigerator light. Relief flickers through her—no mix-ups, no frantic calls to pharmacy, just what Pippa needs, ready for this feed and the ones to come.

She does the math in her head, as she always does.

After this feed, there will be only 100ml left in a single bottle, the total of 600ml whittled down, each measurement a careful step toward keeping Pippa strong. Later today, she’ll need two more unopened bottles, precision timed for the next feed, each one carefully spaced, four hours apart—just inside the recommended three-to-six-hour window for four feeds a day. It’s a delicate choreography, these intervals, meant to deliver the 2000 daily calories Pippa’s growing body demands.

Her fingers close around the bottles, their coolness grounding her. For a moment, standing in the gentle hum of the fridge, Casey lets herself imagine the calories as tiny lifelines running directly from her hands to her daughter’s heart, and she’s grateful for this small, tangible way to fight. Then she turns back toward the ward, cradling the formula close, ready to rejoin Raf and the silent hope waiting in their room.

The door whispers closed behind her, sealing the hush of the hallway outside. Casey breathes in the peculiar comfort of antiseptic and ozone, a scent that’s become synonymous with sanctuary. Raf is just finishing the flush—his fingers steady, motions deft and practiced, the faint click of the syringe’s plunger the only punctuation to the ventilator’s soft metronome. He glances up and gives a nod, barely-there but enough; the baton passed.

Casey crosses to the sink, nestling the trio of formula bottles beside the I.V. pole, its array of tubes cascading like translucent ribbons. Pippa’s Hickman line, taped tenderly to her chest, carries its silent current of antibiotics, the lifeline glinting in the morning light.

She gathers the feeding bag, plastic crinkling, and slots the feeding syringe Raf has already readied into the lumen’s hub. A subtle teamwork—movements that have become a choreography, wordless but precise. As she unseals the first bottle of formula, a faint artificial strawberry scent drifts up, incongruous yet oddly reassuring, sweetening the air. The liquid inside is pale and cool, swirling with lazy viscosity as she tips the mouth of the bottle to the top of the bag.

It’s a careful pour, each millilitre counted, her eyes tracking the slow ascent of formula within the bag. The ritual steadies her: unscrew, pour, watch, close—these small, deliberate actions restoring a kind of order, a slender thread of agency as the world narrows to Pippa’s quiet, vital needs.

With the last drop coaxed free, Casey reseals the bottle, her hands nimble even in fatigue. She glances up at Pippa’s still form, the rise and fall of her chest, the constellation of machines, and then across to Raf—his gaze meets hers, soft but alert, two sentinels holding hope between them.

Casey uncaps the second bottle, its seal snapping with a quiet pop, and tips its contents into the feeding bag, the cool formula swirling in gentle eddies as it joins the first. Her hands move by memory, but her attention is fixed on the monitor near Pippa’s bed—the thin green line tracing each heartbeat, the numbers quietly glowing: systolic, diastolic, the mean arterial pressure hovering just below what any of them would choose.

“How is her blood pressure? Still low?” she asks, voice softer than she intends.

Raf leans closer to the monitor, his brow furrowing. “Still low,” he confirms. “They dialled back the fluids, hoping it might help, but…” His words hang unfinished, a shrug of uncertainty.

Casey exhales, willing herself not to spiral into frustration. She thinks of Ethan, somewhere down the hall or already deep in conversation with pharmacy or cardiology, gathering the threads of argument, the evidence they’ve rehearsed. Pippa needs Isoproterenol—a drug with risks, yes, but the only one that’s nudged her pressure up in the past, the only hope for breaking this stubborn cycle of lethargy and drifting numbers.

She sends a silent wish after Ethan, hoping he’s persuasive, that the right person listens, that caution yields to necessity before the numbers drop any further. For now, she watches the slow, pale formula gathering in the bag, a lifeline she can control, and steadies herself in the small certainties: measure, pour, adjust, hope.

The last half-bottle slips away, silken and steady, until the bag stands full and faintly cool beneath Casey’s palm. She twists the cap shut, the click oddly decisive, a punctuation that dissolves into the hush. With practiced care she hooks the bag onto its pole—a small act, yet it feels ceremonial, the offering of nourishment to tide Pippa through another uncertain day.

Gravity takes over where willpower leaves off: the first drops gather, fatten, and begin their descent, threading through the tubing in quiet procession. Each bead glimmers as it passes, a fragile thread winding from hope to vein. Casey traces the line from bag to hub to Hickman, then to Pippa’s chest—skin luminous, threadlike pulses beneath. For a moment, she lets herself believe in the invincibility of this thin, translucent conduit: how it carries not just formula, but intention, care, the tireless calculation of millilitres and calories and time.

Casey looks up at the clock, the minute hand nudging forward with quiet, unhurried insistence. “I’m going to have a shower and get dressed. Can you keep an eye on her?” she asks, voice edged with a careful hope as she glances at Raf, who is half-turned, thumbs moving over his phone screen, face momentarily lit by its pale glow.

He looks up at her, blinking away the distraction, and nods. “Of course,” he says, slipping the phone into his pocket. “Everything’s fine here.” There’s a tenderness in the way he says it, as if reassurance is something he can hand her, weightless and durable, to carry into the corridor with her.

Casey hesitates, searching his face for cracks in composure, for the flicker of doubt she senses coiled beneath the surface. “Is everything ok?” The question

hovers, fragile and unresolved.

Raf glances at the monitor, the slow, steady march of numbers, then back to Pippa’s small, still form. “Yeah,” he says, softer now, “I’ll watch her. You go.”

It’s not the truth—they both know it. But it’s the kind of truth that lets her go, the kind that stitches courage against the quiet dread of leaving, even for a moment.

Casey lingers a moment longer, hand pressed to the cool plastic of the feeding bag, the hush of the room settling again as she turns, finally, toward the door.

Outside the room, the corridor’s lights press softly against her eyelids as she breathes out, letting the hush behind her settle into memory for now. She steps lightly down the hall, each footfall measured, clutching the ordinary comfort of her toiletry bag—body wash, sanitary towel, the quiet necessities of care carved around crisis. Today, her hair will be spared the ritual; a small mercy, time pocketed like loose change.

Casey turns the familiar corner past the supply cupboard and finds herself at the nurses’ station, where the blue glow of monitors and charts cuts the hush into pragmatic shapes. She pauses, smoothing the strap of her bag in one hand, and catches the attention of the nurse on duty with a polite, tired smile. “Could I get a clean bath towel, please?” she asks, voice still carrying that thin thread of hope, the one that weaves through small requests and larger prayers.

The nurse nods, reaching for the cupboard keys, and Casey waits—here, where the routines of care are measured in towels and time, trust and the gentle, unspoken understanding between those who endure and those who help them endure.

Walking the quiet stretch toward the bathroom, Casey tries to anchor herself to the hope she’s been handed—the swelling is going down, the numbers on the monitor slow and promising. She repeats it like a mantra, a fragile talisman against the rolling current of fear under her ribs. But dread is quick to break through:

What if it’s not enough? What if the tide turns again, silent and merciless, while she’s away behind a closed door?

Her fingers tighten on the towel, knuckles whitening. The hallway softens around her, a blur of pastel walls and the muted scuff of soles on linoleum. The ordinary acts of care—soap, water, steam—feel almost defiant in their normalcy, a ritual she’s determined to claim, if only to keep herself moving forward through the unknown. Each step toward the bathroom is a small negotiation with hope and terror, her thoughts looping back to the monitors, the hush around Pippa’s bed, and the promise she left behind: Everything’s fine here.

She slips into the bathroom, the fluorescent light flickering overhead. For a moment, she lets herself close her eyes, feeling the rough cotton of the towel, the solidity of the closed door. She breathes, willing herself to believe in slow miracles, in the possibility of enough.

She undresses quietly, folding her clothes atop the closed lid, setting her bag within easy reach. With practiced hands, she gathers her hair—still tangled at the ends from too many sleepless nights—and twists it into a lazy bun, anchoring it loosely to keep it clear of the coming steam. The familiar scent of Sicilian orange body wash unfurls as she flips open the cap, bright and bittersweet in the sterile air.

Stepping into the shower, Casey turns the dial until the water runs as warm as she dares, the first spray a shock that quickly softens, unfurling warmth across her skin, prickling away the tightness in her shoulders. She stands for a moment, letting the stream run over her, the world peeling back to the sound of water on tile, the citrus fragrance blooming in the small enclosure—a fleeting, private summer.

She lathers the body wash between her palms, the suds a bright, clean promise, tracing circles along her arms and collarbones, washing away the hospital’s residue, or at least pretending to. For a few precious minutes, there is only the heat, the scent, the slow, deliberate movement—her own body reclaimed, if only for an interlude. She closes her eyes, letting each breath fill with the orange-bright possibility that maybe, just maybe, the tide will hold.

Stepping forward, she angles her hips to allow the spray of hot water to hit her lower abdomen, praying for relief from the all too excruciating pain. The heat radiates outward, coaxing tense muscles to unclench, though the ache remains—a deep, dull throb that no amount of steam can wholly erase. Still, she clings to the comfort of this moment, shoulders hunched beneath the gentle onslaught, her breath quiet and uneven as she silently bargains with whatever mercy the morning might grant. Water beads along her skin, tracing uncertain paths—echoes of worry that refuse to wash away. She presses a palm to her belly, grounding herself, and lets the steam rise and swirl, veiling her fear in clouds that, for these few moments, soften the hard edges of pain.

When the water finally slows and ceases its gentle roar, Casey lingers beneath the hush it leaves behind. She steps carefully onto the bathmat, shivering as the cooler air draws goosebumps along her arms. Reaching for the towel, she wraps herself in its rough, borrowed comfort, pressing it close as if it might absorb more than water—perhaps the ache, the worry, the memory of her own uncertainty.

She kneels by her bag, letting the towel hang loosely about her shoulders, and rummages inside with steady fingers. The familiar texture of her toiletry bag is grounding, practical, a lifeline to the small acts of self-care she can still control. She finds the rolled bundle—pants and sanitary towel tucked together, prepared in anticipation against the awkwardness and exposure of hospital corridors. The sight of them, snug and safe, gives her a muted sense of competence, a quiet assurance that in this, at least, she has thought ahead.

She slips the sanitary towel into her palm, unrolling the fabric of her pants with meticulous care, trying not to think too far ahead—only as far as the next minute, the next breath, the next small decision. The ritual is both mundane and essential, a way to gather herself before she must once again step back into the fluorescent-lit world beyond the bathroom door, where hope and dread wait quietly, side by side.

When she has dried off, Casey eases into her pants, sliding the sanitary towel securely into place before pulling the fabric up, the motion both practical and oddly comforting. She reaches next for her black Halara midrise button-zipper corduroy trousers—the ones with deep, reassuring pockets and a soft nap that feels gentle against her skin. The trousers, casual but sturdy, have become her preferred armour for these endless hospital days.

She chooses a long-sleeved, plain T-shirt, pulling it over her head and smoothing the hem down, the familiar cotton a layer of ease between herself and the world. The air outside the bathroom is sharper now, the season on the cusp of winter, and she pauses to consider the coming chill—a memory of frost tapping at the windows, the promise of December in every breath. She drapes a lightweight sweater over her arm, knowing Pippa’s room can be cool, a draft sometimes sneaking beneath the blinds. Just in case.

To finish, she slips her feet into her trainers—yesterday’s pair, still faintly dusted with the memory of hurried footsteps and the relentless pacing of waiting rooms. Laces tied, clothes layered, she stands for a moment and lets herself feel the quiet weight of readiness, the small but sturdy assurance of being dressed for another day in the liminal space between hope and uncertainty.

Taking her damp towel and the small, battered toiletry bag, Casey slips quietly into the corridor, the hush of early morning broken only by the hum of fluorescent lights and the distant shuffle of nurses’ shoes. Each step feels heavier as she approaches Pippa’s room, a blend of hope and a gnawing edge of dread twisting together in her chest. She clings to the thought that Ethan might already be there—a steadying presence amid the chaos, someone who knows how to ask the questions she cannot bear to voice.

As she moves down the hall, the sterile scent of antiseptic mingles with the fading traces of citrus on her skin, grounding her in the moment. She rehearses, silently, the plea she hopes Ethan will make: that the doctors will finally consider Isoprenaline, that they will see what she sees—the shadow of danger lurking just beneath Pippa’s fragile calm, the constant threat that she might crash again. The fear is an old ache, sharper now, and Casey’s fingers tighten around the handle of her bag.

She rounds the last corner, pausing outside the door. The uncertain promise of the day hangs in the balance: perhaps Ethan will have arrived, perhaps he will persuade them, perhaps the tide will turn. For now, she lets herself hope.

Casey’s mind circles endlessly around the truth she cannot outrun: every time Pippa crashes, the odds tilt further out of reach, the margin for rescue narrowing to a threadbare hope. The pain of it devours her from the inside—a wildfire low and slow, burning through any reassurance she manages to build. She cannot help but replay the moments—alarms blaring, hands racing, the stillness that follows before someone whispers she’s back. Each time, the shadow grows heavier, until even the simplest breath feels borrowed.

There is no comfort in statistics, no salve in the doctors’ measured optimism. Casey knows, with a cold clarity, that they are running out of chances. The ache is not only in her body, but in her bones—a marrow-deep fear that threatens to dissolve the edges of her resolve. Yet she presses forward, carrying her pain like a talisman, because surrender is unthinkable and hope, however fragile, is all she has left.

Before she dares the waiting room, Casey pauses by a wall-mounted dispenser and squirts a dollop of Optishield into her palm, the acrid tang of alcohol biting at her already raw skin. She rubs the gel in, wincing at the sting—her hands perpetually dry, skin cracked from endless scrubbing and sanitizing, the protective rituals that have become compulsions. She thinks, fleetingly, of searching for a hand cream—something gentle and thick, a salve she can order online for delivery to the hospital doors. The thought is a small mercy she grants herself, a plan for later, a tiny promise that some things can still be soothed.

She steadies her breath and pushes the door open.

Inside, the world contracts to a pale room and the thin hush of machines. Raf is there—slouched by Pippa’s

bedside, hunched in that way that tries to make a large body smaller. His eyes are rimmed red, raw and swollen, betraying tears shed in the silent hours when he thought no one would see. For a second, Casey hovers on the threshold, not wanting to break whatever private truce Raf has negotiated with his grief.

She sets her bag down quietly and crosses to the foot of the bed. The hush between them is full of things unsaid: questions, regrets, the stubborn ache of waiting. Pippa’s breaths are shallow but even, her face pale against the hospital linen. Casey’s gaze flickers to Raf’s hands, clutched together so tightly the knuckles are white.

“Anything?” she asks, her voice low—gentle, so as not to jar loose the fragile calm.

Raf shakes his head without looking up. The air is thick with the unspoken: the what-ifs, the pleas, the terrible arithmetic of dwindling chances. Casey searches for words that will not unravel, but all she finds is the simple act of sitting, close enough for comfort if not for answers. In the liminal hush, she lets her presence be the only reassurance she can offer—silent, steadfast, and unwilling to let hope slip away, even now.

Casey walks over and gently wraps her arms around his shoulders. “What’s wrong? Are you worried about Isabelle or is it Pippa?” Her heart sinks, “It’s not me you’re worried about is it?”

Raf’s breath hitches under her touch, shoulders trembling just slightly. For a moment, he doesn’t answer—just sits, hands still locked together, staring at some fixed point beyond the window’s pale rectangle of sky. When he finally speaks, his voice is raw with exhaustion and emotion.

“I—” He falters. “I keep thinking I’m supposed to be strong for everyone. For you, for Pippa, for Iz. But I don’t know how much more I can hold together. I—” He breaks off, swiping at his eyes, the gesture both embarrassed and defiant.

Casey holds him tighter, feeling the tremor that runs through him, the burden he’s carried pressed between them. “You don’t have to do this alone,” she murmurs, letting the words fill the small space between their bodies. “Not for me, not for anyone. Just… let it out, Raf. Whatever it is.”

He shakes his head, blinking hard. “It’s everything. Isabelle’s at home, scared. Pippa’s here and I keep thinking—every time, what if this is the last time? And you… I see you holding it all in, pretending you’re okay, but I know you’re not. I’m worried about all of you. I’m worried about failing.”

Casey inhales, slow and steady, grounding herself in the warmth of the embrace. “We’ll get through this,” she says, not because she believes it with certainty, but because she has to believe in something. “Even if all we do is get through today. That’s enough for now.”

Raf releases a breath—shaky, but less burdened. In that moment, their grief and hope intermingle, an unspoken pact to keep going for each other, for as long as it takes.

Casey looks up at the clock, its hands carving slow circles through the grey morning. “I know it’s later than usual, but do you want anything for breakfast? I can go and see if I can get something?” Her voice is tentative, a gentle offer—a small gesture in a landscape filled with uncertainties.

Before Raf can answer, the soft click of the door interrupts the hush. Ethan steps into the room, balancing two brown paper bags in the crook of one arm and a cardboard tray of coffee precariously in the other. The scent of warm bread and freshly brewed coffee follows him, filling the sterile air with something almost like comfort.

“I suspect you haven’t had breakfast yet,” Ethan announces, his tone light but threaded with the same quiet concern that lingers in the room.

Casey sniffles, “No, we haven’t. I was going to go and get some now.”

Ethan gives her a soft, knowing smile, setting the coffee tray gently on the side table. He shakes the bags, a faint rustle promising pastries and something more substantial. “Well, that saves you a trip. I figured you might need a little extra today.” He glances between them, his eyes lingering just a second longer on Raf, as if measuring the weight in the room.

Raf musters a grateful smile, his voice low. “Thanks, Ethan. Really.”

Ethan shrugs, trying to make light of it, but the care in his gesture is unmistakable. “We all need looking after sometimes. Besides, there’s enough here to feed an army—hope no one minds croissants and those terrible hospital muffins.”

Casey manages a small laugh, tension easing from her shoulders. She reaches for the coffee, warmth seeping into her palms, and hands one to Raf. For a moment, the three of them stand together in companionable silence, the world held at bay by the simple act of sharing breakfast.

She’s relieved that Ethan knows her coffee order—mainly because they’ve worked together for years, and, amusingly, she’s come to mirror his preference. Without a word, he hands her a croissant, a tiny tub of strawberry jam, and a plastic knife, then turns to Raf with practiced ease, offering a breakfast sandwich and a small cup of Espresso Doppio. Casey notices the extra attention—Ethan remembering her offhand comment about Raf’s penchant for both—and feels the knot in her chest loosen further.

“You’re a great friend, you know that?” Casey says, her smile soft as she wraps her hands around the hot paper cup. She takes a sip of her Espresso Romano, savouring the unexpected brightness of Meyer lemon cutting through the robust espresso, that citrus edge waking her senses, anchoring her to the moment.

Ethan just shrugs again, feigning nonchalance, but the faintest hint of colour touches his cheeks. “What are friends for?” he murmurs, settling onto the windowsill, his gaze following the slow, steady swirl of the city beyond the glass.

For a heartbeat, the heaviness in the room seems to lift, replaced by the quiet comfort of familiarity—of knowing, even in uncertainty, that someone has thought enough to bring you your favourite coffee and just the right pastry. It’s a small act, but in this moment, it feels like everything.

Ethan settles onto the windowsill, casting a contemplative glance at Pippa, her chart propped near the foot of the bed. “How were her numbers overnight?” he asks, his voice gentle but edged with the quiet gravity that surfaces when it matters most.

Casey swallows a gulp of coffee, the warmth now a shield more than a comfort. “Not good. Barely above acceptable levels.” Her fingers tighten around the cup. “Can you come with me and back me up? She needs Isoproterenol, but for once I came up against a nurse who fought me the whole way and refused to call the doctor to write up the prescription.”

Ethan’s brows knit together, worry flickering across his features just long enough for Casey to see it. He nods, determination settling into his posture. “Of course,” he says without hesitation, setting his cup aside. “No one’s getting between you and what she needs. Let’s go.”

Raf glances up, offering a silent nod of encouragement, as Casey and Ethan rise together—two allies moving with shared purpose into the uncertain corridors beyond, where the day’s real fight is only just beginning.

Leaving her half-drunk coffee and uneaten croissant behind, Casey moves to Pippa’s bedside. The room feels smaller now, quieter, the urgent bustle of the corridor muffled by the hush that always seems to settle around hope. She leans in close, pressing a gentle kiss to Pippa’s forehead, careful not to disturb the soft headscarf wrapped snugly over her daughter’s bare scalp.

“It’s going to be okay, baby,” Casey whispers, her voice thick but steady. “Mama won’t stop fighting for you. Not ever.”

Still, Casey lingers for a breath, her thumb tracing gentle circles along Pippa’s delicate wrist, searching for any sign of the fiery child she knows so well—the quicksilver wit, the impossible courage. But there is only the faint, mechanical hush of the ventilator, the slow rise and fall of her daughter’s chest, and the distant promise of morning hidden somewhere behind hospital blinds.

She straightens, fighting the urge to smooth every wrinkle from Pippa’s blanket, to hover a moment longer as if her presence alone might tip the scales. The monitors blink, steady and impassive, indifferent to hope or fear. In their sterile rhythm, Casey finds a strange kind of reassurance: life, measured and persistent, moving forward even as everything else feels suspended.

“Rest, my love,” she murmurs, voice barely more than breath. Outside the window, the city stirs—an ordinary day, indifferent and unhurried. But here, in this small room, Casey gathers herself—a mother in the quiet act of refusing surrender—and steps back, ready to face the next battle. For Pippa. For another day of possibility.

And as Casey steps back, the ache in her chest twists into a silent plea—one she sends out into the hush and hum of machines, the sterile brightness of the ward, the soft shadowed corners where hope still lingers. She presses her palm flat to her heart and, with a breath that tastes of longing, prays that one day Pippa will return to her, eyes bright and voice clear, reaching up to whisper “Mama” once more. Until then, she will hold their wordless conversation close, carrying it with her into every fight, every dawn, every moment carved from the fragile promise of another day together.

Casey follows Ethan out of Pippa’s room, the door closing behind them with a soft click, a barrier between grief and the brisk choreography of the hospital. Raf remains within, a silent sentinel at their daughter’s side, the weight of his hope anchoring the air.

Shoulders squared, Casey moves down the corridor, every step deliberate—her composure a shield, though the tremor in her hands betrays all that lies beneath. At the nurses’ station, the world spins with quiet urgency: phones ring, pens scratch across charts, the pulse of the ward beats steady and indifferent. She waits, jaw set, until the nurse finishes speaking into the receiver—ordering a scan, her words clipped with routine.

When the receiver is cradled, Casey leans in, voice controlled but laced with an edge honed by sleepless nights and a mother’s desperation. “Excuse me. I want my daughter to be prescribed Isoproterenol. Overnight her blood pressure has lingered at seventy millimetres of mercury each time I looked. One of the nurses on call refused to page a doctor to write the prescription.”

A pause. The nurse, caught off guard, glances uncertainly at Ethan, who steps forward so quickly his determination seems to fill the space between them.

“Do you understand how critically ill Pippa Faith Aveiro is?” Ethan’s voice is calm but leaves no room for argument. “She’s been in a medically induced coma for over a month and suffered a cardiac arrest due to hypertension. I demand she receives this medication immediately. And I want the name of the nurse who was on shift last night. Pippa’s mother is one of the best doctors in America, and more importantly, she knows her daughter. She should have been listened to immediately when she flagged her concerns. Do you understand?”

The nurse blinks, a hint of colour rising to her cheeks, and for a heartbeat the busy station hushes—other nurses shifting, listening, the gravity of the moment settling over the desk. Casey watches as the nurse’s eyes flicker with uncertainty, then resolve. She nods, the script of routine falling away in the face of unwavering advocacy.

“I’ll page the on-call physician right now,” the nurse says quietly. “And I’ll get the charge nurse for a report on what happened overnight. I’m… I’m sorry for any delay.”

Casey inclines her head, the relief sharp-edged and fleeting. She lets herself breathe, just for a second, before her spine straightens once more. There is no time to dwell, not with Pippa’s fragile pulse still tethered to hope.

As the nurse picks up the phone, Ethan rests a steadying hand at Casey’s back. Not a word passes between them—their resolve is already spoken, written in the way they refuse to yield, in every moment they stand together, insisting on the care Pippa deserves. The ward’s fluorescent lights hum above, indifferent as always, but somewhere between the brittle pages of hospital protocol, a mother’s determination writes a new story—one where Pippa is never unseen, and hope is anything but silent.

Relief courses through Casey, hoping that the Isoproterenol will help bring up Pippa’s blood pressure to a truly acceptable level. She allows herself a brief, guilty flutter of optimism—minute by minute, molecule by molecule, perhaps the medication will coax Pippa’s scattered rhythms back into line. In her mind, Casey traces every possible outcome, feeling the war between hope and dread churning beneath her composed exterior.

As the nurse pages the physician and the ward’s hum resumes, time seems to stretch and contract, each second drawn out by the wait for an answer, a change, a sign. Casey’s hands steady themselves on the cool edge of the counter. She glances at Ethan, whose own hope is written in pinched lips and determined eyes, and together they stand sentinel, refusing to let fear overshadow possibility.

A few feet away, the doors to the PICU seem to pulse with promise and uncertainty. In the small hours that will follow, Casey knows she will hover over the monitors, watching for even the smallest rise in those digital numbers, searching for proof that her plea—and her love—have tipped the scales. Until then, all she can do is trust in the medicine, in the team, and in that fierce, unyielding hope that refuses to be silent, even in the dim-lit hush of the hospital day.

Casey taps her fingers on the desk at the nurses’ station, the motion staccato, betraying nerves raw from too many vigils and too little sleep. Her bitten fingernails, nearly worn down to the quick, are an unspoken testimony to the long ache of waiting. She leans forward, voice taut with urgency. “How long will it take for the on-call physician to arrive?” she asks, eyes fixed on the nurse behind the desk, her need barely contained by courtesy. “Because if he’ll be long, I’d prefer to go back to my daughter’s bedside.”

The nurse glances at the screen, hesitating, then replies quietly, “I’ve paged them and explained the urgency. It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes, but I’ll let you know the moment they arrive.”

Casey nods, “Ok.”

Ethan looks at Casey, “I can wait here for the doctor to arrive if you want to get back to Pippa?”

Casey hesitates—a single, wavering breath—her gaze fixed on the double doors as if she might will them open through sheer force of need. For a moment, she wants to divide herself, to be in two places at once: anchoring Ethan at the nurses’ station, hovering over her daughter, urging every second forward.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, her gratitude quiet but fierce. “I think I need to see her. I just… I need her to know we’re near.”

Ethan squeezes her shoulder, his silent promise of vigilance as solid as the ground beneath their feet. “Go,” he says gently. “I’ll make sure the physician finds you the moment he arrives.”

Casey offers a thin, grateful smile before turning away, her footsteps brisk but careful, as if the floor itself might fracture beneath the weight of her hope and fear. She weaves past bedsides and bustling carts, drawn back toward the small, fiercely protected space where her daughter lies.

Casey pauses just inside the doorway, letting the hush settle around her like a balm. The machines at Pippa’s bedside flicker and hum, each beeping rhythm both familiar and cruelly unpredictable. She steadies her breath and moves closer, her gaze sweeping over Pippa’s face—serene, impossibly small, lashes shadowing cheeks that seem paler under the fluorescent glow.

Raf looks up, the phone lowering in his hand as he takes in Casey’s drawn features and the tense clench of her jaw. “Any word yet?” he asks, his tone pitched low, as if to avoid disturbing the fragile peace that fills the room.

“Not yet,” Casey replies, her voice a thread. She brushes a gentle hand across Pippa’s blanket, grounding herself in the warmth that persists even here. “Ethan’s at the station. The doctor should be here soon.”

Casey looks at Pippa’s arms and frowns, tracing the delicate skin with her eyes. “I need to put her Clobetasol Propionate on her arms and shoulders,” she murmurs, the words weighed down by routine and worry.

Her gaze drifts to the small table by the window, where her abandoned, uneaten croissant sits in its paper wrapping. As if on cue, her stomach gives a quiet, insistent protest. She shifts, torn between her own needs and her daughter’s care.

Raf rises from the chair, tucking his phone away. “I’ll do it,” he offers, gentle but firm. “You eat.” His words brook no argument, the kindness in them edged with determination.

Casey hesitates only a second, fatigue softening her resolve. She watches as Raf retrieves the tube from the bedside drawer, his hands steady and sure. For just a moment, she allows herself to sit, the croissant warm and flaky in her palms, and breathes in the small mercy of shared burdens.

Casey looks at Raf, struggling on his crutches as he searches for the half-used tube of steroid cream. “Are you sure you can manage? I know your balance isn’t the same.”

He glances up, a wry smile flickering across his lips, shadowed by a fierce pride. “I’ve got it,” he assures, voice gentle but stubborn. “I can do more than wobble, you know. Besides, we both know you need at least five uninterrupted minutes to eat.”

A hesitant laugh escapes her, thin but real, the sound echoing gently in the hush. She watches his careful movements—how he steadies himself against the edge of the bed, how he cradles the tube in his palm as if it were fragile. There’s an ache behind her gratitude, a twist of worry for both of them, but she lets him take this small responsibility.

Raf lowers himself onto the mattress beside Pippa with the slow precision of someone who has learned patience the hard way. “Let’s see, Pippa,” he murmurs, squeezing a ribbon of ointment onto his fingertips. “Your mum’s going to eat, and I’m going to be very careful, promise.”

Casey lets her body sag into the chair, croissant in hand, relief mingling with exhaustion. She watches Raf’s movements—steady, attentive—as his focus shifts wholly to Pippa, and she allows herself, just for now, to let go.

Raf gently pulls down Pippa’s blankets, moving with careful reverence. Even in the hush of central heating, he feels the shiver lingering under her skin—a consequence of long months, perhaps years, of illness that have left Pippa thin and fragile, her body unable to marshal its own warmth. In summer, she’d still needed layers; now, in winter, she’s wrapped in more than one blanket, a soft barricade against the persistent chill.

He slips open the buttons of her pyjamas, his hands practiced yet cautious, exposing the pale landscape of her small arms and shoulders. The tube of Clobetasol Propionate rests in his palm for a moment before he realizes his oversight. With a rueful exhale, Raf sets the ointment down on the bedside table. “Almost forgot—I need to wash my hands first, Pippa. No cheating with shortcuts,” he murmurs, his voice a gentle promise as he rises, steadying himself with the bedframe.

He casts a reassuring glance at Casey, then disappears into the adjoining bathroom, leaving the quiet room filled with the mingled scents of croissant and hospital-grade soap, the hush holding steady around mother and child.

Casey bites into the pastry. It is fluffy, the layers still yielding beneath her teeth despite the chill that has settled into it, and flakes scatter over her palm and lap. She is determined, almost grimly so, to get some food into herself—an act of will rather than hunger. She’s noticed, lately, how her clothes hang looser, how her reflection has thinned in the edges of glass and bathroom mirrors, but she hasn’t stepped on a scale in over a year. She prefers not to know how much she’s lost. Her appetite is a memory: meals have become obligations, ritual acts she forces herself through, eating not because she wants to but because she must.

For Pippa’s sake, she chews, swallows, waits for some flicker of satisfaction that never really arrives. The pastry is dry at the edges, cold in the centre, but she keeps eating, determined to give her daughter a mother who does not fade—a woman who endures, who will always be present in body even when her heart feels worn thin. She looks up again, watching the closed bathroom door, and tells herself, just one more bite, just one more day.

When she does finally return home, Casey will stand in the harsh light of her bathroom and force herself onto the scales, breath held, eyes narrowed. She will brace for the numbers, for the quantifiable truth that her mind has been circling for weeks: either half a stone vanished, or perhaps a full stone, her frame shrinking to seven stone seven, or—unthinkably—seven stone flat. Neither possibility is acceptable, not for someone built of five foot seven inches of old resilience and new brittleness. She knows all too well what the charts will say—underweight, not enough. Not enough to fill out her shape, not enough to anchor her here.

But the reality is, it could be weeks before she takes that step. Inertia will hold her at arm’s length from the scale, and in that time her body will quietly continue its slow retreat, ounce by ounce, hunger dulled by worry and fatigue. By then, she suspects, the loss will be greater still—a silent, relentless subtraction that no one sees until the absence is startling. And yet, she keeps going, feeding herself with grim determination, willing her body to remain present, to endure for Pippa, for Raf, and for the thin thread of hope that weaves through every weary morning.

Now, as Casey sits in the hush of hospital morning, she finds herself praying in fragmentary, desperate phrases—let Pippa wake up, let her grow strong enough to draw them all home before Christmas. The ache in her chest intensifies at the thought of Christmas morning without Mia, Felicity, and Isabelle: her other girls, three bright threads in the fabric of family, waiting for her in a house that feels emptier every day she is gone.

Christmas, for Raf’s family, has always been a grand affair—Vovó bustling in the kitchen, laughter bouncing along the tiled floors, cousins and aunts and uncles spilling in from Brazil with gifts and stories and songs. Vovó, though in her eighties, will not hear of letting anyone else cook; she presides over pots and pans with a wooden spoon and a sparkle in her eye, insisting everyone eat until their stomachs ache as much from laughter as from food.

For Casey and Raf, the day begins quietly, tenderly. They wake the girls—if the girls don’t wake them first—and together, still in their new Christmas pyjamas, they settle on the living room rug, hands wrapped around mugs of hot chocolate, faces shining with anticipation. The unwrapping of presents is less a frenzy and more a gentle reveal, each gift held up and admired, the girls’ delight a balm against the long winter. Later, they bundle up and walk, twenty minutes through crisp air and frost-tipped grass, to Vovó’s house. It is a ritual that marks the shape of their year: the walk, the arrival, the warmth that waits for them at the end of it.

Casey aches for that ordinary magic—the press of her daughters on either side, Raf’s hand curled warm around hers, the smell of cinnamon and roast chicken, the sound of Vovó’s voice calling everyone to the table. She aches for the day when Pippa is strong enough to come home, when they can pick up all the glittering, cherished threads of their traditions and weave them together once again. Until then, she holds the hope close, nursing it like a secret flame against the cold.

Outside at the nurses station, the usual early-morning hush is punctuated by the low whir of coffee machines and the shuffle of charts. Ethan stands apart, his posture taut with impatience, blue ID badge flashing as he checks the clock above the double doors. The night shift nurse, frazzled, is fielding calls while scanning the printouts on her clipboard. Down the corridor, a man approaches—slightly younger than Ethan, with dark curls and a purposeful stride that hints at both exhaustion and resolve.

“You paged?” The man’s Spanish accent draws a quick flicker of surprise from the nurse.

She nods, relief and urgency mingling in her tone. “Yes. I have a patient with Neuroblastoma who is in an induced coma. Her mother is concerned about hypertension.”

Ethan steps forward, voice steady, clipped with the authority of someone unaccustomed to being ignored. “Dr. Ethan Ramsey. I’m here from Edenbrooke to oversee Pippa Faith Aveiro’s care. She’s been struggling with hypertension for the last few days, and her mother requested Isoproterenol. That request was disregarded. I want the medication prescribed immediately. She is at risk of cardiac arrest if we delay further.” His eyes are bright, unblinking, as his words hang sharp in the antiseptic air. “And the next time her mother asks for something, I would like her to be listened to. She is also a doctor. Our lead Diagnostician.”

The Spanish doctor blinks, caught between the urge to defend his colleagues and the unmistakable gravity in Ethan’s tone. He glances down at the chart, then back up, jaw working. “Of course. I’ll write the order personally,” he says. “And I’ll make sure the team is aware. I didn’t know who she was.” His voice softens, a note of apology threading through. “We want what’s best for Pippa. I’ll speak to the team at handover.”

The nurse exhales, tension easing just a fraction. “Thank you, Dr. Ramirez. Dr. Ramsey.”

Ethan nods, but his gaze lingers on the names scrawled across the whiteboard behind the desk, as if memorizing every detail, every possible variable he may need to fight for. In the pause that follows, the station settles into a fragile truce—one born of shared concern, the unspoken knowledge that, in this place, every moment and every request is a thread in the tapestry of survival.

He turns to go, already planning his next check-in on Pippa, but pauses. “If anything changes—even a little—call me. No delay.” The words are soft, but they carry the weight of a promise.

As Ethan walks back toward the ward, the corridor fills with the gold-pink wash of sunrise, and the world, for a moment, feels suspended—poised between worry and hope, effort and grace.

Casey looks up after forcing down her cold coffee as Ethan walks in. “The doctor is just behind me, Casey. It’s been sorted.”

Relief flickers across her face, chased quickly by the lingering shadows of fatigue and worry. She sets the paper cup aside, hands shaking faintly in her lap, and meets Ethan’s gaze—a silent question there, searching for reassurance.

“He’s prescribing the Isoproterenol himself,” Ethan says, his voice gentler now, stripped of the urgency it carried in the hallway. “They’ll monitor her closely. And I made sure they know to listen—to you and to Pippa.”

Casey presses her palms together, eyes closing briefly. For a heartbeat, the world narrows to the thrum of her pulse and the promise of action finally taken. She draws a breath and lets it out, quiet but steady.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, the words small but true. In the hush that follows, the first golden rays of morning catch on the hospital floor, spilling light across the cold linoleum and their weary faces. Hope, fragile but stubborn, presses forward with the day.

A measured footfall enters the ward—Dr. Ramirez, now brisk and purposeful, his eyes sweeping the room before settling on Casey and Ethan. “Hello, Dr. Aveiro. Dr. Federico Ramirez,” he introduces himself formally, nodding first to Ethan, then to Casey. “I wanted to apologize for what happened last night. You were disregarded, and that was a mistake. I’ll make sure you’re listened to from now on. I’ll be starting Pippa on an I.V. of Isoproterenol immediately.”

Casey, in the midst of her relief, doesn’t catch the precise dose as her attention lingers on Pippa, whose faint breath and fragile presence have become the axis of her world. She collects herself, looking up with an earnestness that borders on pleading. “I’m sorry, Dr. Ramirez. Could you please repeat her dosage?”

Dr. Ramirez’s expression softens, understanding etched in the lines around his eyes as he retrieves the chart. “Of course, Casey. It’s twenty micrograms per minute to start, titrated as needed based on her response and vitals. We’ll monitor her closely and adjust if necessary, and I’ll make sure you’re updated every step of the way.”

There’s a pause in which the numbers settle, hope threading through the sterile air. The hum of machines resumes its quiet counterpoint, and outside, the light continues to rise—gentle, insistent, a promise stretching into the day.

Casey nods, “Thank you.”

She catches a flicker of relief in Raf’s eyes—he has been quiet the entire time, sitting in the uncomfortable chair next to Pippa’s bed, never taking his eyes off their unconscious daughter and the machines keeping her alive. For the first time, his shoulders ease minutely, the rigid line of his back softening as the room fills with the promise of intervention and attentive care. One hand, roughened by years of work and worry, hovers uncertainly over Pippa’s small fingers, finally coming to rest beside hers as if anchoring them both.

He looks up, meeting Casey’s gaze—a silent conversation passing between them, built from sleepless nights and the ache of helplessness. In that exchange, something shifts: a fragile understanding, a shared hope that maybe, just maybe, the tide is turning. Around them, the whir of the monitors and the steady drip of the IV become a lullaby of possibility, threading through the sterile hush with a quiet, persistent courage.

In the growing morning light, surrounded by uncertainty but no longer alone in it, they hold on—together, for Pippa, for each other, for the sliver of hope now dawning in the day.

@kingliam2019 @tessa-liam @alj4890 @katedrakeohd @potionsprefect @texaskitten30 @storyofmychoices @princess-geek @peonierose @eadanga

3 notes · View notes

kingliam2019 · 2 days ago

Text

Poor 👶

Love In Every Heartbeat – Chapter 171 – Battling the Storm – Pippa’s Fight Against ICANS

*warning* mention of cancer and induced coma and possible character death

The hospital room, bathed in the gentle gold of early morning, feels suspended between hope and dread. Casey and Raf sit side by side, hands entwined so tightly it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Every beep, every hush of the ventilator, every stirring from the corridor outside seems amplified, as if the universe itself is holding its breath with them.

Casey’s gaze settles on Pippa, her features pale and still against the white linen. There is a raw fear in Casey’s eyes—a fear laced with exhaustion and a desperate, helpless love. Today is the fulcrum on which their lives balance: the day that brings either a glimmer of recovery or the shattering weight of a new decision.

Raf brushes a trembling hand over Pippa’s brow, his voice barely more than a whisper, “We’re here, Pip. We always will be.”

The first rays of sunlight spill across Pippa’s blanket, illuminating the fragile rise and fall of her chest. For a moment, the world beyond the glass—nurses in quiet motion, the city waking beyond the window—fades away. All that remains is the steady, silent rhythm of waiting, and the thundering hope that maybe, just maybe, this dawn will bring a miracle.

Casey’s eyes fill with tears, “I’m so scared. I can’t say goodbye. She has to pull through.” The words tremble in the quiet, fragile as spun glass. Raf squeezes her hand, his own face shadowed with doubt and longing, and leans in so their foreheads touch—an anchor in the storm.

Outside, a nurse pauses at the threshold, offering a look that is both gentle and grave, then slips away, unwilling to disturb the sacred hush. The room is a world unto itself, measured in heartbeats and breath, wounds and hopes that will not heal easily.

Casey buries her face in Raf’s shoulder, shoulders shaking with the weight of grief she refuses to let in. “She’s stronger than this. She has to be.” The silence that follows is thick, punctuated only by the steady rhythm of the monitor—each blip a fragile promise.

Slowly, as the sun inches higher, Casey lifts her head, wiping her tears, her voice steadier but lined with fierce, defiant love. “We’ll fight for her. Every minute. Every breath.” And in that moment, hope flickers—small, persistent, unyielding—like the dawn that refuses to be swallowed by night.

Raf gently wipes the tears from Casey’s cheeks, his thumb trembling with tenderness. “We have to hope for a miracle,” he murmurs, voice hoarse but certain. “The truth is, it’s all in God’s hands now.” For a heartbeat, the words float between them—an ache, a surrender, yet also a quiet kind of peace. The sunlight glimmers across the cotton sheets, turning sorrow into something softer, almost luminous.

Casey nods, not trusting her voice, drawing strength from Raf’s steadiness. Together, they stay rooted at Pippa’s side, two souls bound by hope, by fear, and by the unwavering love that will not let go, even when the storm rages on.

But the body has limits even when the heart does not. Casey’s whole being aches with the need to remain at Pippa’s side, to drink in every precious second, terrified these moments might be counted and finite. Yet the pain in her back has sharpened, radiating down her legs, making her breath catch with each shift in the hard plastic chair. She feels the stickiness of yesterday’s clothes, the weight of sleeplessness pressing on her temples, and something raw, almost feral, inside her cries for a sliver of respite.

She hesitates, caught between the fear of absence and the physical demands she can no longer ignore. She glances at Raf, her voice barely audible. “I—I think I need to take a quick shower. Just for a moment. I can’t… I’m hurting too much.” The admission tastes like guilt, as if self-care is a betrayal.

Raf pulls Casey close, his lips warm against hers. “I’ll be right here. Pippa won’t be alone, I promise.” The reassurance settles between them, gentle as a blessing. For a fleeting second, the ache in Casey’s body is eclipsed by the shelter of his embrace, the soft press of his mouth an anchor against the tide of fear.

She closes her eyes, breathing in the comfort, and when she opens them again, there’s a fragile steadiness in her gaze. “Thank you,” she whispers, voice breaking with gratitude and exhaustion alike.

Raf brushes a strand of hair from her face, his thumb tracing the hollow beneath her cheekbone, memorizing her in the rising light. “Go on,” he urges, a small, encouraging smile tugging at his lips. “I’ll watch over her. You just take a breath.”

Casey nods, lingering for one more heartbeat before she stands, legs trembling beneath her. As she slips quietly from the room, the world narrows once more to Raf and Pippa—the hush of hope, the promise that endures, and the morning that still waits for miracles.

Casey turns to Pippa, praying her baby can hear her. “Mama will be back soon, baby. Daddy’s here with you.” She presses a kiss against Pippa’s smooth scalp, lingering for a heartbeat, willing all the love in her battered spirit to seep through her lips, to wrap her child in warmth and safety even as she steps away.

For an instant, the world tilts: Casey’s trembling resolve, the feather-light weight of Pippa’s hand in Raf’s, the hush that clings to the hospital room. A silent promise hovers between mother and child, a whisper of return. As Casey straightens, she casts one last look at the small, still form surrounded by wires and hope, her heart torn between the need to care for herself and the impossible urge to never let go.

In the corridor, Casey pauses, her hands shaking as she rummages through her bag. She pulls out a clean pair of pants and a sanitary towel—the small, necessary armour against the fear of blood sliding unchecked down her legs, staining more than her dignity. The thought makes her wince, but she refuses to let shame dictate this moment; she needs to take care of herself, because her strength is stitched together from all these mercies she grants herself, no matter how small.

Her fingers fumble, but she manages to tuck the essentials under her arm, clutching them like a promise that she will not unravel completely. The world outside the room feels both foreign and painfully ordinary, fluorescent lights humming, footsteps echoing down linoleum floors. It is a brief, private ritual: the gathering of what she needs, not just for comfort, but to keep her from falling apart at the seams.

She slips out, and the door sighs shut behind her, leaving Raf to brush his palm across Pippa’s forehead, voice low and sure in the dappled morning light. “We’re right here, little one. We’re not letting go.” The hush settles once more, tender and watchful, as hope and love keep vigil in the space where miracles take root.

Casey stops by the nurses’ station, the nerves in her hands betraying her calm. She clears her throat, voice soft but resolute. “Hello, is it possible for me to have a bath towel?”

The charge nurse glances up from a chart, taking in Casey’s pale cheeks and the bundle clutched to her side.

There’s no hesitation, only the gentle understanding that blooms between those who have weathered too many dawns on these floors. “Of course,” the nurse replies, her tone warm. She rises, stepping around the desk to retrieve a towel—thick, folded, a small comfort in a world grown sharp with need.

As Casey accepts it, their fingers brush—a brief, grounding contact. The nurse’s eyes linger, searching, offering more than the towel: the quiet, unspoken solidarity of women holding the line through exhaustion and uncertainty. “If you need anything else, just let us know,” the nurse adds, voice low, as though she understands that this request is not only for cloth but for dignity.

Casey nods, unable to trust herself with words. With the towel pressed to her chest, she slips away toward the showers, the promise of hot water and a moment’s respite guiding her steps. Each stride is a reclamation: of her body, her breath, and the unremarkable grace of being cared for, even in the smallest ways.

Inside the bathroom, the air is tinged with antiseptic and the faint, weary scent of hospital soap. Casey sets her toiletry bag on the counter beside the speckled sink, her movements slow, deliberate—each one a quiet revolt against the trembling in her hands. The mirror above the sink catches her reflection: pale and drawn, eyes shadowed, hair an unruly halo around her tired face.

She undoes the tie at her waist and lets her pyjamas and pants slip to the tile floor, peeling away the blood-soaked sanitary towel with a grimace—a heavy, sodden thing, thick with clots and midnight grief. The sight is both familiar and jarring, a stark reminder of what her body has weathered. She wraps it tightly in tissue before dropping it into the bin, a small act of control over the chaos inside her.

She reaches into her bag again, fingers closing around the reassuring weight of her Olaplex No.4 maintenance shampoo and conditioner, along with the slim bottle of Sicilian Orange body wash from The White Company—a small, fragrant luxury brought from home. The labels are smudged, the caps dulled by use, but their presence in her hand steadies her as much as any ritual could.

Casey’s hair, lifeless and straggling with grease, clings to her neck and forehead in tangled defeat. She runs a hand

through it, grimacing at the slickness, and sets the bottles down within easy reach. For a moment, she simply stands there, the shower door shut, the fluorescent light overhead painting everything in a wan, forgiving glow.

As the first spray of hot water needles her scalp, she closes her eyes, letting the steam begin its gentle work on her aching muscles. Yet even here, in this private sanctuary, a new thought rises—sharp-edged and impossible to shake. What do the nurses think of her? With her shuffling requests, her bloodstained clothes, her tired, hollow look. Do they judge her, or do they see her pain as just another routine, another sadness among so many?

She takes out her Olaplex No.4 maintenance shampoo and conditioner, pouring some into the palm of her hand.

The familiar, faintly floral scent rises, cutting through the hospital’s clinical fog. She works the shampoo into her scalp, fingertips massaging with a quiet desperation, as if she might knead out the ache that lingers behind her eyes. Suds gather and slide over her hair, pooling at her feet—each lather and rinse turning grief into something weightless, something that can be carried away by water and time.

For a few moments, the world shrinks to sensation: the heat, the slip of bubbles across her skin, the muted hiss of the spray. She closes her eyes again, letting herself imagine that the only thing being washed away is fatigue. When she reaches for the conditioner, the ritual is slower, more measured—she combs it through with her fingers, untangling knots, coaxing her hair back to softness. It is not transformation, not quite, but the promise of it; a small mercy against the blankness waiting just beyond the glass.

Standing beneath the stream, Casey lets her breath deepen, the steam curling around her shoulders like a gentle hand. Here, beneath the fluorescent lights and the relentless hum of the hospital, she allows herself—if only for a heartbeat—to believe she is whole.

Casey pours some conditioner into the palm of her hand, pausing a moment to examine the limp strands that fall forward, the ends ragged and splintered with neglect. Her hair, in desperate need of a cut, splits and frays beneath her fingers—a map of months passed in survival mode, each forked tip a testament to exhaustion. She works the creamy balm through, careful to coat the most brittle parts, coaxing life into the neglected lengths. As her fingertips glide from root to tip, she feels the stubborn knots loosen, the tangles yielding to her slow persistence. The simple act is almost tender, a small attempt at repair—not just of her hair, but of all the quiet damage she carries. Steam pools around her as she closes her eyes, pressing her palms gently to her scalp, willing the conditioner to smooth what the world has frayed. For these few moments, she is simply tending to herself, and that, she thinks, is enough.

At first, the heat disguises the tears—just more droplets on her cheeks, indistinguishable from the rivulets of water that trace her jaw. But as the tremor in her chest rises, the sobs become audible, echoing faintly off the tiles, raw and unguarded. “Don’t take my baby,” Casey pleads, voice thick and breaking, her hands pressed flat to her face as if she might hold the world together by sheer force of will. “Let her live.” The words escape her in ragged gasps, torn from somewhere deeper than grief, deeper than language—a primal petition flung out into the steam, into the indifferent hum of fluorescent lights and running water.

Her knees threaten to buckle, but she braces herself against the cold metal of the shower rail, the contrast sharp, anchoring her to the moment. The air is dense with the mingling scents of shampoo and citrus, the sharp salt of tears, the iron tang of memory. Beneath the relentless downpour, time seems to slow: every heartbeat punctuates the silence that follows, her breath hitching and chest shuddering with each exhale.

The ritual of washing—soothing, automatic—stutters and halts, replaced by the pure ache of longing. She is stripped bare here in the fog, nothing between her and the ache that blooms inside her ribs. Her whispered prayers dissolve into the mist, unanswered, but she clings to them all the same, small offerings to whatever mercy might exist beyond these sterile walls. For a moment, the water holds her, enveloping her grief and hope alike, and she lets herself be carried—just for a little while—by the fragile belief that somewhere, someone is listening.

She lets the zesty sweetness of the Sicilian orange body wash bloom in the steam, the citrus bright and almost defiant—a small, sunlit rebellion against the sterile chill of the hospital air. Each circular motion over her skin feels like both a cleansing and a conjuring, as if she might coax some warmth back into her bones, might summon enough light to cut the hospital’s fluorescent pallor. The lather is silky and abundant, slicking over her arms and collarbone, sliding in fragrant ribbons down her legs. She inhales, letting the scent fill her lungs, willing it to chase out the hollow ache inside for just a moment longer.

When at last she turns beneath the stream, Casey lets the water rinse everything away—the soap, the ache, the salt from her tears. She stays there until the suds have dissolved and the heat has faded from her skin, until finally, with heavy limbs, she twists the tap and steps out into the fogged, humming quiet of the bathroom.

The air outside the shower feels startlingly cool, prickling against her damp skin. She reaches for her towels—a scratchy hospital-issue white and a second, thinner teal one she brought from home—and wraps herself first in one, then the other, the weight of the fabric grounding her, almost holding her together. Droplets bead on her shoulders, gathering and slipping down into the terry cloth, as she stands for a long moment, towel pressed against her face, breathing in the faint ghost of oranges and steam.

She pads over to the mirror, its surface clouded with mist, and with the edge of one towel clears a patch just wide enough to glimpse her reflection. There she is—eyes rimmed red, hair towel-twisted and damp, a pale figure refracted in glass and fluorescent light. She studies herself, searching for some sign that she is different, changed, or maybe just surviving—one more day, one more ritual, one more ache endured and washed clean.

She stands wrapped in the hush of the bathroom, water pattering quietly from her hair to the tile. In slow, practiced motions, Casey dries herself off, careful against the tender skin of her belly as she smooths the scratchy towel downward. The routine is deliberate, almost ceremonial: she slides on her pants, the cool cotton a bracing contrast to the warmth of the shower, and affixes the sanitary towel with mechanical precision—another small act of self-preservation, another private reassurance.

Sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, Casey slips a pair of black trainer socks onto her feet, the cotton thin but comforting. She draws up her black chinos, easing them over her hips, the fabric soft and forgiving against her still-damp skin. The long-sleeved Breton top waits draped over the towel rail; she threads her arms through the striped sleeves, the familiar navy and white a small anchor in the shifting tides of her day. The top clings lightly to her torso, its cotton chill chased away as her warmth seeps into it.

On the floor sit her New Balance trainers—light grey, cushioning, the only shoes she can bear lately, their soles moulded to the ache of her feet. She slips them on with care, wincing as she eases her heels into their familiar cradles, tugging the laces just tight enough. For a moment, she sits still, hands resting on her knees, letting the quiet settle around her—just the distant tap of water, the whisper of fabric as she shifts.

Dressed now, she feels a little more herself, or at least armoured for the corridor’s unforgiving brightness. She stands, smoothing the creases from her chinos, gathering the scattered fragments of calm the ritual has left her. Each layer, each motion, is an affirmation: she is here, she is enduring, she is almost ready to step back into the world beyond the bathroom’s hush.

She stoops to gather the towels, their damp weight heavy and reassuring in her hands, a tangible reminder of the ritual just completed. One by one, she tucks them beneath her arm, then turns to the battered teal toiletry bag perched by the sink. Methodically, she slots in the bottles—shampoo, conditioner, body wash—their rounded plastic shapes still slick with condensation. The zip rasps closed, sealing away the scents of citrus and familiarity for another day. Bag in hand, towels cradled against her side, Casey inhales the last of the steam-thick air. She straightens, squares her shoulders, and steps toward the door, the mundane gathering of her things transformed into a small, necessary act of reclaiming herself.

She slips from the bathroom’s half-light, the familiar burdens gathered close: towels damp and heavy, bag pressed to her hip. The corridor greets her with the hush and hum of hospital life, fluorescent and unkind, but she moves through it with the practiced resolve that has become her armour.

Back in Pippa’s room, Casey sets the teal toiletry bag quietly into its cabinet niche, tucking away the fragments of her own care to make space for the rituals that truly matter. On the bed, Pippa lies curled beneath a hospital blanket, eyelids fluttering in restless sleep, a pale thread of hair clinging to her cheek. The sight tugs at something raw inside Casey—a longing for simpler mornings, for chocolate-sticky smiles and sun-warmed grass, for a world where hospital routines and sterile creams were never part of childhood.

Duty steadies her hands. Casey twists open the tub of Clobetasol Propionate, the sharp scent of medication cutting through the remaining citrus on her skin. She warms a small dollop between her palms and gently smooths it over Pippa’s fragile arms and shoulders, tracing circles as tender as prayer. Each touch is both a salve and a silent plea: for comfort, for strength, for anything that might ease the relentless taking.

There is more to do. Casey glances at the clock, then makes her way down the hallway to the patient kitchen, her trainers whispering over the polished linoleum. The kitchen is quiet, the soft pink of dawn just beginning to nudge through the high windows. She retrieves a bottle of PediaSure strawberry formula from the fridge—strawberry, because it is Pippa’s favourite, or at least the least resented. The label is cold beneath her fingers, the condensation beading like her own unspoken grief.

Returning to the room, Casey prepares the tubal feed, the motions careful, routine, reverent in their own way. Each connection, each slow press of the plunger, is weighted with love and sorrow. Every time she feeds her little girl this way, her heart aches for what is lost: birthday cakes, playground swings, the small ordinary joys that cancer has quietly stolen. Another theft, another tally on an invisible ledger, and Casey can only hope—fiercely, stubbornly—that cancer will not take more.

She watches Pippa’s chest rise and fall, prays in silence that the world holds some mercy still, whispering the hope that this battle will leave them both standing. She tucks the blankets closer, kisses Pippa’s brow, and lets the longing and the love sit quietly alongside her—two persistent companions in the hush of another hospital morning.

The hush of the room is broken by the soft, uneven thud of crutches on laminate. Raf emerges from the bathroom, hair damp and wild, a clean T-shirt clinging to his frame, one sock stubbornly slouched at his ankle. He moves with careful, practiced clumsiness, a wince flickering across his face with each awkward step. His presence is a gentle disruption—salt air after rain, the briefest promise of something unchanged.

Casey glances up as she fits the saline syringe to the Hickman line, her motions slow and precise. She manages a half-smile, catching the faint lift of Raf’s eyebrow—his way of asking without words if she’s managing, if Pippa stirred, if there’s anything new in the shape of their morning. He leans his crutches against the wall, lowering himself with care onto the empty chair beside the bed, drawing in a careful breath as he watches Casey’s hands, steady and sure.

She begins to flush the line: draw back, check for blood return, push the plunger with the measured patience of ritual. The click of the clamp, the faint resistance of tubing, the antiseptic tang in the air—all familiar, all necessary. Raf’s gaze drifts from Pippa’s sleeping form to Casey’s gentle concentration, and for a moment, the quiet binds them: three lives tethered by hope, by medicine, by the fragile thread that is love on the edge of morning.

Usually, Casey would have found comfort in the small ritual of teasing Raf about the stubble stippling his chin—a lazy badge of stubbornness or distraction, evidence of evenings spent in worry rather than routine. Today, though, the sight of it just makes her chest tighten. The playfulness curdles, unspoken, as she catches the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. Fear shadows his gaze, raw and transparent, and it's so unlike him—he who is normally so careful to stitch up his worry, to offer grins and reassurances even when his world is trembling.

He doesn’t bother to mask it this morning. Not for himself, not even for her. That naked vulnerability terrifies her more than anything else—the way his bravado has been leached by exhaustion, by the relentless calculus of hope and dread that governs their days.

She wants to reach for him, to offer some small anchor—her hand on his, a gentle jibe about his beard—but the words catch in her throat, thick with the ache of everything left unsaid. Instead, she focuses on Pippa, on the clean lines and ritual movements that have become her lifeline, her way of not unraveling.

Raf watches her, and she knows he sees the tremor she tries to hide. For a moment, fear and love, resignation and longing, all gather between them, fragile as breath. There are no easy comforts—only the quiet knowledge that they are still here, still fighting, together, even as the morning presses on and the hospital lights grow harsher with the day.

Casey reaches for the first bottle of formula just as Raf lowers himself, wincing, onto the hard-backed chair beside Pippa’s bed. The peace—such as it is—is fragile, but it holds, until the door opens with a gentle click and Ethan steps inside.

He’s wearing his coat over scrubs, stethoscope still looped around his neck, and there’s a purposeful set to his shoulders—doctor first, but uncle always. For a moment, Ethan’s eyes flicker from the chart in his hand to his niece under the blankets, and Casey sees a different exhaustion in him—older, somehow, worn at the edges by this relentless worry.

He lingers by the threshold, as if gathering himself. What he did last night was something he never does, not even in the worst nights of the PICU: he prayed. Not the easy, hopeful kind, but the desperate, bargaining kind, speaking into the darkness, making promises he knows he can’t keep. He prayed and he begged, not as a physician but as a brother and as an uncle—just let Pippa live. Just let her see another day.

Casey, careful not to spill, pours the strawberry formula into the feeding bag. The scent is faintly sweet, incongruous in the sterile air. Her hands are steady, but she feels Ethan’s presence like a change in air pressure—charged, trembling at the edges. There is no small talk, not yet; only the quiet choreography of care, each of them folding hope into action as morning leans through the windows.

Ethan frowns as he looks at Pippa, her bare scalp covered in a blue headscarf. The colour sits bright against the pallor of her skin, a splash of boldness in a landscape of white sheets and whispered hope. His brow creases, not at the scarf itself—chosen with care, wrapped with the tenderness of small rituals—but at the fragile stillness of the child beneath it.

He knows the numbers, the charts, all the clinical markers that sketch out her odds in sober decimals and probabilities. Yet nothing scientific prepares him for the sight of her so small, so changed. He presses his lips together, words jammed behind them, and for a moment he is neither doctor nor uncle but simply someone afraid of the weight the day might bring.

Casey measures out the last few millilitres, watching the pale strawberry formula spiral through the tubing and vanish into the transparent bag. When it empties, she sets the first bottle aside and promptly opens the second, her movements practiced now, almost meditative. Pippa needs five hundred millilitres in each feed—two and a half bottles of PediaSure, carefully calculated and charted, the math of survival rendered in plastic bottles lined up on the sill.

With a steady hand, Casey pours once more, letting the faintly sweet liquid fill the bag to the prescribed mark. The rhythm soothes her, a small offering of control in a world narrowed to counting ounces and minutes, to monitoring the even rise and fall of her daughter’s chest.

Around her, the room holds its hush—a sanctuary made not of miracles, but of repetition and care. She glances at Raf, then at Ethan, and finds in their silence the fragile comfort of shared purpose, each of them tethered to this morning by Pippa’s need for nourishment, by the unspoken promise that as long as these bottles are lined up and emptied, hope is something you can hold in your hands.

Ethan turns to Casey, his voice quieter than the hush of the room. “What did the nurses say about Pippa’s blood pressure? Have they started her on Isoproterenol?”

Casey hesitates, the question pricking at something raw. “No,” she says, letting the word settle between them. “I asked a nurse to do it at three o’clock this morning, but she said Pippa’s readings were within acceptable limits. I wanted to argue, but I just felt so drained, and the pain was excruciating, I just didn’t have the energy.” Her voice fractures around the confession, a brittle edge of guilt creeping in. “I let her down, Ethan.”

Ethan’s brow furrows, his own exhaustion weighing on him, but he moves closer, careful not to shatter the fragile peace holding the room together. “Casey, you haven’t let anyone down,” he says, low and steady. “You’re doing everything you can. We all are.” He glances at Pippa—her smallness beneath the blue headscarf, the delicate rise and fall of her breath. “One normal reading at three a.m. is a blessing, not a failure.”

But Casey’s hands have stilled, bottle halfway to the bag, and in the silence that follows, even the quiet machinery of the hospital seems to pause. Raf watches from the chair, eyes dark with sympathy, as if willing her to believe it. Outside, the day is brightening, the promise of another hour gently lighting the window ledge, and for a moment—just a moment—hope seems possible, if only because they are all still here, standing their ground, together.

Casey shakes her head, “I feel like I’ve failed. I couldn’t protect her from anything. Not Sophia. Not this illness. She’s my baby and I failed at the one thing I swore I would do when I first held her at eighteen months. I promised Hayley and Jake I would keep her safe, be the mother she deserves.”

The words hang in the air, heavy as rainclouds. For a heartbeat, no one moves—Raf’s hands curl tighter around the armrests, Ethan’s jaw tenses, and even the faint beeping from across the ward seems to recede. The truth in Casey’s voice is raw, a confession peeled down to its aching core. She isn’t looking for comfort; she’s naming a wound, letting it breathe in the quiet morning light.

Ethan crosses to her, the soft tread of his shoes barely audible over the hush. He doesn’t reach for her, not yet—just stands beside her, close enough that their shoulders nearly touch. “Casey,” he says, his words gentle but unwavering, “none of us can keep every promise we made before we understood what the world would ask of us. You’ve given Pippa not just safety, but love—more fiercely than anyone else could. The rest… the rest is just what life gives. Or takes.”

Casey’s eyes shine, unshed tears tremoring on the brink. Her hand wavers, almost spills the last of the formula, but Raf rises and places a steadying palm on her back.

“You’re here, Case,” Raf says, voice thick with certainty. “That’s what matters. You show up, every hour, every day.”

The light on the window ledge grows brighter, gentler, the world outside carrying on as it always has. Inside this room, in all its quiet struggle, the love that binds them is imperfect and battered—but real. And in that, there is a kind of grace, fragile and persistent as hope itself.

When Pippa’s tubal feed begins, Casey sits down, clutching her daughter’s tiny bruised hand. The skin is pale, mottled with fading purple and yellow, and the cannula is taped securely in place—a thin, lifeline conduit delivering antibiotics and steroids into her fragile veins, fighting back against the ICANS that hovers, shadow-like, at the edge of every breath.

Ethan turns to Raf, his voice softer now, the weight of the morning pressing in. “How are you coping, Raf? I know it’s just as devastating for you. I can’t imagine Orla or Louisa in this situation.”

Raf’s lips press together in a thin, trembling line. At the mention of his daughters—Orla’s exuberant laughter, Louisa’s shy hand in his—his throat aches as if he’s swallowing a stone. Pippa was just a few months older than Louisa when her own life tilted off its axis; the ache of that parallel sharpens every breath. He remembers those endlessly anxious months—Pippa’s birth parents, Hayley and Jake, shuttling her from clinic to clinic, the relentless search for answers no parent should have to beg for. Three months, Raf thinks, three months lost to uncertainty before Casey’s diagnostics team in Boston finally named the shadow haunting their child. The diagnosis, so longed for and so feared, became the pivot around which everything turned: Hayley and Jake’s world narrowing to hospital corridors and the flutter of test results, until tragedy cut it brutally short—a crash, a phone call, and then the impossible task of piecing together a family from the ruins.

He feels Ethan’s gaze on him, steady and understanding, and draws a deep breath, searching for words that will not splinter.

Raf swallows a sob, “I’m barely holding on—” His voice chokes, and Casey turns as he utters the words she’s most terrified of. “Some days I just feel like it would be easier to give in to those dark thoughts telling me I’d be better off dead.”

Before Ethan can respond, Casey lets out a noise halfway between a sob and a scream, the sound bursting from her as though her heart has split open. She falls to her knees at Pippa’s bedside, hands trembling against the rumpled sheet, hearing the words she never wanted to hear Raf say again—words that claw at old scars and threaten the fragile scaffolding of hope she’s built, day by day.

She looks up at Raf, still on her knees with tears streaming down her cheeks, her eyes swollen and red raw. “How can you say that? Have you forgotten how much our girls and I love you? How much we need you? How much I need you? Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling like this again? You promised you would.”

Her voice is hoarse, the words tumbling out in a rush—anguished and desperate. For a moment, the room holds its breath. Raf’s shoulders curl inward; his face crumples with the shame and grief that words cannot contain. He sinks to the floor beside her, the linoleum cold through his jeans, and lowers his head until their foreheads nearly meet.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, the confession ragged. “I didn’t want to put that burden on you. Not with everything you’re already carrying—Pippa, the sleepless nights, the fear. I didn’t want to be another weight pulling you under.”

Casey shakes her head fiercely, sobs shuddering through her frame. “You’re not a burden. You’re not. I can’t lose you, Raf. Not after everything. We’ve already lost too much.”

At the edge of the bed, Ethan kneels, his steady presence anchoring them both. The hush in the room thickens—outside, a car door slams, the world spinning on, indifferent and unchanged. But here, time contracts to the fragile hope that love, spoken aloud, might be enough to hold them on the darkest days.

Raf reaches for Casey’s hand, his grip tentative at first, then desperate. “I’m trying,” he says, voice cracking. “I swear I am. But some mornings I wake and it’s just… grey. Like the world’s drained of colour.”

Casey brushes trembling fingers over his knuckles. “Then let me hold on for you, when you can’t. That’s what families do, Raf. We carry each other—sometimes one of us, sometimes all of us. Just… don’t do this alone. Promise me.”

Raf nods, tears tracing silent tracks down his cheeks. For a moment, knelt together in a ring of morning light, battered by sorrow but bound by something fiercer, they cling to each other and to the promise that, even in the shadow, they are not alone.

Ethan hesitates, watching the raw ache ripple between Casey and Raf, his own hands curled into silent fists. The intensity of their pain—of old wounds and desperate promises—draws a circle around them that feels sacred, impenetrable. For a moment, he lingers at their side, his presence a warm pillar, steady and unspoken, but not meant for this particular grief.

A flicker of resolve sharpens his features. Feeling like an intruder in a moment only for husband and wife, Ethan pushes himself upright and clears his throat softly. “I’ll—” His words falter, then steel. “I’ll go and make sure Pippa is given Isoproterenol for her blood pressure. I don’t like her numbers.”

As he slips from the room, the hush folds in behind him. In the corridor, Ethan’s footsteps echo briskly; purpose buoys him, a tangible thing. He moves with determination, each stride a silent promise to safeguard what he can—while inside, the heartbeat of hope thrums on, fragile but unbroken.

Casey turns to Raf, her eyes shining with unspilled tears. With careful, trembling hands, she reaches to brush his unruly hair from his tear-stained cheeks, her thumb lingering softly against the stubble that shadows his jaw. There is urgency in her touch, but also infinite gentleness—a quiet vow pressed into skin.

“I need you to swear you’ll never shut me out again,” she whispers, her voice quivering but unyielding. “I don’t care what is going on. We don’t have secrets. First thing when we get back to Boston, I am booking you an appointment with Dr. Brookes—and I will drag you there myself if I have to.”

Raf lets out a shaky breath, something between a laugh and a sob catching in his throat. He nods, surrender and gratitude tangled in the movement. The promise takes shape between them: not just words, but the shared weight of healing, stubborn and bright, a lifeline stretching ahead despite the darkness that clings to their edges.

In the gentle hush, Casey’s thumb rests against his cheek, refusing to let go. Raf closes his eyes and leans into her touch, the quiet certainty of her love anchoring him as surely as any oath ever could.

Casey clings to Raf, gently running her fingers through his unruly hair, carefully rubbing his back with the other. “The only way we will get through this is if we stick together. Apart we will crumble.”

She lets the words settle between them; her breath warm against his temple. Raf, caught in the fragile hush, buries his face in her shoulder, the trembling in his chest matching the quiver in her voice. For a while, they simply exist, tethered by the steady rhythm of Casey’s hands—through his hair, across his back—grounding him, soothing the ache that will take time to dull.

Slowly, Raf’s arms wind around her, the desperate edge melting into something steadier. He draws in a shuddering breath, as though taking in her courage, letting it patch the ragged places inside him. “Together,” he murmurs, voice rough but resolute, “I can believe in that. I want to.”

Casey presses a kiss to his brow, silent promise and fierce devotion tangled in the gesture. “Then we begin again. As many times as it takes.”

For now, that is enough. They hold each other, battered but unbroken, letting hope gather in the quiet spaces between heartbeats.

The sharp beep slices through the fragile peace, pulling Casey into the present with a jolt. She disentangles herself from Raf, pressing a lingering touch to his shoulder—a silent apology for leaving the cocoon they've woven together. In measured, practiced steps, she crosses to Pippa’s bed, her heart thundering in her chest in time with the monitor’s persistent alarm.

The room feels colder here, the air thick with antiseptic and unspoken fear. Pippa lies so utterly still, small body dwarfed by the hospital linens and the tangle of wires and tubes anchoring her to the world. The ventilator’s steady hiss and sigh is the only sign of life—each mechanical breath a frail lifeline, a stubborn refusal to let go.

Casey moves with gentle precision, disconnecting the beeping monitor from Pippa’s Hickman line. Her fingers work automatically, but her eyes linger on her daughter’s face—lashes fanned across pale cheeks, lips parted around a tube that both saves and silences. She brushes a wayward curl from Pippa’s forehead, swallowing the ache that rises sharp and fierce in her throat.

A faint glow shimmers from the bedside table, cutting through the dimness—Raf’s phone illuminating with a name he knows by heart. Lucas. Twenty-five years of friendship distilled into four letters, pulsing soft and insistent on the screen. Raf stares at it for a moment, jaw tightening, knowing he can’t disguise anything from the one person who’s always seen straight through him, all denials and brittle bravado rendered useless in Lucas’s presence.

He drags a thumb across the glass, not yet opening the message. Just the thought of Lucas—of the steady, unflinching loyalty that’s weathered every storm since childhood—tugs at something raw inside him. If anyone could anchor him now, it’d be Lucas, who’s more brother than friend, whose relentless honesty is both a comfort and a curse.

A wry, tired smile ghosts across Raf’s lips as he remembers the tangled webs that tie them all together—how Lucas, with his easy laugh and stubborn persistence, met Sienna at Raf and Casey’s wedding reception. A chance introduction that spun out into something lasting, the kind of love that echoes its beginnings in every shared look.

There’s a gentle irony in it: as Casey bends over Pippa, fighting for hope in the hush of monitors and tubes, Raf sits suspended between the worlds he’s built—his family cocooned in pain and possibility, and Lucas, ever-present, waiting just a phone call away. He sighs, thumb hovering, and finally opens the message, bracing for the familiar honesty that’s always felt like coming home.

Casey smiles, “You know Lucas won’t give up, you may as well answer.” Her voice is low, tinged with that mix of exhaustion and affection only crisis can breed.

Raf lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh, the sound roughened by too many sleepless nights. “Yeah,” he admits, thumbing the screen. His gaze flicks to Casey—a silent thank you, or maybe just a plea for her quiet kind of courage. “He never does.”

He presses call, lifting the phone to his ear, every muscle tense with anticipation. The line rings once, twice, before Lucas picks up and, just like that, the world narrows to a familiar voice and the promise of steadfast friendship. Raf closes his eyes, letting the sound—steady, grounding—carry him, even as monitors beep and hope flickers fragile in the sterile dark.

In Boston, in the house he and Sienna have filled with the slow, satisfying accumulation of years—sun-warmed wood, laughter echoing in hallways, the deep-worn comfort of ritual—Lucas feels the breath he’s been holding slip quietly from his chest the moment Raf answers. He’s at the window, city dusk pooling along the edges of his backyard, phone pressed hard to his ear.

“Hey Bud, how’s Pippa doing? Sienna mentioned she wasn’t doing so good? Something called ICANS? It sounds petrifying. But she’s fought back before, she may be small, but she’s got the heart of a lion.”

For a moment, the silence on the line is thick with the weight of oceans and unspoken dread. Lucas can almost hear the mechanical hush of Pippa’s hospital room, the distant lull of hope and fear entwined. He listens for the catch in Raf’s breathing, the way pain reshapes old familiar cadences.

Downstairs, Sienna cradles Alexander in the crook of her arm, guiding a spoonful of mashed sweet potato past chubby, determined lips. The kitchen is awash in soft domestic glow, the radio murmuring beneath Alexander’s happy babble. Sienna glances up at the ceiling, as if she can feel Lucas’s worry seeping down through the floorboards. She hums, voice gentle and steady, anchoring her small son in the safe harbour they’ve built together.

Lucas steadies his voice, letting it carry the stubborn warmth he’s learned from loving Sienna, from building this home. “We’re all pulling for her, Raf. Anything you need, you say the word, yeah?”

He keeps the line open, a lifeline stretched across miles and years, determined as ever to be the friend who never lets go.

On the other end of the line, Raf swallows a sob. “The doctors have said if today doesn’t show any improvement in the swelling on her brain she won’t wake up. They’re talking about something called comfort care. It basically means keeping her comfortable.”

The words hang there, trembling on a thread between them, more final than any silence. The anguished sobs Lucas hears down the line, from both Raf on the phone and Casey in the background, feel like a knife to his heart. “Sienna mentioned comfort care a few times during conversations with her patients.” His voice is thick, slow with the effort of holding himself together, of being the shore Raf might need to crash against.

Lucas presses his forehead to the cool window, eyes burning. “I’m so sorry, mate,” he whispers, the words inadequate, but all he has. Below, the city lights blink into being, indifferent and unknowing, while grief and hope war inside the small circle of their call.

Casey’s voice rises—broken, raw—a comfort even through her own unraveling. “We just—don’t want her to be in pain. That’s all. She’s fought so hard.”

Raf’s breathing is jagged, but he clings to the sound of Lucas listening, Sienna bustling quietly somewhere below, the world both impossibly far and achingly close.

Lucas squeezes his eyes shut, the ache in his chest blooming wide as the ocean between them. “Whatever happens, you’re not alone, Raf. We’re here. All the way. You just say what you need.”

And in that fragile, suspended moment, the only things holding are love, and the quiet resolve to carry each other, no matter how dark the night becomes.

Lucas stands for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, gathering himself, the echo of Raf’s grief still rippling through his chest. He wipes at his eyes, forces his breath steady, and steps into the golden light of the kitchen.

Alexander sits cradled in Sienna’s arm, yoghurt smeared across his cheek, bright eyes fixed on Lucas. The little boy’s face splits into a wide, dimpled grin. “Dada,” he says again, voice high and clear, the single syllable ringing through the quiet room like a bell.

Sienna’s hand freezes mid-air, spoon paused halfway to Alexander’s mouth. She looks up, her eyes wide with wonder, tears trembling along her lashes—but this time, not from sorrow. “Did he just—?” she breathes, half-laugh, half-question.

Lucas can’t help it: he lets out a shaky, incredulous laugh, moving closer, kneeling so he’s level with Alexander. “Say it again, little man,” he whispers, reaching for his son’s tiny, outstretched fingers.

Alexander’s gummy grin widens, and he babbles contentedly, oblivious to the storm his word has calmed. Sienna covers her mouth, laughter spilling out, shaky but bright, like sunlight after rain.

For a heartbeat, the world narrows to the three of them—Sienna’s hand finding Lucas’s, Alexander’s fingers wrapped around them both. The ache remains, fierce and raw, but so does the fragile, stubborn joy blooming between them in the kitchen’s warm glow. Outside, the city hums on, indifferent, unknowing. Inside, love threads itself quietly through the cracks, mending what it can.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, Raf has been silent since he ended the call with his best friend. His hands are gently cradling Pippa’s, her fingers small and limp in his own. The hush of the hospital room hangs thick, pierced only by the faint hum of machines and the soft, steady beep monitoring breaths that come too slowly. Raf’s gaze flickers between Pippa’s drawn face and the blank wall ahead, searching for something to anchor him, something that will not dissolve beneath the weight of waiting.

“What time is the MRI, Case?” he chokes, voice barely above a whisper, as if saying it louder might somehow summon what they all fear.

Casey, perched on the edge of the vinyl chair, reaches for her phone with trembling fingers. She scrolls through the clutter of reminders until she finds the entry, her thumb lingering over the words she wrote in both her digital calendar and the battered diary tucked into her bag. The certainty is brittle, but she clings to it like a lifeline.

“Ten fifteen,” she says at last, eyes flicking up to meet his. “They’ll come up at ten o’clock to take her downstairs to Radiology. At ten.” She repeats it softly, as if repetition might make the hour more manageable, less a looming precipice and more a step they can take together.

Casey sits forward, elbows braced on her knees, willing herself to watch Pippa’s face and not the rhythmic rise and fall orchestrated by the ventilator. She studies every flutter of eyelid, every faint twitch of fingers, her heart leaping at the smallest movement—until she reminds herself, again and again, that none of it is real hope. Not yet. Reflex, she thinks, the word bitter on her tongue. All of this, just the body’s echo, not the girl she loves.

She bites the inside of her cheek and glances at the monitor, the green line tracing each breath, mechanical and unfaltering. The doctors have said they’ll reduce the sedation soon, that only then will movements—if they come—mean anything. For now, Casey’s prayers are a silent litany, half-words pressed between heartbeats: for a sign, for something true, for one impossible miracle.

She watches, waiting for what is not yet allowed, hope a fragile ache coiled tight in her chest.

Casey’s phone pulses with a subdued glow, drawing her from her vigil. The notification is familiar—a gentle chime, a line of text in her own hurried shorthand: “Morphine—don’t forget.” She swipes it away with the side of her thumb, but the weight of the reminder lingers. Since the day she’d missed two doses and the agony had clawed its way through her insides, she’d set alarms with the regularity and devotion of ritual. Pain, she knows, is best managed in advance; to let it catch up is to let it swallow her whole.

She fishes the small orange bottle from her bag, the pills rattling like distant thunder. “Do I have my Sprite to wash my Morphine down with?” she asks, barely louder than a sigh, glancing at Raf.

He blinks, momentarily startled out of his reverie, and wordlessly produces the familiar green can from the bedside table. The gesture is automatic by now, part of the shadow ballet they perform in these long, suspended hours.

Casey cracks it open, the fizz sharp in the sterile hush, and for a moment she’s caught by the memory of Pippa’s grin—how her whole face would light up at the promise of a cool sip, the way she’d cradle the can in both hands as if it were treasure.

The ache in Casey’s chest twists—pain layered upon pain. She forces a smile, shaky and thin, and tips the tablet onto her palm. The Sprite tastes bittersweet, effervescent against the medicine’s chalky slide. She swallows and lets her gaze return to Pippa, her thoughts circling back to the girl whose joy once made even the smallest things—Sprite, sunlight, the hush before laughter—seem miraculous.

Casey presses her free hand flat to her thigh to keep it from trembling. She steadies herself with routine: pill, sip, breath, hope. But beneath it all, a silent promise—one more hour, one more prayer, one more reason to keep going.

Soon, the time for Pippa’s MRI beckons—a threshold marked not by clocks but by the quiet preparations that precede it. Casey stands at the foot of the bed, fingers deft as she knots a peach silk headscarf at the nape of her neck, the soft fabric fluttering against skin laid bare by necessity. The scarf is luminous against her paleness, a tender rebellion against all that has been taken. Once, her golden hair fell in waves about her shoulders, a crown she never thought she’d have to surrender. But cancer is greedy—when Pippa was three, harsh chemotherapy claimed every strand, leaving her pillow dusted with loss each morning when Casey came in, heart in her throat, to lift her from her toddler bed.

It was then that Casey, quietly fighting for a measure of grace, began to fit the dark golden wig—a “Princess hair” spun lovingly from her own tresses—onto her daughter’s head. Each morning became a ritual, a gentle crowning that let Pippa hold onto dignity and delight alike, her laughter bright beneath the borrowed hair.

But everything changes, always, with the next protocol. When Busulfan entered the regimen—potent and unyielding—it left Pippa’s scalp too fragile, too raw for the wig cap that once anchored her tiny courage. The wig was set aside with a reverence reserved for relics, and Casey learned the art of scarves: silk and cotton, flecked with stars or woven with stories, soft enough to soothe, bright enough to defy.

Now, as the hour draws near, Casey ties the scarf with hands steadied by repetition and love, letting the fabric fall just so. She smooths it over her head one final time, inhales, and reaches for Pippa’s hand. The gesture is as careful as breath, as ordinary and as holy. Outside, the hospital moves with its usual hush and bustle, but in this room, the world is gathered close—a mother, a daughter, and the hope that something as simple as peach silk can shield against the storm.

There’s a light rap at the door before it swings open, and the room fills with a quiet commotion—porters in blue uniforms, their faces gentle but brisk, and Ethan, his tie askew, eyes rimmed with fatigue and resolve.

“Morning, Casey. Raf.” Ethan’s voice is warm but edged with the gravity of the day. “I’ve been speaking to Pippa’s oncologists all morning, both here and in Boston.” He glances at the clipboard in his hand, then meets Casey’s gaze with careful honesty. “They all agree she also needs an MRI on her abdomen, to see if the CAR-T Cell therapy is working to beat the cancer.”

He steps aside, giving the porters space, and as the bed’s wheels squeak against the linoleum, Casey’s heart kicks into frantic motion. She darts forward before the procession can begin, her voice urgent, trembling. “Please wait. I always give her a kiss before she has a scan.”

The porters pause, wordless, and for a moment the world narrows to the hush around Pippa’s bed. Casey bends low, pressing her lips to her daughter’s forehead—warm, impossibly soft. For an instant, she lingers, letting the promise settle between them like a shield. “Mama and Daddy will be waiting for you, my love. I promise. Keep fighting.”

She straightens, blinking back tears, her hand still curled around Pippa’s. Raf moves closer, his fingers squeezing her shoulder—an anchor. The porters nod, their movements gentle as they ease Pippa’s bed and ventilator through the doorway, the peach scarf trailing like a whisper.

The room empties, but the promise lingers, a fragile tether of hope stretching down the corridor after them—one more hour, one more prayer.

Raf balances on his crutches. “We just have to pray she’ll come back to us.” The words carry the weight of all the things he cannot fix—the silent bargains, the helplessness that crowds out reason in hospital corridors. The truth is, all that’s left is hope and prayers.

Casey clutches Pippa’s beloved Flopsy, the soft-eared bunny whose fur is worn thin from years of loyal comfort—a gift from her birth father, Jake, when her world was just beginning at one year old. Now Flopsy is more than a toy; it’s a talisman, a thread connecting yesterday’s innocence to today’s fierce, trembling love. She presses it close, catching the faint trace of Pippa’s scent, and lets her eyes close for a moment, as if she can will her daughter’s courage into the battered seams and faded plush.

Outside, the sounds of the hospital blur and swell—a lullaby of wheels, murmured instructions, distant alarms. In this pause, as Raf stands near and Casey grips Flopsy tight, hope is a living, aching thing, stitched together from all that has been lost and all that might still be saved.

Casey collapses on the couch, her body folding in on itself, the battered bunny clutched so tightly her knuckles blanch. She presses her cheek against the worn cushion as though it could absorb her trembling. “I need you to tell me everything’s going to be ok,” she pleads, her words thin and jagged, her gaze fastening onto Ethan—sheer desperation shining in her eyes.

Ethan hesitates at the threshold, shoulders rounding under the weight of a thousand unspoken things. He kneels beside her, the clipboard forgotten, and reaches for her hand. His fingers curl gently over hers—steady, certain, and heartbreakingly honest. “Casey,” he begins, his voice low and rough, “I wish I could promise that. I wish…” The urge to tell her a beautiful lie—to conjure certainty out of thin air—flickers across his face and vanishes.

She knows he wouldn’t lie to her, but deep down she wishes he would—just this once, just enough to ease the ache. Instead, he brushes a strand of hair from her forehead and whispers, “Whatever comes, you won’t be alone. We’ll hold on together. I swear it.”

And all at once, the uncertainty between them becomes a shelter—a fragile, imperfect promise, but a promise nonetheless.

The room is silent but for the fragile pulse of hope, and then—sudden, shrill—a phone rings, splintering the moment. Ethan startles, the sharp note of interruption oddly jarring amid the hush. He draws back, fingers brushing his white Edenbrooke doctor’s coat in search of the source, and pulls his phone from the deep pocket. His breath catches. On the screen, glowing through a smear of fingerprints, is his wife’s display picture—her smile in summer sunlight, her eyes searching his, familiar and achingly far away.

He hesitates, thumb hovering over the green icon, thoughts scattering. For a heartbeat, all his roles converge: husband, doctor, comforter, bearer of hard truths. His gaze flickers to Casey, still curled on the couch, her grief-raw eyes fixed on the battered bunny. He offers her a small, apologetic nod, then answers.

“Hey,” he manages, his voice softer than he intends, the hope and heartbreak of the room clinging to every syllable.

On the other end, there’s a pause—a rustle, a breath. Whatever news waits, it trembles in the hush, threading through the uncertain shelter the three of them have just begun to weave.

Hundreds of miles away, the morning sun slants through tall windows and scatters diamonds across the calm waters beneath Meredith Ramsey’s Boston waterfront home. In the hush that follows the school run and the lull of toddler Louisa’s nap, Meredith curls up on the weathered blue couch—a favourite spot shaped to her frame, the city’s quiet rhythms seeping through glass and old timber. Her phone, always tethered and never quite far enough, vibrates in her hand. She presses it to her ear, drawing a blanket across her knees, her mind reaching towards the hospital room she cannot see.

It’s Thursday, August 18th; Orla, their eldest, is off at school, Louisa’s breaths drift gently from the nursery, and the house holds its breath, suspended between routines and worry. She closes her eyes, letting the familiar, briny scent of the harbour steady her pulse. “Hi love. How’s Pippa?” Meredith asks, her voice soft but threaded with urgency, a lifeline stretching the distance between them. The question hangs in the space—between Boston and the hospital, between mother and father, between all that has been hoped for and all that might yet be lost.

For a long time, Meredith hadn't been able to hide her wariness toward Casey Aveiro. The feeling had never been outright antagonism—just a slow, persistent ache beneath the surface, a suspicion that Casey’s presence in Ethan’s orbit threatened the fragile balance of things. It was easier, in the early days, to cast Casey as a rival, to imagine that beneath her gentle chaos and battered hope lay a longing for what Meredith fiercely guarded – her husband.

She’d told herself, and anyone who asked, that she was above it—that she loved Raf, her own steady lighthouse, and had no cause for jealousy. But old stories linger, and certain fears, once rooted, are hard to weed out.

Ethan sighs, the sound little more than a shiver of air through the phone, but Meredith feels it echo in her bones. “It’s bad, Mer,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “She’s gone for an MRI on her brain to see if the steroids have decreased the swelling. If it hasn’t, or if it’s increased, they’ll look at comfort care. As you can imagine, Casey and Raf are petrified and clinging to hope.”

The words settle between them, heavy as fog—clinical and terrifying, edged with the cruelty of possibility.

Meredith presses her palm against her forehead, kneading the ache that’s taken up residence there since the first call. She pictures Pippa, impossibly small and still beneath a tangle of wires, the quiet drone of machines standing sentinel. The image, so vivid, robs her of breath.

She swallows, her own fears crowding in, but forces her voice steady. “She’s still sedated?” The question tumbles out, sharp and fragile.

“Yes. Still in the coma,” Ethan replies, and in the measured cadence of his words, Meredith hears everything he does not say—how much hangs on these next hours, how little control any of them have. For a brief moment, the distance between Boston and the hospital is a chasm she cannot cross; she aches to be beside her daughter, to take her hand, to do something—anything—other than wait.

She clings to the sound of Ethan’s breathing, to the shared silence that follows, and tries to summon hope from the empty spaces. “Tell Casey and Raf…” Her voice falters, then firms. “Tell them we’re all holding on. However we can.”

In the hush that follows, the harbour’s salt-laced breeze slips through a crack in the window, carrying the promise that despite fear, despite all that’s uncertain, love travels every distance—even the ones that terrify us most.

Meredith swallows, “I love you, Ethan,” she whispers.

There’s a pause, laced with static and the thousand miles between them. When he finally answers, his voice is thick with unshed tears and gratitude. “I love you too, Mer. More than I can say.”

She nods, even though he can’t see her, grounding herself in those words. They hang in the air—fragile, necessary—threading hope between Boston and the quiet harbour, binding them not only to each other, but to everyone waiting and fearing and loving in the dark. In that shared hush, Meredith lets herself believe that love, spoken aloud, is a kind of anchor—something that might hold them steady while they wait for the light to break through.

The call ends and Meredith lets her tears fall, grief for a child she barely knows and hope that there is some sort of miracle out there to save the daughter Casey and Raf cherish. For a long moment, she remains hunched in the spill of late-afternoon light, every breath unsteady, every heartbeat a question. Grief tangles with longing—raw, unshaped sorrow for what might be lost, and a fierce, unyielding wish that the world will offer them mercy.

The late morning sun spills through the floor to ceiling windows, and Meredith has the overwhelming urge to go and see Louisa, her precious baby girl who already has Ethan’s stubborn streak at thirteen months old. In the fragile stillness that follows her tears, this need blooms bright and insistent—a tether pulling her toward something solid and real. She rises, moving quietly through the house, each step returning her to the present, to the life that pulses on even as another wavers in uncertainty.

The nursery is awash with gold light, the air filled with the sweet, grassy scent of baby shampoo and the faintest hum from the street below. Louisa is sprawled in her crib, arms thrown wide in sleep’s abandon, lips parted in a soft snuffle. Meredith watches her, heart tender and raw, aching with relief for this small miracle she is allowed to hold.

She kneels beside the crib, brushing a curl from Louisa’s brow, and lets her gaze linger—memorizing the rise and fall of her daughter’s chest, the tiny fist curled near her cheek. In Louisa’s peacefulness, Meredith finds a sliver of solace—a reminder that even in the midst of fear, there is still beauty, still love, still the promise of another day.

For now, she lets herself hope—quietly, stubbornly—letting that hope twine with her longing and grief, carrying her forward through the golden spill of morning.

Risking giving Louisa a kiss, just because she can, Meredith then picks up her pacifier and places it gently in her mouth. The gesture is tender, almost defiant—a small act of comfort for them both.

Ethan has been trying to convince her that now Louisa is one, it’s time for her to give up the pacifier, but Meredith disagrees, arguing that she’s still just a baby. There’s a private reassurance in these rituals, a kind of silent promise that the world can wait. Let her be little, Meredith thinks, just a while longer. In the hush of the nursery, with sunlight painting honeyed patterns on the floor, she leans in close, breathing in the baby-sweet scent, and lets herself exist in this moment—where love is simple, and holding on is enough.

She wants to cling to every part of Louisa’s babyhood that’s possible, holding tight to these fleeting rituals—the warm weight in her arms, the lullabies whispered in the half-light, the way Louisa’s lashes flutter against her cheeks in sleep. At forty-two, Meredith knows with a bone-deep certainty that Louisa is her last baby. Each moment seems precious and impossibly fragile—something to be cherished, not hurried.

Yes, in theory, she and Ethan could welcome a third child. The means are there, the house big enough if they were to sacrifice Ethan’s office and fill the walls with the soft chaos of another nursery.

But possibility is not the same as promise. Meredith knows too well the silent gamble her body would undertake—the incalculable odds that, at her age, pregnancy would not come easily, or without risk. The spectre of miscarriage and stillbirth looms larger with every year, joined by a silent litany of other complications that shadow pregnancies late in life.

She cradles Louisa’s tiny hand in her palm, letting her thumb trace the crescent of each fingertip, and feels a bittersweet ache settle in her chest. This is her last first word, her last first step, her last night spent rocking a baby through fever and fretful dreams. There is immense gratitude in this, but also a thread of mourning—grief for the children she will never carry, the chapters that will remain unwritten.

Meredith lets herself linger in the nursery, watching golden sunlight flicker over Louisa’s sleeping form, and promises herself she will not rush through these days. She will savour the sweetness and the struggle; she will be present for every giggle, every tumble, every stubborn refusal to let go of the pacifier or her mother’s hand.

In this, Meredith finds both solace and resolve: to honour what she has, to hold fiercely to every ordinary miracle, and to trust that the love she pours into this last, beloved baby is enough to fill the spaces where possibility slips quietly away.

Taking one last look at her sleeping baby, and secretly praying nothing bad ever befalls her,

Meredith tiptoes out of Louisa’s nursery and down the hall, closing the door with a breathless delicacy, as if sealing the quiet sanctuary behind her. Sunlight follows her through the house, dappling across framed photos, the heap of tiny shoes by the stairs, the evidence of life gently, beautifully lived.

In the kitchen, Meredith moves automatically, her body tracing the well-worn ritual of morning. She sets the kettle to boil and reaches for her favourite mug—the one with faded gold lettering and a barely-there chip on its rim. The familiar scent of coffee and caramel fills the air as she prepares her Caramel Latte, the sweet warmth promising a brief reprieve from the hush of longing that lingers in her chest.

She leans against the counter, hands wrapped around the mug, letting the first sip linger on her tongue. The world outside the window is waking, too: a sparrow flits from the feeder, dew glimmers on the grass, and somewhere a neighbour’s laughter rises, soft and distant. For a moment, the house feels suspended—caught between the hush of the nursery and the gentle promise of the day ahead.

Meredith closes her eyes, savouring this stillness—the quiet and the bittersweet, the ache and the hope. She is here, in the gentle unfolding of the morning, grateful for all she has, and all she dares to hold.

In Wisconsin, the air in the waiting room is brittle with anticipation. Casey sits sandwiched between Raf and a table stacked with out-of-date magazines, her hands restless in her lap. Across from them, the television drones softly, but no one seems to be watching. All eyes flicker, instead, to the hallway that leads toward Radiology, to the door behind which Pippa lies cocooned in the humming machinery of the MRI.

Ethan’s words from earlier replay in Casey’s mind—a gentle reassurance that he’d convinced the doctors to do both scans, brain and abdomen, in a single stretch. “Less panic this way,” he’d said, and she’d wanted so desperately to believe him. To believe that compressing the agony into one window of waiting would somehow make it all more bearable, that the shadowy what-ifs would feel less sharp if endured together in a single, unbroken vigil.

Raf’s knee bounces with nervous energy, his jaw set, eyes darting from the clock to the door. Every so often, he murmurs something meant to soothe—perhaps for Casey, perhaps for himself. They both know the drill: the ritual of hospitals and hope, of bracing for news that might upend the world as they know it.

Casey’s phone buzzes in her pocket, but she ignores it, focusing instead on the memory of Pippa’s small hand in hers before the nurse had wheeled her away. She recalls the way Pippa’s fingers had curled tight, a silent plea, and Casey had squeezed back, promising with touch what words could not: I am here. I am not letting go.

Now, with nothing left to do but wait, Casey’s mind drifts to the rhythm of her own breath, to the muted hush of the fluorescent-lit corridor, to the low hum of hope and dread commingling in her chest. She finds herself sending silent bargains into the universe—let her daughter be well, let Ethan be right, let this waiting end with relief instead of heartbreak.

For now, all they can do is sit, count the minutes, and keep each other company in this liminal space, where possibility hovers—unseen, uncertain, but alive.

Both of these MRI scans are imperative to Pippa’s survival. The brain scan, especially, holds its own fragile hope—there, beneath the swirl of humming magnets and staccato lights, the doctors will search for any sign that weeks of steroids have calmed the dangerous swelling. The results will determine not just the next steps, but whether the ache of waiting can be replaced, even briefly, by relief.

The abdominal MRI, too, is a lifeline. It promises the first true glimpse of whether the T-cell infusion—the last, best gamble—has begun its silent war against the cancer threading itself through Pippa’s tiny body. One scan searches for peace; the other, for victory. Both tests are double-edged: the answers they bring could shape the contours of hope, or redraw the boundaries of what Casey dares to imagine for her child.

The weight of that knowledge hangs in the air, sharpening every breath, every glance toward the closed door. Even hope, here, is fraught—because the truth revealed by these images will change everything, for better or for heartbreak.

And yet, Casey clings to possibility, her love a quiet force against the cruel uncertainty pressing in on all sides.

Out of the corner of her eye, Casey spots Raf’s right leg going up and down, a sign that his nerves are really getting to him. If it wasn’t for his badly injured ankle he would be pacing the length of the waiting room.

Instead, the restless energy has nowhere to go but through his hands and knee, his anxious movements echoing the silent agitation that needles them both.

Casey wonders—fleetingly, achingly—if the pain in his ankle is almost a mercy, anchoring him to this chair when every instinct must be screaming for motion, for something, anything, to blunt the sharpness of waiting. But they remain rooted, side by side, bound together by the uneasy choreography of worry and hope, listening for footsteps behind that door and praying for news gentle enough to breathe in.

Casey’s fingers, almost of their own accord, begin tracing slow circles around her wedding ring, the rose gold band spinning over her knuckle in a nervous ballet. She twists it one way, then the other—a practiced ritual, as old as her fears, a lifeline worn smooth by years of habit. It’s her anchor when the terror swells: the metal cool and constant against her skin, a silent promise that even now, as the world narrows to the thin line between hope and dread, she can hold fast to something real.

Each turn of the ring is a wordless plea and a comfort, a small act of faith that, somehow, the bonds that tie them will keep from breaking under the weight of all that is unknown.

She also thinks of Isabelle, their sweet and gentle but fiercely sassy four-year-old, tucked away back in Boston with her maternal grandparents. It is a different kind of ache—one that aches for the child left behind, whose world has also been upended by worry and absence. Belle cannot name her sorrow, cannot voice the confusion or longing that churns quietly inside her. Instead, heartbreak leaks from her in the dark: in the shrill spikes of night terrors that rouse the house from uneasy sleep, in wet sheets and trembling sobs muffled beneath a favourite blanket.

“I’m worried about how Belle is coping with all of this,” Casey murmurs, her voice barely more than a breath, the words hanging between her and Raf like a fragile offering. The guilt of distance presses down on her heart—a mother’s fear that she is missing the silent ways her youngest is suffering, the questions she cannot answer, the comfort she cannot give. She imagines Belle’s little face, brave by day, crumpling when the lights go out and the ghosts of uncertainty creep in.

Casey’s thumb lingers on her ring as if, by tracing that unbroken circle, she might somehow stretch her love across states and hours, a lifeline to reach a child whose pain she cannot hold or soothe.

It is another waiting, another hope: that Belle, in all her innocent resilience, can weather this storm too, and that the bonds that tether them—mother to daughter, family to family—will hold strong until they can all be together again.

Raf reaches for Casey’s hand, “When Pippa’s home we can look into booking Belle in for sessions with Dr. Hrobski. Your Mom mentioned how her sessions have helped Mia in huge ways. Maybe she will be able to help Belle too.”

The warmth of his touch startles Casey out of her spiralling thoughts. She squeezes his fingers, grateful for the steadiness he offers, even as uncertainty still eddies around them. The mention of Dr. Hrobski—of hope packaged in the gentle, practiced wisdom of someone who has soothed other small griefs—settles in Casey’s chest like a fragile promise. She imagines Belle’s tiny hands, fidgeting in her lap, trusting a stranger with the shape of her worries; she pictures a safe room, gentle questions, the slow unspooling of tangled fears that have taken root deep beneath her daughter’s bright exterior.

Casey nods, emotion thickening her voice. “Yeah… I think that would help. At least we’d be doing something. Giving her someone who knows how to help her find her words.”

They sit in silence for a moment, fingers entwined—both of them tethered by worry for the child across state lines, the one whose pain is quieter, but no less real. In this hush, Casey allows herself to believe that healing might be possible: that soon enough, the doors will open, Pippa will come home, and together they will begin piecing their family back together, one small, hopeful act at a time.

But before all of that can happen, she and Raf need miracles for Pippa to come back to them. “I think we should focus on here and now just until we know the results of today’s scans. Because that is what everything is hinging on. Most importantly, Pippa’s survival.”

Casey’s voice cracks at those final four words.

The thought that has plagued her since the meeting with Pippa’s neurologists here in Wisconsin weeks earlier rears its evil head. What if the only way we get her back is to say goodbye and put her to rest?

Casey shakes her head violently to rid herself of that thought. “No,” she whispers. “She has to make it.”

The words hang in the air, defiant and trembling, carving a fragile boundary against despair. She clenches her jaw, refusing to let the shadow of that possibility take root. Raf’s grip tightens, anchoring her—a silent agreement, a twofold refusal to surrender hope just yet.

Somewhere in the background, the muted hum of hospital machinery is a reminder that life hangs in the balance, suspended between breaths, between one set of scan results and the next.

Casey draws a shaky inhale, forcing herself to be present, to exist only in this moment and not in the terrifying futures her mind insists on conjuring.

She brushes a tear from her cheek—quickly, fiercely—before it can betray her. “We’re not giving up. Not while she’s still fighting,” she says, voice roughened by all the nights she’s spent talking to the ceiling, bargaining with the unknown.

Raf nods, his own eyes shining with tears held at bay. “She’s stronger than we know. And so are you.”

Casey closes her eyes, letting the weight of those words settle around her, bracing herself for whatever comes next. For now, hope is all they have—a battered, stubborn thing, but still burning in the darkness.

They both look up as the nurse approaches, her shoes whispering against the polished floor. She offers a gentle smile, the kind honed by years of delivering news both small and seismic. “Pippa’s first MRI is over,” she says quietly, her voice a balm in the sterile hush. “The technician is just moving her further into the machine to begin the second on her abdomen. It may be another hour or two. Perhaps both of you would be better off going for a cup of coffee or some lunch? Have you eaten today?”

Casey blinks as if surfacing from underwater. The word “eaten” seems almost foreign. She glances at Raf, searching his face for an answer she can’t quite find in herself. He merely shakes his head, a faint, apologetic smile flickering at the corners of his mouth.

“Thank you,” Casey manages, her voice hoarse but grateful. She feels the nurse’s kindness settle over her—an invitation, but also a gentle nudge to care for their battered bodies while their hearts wait.

Raf shifts in his seat, considering. “I don’t think we could eat much, but maybe some coffee.” His words carry the exhaustion of too many sleepless nights and the brittle hope that, at the end of this wait, there will still be something to celebrate.

The nurse nods, her eyes warm with understanding. “I’ll have someone come find you as soon as we have any news,” she promises, before slipping away, leaving them once more in the liminal hush of hospital waiting.

For a moment, neither of them moves. Then Casey stands, wiping away the last stubborn trace of her tears. Together, she and Raf step into the corridor, hand in hand, searching for a patch of ordinary in the midst of the extraordinary. Even the smallest comforts—a hot drink, the quiet presence of each other—feel like tiny acts of rebellion against the fear pressing in all around them.

Casey feels a dull, persistent ache blooming in her pelvis—a discomfort that gnaws at the edges of her focus. She knows what it means, the simple, human need she’s been ignoring. But the idea of leaving, even for a moment, feels impossible.

The corridor hums quietly around her, but her body is held captive by a strange inertia. She sits, knuckles white around the paper cup that’s slowly cooling in her grasp, gaze fixed on some distant point that shifts and blurs with every anxious heartbeat.

She’s aware, distantly, of the pressure mounting, the way her body tries to remind her of life’s most basic urgencies. Still, she can’t bring herself to rise—not when Pippa’s results are still out there, suspended in the silent machinery and the hands of strangers.

Every instinct in her is tethered to that uncertainty, as though if she leaves, even for a minute, she might miss something crucial, or the world might tilt in a direction she isn’t ready for.

So, she remains, breath shallow, pain ignored, clinging to the fragile hope that waiting here—unmoving, unyielding—might somehow make a difference.

Raf studies her face, concern knitting his brow as the depth of her discomfort becomes unmistakable. “The toilets aren’t very far, you know. You’ll be back in no time.” His voice is gentle but firm, a lifeline tossed across the gulf of her worry.

Casey blinks, startled by how easily he’s seen through her resolve. The suggestion sounds almost ludicrous—ordinary, mundane, and yet impossibly out of reach. “I just… I can’t,” she murmurs, voice brittle. “What if—”

He squeezes her hand, grounding her. “We’ll hear the news whether you’re here or down the hall. I promise. And you don’t have to do this to yourself.” The warmth in his words is quiet reassurance, a reminder that even in these moments ruled by uncertainty, small mercies are allowed.

She lets herself nod, a tremulous, reluctant surrender. The fear doesn’t abate, but something in her loosens—permission, perhaps, to be human in the face of helplessness. With Raf’s steady gaze urging her on, she rises again, this time for herself, and for the life that continues—messy, insistent, and real—beyond these fluorescent-lit walls.

Reaching into the canvas bag to discreetly reach for a sanitary towel, Casey stands up. “I won’t be long,” she murmurs.

Raf offers a reassuring nod, his thumb brushing her knuckles before letting her go. The corridor feels both impossibly vast and suffocatingly close as she makes her way toward the bathroom, head bowed, footsteps muffled on the linoleum. Each step is a negotiation—between urgency and dread, between the need to care for herself and the relentless pull of worry.

At the closed door, she hesitates, palm pressed to its cool surface as if seeking permission. The hum of distant voices and the faint, antiseptic sting in the air remind her how exposed she feels, even in this most private of errands. She steels herself. One more breath. Then, quietly, she opens the door and slips inside.

The bathroom is harshly lit, echoing with the distant rumble of plumbing and the gentle clink of porcelain. In the cold, impersonal stillness, Casey allows her shoulders to drop. Alone at last, she peels herself away from the anxiety outside, the sounds of machines and uncertain news fading for a moment. She fumbles with her canvas bag, hands trembling only slightly as she unwraps the sanitary towel—a small, mundane ritual that feels like an anchor in the storm.

With practiced efficiency, she tends to herself, staring into the mirror above the sink. Her reflection gazes back—eyes wide and rimmed with exhaustion, mouth pressed into a determined line. She splashes her face with water, watching the droplets trace delicate paths down her cheeks, and lets herself breathe, just for a beat.

Soon, she will return to the waiting, to Raf and to hope’s fragile edge. But for now, in this quiet pocket of solitude, Casey is reminded gently that she is still here—present, imperfect, enduring.

She dries her hands, fingers lingering on the rough paper, willing them steady. The hush of the corridor presses in as she steps out, the door whispering shut behind her. Each footfall draws her closer to the fluorescent-lit waiting area, closer to the knot of hope and dread that has not loosened in her absence.

Raf sits exactly where she left him, his posture folded in on itself, eyes flickering to the doors that never seem to open fast enough. When he sees her return, his shoulders drop, a subtle exhale of relief.

She crosses the short distance and lowers herself into the vacant chair beside him, her body curving protectively inward, as if she could shrink the world to just the two of them.

“Any news?” she whispers, her voice no more than a breath, fragile and edged with fear. The question hangs between them, heavy as the air before a storm.

Raf shakes his head, “Not yet. I can’t decide if that’s a good sign or not.”

Casey lets the answer settle, its ambiguity wrapping itself around her chest. The harsh lights overhead hum in the silence, and somewhere down the hall, a phone rings and is quickly silenced. She presses her palms flat against her knees, willing herself not to tremble.

“It’s probably too early,” she murmurs, searching his face for reassurance. For a moment, neither of them speaks. The world outside their little orbit shrinks to the creak of chairs, the faint tap of a receptionist’s keyboard, the slow procession of time.

Raf’s hand finds hers again, their fingers interlaced—an unspoken promise that neither will let go, no matter what news those swinging doors might bring. In the hush, they lean into one another, sharing the warmth of their fear and hope and the faintest pulse of belief that, somehow, waiting together is enough.

A flicker from the television screen catches Casey's eye—a bland news anchor mouthing silent updates above a scrolling band of numbers. It is the clock, though, that grips her: bright digital digits flashing far later than she’d realised. A cold, electric panic seizes her as the pieces fall—the schedule, the syringes, the measured doses. Pippa’s tubal feed. The Morphine, the Gabapentin, the Valproate, the Ethosuximide. Tizanidine for the neuropathy. She counts them off in her mind, each name a weight pressing harder on her chest.

“Raf.” Her voice is raw, urgent, cutting through the hush. He looks at her, startled by the sudden edge. “Pippa’s missed her tubal feed—and four of her meds. Most importantly, her Valproate and Ethosuximide for her epilepsy. With how bad her seizures have been, it’s really dangerous for her to miss even one dose.”

She stands up, “I need to go and see if I can find out what’s going on. It’s been over two hours since the nurse came to tell us she was out of the first MRI. Her abdominal MRI should be finished by now.”

The terror that the length of time it’s taking means there’s bad news makes Casey’s blood run cold. “What if it’s bad news?”

Her voice wavers, barely audible above the static drone of fluorescent lights, but the words are enough to crack through the thin veneer of composure she’s clung to. Raf squeezes her hand tighter, thumb tracing a slow, grounding pattern along her knuckles.

“We don’t know that,” he says, though his own voice is thinned by exhaustion, his eyes shadowed with the same dread. “It could just be delays. Machines. The shift change. You know how it is.”

Casey nods, but the logic doesn’t reach the place in her where fear coils and expands. She tries to draw a breath, but the air seems thick, each inhale edged with the taste of antiseptic and nerves. The moments stretch, elastic and unforgiving, across the small expanse of waiting room.

“I just—” she starts, then falters, pain tightening her features. “I can’t stop thinking of all the things that could go wrong if they waited too long. If something happened and we’re sitting out here, just… waiting.”

Raf’s grip steadies her, anchoring her to the threadbare present. “Hey. We’re here. We’re doing everything we can. She’s got the best people looking after her. We have to believe that counts for something.”

Casey bites her lip, stares hard at the clock, willing the numbers to hurry forward. “If it is bad news,” she whispers, “I don’t know how I’ll hold together.”

He says nothing, but the press of his shoulder against hers is answer enough: whatever news the doors bring, they will face it—together.

Although she does know how it is, when it’s her own child’s life in the balance, Casey doesn’t care. She knows how much agony the parents of her patients must feel—and Sienna’s too, as she deals with little kids more often than Casey does. Now, empathy takes on a sharper, more intimate edge, no longer something she can leave behind at the end of a shift. It is an ache that saturates her bones, visceral and raw, refusing to be reasoned with.

That awareness presses in on her, flooding her with a solidarity she wishes she could have lived her life without ever needing to claim. All the words she’s offered in comfort to anxious families—“We’re doing everything we can,” “You’re not alone,” “She’s in good hands”—come echoing back, hollow and insufficient against the storm inside her chest.

Casey wonders how Sienna manages, bearing witness to parents’ fear day after day, carrying it home on tired shoulders, never knowing when the boundaries between professional and personal might dissolve. The waiting, the helplessness, the silent prayers: they are universal, but never more unbearable than when the child behind those doors is your own.

She presses her palms together, searching for some fragment of faith to hold onto, and feels Raf’s hand still anchoring her, his presence a slender lifeline. In this moment, stripped of expertise and certainty, she is only a mother—fragile, desperate, and waiting for the next small mercy to arrive.

Casey’s eyes fill with tears, blurring the sterile lines of the waiting room. She turns toward Raf, her voice trembling at its edges. “I always felt like I was empathetic with parents when I dealt with younger patients, but maybe I wasn’t? Or if I was, was it ever enough?”

Raf squeezes her hand, his own gaze heavy with the weight of all they cannot control. “You always gave them comfort,” he says quietly. “But no one can ever really know, not until they’re here—like this.”

Casey lets out a shaky breath, shame and longing mingling in her chest. “I used to think I understood what they needed. Now I wonder if I ever truly did. Maybe I just said the words because I had to, because it was my job. But I never felt it like this. Not until now.”

Raf’s thumb traces a gentle arc along the back of her hand. “I think you did the best anyone could. Maybe there’s no perfect way. Maybe being there, even fumbling for the right words, is what matters.”

She nods, tears slipping silently down her cheeks. The rawness in her heart is unbearable, but within it blooms an unspoken promise: if she is ever on the other side of those doors again, she will hold parents’ pain with even greater tenderness. The ache, she realizes, is a testament—not to failure, but to love.

The minutes continue their patient march, each one carved with the hope and terror of what waits beyond the next opening door.

The hush in the waiting room deepens as Casey catches the sound of approaching footsteps—steady, deliberate, heels whispering over linoleum. She looks up, heart thudding, and her bitten fingernails dig crescent moons into her palm. Ethan is coming toward them, the broad sweep of his white coat incongruously calm against the anxious current that floods her veins.

He pauses just a few feet away, hands in the pockets of his coat, and for a moment the room seems to hold its breath. Casey knows the familiar lines of his face, the subtle tells: the furrow between his brows when he’s troubled, the tightening of his jaw before delivering bad news, the gentle softening of his eyes when hope is possible. She has spent fifteen years reading those signals, decoding his moods with the unspoken language that only comes from sharing impossible nights and quiet victories. Meredith, she knows, dislikes this—dislikes that

Casey can see Ethan with a clarity that sometimes feels too intimate. But none of that matters now.

Because tonight, Ethan’s expression is a mask—carefully arranged, each muscle subdued, his gaze unreadable. That blankness is a void, and it terrifies her far more than any frown or sigh of exhaustion. She can’t tell where this is going, can’t guess which way their world might tilt.

He glances once at Raf with a small, respectful nod, then fixes his eyes on Casey, as if willing her to stay afloat in the moments to come. For a heartbeat, no one speaks. The only sound is Casey’s own pulse, loud in her ears, and the faint hum of distant machinery behind closed doors.

Casey chokes back a whimper. “Just tell us. What did the brain scan show? Are the increased steroids working? Has the swelling gone down?”

Ethan doesn’t look away. His silence stretches, taut as a wire, before he draws a careful breath. “The scan shows some improvement,” he says, voice steady but gentle. “The steroids are beginning to do their job, though the process is slow. The swelling has reduced—a little. It’s not as much as we hoped for, but it’s movement in the right direction.”

A hitch of relief and dread battles in Casey’s chest. “So… is it enough? Is it safe?”

He takes a step closer, his presence quieting the chaos for just a moment. “It’s not out of danger,” Ethan answers honestly. “But this gives us room to keep fighting. The next twenty-four hours matter a great deal. We’ll keep monitoring, keep adjusting, and I’ll be here—every step.”

Raf’s hand tightens around hers. The words aren’t a promise, not really. But they’re something to hold on to. For now, it’s enough.

Casey tries not to cry. “What about the abdominal scan? Any improvement there with the cancer?”

Ethan’s gaze doesn’t waver. He shifts his weight, glances down at the chart in his hand, and the faintest tremor passes over his features—a flicker of regret, or perhaps just the weight of too many nights spent delivering news no one wants to hear.

“The abdominal scan…” His words are measured, careful, as if each syllable is a stone he must set gently on the floor between them. “There’s no new growth. The lesions are stable—no shrinkage yet, but also no spread. That’s what we wanted, at this stage. Stability means the treatment is holding, if only just.”

A tear slips down Casey’s cheek, burning and silent. She nods, swallowing. “So we keep going?”

Ethan’s reply is soft, almost a whisper, but it carries the strength she needs. “Yes. We keep going. It’s still a fight. And I’ll be here. We’ll face the next scan together.”

Casey squeezes Raf’s hand, a fragile hope taking root amid the uncertainty—delicate, but alive.

The squeeze is enough for him to ask. “So comfort care is off the table? They’re still working to get Pippa to come round?”

Ethan’s brow furrows, sympathy etched into the lines around his eyes. He glances at Raf, then back to Casey, weighing the question with the same gravity he gives every choice. “It’s not off the table,” he says quietly. “But right now, with the way she’s responding—however slowly—there’s still a chance for recovery. We owe her those chances, if she keeps showing us she wants them.”

He pauses, letting that hope hang in the tense hush between them. “Every hour matters. We’re watching her so closely, adjusting as we go. If anything changes, we’ll talk, honestly. But as of now… yes, we’re still working to bring her through.”

Casey presses trembling fingers to her lips, a fresh round of tears threatening. Raf’s thumb circles comfort over her knuckles, grounding her in this room full of sharp edges and fragile hope.

For now, the fight isn’t over. And for now, that’s the answer they need.

@kingliam2019 @tessa-liam @alj4890 @katedrakeohd @potionsprefect @silver-rings-and-rabbits @storyofmychoices @jamespotterthefirst

3 notes · View notes

kingliam2019 · 2 days ago

Text

Oh that's a good twist. It's alway's the guy Going to like this one

Not counting the show results option, because that's not a real option, looks like he's getting a werewoof girlfriend

12 notes · View notes

kingliam2019 · 2 days ago

Text

I hope everyone is doing well here. I have not been on frequently, but I am so pleased to see those still here when I am.

2 notes · View notes

kingliam2019 · 2 days ago

Text

Well, since I felt like writing again, I was eager to complete the 30-Day Writing Challenge that I started much more than 30 days ago. But, I don't care, I'm just happy it kept me writing and that I completed it! Day 30's prompt is "write about a concert." So, I decided to write about two very different events.

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x Kaycee (F!MC) Rating: Teen Words: ~1,400 Summary: They say opposites attract, and when it comes to Ethan & Kaycee's taste in music, no statement could be more true. But, that won't stop them from trying to understand - and maybe fit in - in each other's worlds.

A/N: I'm also participating in @choicescommunityevents July Monthly Challenge - Prompt - Music Festival.

30-Day Writing Challenge Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Part 1: The Symphony

It had taken some convincing. Not too much, but just enough to amuse Kaycee and leave Ethan wondering what he had gotten himself into – which had been her goal from the start.

“You’re really dragging me to a symphony?” Kaycee teased as she adjusted the straps of the simple, elegant black dress she purchased just for the occasion. Judging by the look on Ethan’s face when she stepped into the room, it had been money well spent. “Tell me, will they be handing out monocles and opera glasses at the door?”

Ethan shot her a look that was equal parts amusement and frustration. He could have ignored the comment; after all, he knew any response would only fuel her wisecracks. But restraint wasn't his strong suit when it came to her.

“It’s the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Katherine. Not a royal masquerade.”

“Oooh!” she hummed, a fire lighting up behind her eyes. He only called her by her full name during certain... activities. Now, the idea of skipping the symphony—and slipping out of her dress—was in the forefront of her mind, but she knew how much Ethan had been looking forward to this, and she wouldn't want to disappoint.

“Same difference,” she muttered instead, stepping closer to adjust his tuxedo lapels. “You realize I’m going to stick out like a disco ball in a funeral home tonight, right? It’s not too late to find someone more your speed.”

Ethan caught her hands in his, gently stilling her. He knew she was joking. But he also sensed the undertone, that little bit of insecurity that crept in on nights like this, and he wasn’t about to let her feel that way.

“Honestly?” he said softly. “I’d love to see what kind of light you can deliver. I’m not afraid to watch you shine.” He paused, meeting her gaze. “As for who I’m dating… I hope you know by now - I’m exactly where I want - no – where I’m meant to be.”

Kaycee smiled, her eyes softening as she leaned into him. “See, you go and say things like that, and I'm off Googling Tchaikovsky and trying to figure out what a fortissimo is. You’re so worth it, Ramsey.”

“Well,” he chucked. “I hope you still feel that way at the end of the night.”

They arrived at Symphony Hall twenty minutes early, and the opulence hit Kaycee the moment they entered the door. Gold filigree seemed to adorn every surface, the plush red velvet seats certainly weren't carnival seating, and the crowd spoke in hushed, respectful tones. Yeah, it was a far cry from the concerts she usually attended. She looked around nervously, then squeezed his arm a little tighter.

“Ethan, I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore.”

Ethan laughed as he guided her to his private box. “No, Dorothy, you're not. The Philharmonic is playing Dvořák tonight.”

“Oh, so we're talking in riddles now?” she whispered. “Thanks, Ethan. As if I'm not already lost enough.”

“It’s OK to be a little lost, Kaycee,” he smiled, kissing the back of her hand. “It's just music. All you need to do is listen; the music will do the rest. Now, try to behave yourself,” he added, his voice lowering. “If you do, I promise to make it well worth your while.”

Kaycee didn't have a chance to comment on that delicious offer before the lights dimmed and the orchestra began to play. The music poured out delicately at first, like something out of a pleasant dream. But it wasn't long before it rose to a crescendo. Swelling around them to tell a story without using a single word.

Kaycee took Ethan’s hand, and he glanced her way, expecting to find her amused or bored, but to his surprise, he didn't see either. She was quiet, her eyes shut, her brow relaxed. She was listening. Not just hearing music, but listening... really letting it in. She was trying to understand something that she knew mattered to him, and he wasn’t sure when he had ever felt this loved.

Halfway through the second movement, she leaned closer. “I have to admit,” she whispered. “This does feel like magic.”

Ethan let out a soft breath and turned back to the stage with a smile, his fingers gently tightening around hers. He had meant what he said earlier – this was exactly where he wanted to be and, with the warmth of her hand in his, her shoulder pressed against his side, and the subtle rise and fall of her breath beside him, there was no doubt in his mind – he would never enjoy a night at the symphony more than he would tonight.

Part Two: The Music Festival

Ethan had only taken a total of twelve steps into the Boston Calling festival before he began to question every life choice that had led him to this moment. Obviously, music festivals were not for him. In fact, he hadn’t been to one since his Hopkins days, and he didn’t like it then. Adding a decade or so to his life had only made the experience less tolerable.

It was surreal. While he was the face of misery, everyone else seemed to be brimming with life. The crowd was pure electric – swaying to the sound of the bass from a distant stage. Teens – at least they looked like teens to him - with glitter-painted faces pushed through clusters of hipsters in retro clothes while a frat-boy nearby was perilously balancing a can of White Claw on his head. Ethan started to calculate how many of these morons would end up in the emergency room later that night in his head.

“I feel like I’m in a parallel universe,” he muttered, rubbing his temples. Could a headache be setting in already?

Kaycee rolled her eyes. She was too busy pulling him forward to respond; she was a woman on a mission, and he watched her intently - her denim shorts clinging to her hips, and a crop top knotted just above her waist that left little to the imagination. Well, at least there were some bright spots, he thought.

“You’ll survive,” she finally said, beaming like a child at a carnival. “Now, hurry up, old man! Noah Kahan goes on in fifteen minutes, and I need a good spot.”

“Noah who?” he asked blankly.

“Oh my god, Ethan!” She clutched her chest in mock horror. “You know Stick Season? I only play it in your car all the time!”

“Sorry,” he said, not seeming the least bit sorry. “I was probably tuning it out and replaying medical podcasts in my mind.”

“God,” Kaycee laughed, looping her arm with his. “You’re so lucky you’re hot.”

Eventually, they found a spot near the center lawn, and Kaycee determined this would be their home. Barefoot people were swaying beside them, and the late May sun was casting golden streaks through the smoky haze.

Kaycee handed him a beer... watered down and dreadfully overpriced, but it beat the berry-flavored hard cider she was swilling. Ethan drank it with a resigned nod, scanning the crowd like he was assessing a public health threat...because if he was being honest, that's precisely what he was doing.

“You’re just pissed off because there's no assigned seating,” Kaycee teased.

“I’m a man who appreciates order,” he replied. “And this is… chaos.”

But then Noah took the stage, and Kaycee transformed before his eyes. She danced like no one was watching, singing every lyric at the top of her lungs. She tossed her hair back, eyes closed, arms in the air without a care in the world. It was the kind of joy that couldn’t be faked – a kind of joy he hadn't experienced in longer than he cared to admit - and Ethan simply couldn’t look away.

He stepped forward wordlessly and slipped his arms around her waist from behind, pulling her close against him. She leaned back with a gentle hum, her hands resting over his.

“Mmmh. I like this.” She said, then looked over her shoulder with a smile. “Are you good, baby?”

“I am now,” he whispered into her ear. “I’m not sure if you’re keeping me young or rushing me to an early grave, MacClennan. But I love seeing you this happy.”

She froze in place, surprised by the sincerity in his voice. Then she turned to him and wrapped hers around his neck.

“Kiss me,” she demanded, but he didn’t have a chance to reply before her lips were on his. She kissed him with abandon right there in the middle of all the chaos he abhorred. But for once, he didn’t mind it – he didn’t mind it one bit.

She gazed into his eyes when she pulled away. “Thank you for being here with me. I know this isn’t exactly your thing.”

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong,” he smiled. “Being with you – wherever it is – is exactly my kind of thing.”

24 notes · View notes

kingliam2019 · 3 days ago

Text

High School Sweethearts Part 6

Summary: Liam is in a miserable arranged marriage to his childhood friend what happens when he meets his first love from high school and Liam finds it hard to resist her?

Liam renters the coffee shop and sits down sighing “Sorry about that”

“It’s no problem that girl seems crazy”

“Not gonna disagree with you there”

“Why is she always following you around?”

Liam sighs “It’s long story”

“Well you can tell me it after we get our pizza”

Liam chuckles “Of course let’s go and bring the cronuts”

Alex giggles as she grabs the bag and they head out the door. They arrive at the pizza place and order 2 slices before sitting down

“So spill what’s the story between you and her?”

Liam sighs setting down his pizza “Well I grew up with her she was always nice to me and we played a lot together but…” He pauses “I don’t know what happened as we grew up she started clinging to me more and more she started being cruel to all our friends”

“Did you know what happened?”

Liam shakes his head “No maybe it was her parents who taught that to her but all of a sudden she refused to have any contact with anyone who was according to her “Beneath her” it was weird”

“Sounds weird did she get possessed by an evil demon who only loved you”

Liam chuckles “Don’t think that’s possible” He sighs “I’ve only loved her as a friend told her that so many times”

“And she’s taking no for an answer wow she’s gone nuts”

“I agree she has been crazy shes not my type”

Alex smiles “So what is your type?”

Liam smiles “A kind fun woman I care more about the heart than appearances but beauty is a bonus and when it comes to love I’m hoping to find that spark”

Alex smiles “Well I hope you find it everyone will find their perfect foil eventually”

Liam smiles “I know and I hope you find yours as well”

Alex smiles as they continue to eat their pizza

****

Liam returns to his dorm room with a smile on his face Drake spots him “Hey man how was the pizza shop”

“Good hold on a minute” Liam pulls out his phone and dials Leo

“Liam bro we’re going to surf the most amazing waves!”

Liam chuckles “I’m glad you are”

“So what’s up how’s the school”

“It’s fine actually I met Alex”

Leo grins “Oh Alex! I’ve missed her with her pranks”

Liam laughs “She’s as wild as you”

Leo scoffs “Please I’m wilder than her”

Liam chuckles “You didn’t mention her though”

Leo sighs “Yeah it was hard after she moved further away but we still video chatted as often as we could but I’m glad you met her she’s amazing”

“She is I know”

“Oh! You can invite her on our annual trip when you guys are out on vacation”

Liam smiles “That sounds awesome I’ll be sure to tell her”

“By the way Drake told me about what happened at the party you guys went to”

Liam sighs “Yeah Isabella acted crazy again”

“I don’t understand what’s with her obsession with you I’ve told her so many times to leave you alone but she doesn’t listen”

Drake sits next to Liam “Leo man I think it’s the crown she wants to be queen that badly”

“Probably there’s no reason why she keeps on trying when you keep telling her no”

“Wouldn’t put it pass her” Drake puts a hand on Liam’s shoulder “Be careful man”

“I will”

****

Isabella paces around her room angrily “Why is Liam talking to me like that he’s never is it that girl?” She clenches her fists “I won’t let anyone get in my way of marrying Liam he loves me I know he does”

Tags: @choicesgodfanatic @indiacater @princess-geek @iaminlovewithtrr @gkittylove99 @twinkleallnight @busywoman @whenyourheartskipsabeat @tessa-liam

4 notes · View notes

kingliam2019 · 3 days ago

Text

Love In Every Heartbeat – Chapter 170 – Shadows of Trust Broken

*warning* ⚠️ mention of possible character death and childhood cancer.

The room is thick with the barely-contained energy of grief and fear. Raf moves quietly to the window, running a shaking hand through his hair, doing his best to hold himself together. The late afternoon sun filters in, painting golden stripes over Pippa’s still form, illuminating the fragility of her tiny hands.

Casey’s voice cracks as she speaks again, forcing herself to keep steady for Pippa’s sake. “They said it’s Immune Effector Cell-Associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome. ICANS. The swelling in her brain—it’s not responding to the steroids.” She clutches the back of a chair, knuckles white. “They’re preparing us for the worst.”

Ethan draws a long, unsteady breath, fighting the urge to crumble. “Sometimes people recover. Sometimes the swelling goes down, Case.” His gaze is steady but gentle, and he kneels in front of her, taking her cold hands in his. “Tell me exactly what else they said. What are the options?”

Casey tries to steady her voice, but it comes out in a whisper. “They said… if she doesn’t respond in the next twenty-four hours, there’s nothing left. They’re already talking about… about comfort care.” Her breath hitches, but she refuses to let herself fall apart. Not yet.

Raf’s voice comes from the window, soft but resolute, “We’re not giving up. Not while she’s still fighting.”

Ethan nods, looking between them—his family, fractured but still clinging to hope. He pulls up a chair beside Pippa’s bed and gently strokes her bandaged head, smoothing the scarf with trembling fingers. “We’re here, Pip. We love you. We’re not leaving.”

The hum of the ventilator, the beeping of the monitors—all the sterile music of the hospital room—fills the silence as the three of them gather around their daughter. In those quiet minutes, trust and faith are as fragile as Pippa herself, but neither is wholly broken. Not yet.

Casey whimpers, “I can’t do it. I can’t let her go.”

The admission hangs in the hush, raw and piercing, the words falling like glass on tile. Raf’s breath catches at the window. He’s run out of reassurances, out of the brave things to say; he only turns, eyes shining, and crosses the room to stand beside her.

Ethan squeezes Casey’s hands, grounding her as her shoulders shake. “You don’t have to,” he murmurs, voice fierce with love and sorrow. “None of us are letting go. Not as long as she’s here, Case. We hold her together.”

Casey crumples into Ethan’s embrace, her tears silent but unstoppable, her grip desperate on his shirt. Raf stands at Pippa’s bedside now too, tracing the faintest half-moon on her palm with his thumb, gentle as a prayer.

Outside, the sun slips lower. Inside, hope flickers—a stubborn, trembling flame against the coming dark.

When she has cried her tears dry, Casey sits down, spine bowed as if beneath a tremendous weight. “I thought…” Her voice splinters, the words jagged. She lets out an anguished sob, hands twisting together in her lap. “Why didn’t we go for the stem cell transplant? Why did I have to fight for the CAR-T Cell therapy? Have I led my own baby to her deathbed?”

The room holds its breath. Ethan looks at her, pain splintering through his gentle features, and drops to his knees again at her side. “Case, no—don’t do this to yourself,” he pleads softly. “We made the best choices we could, with what we knew. You fought for every chance she had. So did I. So did Raf.”

Raf’s hand stills on Pippa’s palm, his jaw clenched with feeling. “We followed hope,” he says, barely above a whisper. “That’s all anyone can do.”

Casey shakes her head, tears gathering again, her voice ragged. “But what if hope wasn’t enough? What if—” She can’t finish, the grief too big for words. Ethan wraps his arms around her, anchoring her in a world that feels as if it might tilt apart.

For a moment, there is only the sound of machines, breathing for the little girl in the bed. Then, as the last light wanes outside, Ethan presses his forehead to Casey’s temple and murmurs, “She’s not alone. You made sure of that, every step.”

Casey presses her fist to her mouth, searching for the smallest sliver of comfort. Raf brushes a tear from her cheek with callused fingers. “We’re still here,” he says quietly. “And so is she. That matters.”

The room, flooded with sorrow, is also steadfast with love—fragile, battered, but enduring, as outside the darkness settles at the pane and the vigil gently holds against it.

Casey collapses at Pippa’s bedside, her hand tenderly stroking her daughter’s bare scalp, the headscarf soft underneath her fingers. “Please baby, prove them wrong. Hold on. Please.”

Ethan, suddenly aware of the intimacy threaded through his gesture, pulls back just slightly, heart skipping with a sharp jolt of self-consciousness. For a split second, he pictures another world—one not so marbled with grief—where Raf might've thrown a wry punch to his shoulder, a wordless warning not to overstep. But here, now, those old boundaries are paper-thin, scoured away by sorrow.

Ethan glances at Raf, expecting maybe a flash of something—hurt, jealousy, that familiar spark of protectiveness.

Instead, he finds only exhaustion, a hollow ache in Raf’s eyes that says he’s somewhere else entirely, stranded in a place where fear and love have blurred into one relentless ache. The news has battered them all, but Raf most of all seems suspended on the edge, barely tethered.

In the hush, it’s clear: there’s no room left for old rivalries or the petty negotiations of friendship. There’s only what holds, and what’s left to lose. Ethan draws in a shaky breath, his hand finding Casey’s and squeezing, only gentleness in the gesture—a promise that whatever happens, none of them is truly alone. The quiet stretches, a frail but unbroken thread among the three of them, as night presses close against the window and hope, battered and trembling, huddles in their arms.

Casey’s phone pings again as she turns it on, three more texts from Sophia, each becoming more and more desperate for a chance to explain herself. The insistent glow on the screen carves a small, unwelcome brightness in the dim, vigil-heavy hush. She hesitates, her thumb hovering, torn between the sanctuary she’s found in this room—among threads of sorrow and love—and the tangled, unfinished business waiting beyond its walls.

She reads the messages half-heartedly, Sophia’s words tripping over themselves in their rush: I’m so sorry, Casey. Please, just let me talk to you. I didn’t know. Please.

Casey’s chest tightens, a fresh ache blooming beneath the ones already crowding her heart. She wants to ignore it, to stay folded in the fragile cocoon of this bedside vigil, but the world outside keeps clamouring, refusing to wait for grief to finish its work.

Looking at the clock, Casey is shocked to see it’s already five o’clock. “Pippa needs her tubal feed,” she chokes.

Casey turns to Ethan, “Did the nurses give her the tubal feed when she was downstairs having the scans?”

Ethan blinks, mind scrambling through the blur of the last few hours. “I—I’m not sure,” he admits, guilt souring his voice. He looks at Raf for confirmation, but Raf only shakes his head, shoulders slumped, as if the question itself is too heavy to carry.

A hush falls again, tension prickling at the edges. Casey stands, fumbling for composure, and presses the call button. The sterile quiet of the corridor seeps in as she waits, torn between panic and the numb rhythm of routine. Her hand returns to Pippa’s, grounding herself in the slow, steady rise and fall of her daughter’s breath.

When the nurse appears, Casey’s question is brittle with urgency: “Was Pippa given her feed? She was supposed to have it at five.” The nurse checks her chart, flickering through digital records, then nods gently, “Yes, she had her feed just before the scans. Everything’s on schedule.”

Relief, thin and trembling, rushes through Casey, mingling with the ache of everything she cannot control. She lets out a shaky breath, glancing at Ethan and Raf, grateful yet again for the small mercies that tether them to hope—fragile, battered, but still holding.

Casey rises, a little steadier now, and slips out of the room with the softest click of the door, leaving Ethan and Raf in the dim glow. She heads down the corridor, footsteps echoing in the sterile hush, toward the nutrition fridge where the Pediasure Strawberry formula waits—Pippa’s lifeline, the only thing giving her any real sustenance for over a year.

Once, not so long ago, Pippa’s world was broader: tubal feeds, yes, but also shy mouthfuls of mashed potato, a slippery spoonful of soup, the wobbly delight of a jello pot. Even as cancer threaded itself through her childhood, even as the treatments battered her body, there were still days when she could manage a taste, a swallow, a triumph measured in teaspoons.

Back when she was just eighteen months old, they’d started with a nasogastric tube, threading it gently to help her gain weight. For years, Pippa endured with a child’s stubborn bravery, eating when she could, the tube helping whenever her little body couldn’t keep up. But last year, when she was four, everything changed—her digestive system grew too fragile, each treatment another blow, until eating by mouth was an impossibility more often than not.

Now, her nasogastric tube is a memory, replaced by the pale line that disappears beneath her hospital gown—her Hickman line—which delivers the sweet, faintly synthetic strawberry formula straight to her heart. It’s routine now: the crinkle of the formula carton, the measured flush of the line, the slow, silent hope that each calorie is another thread tying Pippa to the world.

Casey reaches for the three bottles in the fridge, their condensation beading against her palm. Pippa now needs 500ml of formula four times a day—two litres in total—to give her the 2000 calories required, which is only just keeping her at a weight of twenty-five pounds, another stark consequence of her illness. It never feels like enough.

The numbers are simple, unforgiving: the calories, the millilitres, the scale’s stubborn refusal to budge. Casey lines the bottles up on the tray, eyes tracing the pale pink liquid inside, each bottle a small, vital promise.

She remembers when Pippa was heavier—when her cheeks were rounder, her wrists less delicate. The memory presses in, but there’s no room for nostalgia here, not in the hum of the fridge, the low light, the measured rituals that have come to define survival. Each feed is a negotiation, a hope that maybe tomorrow will bring a little more strength, a little less fragility. Casey steadies herself and carries the tray back, heart beating with the same old ache, fiercely protective, fiercely afraid.

A healthy girl of Pippa’s age should weigh from thirty-three to fifty-two pounds, which means she is eight pounds underweight. Over half a stone. The gap between where she is and where she ought to be is not just a statistic on a chart—it is a silent, gnawing presence in every decision Casey makes. Each gram gained or lost feels monumental, a verdict on their efforts, a measure of all that this illness has taken.

Sometimes, in the quiet hours before dawn when the monitors tick and the ward is shrouded in blue shadow, Casey allows herself to imagine Pippa running, arms thrown wide, cheeks flushed and full. She lets that image hover for a moment—before the reality of the numbers reasserts itself, demanding vigilance, demanding hope in the face of exhaustion.

Tonight, as Casey returns to the dim room, tray trembling slightly in her hands, she knows that every drop of formula counts. Each feed is a lifeline, a protest against the shrinking space Pippa occupies in the world, a promise that they will not let her slip away quietly, not without a fight that is measured in millilitres, in calories, in fiercely guarded love.

She enters quietly, the tray steady in her hands, and finds Ethan still at Pippa’s side, his gloved hands deft and calm as he flushes the Hickman line, the gentle click and hiss of the syringe barely audible in the hush. Casey places the bottles on the side table with care, relief flickering across her face.

“Thank you, Ethan,” she murmurs, the gratitude real, edged with the exhaustion that never truly leaves. He nods, eyes kind but focused, watching for the telltale signs that all is well.

Casey turns her attention to Raf, who’s perched awkwardly on the visitors’ chair, his leg propped on a pillow, a grimace tightening the corners of his mouth. “Have you taken your painkillers?” she asks, voice soft but insistent.

He shakes his head, shifting uncomfortably. “Lost track of time,” he admits, the words clipped—more from pain than defiance. The swelling at his ankle is angry and vivid, an ugly halo around the bandaged joint. Two Tramadol tablets every four hours: the prescription echoes in Casey’s mind, a rhythm almost as relentless as the alarms and routines that structure their days. Weekly physical therapy sessions have become his new normal, each one a slow, grinding battle to restore the torn Peroneal tendon that keeps him tethered to pain.

Casey’s own reserves are thinning, the weight of her body’s rebellion pressing against her nerves. The kind nurse from the night shift had slipped her a measured dose of Morphine for the endometriosis pain—a rare mercy, a whispered promise of relief. The little white cup sits in her pocket, a lifeline she clings to in secret, careful not to let the need show in her face.

She presses two Tramadol into Raf’s palm, her own hands trembling as she does. “You need to stay on top of it,” she reminds him, the warning not unkind.

He swallows the pills dry, gratitude hidden behind a wince.

Ethan finishes with Pippa’s line and glances at Casey, wordlessly offering her a moment of solidarity before he disposes of the syringe, his presence steadying the fragile balance in the room.

Casey slips into the adjacent chair, feeling the Morphine’s promise in her pocket—a silent pact between her and her pain, between her and the battle they are all fighting in their separate, intersecting ways. Around them, machines murmur and shadows stretch, but for now, amid the measured rituals of medicine and care, there is a fragile truce: a moment to breathe, to regroup, to remember that they are still here, together, holding the line.

Reaching for a bottle of water in the canvas bag, Casey’s fingers brush against the box of tiny square Pink Lemonade Water Drop cubes—or “pink juice,” as Pippa calls it—nestled among the scattered detritus of snacks, receipts, and half-remembered comforts. The touch of the bright cardboard feels almost incongruous, an echo of summer picnics and easy laughter, worlds away from the antiseptic hush of this night.

She hesitates, thumb tracing the edge of the box, remembering the way Pippa’s face lights up at the sight of a single cube dissolved in water, the colour blooming like hope in the hospital beaker. But tonight, Casey isn’t searching for sweetness. Her hand closes instead around the small bottle of Morphine pills, the plastic cool and familiar, a secret she both craves and resents.

With a quiet exhale, she tucks the pink cubes back into the bag, her mind cataloguing needs and wants—hers, Pippa’s, Raf’s—each as sharp and insistent as the pain that nips at her own edges. She unscrews the cap of the water bottle, the liquid sloshing quietly, and weighs the pill in her palm. Above the hum of machinery and the steady, vigilant presence of Ethan, she allows herself a brief, private moment: a wish for gentler days, for lemonade afternoons, for a respite that doesn’t come in measured doses or clinical cups.

She takes the pill as the water, faintly sweet from a lingering trace of pink juice, washes it down. For a heartbeat, relief is not just a possibility, but a promise. And in that pause, with the taste of summer on her tongue, Casey gathers herself—ready to step back into the ring.

The fragile peace is a thin veil—already, guilt seeps through its seams. Casey’s thoughts spiral back to that first, stumbling phone call, her voice shaking as she’d reached for Ethan and Tobias in the dark. She can see herself as if from a distance: the tremor in her fingers, the panic blooming across her chest. What if she had said the word then—ICANS—had dared to utter the acronym she’d only half-understood, the warning she’d filed away alongside other medical terrors? Would it have changed anything? Could it have bought Pippa time, bought them all a sliver of hope?

She turns, the question heavy on her tongue, and looks from Raf—pale, jaw tight—to Ethan, whose steady hands now rest quietly against his knees. The overhead lights glaze his features in soft halos, and she wonders, for a heartbeat, if he already knows the shape of her fear.

“Is this my fault?” Her voice is barely a whisper, but the words hang in the sterile air, trembling with all the weight she can’t set down. “Could I have prevented this by mentioning ICANS in that first phone call?”

Silence answers first—a long, taut silence. Raf’s eyes flicker, his gaze tunnelling toward the floor as if the linoleum tiles might yield a mercy the world refuses. Ethan’s posture doesn’t shift, but something in the set of his shoulders softens, as though he’s bending beneath the question’s weight and sheltering it from the worst of the sterile overhead light.

For a moment, Casey’s words seem to echo, ricocheting against monitors and IV poles, the air thickening with the tension of unspoken blame. Then Ethan speaks, his voice just above a hush but carrying, somehow, the quiet authority of someone who has stood in the path of far too much grief.

“There’s no map for this, Casey. None of us could’ve known,” he says, the syllables steady as medication measured into a cup. “Even if you’d said it—ICANS, or anything else—it might not have changed the course. These things…they slip through cracks no one sees until after.”

Raf draws a shaky breath, his own voice brittle but sincere. “You did what anyone would do. You kept reaching out. That’s all we can ask of each other.”

Casey nods once, her jaw clenched against a rising tide of regret. The machines keep up their slow, relentless rhythms; Pippa’s shadow stirs behind the curtain, a small hand stretching toward the faint chime of hope.

And as the night spills itself quietly down the hospital corridor, Casey lets herself believe—just for a moment—that forgiveness is possible, even here, beneath the fluorescent hush, among those who know the true shape of her fear.

After Ethan leaves, the hush left in his wake is sharper than silence—a thin, raw edge along the seams of the room. Raf stands, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand, as if trying to press back the exhaustion and the ache that thrum side by side beneath his skin. The rhythmic beeping of monitors fills the space where words might otherwise have lived.

Casey turns to him, her voice threaded with fragility. “I understand if you blame me. Because I blame myself too.”

The confession hangs between them, fragile as spun glass, threatening to shatter with the slightest touch.

Raf lowers his hand and looks at her, the lines of worry deepening around his eyes. For a long moment, he says nothing. The quiet stretches, a slow tally of all the days and nights that have led to this one. When he finally speaks, his words emerge low, uncertain, as though he’s searching for their shape.

“If I could blame you, maybe it would be simpler,” Raf murmurs, his gaze drifting to the dim outline of Pippa’s form behind the curtain. “But I don’t. Not really. We were both lost—just trying to find the right words, the right moment. Hoping someone else would know what to do.”

He swallows, his shoulders slumping under the invisible weight they both carry. “I hate that we’re here. I hate that we didn’t see it coming. I hate how powerless I feel. But none of this is on you, Casey. Or on me. It’s just…” His voice trails off, emotion thickening in his throat. “It’s just what happened.”

Casey’s breath hitches, relief and grief twining together in her chest. She studies Raf’s profile, the way his jaw clenches and unclenches, the haunted light in his eyes. She wants to touch his hand, to bridge the space between them, but instead she lets the silence settle, uncertain and soft.

For a while, neither of them speaks. Raf’s hands drop limply to his lap, the blue glow from the monitor screens painting shadows beneath his eyes. Casey glances at him, seeking, and then gives in to the urge to lean over, brushing a stray curl from Pippa’s forehead.

She can’t dwell too long on guilt or on grief—not when the small body on the bed needs her hope. Looking at Pippa as her chest rises and falls with help from the mechanical ventilator, Casey turns her full attention back to their little girl. “Why don’t we put your favourite songs on, baby?” she whispers, her tone soft but intent, as if music could be a balm for all three of them.

Shifting to the edge of the armchair, Casey unlocks her phone, scrolling with trembling fingers through the playlists she’s curated over the years: soundtracks for dance parties in the kitchen and sleepy car rides home, for giggles and for tears. She finds Pippa’s playlist with its bright cover art—a collage of hearts, doodles, and pop stars. Enrique Iglesias features heavily on the list, of course, with his warm voice and lingering melodies. Ellie Goulding and Beyoncé follow, voices like beams of light; Rachel Platten and Britney Spears round out the mix—Casey’s own favourite from her teenage years, the early 2000s echoing back.

She hesitates for just a second, then taps on “Somebody’s Me,” one of Enrique’s songs from his Insomniac album—the one released in 2007. The intro drifts through the room, sweet and melancholic, and Casey is transported for a heartbeat to that summer when she was fourteen and everything seemed enormous and possible.

Now, the music feels like a bridge—spanning years, sorrows, and the too-bright sterility of this hospital. Casey watches as Pippa, even in sleep, seems to breathe a little easier, her tiny fingers curling in the bedsheets, soothed by familiar rhythms. Raf glances up, offering a watery half-smile, and for the first time all night, Casey lets herself believe that love—woven through nostalgia, songs, and fragile hope—might be enough, if only for this moment.

Her choice even brings a smile to Raf’s lips. “Why am I not surprised you put that song on?”

Casey smiles despite her heartache. “I can’t help it if it’s one of Pippa’s favourite songs.”

She looks at him for a moment and sees the man she loves looking back at her, if only for a second, the shadows in his eyes lifting.

Casey lets the music fill the room, the familiar chorus rising and falling like a promise. For a fleeting instant, memory and hope seem to tangle together, softening the sharp edges of the present. The rhythm of the song weaves through the silence, carrying with it reminders of laughter, of sunlit afternoons, of the life they’re fighting so hard to protect.

Raf clears his throat, voice husky. “She’ll wake up with that song in her head, you know.” He tries for levity, but his fingers curl around the edge of the chair, holding on as if the music is the only thing keeping him afloat.

“Maybe that’s what she needs,” Casey replies, her own voice trembling. “Something to find her way back to us.”

They sit in the tender hush, letting the song play on, each note a thread stitching them together—grief and love, fear and faith, the small and stubborn hope that somehow, they’ll find their way through.

As the last notes of Enrique’s ballad fade, the shimmering chords of “Halo” by Beyoncé bloom gently from the speaker. The room seems to brighten, every corner softened by cascading harmonies and hope-laced lyrics. Casey closes her eyes, letting the music wash over her, feeling the way, the song’s opening lines always make the world seem a little less heavy.

Then her phone vibrates in her palm—a soft ping that breaks the spell, but only just. She glances down and, even before reading the screen, she knows. It’s Sophia. The certainty settles in her chest, a blend of relief and apprehension, as if Sophia’s words might tip the delicate balance of this moment.

Casey hesitates, thumb hovering over the notification, unwilling to break the fragile peace that Beyoncé’s voice is spinning in the space between heartbeats. The blue glow of her phone reflects in Raf’s eyes as he watches her, silent but attentive, sensing the shift.

She draws in a breath and finally unlocks the screen, bracing herself for whatever Sophia has sent, clinging to the thread of music that still connects them all—to Pippa, to memory, to each other. In the glow of the hospital room, while “Halo” soars, Casey opens the message, feeling the pulse of her small, stubborn hope echo in every chord.

Casey looks at her sister’s text pleading for a chance to explain how the photo of Pippa ended up on every newsstand in the country, her daughter at her most vulnerable, barely clinging to life. For a moment, the words blur, sharp with guilt and desperation. Sophia’s message is frantic—apologies tumbling over themselves, promises that she never meant for this to happen. She claims it was a mistake, that someone must have taken her phone or intercepted the image, that she would never, ever betray them.

Casey’s hands tighten around her phone. The world outside the hospital walls feels impossibly loud, hungry for tragedy, but inside, beneath the hush of monitors and Beyoncé’s gentle refrain, there is only the ache of betrayal.

She wants to believe her sister. She wants to believe that the picture was an accident, that this is just another awful twist of fate, not an act of carelessness or weakness.

She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she lets the phone rest in her lap, feeling the weight of the moment press down. Raf’s hand finds hers, silent reassurance. The music swells, the room warm with hope and heartache, and somewhere in that tangled space between anger and forgiveness, Casey gathers herself—knowing the next words she sends will matter, knowing there are no easy ways forward, but unwilling to let go of the slender thread of trust just yet.

A second message appears almost instantly: Please let me explain. Is it possible for us to FaceTime?

The words hang there, glowing urgently on the screen, as if Sophia herself is reaching through the digital silence, desperate for a sliver of connection. For a heartbeat, Casey’s thumb hovers again, the memory of better times—a kitchen full of laughter, a thousand small assurances—flickering beneath her ribs.

She feels Raf’s hand tighten just slightly, anchoring her. The hospital, the song, the fragile hush—they all narrow to this moment, this choice: to let Sophia’s voice in, to risk hope or brace for disappointment. Outside, the world is relentless, impatient for reactions and headlines, but here is a pause, a question, and a sister’s plea.

Casey inhales, slow and trembling, and taps out a single reply: Okay. Give me a minute.

She sets the phone beside her, letting the weight of the next conversation settle in her bones. Beyoncé’s voice lingers, luminous and forgiving, as if to remind her—sometimes, even in the hardest moments, you choose to listen.

The phone vibrates insistently against the pale blue blanket, Sophia’s name bright against the dark screen. The melody of the ringtone is jarring—too cheerful for the gravity of the moment—but Casey’s pulse matches its rhythm, anxious and uneven. She glances at Raf, searching his face for steadiness, for the certainty she can’t seem to find within herself.

“Will you stay with me?” she whispers, her words barely disturbing the quiet.

Raf’s answer is immediate, gentle. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She threads her trembling fingers through his, the contact grounding her as the screen pulses once more. “I can’t face her alone,” Casey admits, her voice fracturing on the truth she’s tried to swallow. “Especially if she confesses that she sold the photo.”

Raf squeezes her hand, the pressure a silent vow. “Whatever happens, we’ll get through it together.”

Taking a breath that tastes of antiseptic and hope, Casey slides her thumb across the screen, accepting the call. Sophia’s image appears—drawn, anxious, eyes rimmed red from tears or sleeplessness. For a heartbeat, neither can speak. The room is filled only with the distant drip of the IV, the hum of machines, and the faint echo of Beyoncé’s voice, a fragile benediction in the hush.

Casey’s heart pounds as she lifts the phone, Raf’s hand still clasped in hers. “I’m here,” she says, voice low and raw, the words a bridge suspended over heartbreak.

Sophia’s mouth trembles as she starts to speak, the truth—whatever it is—waiting to tumble out. And in this quiet, heavy moment, Casey braces herself, not just for answers, but for the bond between sisters to be tested, and perhaps, in time, repaired.

Casey swallows a lump. “Ok. You wanted to explain how it happened, so explain.” Her voice is a trembling blade, honed sharp by grief. She looks at Raf, needing his silent steadiness, before turning her gaze back to the screen, to her sister’s haunted face. “How did our baby’s most vulnerable moment become a cheap headline for the world to gawp at? Why did you betray me so cruelly? Was it for money? Or a headline to get attention?”

Sophia’s eyes widen, shimmering with another wave of tears. Her lips part, searching for sound, but the words gather in her throat—ash and apology. Casey presses on, unable to stop herself now that the hurt has breached its dam. “Was it worth it? Was it? Because I look at Pippa—” She glances down, her hand trembling as she brushes a thumb over her daughter’s soft cheek. “My precious girl, and I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t protect her, even from someone who should have loved her as fiercely as I do.”

The silence between the sisters is aching, heavy with all the years before this day—years when Sophia had held Pippa, sung her to sleep, whispered promises of forever like Casey did. Years when trust was an unspoken thread woven through every shared secret, every late-night comfort, every small, mundane joy.

Sophia’s voice is a fragile, splintered thing when it finally emerges. “Casey, I—I never meant for it to happen. I never meant for her to be hurt, or you. I swear, I—” She wipes her eyes, blinking hard, desperate to be understood. “I was desperate. I thought maybe if I could just make things easier for all of us… I thought—no, I wasn’t thinking. I was just… lost.”

Casey lets the words settle, feeling the rawness in her own voice echo in her chest. Raf squeezes her hand, a tether, a lifeline. “You were lost, so you lost us,” Casey whispers, her anger and sorrow curling together. “You lost yourself. But you don’t get to hide behind being lost. Not when it’s Pippa’s face on every screen.”

On the other end of the line, Sophia collapses into quiet sobs, her remorse as visible as the blue-lit hollows beneath her eyes. It’s not enough, not yet, but for the first time, Casey lets herself believe that maybe, if the truth keeps spilling, they might find a way to begin again—if not to forgive, then at least to reckon, together, with the wreckage.

Something in Sophia’s posture buckles, as if the words have struck her physically. She clutches the phone closer, knuckles white, her sobs jagged and unguarded. “Casey, please—I know I can’t undo it. I know it will never be enough. But I love you. I love them. I—I never wanted to be someone you had to protect them from.”

Casey’s jaw is set, her shoulders rigid, every muscle taut from holding back tears that threaten to spill. Raf traces soft circles on the back of her hand, a silent anchor in the storm. “It’s not about what you wanted, Sophia. It’s about what happened. You don’t get to decide the consequences, not anymore.”

A sharp inhale rattles through Sophia. “I’m so sorry. I will do anything—anything—to make it right. Just don’t shut me out. Don’t take them from me. Don’t take you from me.”

Casey’s voice is a quiet, broken thing, the edges frayed by grief. “This isn’t punishment, Sophia. It’s protection. My first job is to keep my daughters safe, even if it means breaking my own heart.”

The line hums with the ache of things lost and the distant, flickering hope that one day, forgiveness might be possible. But for now, there is only silence, and the knowledge that love—no matter how fierce—sometimes means letting go.

In the hush that follows, Sophia sits in her opulent living room, the walls gleaming, every pillow and painting curated to perfection. The mellow afternoon light dances across the marble and gold of her Astoria rug, catching on canvases imported from places she has only half-remembered—each one a testament to a life constructed, not lived. Her gaze drifts to the blank spaces where laughter should echo, the corners too pristine to know the tumble of toys, the fridge unburdened by the exuberant chaos of children’s art.

For the first time, her home feels hollow, a beautiful stage with no true story unfolding. She aches for the messier world she imagines in Casey’s house: artwork made of sticky fingers and wild colours, a chorus of giggles, the warm, ordinary weight of a dog curled at her feet. All her treasures—so carefully chosen—suddenly seem to mock her solitude.

A question needles at her heart. Was this endless striving, this silent rivalry, all because she wanted what her sister had? Did the ache for belonging twist itself into sabotage, so deep she barely recognized it? Her longing is a bitter thing, sharp and cold in the gilded quiet. For all her desperate manoeuvres, she has only distanced herself further from the simple love she craves.

Sophia draws her knees to her chest, the silk of her dress no comfort against the ache. Amid the grandeur, she feels impossibly small, wishing for a different kind of beauty—a life painted in smudged fingerprints, in love loud enough to fill every silent room.

She looks back at Casey, who sits silent but unyielding, waiting for her to speak. Sophia’s voice is barely above a whisper, brittle as spun glass. “I don’t know what to say to make things right. I don’t know how to make it right.”

Casey’s eyes are steady, unsparing. “You can’t,” she says bluntly, the words falling with the finality of a door closing. “You took away my daughter’s right to privacy and safety when she was at her most vulnerable. An aunt is supposed to protect her niece, not allow vultures to gossip about her.”

Sophia flinches as if struck, her hands twisting in her lap. The grandeur of her surroundings feels suddenly obscene—a hollow fortress unable to shield her from the consequences of her own mistakes. Her apology, already fragile, falters on her lips. There are no words that can rewind time, no gesture grand enough to erase the damage.

Casey’s face is drawn, shadowed by a grief that has grown roots. Her voice is softer now, but no less resolute. “I can’t trust you with her, Sophia. Not now. Maybe not ever. Love isn’t enough—not if it can’t keep her safe.”

Sophia’s tears return, silent and heavy, tracing lines through her careful composure. She wants to reach out, to beg for forgiveness, but the distance between them has become a chasm, too wide and raw to cross. All she can do is sit in the emptiness she has made, the ache blooming in her chest as she realizes, perhaps for the first time, that love, once fractured, may never be whole again.

Sophia begs Casey for forgiveness, assuring her that she will never cause her pain again. She promises to surrender the money for Pippa’s treatment or future requirements, emphasising that her actions were an error.

Casey’s eyes glisten with a thousand unshed words, but her jaw is set, her silence a bulwark. She regards Sophia with something that is not quite anger, not quite relief—an exhaustion that settles between them, old as the gulf of their childhood rivalries.

Casey sighs, the sound raw and weary, as she perches beside Pippa’s small, sleeping form. One hand clutches Raf’s—steady, warm, unyielding—while the other holds her phone, trembling so violently she nearly drops it. Her voice, when she finally speaks, is thinned to its breaking point. “I’m too exhausted for this, Sophia. This isn’t like when we were fourteen and you deliberately took the boy I liked away. This is my daughter’s life. My baby.” Her words quiver, brittle with pain. “I can’t believe I thought you could change. But it turns out you’re the same as you always were, only protecting yourself. Not thinking of how it could hurt others. Destroying relationships—because that is what you did. From now on, my only sisters are Ellie and Sienna.”

Sophia’s sobs echo through the phone—hiccupping, desperate, her carefully composed face dissolving into streaks of mascara and tear-smeared foundation, the sharp salt of snot blurring her lips. “You can’t. What about Mom and Dad?” she pleads, voice ragged, hope crumbling in the silence that answers her.

On the other end, Casey closes her eyes, feeling the old ache of family fracture settle into her bones, heavier now than ever before. The silence between them is flooded with all the things neither can say, with the weight of love that has turned, finally, into something unrecognizable—a grief so deep it might never be named.

Casey swallows a lump in her throat. “Mom and Dad don’t know what you’ve done. But make no mistake, I didn’t do it for you. I did it to protect Mom’s recovery. But I promise you, when I know she is strong enough I will tell her and Dad everything about what you did. And if they want to have their granddaughters in their lives they will choose us. Me.”

The air hangs thick with finality, the words lingering like smoke in the wake of a fire. Sophia’s breath shudders, her hand pressed to her mouth as if to keep the world from spilling out. She searches for something—remorse, hope, explanation—but finds only the echo of her own ruin.

Casey watches her, eyes hollowed by sleepless nights and the weight of impossible choices. She has nothing left to give but the truth, and even that feels like a blade in her own hand.

On the screen, Sophia’s image flickers and distorts, mascara rivers crossing her cheeks, her sobs quieter now, as if distance alone might soften what’s been done. But there is no softening, no sanctuary left in memory or promise.

Both women know it: the ground has shifted beneath them, the old bonds snapped, the path ahead one of solitary resolve.

Sophia whimpers, “Can I at least come and see Pippa one more time?”

Casey’s voice is steadier than she feels as she ends the call, her thumb hovering for a moment over the glowing screen before she finally lets it go black. The silence that follows is vast, consuming—the only sound the gentle, rhythmic breathing of Pippa beside her.

Casey turns to look at Pippa, the hush of the ventilator marking each precious breath. Shadows play across her daughter’s pale face, the soft light tracing every fragile line, every promise made in the silent language between parent and child. Her hand tightens in Raf’s, needing his anchor.

She turns to him, voice barely a whisper. “I can’t do it, Raf. I can’t let her near our baby again.” The words shake loose from somewhere deep inside, the last defence in a war she never wanted to wage. “I don’t care what Sophia says, or how sorry she looks. I won’t risk Pippa’s heart for someone who’s already broken mine.”

Raf’s eyes, steady and knowing, meet hers. He doesn’t speak—doesn’t need to. In his gaze, there is the weight of all the nights he’s sat by her side, the quiet strength he’s offered when she thought she might break. He draws her hand to his lips and presses a kiss to her knuckles, a vow as old as their love and twice as enduring.

“We’re here,” he murmurs softly, “just us, Case. That’s enough.”

She nods, tears pricking her eyes not from grief, but from a bittersweet kind of relief. The choice settles inside her—not easy, never simple, but hers. For the first time in days, her breath matches Pippa’s, slow and steady, rising and falling in the pale glow of the hospital monitors. Raf wraps an arm around her shoulders and she leans in, letting the quiet close over them, a harbour from the storm outside.

Tonight, there is no room for doubt. Only the gentle pulse of hope, fragile and fierce, beating in time with her daughter’s own.

Casey turns, expecting nothing but the familiar hush of monitors and moonlit shadows, but what she sees cleaves the breath from her chest—a sight she’s witnessed a thousand times before in her mind, yet never truly here, never with this brutal clarity.

For a heartbeat, there is only disbelief—a flicker of movement where there should be stillness. Pippa’s limbs exhibit involuntary movements, and her facial expressions align with those described in medical literature that Casey reviewed at her doctors’ recommendation, reflecting symptoms discussed during late-night medical consultations. The gentle rhythm of the ventilator stutters, alarms beginning to trill, slicing through the hush with merciless urgency.

Casey doesn’t want to leave Pippa, but she knows her little girl needs help. “Raf—don’t leave her side. I need to get help.”

She doesn’t wait for Raf’s reply before running out of the room and down the hall. “Help me. My daughter is having an Epileptic seizure. She’s been in a coma for two weeks. She has ICANS and cancer. Save her. Save my baby,” Casey wails, petrified, all sense of decorum out the window.

Her voice cracks through the sterile hush of the midnight ward, a jagged cry that startles the nurses from their quiet routines. Shoes squeal on linoleum as two figures rush toward her, one with a tablet, another towing a crash cart, faces transforming instantly from fatigue to focus.

“Room 418, now!” someone barks, already moving, and Casey finds herself swept along—a tide of urgency, white coats and measured chaos. The overhead lights are cold and bright, blurring her vision; her heart hammers with every frantic step.

Back at Pippa’s bedside, Raf’s silhouette is hunched protectively over their daughter, his hand cupping Pippa’s small fingers, his voice steady as he repeats her name like a lifeline. The ventilator’s alarm shrills, a sound that claws at Casey’s chest.

The team floods in. One nurse gently but firmly steers Casey aside, murmuring, “We need space, mum. Let us work.” Casey clings to the doorframe, helpless, her body trembling as the room fills with swift, purposeful motion—oxygen, suction, a flurry of commands. A doctor kneels beside Pippa, flashlight trained on her pupils, another attaching monitors, calling out data that might as well be another language.

Another nurse steps in, her expression apologetic but firm, guiding Raf’s hand from Pippa’s and urging him back. “We’ll take care of her. Please, outside.” The quiet command leaves no room for protest. For a moment, Raf resists, gaze locking onto Pippa’s fragile form as if sheer will might anchor him by her side. But the nurse’s touch is steady, and Casey, trembling, finds him at her shoulder. Together, they are gently shepherded from the room, the door closing with a hush that feels too final.

In the corridor’s harsh fluorescent light, they cling to each other—two figures tethered by hope and helplessness as the flurry of lifesaving work continues on the other side of the wall. All they can do now is wait, breathless and raw, suspended between dread and faith.

Casey’s hands fumble at her side, blindly searching through her jacket pocket until her fingers graze the smooth edge of her phone. She drags it free, the device almost slipping in her trembling grasp. “I need to phone Ethan,” she whispers, the words brittle, meant as much for herself as for Raf, whose arm is tight around her shoulders.

Turning away from the blinding corridor lights, she presses herself against the wall, clutching her phone as if it might anchor her to this moment, to hope.

Casey clutches her phone, knuckles white, the device trembling in her grasp. Her breath shudders as she unlocks the screen—muscle memory guiding her to Ethan’s number, the only person she can think to call in this vertiginous moment. The phone rings once, twice, and she can almost feel her own heartbeat pulsing through the receiver, as if willing him to answer.

Ethan answers on the third ring, voice thick with sleep and surprise. “Casey?” The low rumble of his words is tinged with concern, the background silent save the faint rustle of sheets.

Casey’s breath catches and then breaks, a fractured sound that escapes before she can contain it. “Pippa—she’s having a seizure. Ethan, I need you. Please.” Her voice is small, unsteady, the words barely holding together as she leans harder into the wall, the cold seeping through her jacket.

There’s a sudden shift on the line—bedsprings creak, the familiar clink of a glass set hastily on the nightstand. Ethan’s tone sharpens, sleep discarded. “I’m coming. Where are you? The ward?”

“Yes. Yes, outside her room. They made us leave—” Casey’s voice falters, the image of Pippa’s fragile body on the hospital bed flashing behind her eyelids.

“I’ll be right there,” Ethan says, the words steady, a thread of reassurance winding through the panic. “Hold on, Casey. I’m coming.”

The call disconnects, but echoes linger in Casey’s palm—the promise of help, of not being alone in the sterile glare and suffocating uncertainty. She lets her arm drop, the phone dangling at her side, and turns into Raf’s embrace, letting herself be held as the world narrows to the distant sounds behind the door and the hope that, somehow, they’ll make it through the night together.

In his hotel room, Ethan’s mind is already half at the hospital as he stumbles from the tangle of sheets, the phone clutched hard in his hand. Sleep clings to his limbs, but adrenaline is already burning it away. He snaps on the bathroom light, blinking at his reflection—eyes wild, jaw set. The water is icy, a shock to his skin as he splashes it over his face, chasing away the last vestiges of dream and drowsiness. Toothbrush, toothpaste, a hasty rinse—his hands move with the practiced urgency of someone who has done this too many times, each ritual a fragile shield against the chaos waiting on the ward.

Clothes are pulled from where they fell, yesterday’s shirt shrugged on, shoes jammed onto bare feet. He finds his white coat, the fabric wrinkled but familiar, and shrugs into it, feeling the weight of its pockets, the anchor of its presence. His mind races through protocols, flashes with images of Pippa’s chart—her history of epilepsy, the shadow of ICANS, the ever-present risk that hovered like a storm at the edge of every day.

Seizures. He knew this was a possibility, lurking in the margins since the treatment began. With ICANS—Immune effector Cell-Associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome—seizures could emerge unpredictably, a clinical fog that blurred the lines between what was new and what was known. Pippa’s epilepsy complicated everything, wove uncertainty into every symptom. Was this the familiar terror of her old condition, or the unpredictable brutality of the immune system’s revolt? It was impossible to differentiate in this moment, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was getting there, being present, bringing order to the chaos.

Ethan slings his bag over his shoulder, phone in hand, and bolts from the room, heart hammering with purpose. In the hush of the predawn corridor, he is already rehearsing the steps—assessment, stabilization, a calm voice for Casey. He can do this. He will do this. For Pippa, for Casey—he is already on his way.

The corridor hums with a sterile hush, interrupted only by distant voices and the squeak of rubber soles on linoleum. Time seems to tangle, lengthening and looping back on itself, every heartbeat stretching into eternity. Raf holds her close, his own breath uneven, but steadying her with the silent promise of someone who refuses to let go.

Casey buries her face in his chest, trying to block out the fluorescent glare, the memories clamouring in her mind—Pippa’s smile, the soft weight of her hand, laughter echoing down hospital halls now haunted by fear.

The door to the ward remains closed, implacable and silent. A nurse passes by, eyes soft with practiced sympathy, but offers nothing more than a fleeting squeeze of Casey’s shoulder before vanishing around the corner. The world reduces to waiting, longing, dread.

At the hospital outside in the corridor as she waits for news on her little girl and clings to Raf, Casey’s voice cracks as she utters a desperate plea.

She clutches the cross at her neck. “Don’t take my baby. Please God, I’ll give anything. Just let her live.”

In the cab, the city slides past in ragged blurs—streetlights flickering like half-remembered prayers, the world outside suspended between shadow and the first uncertain blush of dawn. Ethan leans his head against the cool glass, the pulse in his throat beating loud enough to drown out the driver’s radio and the hush of tires on slick asphalt. His thoughts spiral: Is there a God out there, truly listening? Does heaven hover somewhere above these grey rooftops, or is it only hope, reflected in the desperation of those left behind?

He has never been one for faith, not in the way his patients’ families sometimes are—clutching hands, clutching relics, whispering bargains into the void. But tonight, with the city’s neon crosshatching his reflection and Casey’s voice echoing in his memory, faith feels less like a doctrine and more like a lifeline stretched impossibly taut. Will someone—anyone—spare Pippa tonight? Is mercy a thing that can be begged for, or is it as random as the storm of cells inside her veins?

The cab turns, headlights sweeping over the hospital’s façade—familiar, yet suddenly immense, a fortress of uncertainty. Ethan squares his shoulders, closes his eyes for a breath, and lets the questions hang unspoken in the silence. He does not know if Heaven exists, or if prayers are answered, but he knows this: tonight, he will fight as if they are, as if every heartbeat, every hurried step, is a kind of prayer in itself.

The truth is, he has come to love Pippa as if she were his own, and he knows that makes Meredith uncomfortable—the way he will drop anything, no matter how urgent or essential, to stand between Pippa and the edge. Sometimes he sees it in Meredith’s eyes, the tilt of her mouth when he says he’s staying late, the silence on the phone when he tells her that Pippa needed him. She has never accused him, not outright, but the question lingers, brittle and unresolved: How much can a heart hold before it’s stretched too thin?

He knows what she fears—that each time he rushes to Pippa’s side, a part of him is stolen from their daughters.

That the devotion he pours into saving this one fragile life might somehow eclipse the love he is supposed to safeguard for his own family. But he also knows, in the marrow of his bones, that this is not about loving less, but loving fiercely, desperately, as if the world itself demands it.

Maybe that’s what unsettles Meredith most—the possibility that he loves Pippa with an intensity she cannot decipher, that his boundaries are blurred by compassion, by duty, by the raw ache of wanting every child to have another chance. It is not a competition, he wants to tell her, not a ledger of love. But there are nights, like this one, when he can feel the weight of Meredith’s worry pressing in on him, cold and persistent, as if she is afraid he might lose himself entirely in the fight to save someone else’s child.

Perhaps it isn’t about Casey, or the tangled history they carry between them—no unresolved debts, no ghosts of old affection, no secret pull he cannot name. Maybe it is something more elemental, woven into the marrow of who Ethan has become. There are children scattered through the corridors of his memory—faces blurred by time but sharpened by loss, the lives he could not save and the ones whose laughter still rings behind his ribs. Maybe what draws him to Pippa’s bedside, what keeps him anchored through the small hours when hope flickers and falters, is not nostalgia or guilt, but the unrelenting ache to rewrite the ending just once.

It is the shape of mercy, the stubborn refusal to let the world be as cruel as he knows it can be. In those moments, Pippa is not anyone’s daughter but simply a child—fragile and luminous, the embodiment of every promise he ever made beneath the fluorescent hush of hospital wards. The struggle is not between families or the calculus of divided love, but between surrender and the impossible, luminous demand to hold on, to keep trying, no matter how thin the hope or how heavy the cost.

He wishes he could explain this to Meredith: that the heart does not run out, but is only tested by the depths of its calling. That sometimes, when darkness presses close and the world contracts to the space between a child’s heartbeat and his own, the act of caring is not a betrayal, but the purest kind of fidelity—to his calling, to the children, to the stubborn, unruly spark of hope that refuses to go out.

Finally the cab stops with a screech of tires and he hastily hands the cab driver a $20 and mutters to him to keep the change, not taking any seconds that are unnecessary whilst Pippa’s life hangs in the balance. The door swings open before the receipt can curl into the seat beside him; Ethan is already out, feet striking slick pavement, the hospital’s automatic doors glowing ahead like a threshold between dread and hope. Every step cracks open the night’s hush a little further—his pulse a frantic metronome, his thoughts narrowed to the single shimmering intention of reaching her in time.

Behind him, the cab’s taillights recede into the city’s hush, but Ethan does not look back. There is only forward now, only the sharp intake of breath and the knowledge that in some fragile, irreducible way, he is running toward the possibility of grace.

Inside the hospital, the world is all white fluorescence and restless hum, the air charged with the hush of waiting. Ethan moves through corridors that seem both familiar and foreign, each step drawing him closer to the paediatric intensive care unit, where hope is measured in minutes and the edge between despair and deliverance is razor-thin.

Outside Pippa’s room, Casey and Raf are a single, trembling silhouette in the sterile glow. Casey’s fingers are white-knuckled around the silver cross at her throat, her body folded in grief and supplication, Raf’s arm a lifeline around her shoulders. The glass of the door reflects their anguish—two souls lashed together by fear, by love, by the terrible, unspoken bargain that every parent makes the moment their child’s life hangs in the balance.

Inside Pippa’s room, the agonising five-minute seizure finally begins to ebb as the emergency medication—30ml of Midazolam—threads its way through fragile veins and brings the chaos to a trembling standstill. The air is thick with the remnants of panic: the metallic tang of adrenaline, the hush of breath held too long, the subtle shudder in the fluorescent light as if the world itself has not yet decided which way to tip.

The doctor steps outside, scrubs pale beneath the hospital’s relentless glow. Casey and Raf turn to him in unison, hope and dread braided tight in their posture. He meets their gaze, voice steady but edged with the gravity of what still hangs in the balance.

“She’s beginning to stabilise,” he says, each word measured, a lifeline thrown across the dark. “But we must monitor her for twenty-four hours. It’s critical. We will increase the steroids, and hopefully, that will help.”

Casey’s hand tightens on Raf’s, a silent prayer flickering across her features. In this corridor of half-light and anxious silence, every promise feels both enormous and fragile. The world has narrowed to this: a handful of hours, a vigil waged against uncertainty, the flicker of hope refusing to be extinguished.

Ethan draws a breath, invisible in the corridor’s hush, just as the doctor answers Casey’s trembling question. We'll do an MRI in the morning to evaluate the effects of the seizure. Because of Pippa’s previous epilepsy diagnosis, we cannot be certain if the seizure was caused by the epilepsy or by ICANS. It is too soon to say, but we are moving quickly.”

Casey’s eyes, luminous and rimmed with tears, never leave the doctor’s face. She clings to Raf’s arm—his knuckles white around the grip of his crutches—her words caught between pleading and command. “Can we see her? I want to see our daughter.”

The doctor nods, his own gaze softened by the gravity of what parents bear. “Of course. Because of her condition, you may stay with her as long as you need—day or night. We understand how important it is that she’s not alone.”

A tremor runs through Casey’s shoulders, a shivering exhale of relief and longing. Raf’s lips part, but there is nothing left to say that hasn’t already been spoken by the wrenching grip of his hand in hers. The doors to Pippa’s room slide open with a sigh, granting them passage into the charged stillness where their daughter lies, suspended between worlds.

Inside, the monitors blink steady, indifferent, the only testimony to the fragile tether that binds Pippa to the living. Casey folds herself onto the chair by the bed, fingers seeking Pippa’s small hand, while Raf settles at her side, silent guardian against the encroaching dark. The hours stretch and contract in the hush, every tick of the clock a vigil, every breath a promise that they will not leave—not tonight, not until hope returns with the dawn.

Casey strokes Pippa’s cheek, “Mama and Daddy are here my love. You scared us little one.”

Pippa’s bare head is covered in her headscarf and she is still again, too still. But the beeping of the monitor reassures Casey and Raf her heart is still beating, even though she can’t respond.

Casey brushes a loose thread from Pippa’s headscarf, the soft fabric a poor shield against the rawness beneath. The hush is punctuated only by the rhythmic sigh of machines, but inside her, anger scorches a path through the exhaustion.

Her mind circles Sophia—Sophia with perfect hair, Sophia with her glossy smile, her careless words. How dare she do that to their little girl? Pippa, who worshipped her, who gazed at the phone’s glowing screen as if the world began and ended with Sophia’s sunlit glamour. At least, Casey thinks, the shoots she allowed her to see were innocent enough. The rest—those bikini-clad, smirking photos—she’d always drawn a hard line. But the damage, it seems, had never needed anything so obvious.

She swallows, voice barely a tremor. “How are we going to explain to her that she can’t see the auntie she adores anymore?” Her words flutter in the sterile air, heavy with dread. “She’ll be crushed, absolutely crushed. And what about Mia, Felicity, Isabelle? How do we tell them the world isn’t as safe, or as simple, as it should be?”

Raf says nothing, his silence a stone in the river of her hurt. He just squeezes her hand, thumb tracing circles over her knuckles, anchoring her as she leans over Pippa’s still figure. For a moment, Casey lets herself imagine a version of the future in which forgiveness is possible, in which explanations arrive gently and hearts are mended. But tonight, that vision is distant, flickering just beyond the reach of hope.

She breathes in the scent of antiseptic and cotton, brushing a kiss over Pippa’s forehead, fierce with love and grief and the aching need to protect. “We’re here, little one,” she whispers, voice hoarse but full of promise. “That’s what matters. We’ll figure everything else out when the sun comes up.”

Raf glances at the luminous hands of his watch, their slow sweep a quiet indictment: nearly midnight. In the storm of Pippa’s seizure, the world had telescoped into the narrow orbit of panic and hope, and now, in the gentle vacuum after, reality seeps back in with its small, necessary demands.

His voice is gentle, apologetic—a thread of the ordinary woven into the night’s fraught tapestry. “We’ve forgotten our medication,” he murmurs, the words low but urgent. He looks over at Casey, the exhaustion etched in her profile. “You need to take your Linzagolix and Cerazette and… your Sertraline, too.” He manages a faint, wry smile. “I need to take mine as well.”

For a moment, it feels absurd—the ritual of pill bottles and water cups, the counting out of daily dosages—amidst the vigil at their daughter’s side. And yet, it is another act of love, another promise to endure. Casey nods, slow and heavy, searching her bag for the familiar shapes, the rattle of tablets grounding her in the moment.

Together, they take their medications in the dim, humming quiet, each swallow an anchor to the life that must continue, even here.

The world outside Pippa’s room spins heedless and vast, but within these walls, every gesture is deliberate, every moment counted and held. Raf squeezes Casey’s hand again, and they sit—parents, partners, survivors—watching over the fragile miracle between them, and waiting for the sun.

Raf looks at Casey, seeing the pain flickering behind her exhaustion. His voice softens as he leans closer. “Have you taken your morphine pills since your last dose? When was your last one?” His brow creases, concern threading through his words. “I know your final dose is meant to be at eleven at night.”

Casey hesitates, a shadow of guilt crossing her face. She tries to summon the memory through the haze—had she taken them, or had she been so swept under by panic that the ritual slipped through her fingers? She presses her palm to her forehead, as if the answer might surface there. “I… can’t remember,” she admits, her voice small. “I think I meant to, but then Pippa…”

Raf’s hand tightens around hers, grounding her once more. “Let’s check your pillbox,” he says gently. “It’s been a long night, love. No shame in forgetting.”

Raf nods, sympathy flickering in his eyes. “Okay. Then let’s check the bottle itself,” he suggests, voice gentle. He fishes her handbag from the chair beside the bed, the leather softened and familiar beneath his fingers. “We’ll count them together, just to be sure.”

Casey pulls the bottle free, her movements weary but determined. The clatter of tablets inside is strangely loud in the hush. She unscrews the cap, tipping a few pills into her palm, brow furrowed in concentration as she tries to match memory with evidence.

“It’s all such a blur,” she murmurs, frustration and worry tangled in her words. “Some days I feel like my brain’s just… full of holes.”

Raf offers a half-smile, squeezing her shoulder. “You’re not alone in that. We’ll figure it out, like everything else.” He pauses, glancing down at Pippa’s small, unconscious form—then back to Casey. “If you’re not certain, maybe it’s safest to wait until morning, or we can call someone now, just to check. Whatever you need, I’m right here.”

Casey lets out a shaky breath, feeling the burden lighten—fractionally—under the steady weight of his kindness. The night stretches ahead, uncertain and vast, but together, they face it: inventorying hope, pill bottles, and the fragile promise of another sunrise.

Casey feels the agonising, jagged pain in her abdomen and back and legs and pelvis, like someone is slicing into her body again and again.

All she wants to do is curl up on the couch under the window and go to sleep but she can’t, not after Pippa’s terrifying seizure.

She desperately looks at Raf. “Could you please go and ask one of the nurses if they have one of those larger hot and cold gel packs? I’m in agony. We have them for Pippa but they are too small.”

As the words slip from her mouth, Casey feels guilty; she knows how much pain her husband is in, but she’s desperate.

Raf squeezes her hand before wordlessly reaching for his crutches, trying and failing to hide his own pain.

Left alone in the hush of the hospital room with Pippa, Casey presses her palm to her side, willing herself to breathe through the pain. The minutes drag out, slowed by her exhaustion and the ache that radiates through her body.

Then, the sharp buzz of her phone cuts through the silence—a sound at once ordinary and, tonight, almost ominous. Casey’s heart leaps. Instinctively, she assumes it’s Sophia again, another pointed question or apology, another thread in the tangled mess of the past few days. She hesitates, torn between dread and curiosity. But what if it’s someone else? What if it’s important?

With hands that tremble—more from nerves than pain—she picks up the phone. The notification lights up the darkened screen: it’s Ellie.

Hey, what the hell happened? Sophia just called me out of nowhere to say you’ve disowned her, but she won’t tell me why. Are you okay? Please, talk to me.

Casey stares at the message, the knot in her chest tightening. Trust Sophia to reach out to Ellie, spinning her version of events but glossing over her own actions.

Ellie, caught in the crossfire as usual, just wants answers. Casey’s thumb hovers over the keyboard, the urge to explain everything battling with a bone-deep weariness.

She closes her eyes for a moment, gathering herself, listening to the distant sounds of the ward and Raf’s crutches in the hallway. She isn’t ready for this conversation, not really—but how can she leave Ellie in the dark?

Casey’s eyes prick with hot tears as she writes out everything, pouring her heart out. “She sold a photo of my baby at her most vulnerable. I bet she didn’t tell you that? Because of her, Pippa’s fight is now a story for people to gawp at. I can’t forgive that, El. I need to keep my girls safe.”

She stares at the words, the truth of them burning on the screen. There’s a relief in it, as if finally voicing the betrayal lessens its weight—if only slightly. Still, anger and grief twist together like barbed wire inside her. With shaking hands, she taps send, imagining the message winging its way to Ellie, carrying not just explanation but the raw ache of her heart.

For a moment, she wonders if she’s said too much. But then she remembers Sophia’s evasions, the way she always manages to slip past the damage she leaves behind. Ellie deserves honesty, even if it hurts.

Casey wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand, a silent apology to Pippa for tears that never seem to end. She forces herself to look up, to really see her daughter—not just the thin arms and waxen skin, but the miraculous, steady rise and fall of her chest. The ventilator sighs in rhythm, a constant lullaby, while the monitors pulse out numbers in glowing reassurance: oxygen, heart rate, all the vital signs of a life suspended between worlds.

She is watching the numbers—counting heartbeats, breaths, seconds—when the door whispers open. The nurse steps quietly into the room, her presence soft but efficient. There is a practiced calm in the way she glances at the monitor, reads the silent language of flickering digits, and then approaches Pippa’s bedside.

“Just here to check her vitals, love,” she says, her voice gentle, as if afraid to disturb the fragile peace.

Casey nods, shifting her chair back to give space. She watches as the nurse’s practiced hands check the lines, adjust the IV stand, then move to the catheter bag hanging beneath the bed—a half-translucent sack, now full and tinged with the faintest hint of yellow. With gloved hands, the nurse quietly disconnects it, replacing it with a fresh, empty one, her movements matter-of-fact but never cold.

The entire time, Pippa lies utterly still but for that small, automatic rise and fall, her tiny body dwarfed by the blankets and the machinery that keeps her tethered to the world.

As the nurse finishes, she offers Casey a small, sympathetic smile—a fleeting moment of kindness. Then she leaves as quietly as she entered, the door closing behind her with a soft click.

Casey reaches for Pippa’s hand, attached to yet another I.V. pumping her full of heavy duty steroids that will hopefully save her life.

Every instinct in Casey aches to gather her daughter close, to shield her from the invasion of plastic and beeping, but all she can do is sit vigil, holding Pippa’s fragile hand in her own. She studies the delicate fingers, the hints of bruising against tender skin, and wills her own steadiness into that small palm.

Each shallow breath—delivered by machine, not muscle—draws a fresh wave of guilt and longing through her: she cannot trade places, she cannot make this easier, she cannot undo what’s been done.

The night presses in at the edges of the hospital room, the window dark, reflecting back the soft pool of light hovering over Pippa’s bed. Time moves strangely here, marked not by hours but by the pattern of nurses’ checks, the hiss and pause of the ventilator, the flickering dance of hope and dread. Casey’s mind drifts, untethered, to memories of Pippa before all this—a tumble of laughter, warm arms thrown around her neck, the scent of bubble bath and sleep.

Now, with each mechanical inhale, she must find her bravery anew. She squeezes Pippa’s hand, voice barely a whisper in the hush. “I’m here, baby. I’m not going anywhere.” And though the child cannot answer, Casey clings to the belief that, somewhere inside, Pippa knows.

Outside Pippa’s room, the fluorescent-lit corridor pulses with the quiet fatigue of midnight. Raf moves with an uneven gait, his limp more pronounced after hours spent on hard chairs and linoleum floors.

He navigates toward the nurses’ station, where a young nurse props her chin on her fist, eyelids fluttering in the slow rhythm of exhaustion.

She startles awake as Raf reaches the counter, her professionalism reassembling around a tired but sincere smile. “Sorry, long night,” she says, her voice threading through the hush. “Can I help?”

Raf leans gently against the desk, fingers curling around the edge as if for balance. “My wife is struggling with an endometriosis flare up,” he says, quiet urgency riding under his words. “I was wondering if you could lend us a heat and cold pack?”

The nurse straightens, sympathy softening the shadows under her eyes. “Of course,” she says. “Let me grab those for you—give me just a minute.” She disappears into a back room, her footsteps muffled by the night-shift hush, and returns with a microwavable heat pack and a gel pack wrapped in a thin towel.

“Here,” she offers, sliding them across the counter. “If you need anything else, just press the call button. And… hang in there.”

Raf’s gratitude is quiet but fierce. “Thank you,” he says, clutching the comfort she’s provided. Then he turns, the weight of fatigue and worry etched into his movements, and makes his way back down the corridor—past closed doors, soft beeping, the quiet battlefields of hope and fear—to the family he can help in small, precious ways.

Inside the dim cocoon of Pippa’s hospital room, Casey fidgets in the battered chair, one hand pressed to her abdomen as another cramp twists through her. She tries to contort her body into a position that might tease a measure of relief from the pain, but it’s futile; the ache coils deeper, relentless and sharp. She closes her eyes, listening to the rise and fall of the ventilator, the rhythmic beep of monitors, the distant shuffle of professionals in the corridor.

Beyond the door, footsteps echo—indistinct at first, blending with the endless procession of nurses and aides. She ignores them, too weary to catalogue every sound. But then comes the unmistakable clink and thud of metal crutches—a cadence she’s come to know as well as her own heartbeat.

She opens her eyes just as Raf enters, face drawn with exhaustion but determined, the heat pack tucked beneath his arm. He moves toward her with careful, measured steps, each one betraying the cost to his own battered body. Without a word, he kneels beside her, pressing the warmth into her hands, his touch gentle in the hush. Their eyes meet—hers glassy with pain and gratitude, his shadowed yet unwavering.

In this small act—his willingness to push aside his own discomfort for hers, for Pippa’s—Casey finds a bittersweet comfort. She knows he would cross fire for them, and that knowledge, heavy as it is, stitches her together in places where agony threatens to unravel her.

“Thank you,” she murmurs as the heat begins to seep into her belly, dulling the sharpest edge. Raf only nods, settling in beside her, close enough that their arms brush, drawing strength from the simple togetherness. In the quiet gloom, with Pippa’s mechanical breaths steady in the background, they hold vigil—two weary parents bound by love, for whom every small kindness is its own act of resistance against the dark.

Gradually, the sharpness of the pain recedes, dulled by medication and the gentle heat blooming across her abdomen. Each breath comes easier, less ragged, and the tension in her shoulders loosens by degrees. For the first time in hours, Casey’s thoughts are not squeezed to the edges by agony. Relief drifts over her—not a tidal wave, but a tide turning, gentle, inevitable.

Yet even as her eyelids grow heavy and her limbs plead for rest, she forces herself to remain present. Sleep beckons, a soft and dangerous current, but she cannot surrender—not with Pippa lying so small and still, not with Raf’s exhaustion etched into every line of his face. The world beyond their quiet room has narrowed to this: the quiet chorus of machines, the subtle warmth at her core, and the fragile peace they’ve carved from the chaos.

Casey blinks hard, anchoring herself in the moment, in the faint glow of monitors and the steady comfort of Raf’s nearness.

She will not miss a change in Pippa’s breathing, a flicker on the screen, a call for help. Weariness gnaws at her resolve, but she will outlast it. She owes Pippa every ounce of vigilance; she owes Raf the reassurance that she is here, awake, holding on.

So, she traces small, soothing circles over her stomach, breathes through the lingering ache, and watches over her family—fiercely, stubbornly awake in the hush before dawn.

Raf frowns, “You need to get some sleep.”

Casey almost laughs—a quiet, breathless sound—because if sleep were something she could simply choose, she’d have done so hours ago. But she only shakes her head, gaze fixed on Pippa’s silhouette in the pale blue wash of the machines. “I can’t,” she whispers, voice frayed but resolute. “Not yet.”

Raf lowers himself into the other chair, the effort etched in his clenched jaw. “You can, and you should,” he insists, softer this time. “I’ll watch her. Just for a little while.”

The gentle authority in his words tugs at her stubbornness, but fatigue has worn her thin. She wants desperately to trust the promise of his vigilance, to let the darkness pull her under just for a moment. Guilt quirks across her brow—what if she misses something? But Raf’s hand closes over hers, warm and steady, anchoring her trembling resolve.

“Close your eyes,” he murmurs. “I’ll wake you if anything changes. I promise.”

For a breath, she hesitates, caught between love and responsibility, before surrendering to the heavy pull behind her eyelids. The last thing she feels is his thumb tracing gentle reassurance over her knuckles, and the soft sound of Pippa’s breathing weaving through the hush, as Casey finally lets herself drift—held, if only for now, in the fragile safety of Raf’s watch.

For three hours, Casey floats in a sleep so deep it feels almost foreign, a merciful blankness where worry and ache cannot reach her. When she stirs, it is to the gentle tap of rubber soles and the low, professional murmur of a nurse entering the room. The world returns by degrees: the stiff ache in her neck, the sterile brightness of hospital morning, the distant clatter of a cart out in the hall.

She sits up, bleary, and finds Raf exactly where she left him—shoulders slumped, eyes fixed on Pippa, his hand still curled around hers as if to tether her to this fragile peace. Pippa lies unchanged, small chest rising and falling in reassuring rhythm, while the nurse bends close, her movements practiced, careful not to disturb the hush.

Casey rubs at her eyes, gathering herself. The fear that something might have changed in her absence flickers through her, sharp and familiar, but Raf is already turning to her with a tired, gentle smile.

“She’s okay,” he says softly, his voice threaded with relief and fatigue. “You needed that.”

Casey exhales, gratitude and guilt warring inside her, but for now, she lets herself believe him—lets herself breathe as the nurse checks Pippa’s vitals, and sunlight edges along the curtain, faint and hopeful, promising the fragile beginning of another day.

Sitting up, she frowns, “How is her blood pressure? I thought someone was going to put her on Isoproterenol to keep her blood pressure stable?”

The nurse glances at her chart, tapping a neatly manicured finger against the page. “Her blood pressure is holding for now,” she says, voice pitched low, reassuring. “We haven’t started the Isoproterenol—her last readings were within target, so the doctor wanted to wait and see if she could maintain it on her own. If there’s any dip, we’re ready.”

Casey nods, but unease lingers; the unfamiliar cocktail of hope and vigilance sharpens her senses. “Can you let me know the second anything changes?”

“Of course.” The nurse’s professionalism softens into something almost tender. “You’ll be the first to know.”

Raf squeezes her hand, offering silent agreement. The quiet hum of machinery, the shiver of too-bright morning, the hush that falls between questions—these are the fragile scaffolds of their waiting.

Casey stands, feeling the dull protest of muscles that have long since cooled in the hospital chair. “I need to go and reheat the heat pack. It cooled long ago.”

The nurse smiles, “You can keep it if you are still hurting. We got a delivery in recently and you’re the only one to use this one.”

Casey hesitates, the heat pack heavy in her hands, its weight oddly comforting. “Are you sure?” she asks, a ghost of embarrassment colouring her cheeks. “I don’t want to take things the ward needs.”

The nurse shakes her head, her smile unwavering. “Honestly, we have more than enough. Think of it as a small mercy—something warm to hold onto.” Her eyes flick briefly toward Pippa, then back to Casey, as if to anchor the gesture in quiet solidarity.

Casey presses the pack to her side, grateful for this unexpected kindness. It’s a small luxury in a world stripped to the essential, and she clings to it, just for a moment, before setting off down the corridor toward the microwave.

The linoleum gleams underfoot, and with each step, she tries to gather herself—tries to let the nurse’s warmth fill the cracks fatigue and worry have carved deep inside her.

Behind her, Raf settles further into his vigil beside Pippa’s bed, the hush of the morning holding, just barely, against the shifting tides of fear and fragile hope.

Casey keeps the gel pack pressed against her stomach, “I’m going to heat this up in the microwave. My pain is ramping up again.”

Her footsteps echo softly as she rounds the corner, the sterile quiet of the ward broken only by distant murmurs and the gentle thrum of the building’s heart. Casey pauses for a moment outside the patient kitchen, bracing herself, pressing the pack a little harder against her side as if it might will the pain away.

She pushes open the kitchen door, the faint aroma of burnt toast and institutional coffee lingering in the air, and for the first time in weeks, her thoughts drift beyond the anxious orbit of Pippa’s bedside. Lia—Pippa’s six-year-old best friend, the one with the quicksilver laugh and a will fierce enough to rival Pippa’s own—hovers at the edge of Casey’s mind.

She wonders how Lia is doing now. The last she’d heard, Lia, too, was facing down the brutal uncertainty of a relapse. Another child thrown into the impossible gauntlet of Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. Like Pippa, only one treatment option left: a bone marrow transplant, hope and terror distilled into a single, fragile procedure.

It’s been months since Casey and Lia’s mother, Anna, had spoken of anything beyond brief, practical check-ins—How’s Pippa? Has Lia eaten today?—their voices always taut with exhaustion, their eyes flickering with the calculation of hours, test results, what-ifs. Now, Casey realizes, she has no idea what’s happened since. Had Lia found a donor? Did she get her transplant? Or is Anna still pacing corridors just like these, waiting for a mercy that might never arrive?

Four months ago, when Casey and Raf brought Pippa here to Wisconsin for CAR-T Cell Therapy, Anna had been here too, eyes ringed with worry, voice shuddering with the weight of what might come for her daughter. Both families had arrived desperate, clinging to the last, thin threads of medical hope.

Casey sets the gel pack in the microwave and watches the numbers count down. For a moment, she closes her eyes, letting the hum of the machine and the memory of Anna’s strained smile fill the silence. A silent wish forms deep within her chest—not just for Pippa, but for Lia, too. Wherever Anna is, Casey hopes she’s found some small mercy, some warmth to hold onto, through the long hours of waiting and not-knowing.

When the microwave beeps, Casey lifts the heat pack out, the warmth seeping into her palms, grounding her for the walk back down the corridor. This time, as she retraces her steps, she thinks of Anna and Lia, of the invisible threads that bind parents in waiting rooms, and the quiet, aching hope that carries them through.

She wraps it into a flannel and then presses it to her lower abdomen. The plush heat seeps into her, unwinding the knot of pain that had lodged itself just beneath her ribs. She closes her eyes for a beat, letting the hush of the corridor settle around her, feeling the world slow—if only for a moment—as the warmth spreads.

“Feeling better?” Raf asks, reaching for her hands.

Casey shakes her head. “Not really.” She glances at the couch tucked beneath the window, its cushions promising relief from the sharp ache in her abdomen. For a moment, she considers it—wishes she could just sink into its worn embrace and let herself drift, if only for a few minutes. But the thought of being even a few steps farther from Pippa’s bedside knots her stomach tighter than the pain itself.

“I’ll just stay here,” she murmurs, her voice soft but resolute. She eases herself onto the hard plastic chair by the bed, curling her fingers around the edge for balance. The heat pack presses against her belly—a meagre comfort, but enough to keep her upright, alert, tethered to the world of beeping monitors and soft, mechanical breaths.

Raf moves beside her, pulling up a chair of his own. There’s a silence between them, thick but companionable, the kind that grows out of shared waiting and the unspoken ache of helplessness.

From the hallway, the muted sounds of the hospital continue: the rattle of a meal cart, the faint echo of a child’s laughter or a nurse’s quick stride. But here, in this small circle of lamplight and hope, time seems to slow.

Casey leans forward, elbows on knees, and watches Pippa’s sleeping face. The couch can wait. For now, she will stay—close, vigilant, holding on for both of them.

Outside the window, dusk presses gently against the glass, painting the sky with bruised purples and kindling the faint gold of distant streetlights. Inside, the room is a cocoon of hush and hope, the air steeped in the scent of antiseptic and something sweeter—maybe the ghost of lavender from Casey’s scarf, or just a memory of home.

The hours stretch, liquid and slow, dissolving the boundaries of clock and calendar. Raf sits with his knees drawn up, hands knotted together, eyes flickering between Pippa’s sleeping form and the silent monitor pulsing green. He and Casey speak little, their words pared down to what’s strictly necessary: the temperature of the room, the time of Pippa’s next medication, whether Casey needs more tea or a fresh heat pack. Everything else, all the questions that matter, hang between them unsaid.

Hours drift by, marked only by the shifting hue of dusk to full night and the steady chorus of hospital machinery. Then, breaking the hush, Casey’s phone vibrates with a sharp, urgent ping. The screen glows with Sandy’s name. For a moment, she’s frozen—her breath shallow, knuckles whitening around the heat pack. A thousand possibilities spark in her mind, each one knotted tighter by dread.

She unlocks her phone with a trembling thumb, swallowing panic. The memory of Sophia’s too-bright voice and evasive eyes flares in her mind, and she wonders if her twin has spun another story, feeding their mother a web of self-serving lies. Did Sophia claim Casey was unstable, exaggerating? Or that Raf and Casey were responsible for the photo winding up in the tabloids—Pippa’s vulnerable face on every screen, her privacy bartered away?

A new message sits atop the thread: a single bubble, unread. Casey’s stomach clenches. Has Sandy texted to say she and Chase have decided to believe Sophia, dismissing Casey’s pain as the overreaction of a jealous sister? Or is her mother’s outrage as fierce, as raw, as the storm churning inside Casey and Raf?

She opens the message with panicked fingers, the corridor’s hush replaced by a rushing in her ears. Would her mother’s words be balm or salt?

The text is brief, but it lands with the weight of a verdict.

“Sophia called. She said it was an accident, but I don’t believe her. No one ‘accidentally’ sends a photo to a journalist friend. I’m so sorry, Casey. We’re furious. We love you—don’t let her twist this. Your father and I are behind you, always.”

The tension in Casey’s chest gives way, not fully to relief, but to something lighter, more bearable. She blinks hard, letting her phone drop to her lap as tears threaten at the corners of her eyes—anger, sorrow, and gratitude mingling with exhaustion.

Raf glances over, concern soft in his gaze. Casey manages a fragile smile. “It’s my mom. She believes me.”

For the first time all day, Casey lets herself lean back—her mother’s reassurance a thread, faint but unbreakable, pulling her out of the undertow. The night hums on, and though nothing is simple, she’s no longer alone.

Her hands still shaking, Casey types a reply, her thoughts tumbling faster than her fingers can keep pace. I was scared you wouldn’t believe me, that you and Dad would choose Sophia over me, she writes, each word a fragile confession. The admission feels both shameful and necessary—a truth too long held back, now exposed in the low, forgiving light of the ward. She hesitates before sending it, thumb hovering, heart pounding. Then, with a shaky breath, she presses send.

Almost instantly, the familiar ellipsis pulses on the screen. Her mother’s response is swift, gentle: Oh, love. Never. We see you, always. Whatever Sophia says, whatever happens, you are ours. You always will be.

The tears come then, silent and hot, trailing down Casey’s face. Raf reaches over, not speaking, but his hand settles over hers—steady, grounding. For a few breaths, the world feels softer. Casey lets herself hope, just a little, that some broken things can be mended.

Her thumbs tremble across the cracked glass, each word more exposed than the last. I’m sorry for all this. I know walking away from Sophia must hurt, it hurts me too—but I can’t do it anymore Mom. I need to put my girls first. And who sells a photo to a tabloid of their niece near death?

She stares at her message, the cursor blinking in the pale blue bubble, as if urging her on. There’s a new ache—guilt twined with resolve—curling beneath her ribs. She thinks of old birthday mornings, the laughter that once braided between sisters, the ache of what’s been lost. But there’s no undoing what Sophia has done.

This is a line, Casey thinks. Not just for her, but for the family. A line that says: enough. She hits send, feeling the finality echo up her arm.

Her mother replies, the words unspooling gently, heartbreak and understanding woven through each line. I know it hurts, darling. But you’re right—we have to protect what matters most. We’ll face this together. Sophia’s choices are hers. Ours is to stand with you and the girls.

Casey breathes, a little steadier, letting the weight of her mother’s solidarity settle over the jagged edges inside her.

Raf squeezes her hand, and for the first time in days, the future doesn’t feel like a door slammed shut, but something uncertain—and possible—cracking open.

In her opulent home in the heart of Boston’s Back Bay, Sophia wakes to the hush of early morning and sunlight fractured across the parquet floor. The emptiness beside her is vast—Gabriel’s side of the Queen-sized bed still cool, the fine sheets barely rumpled. He’s been gone five days now, the Aegean air and the camera in his hand—his world, shimmering far from hers.

For three months, their life together has been a bright theatre of possibility: dinners glittering with laughter, shared secrets in the blue hush before sleep, the delicate layering of two lives. But now, as she curls into the hollow he’s left, Sophia wonders if that world is already slipping from her grasp. News travels quietly but swiftly, even across oceans. Had Gabriel heard what happened? Did he know what she’d done?

He knows about the photo—of course he does. They’d talked about it late one night, after a party, his voice careful, his concern almost tender. But what he doesn’t know—the raw, pulsing truth—is that Sophia was the one who sold it. That she pressed send on the contract, that she pocketed the check, that she let the image go out into the world, uncaring, unstoppable.

She draws the duvet up to her chin, guilt a bitter taste at the back of her throat. She thinks of Gabriel’s family, of Abbey—his sister, gone before adolescence could finish its work, leukaemia smearing childhood into tragedy. Gabriel was twelve, Abbey eight; Sophia’s learned the contours of their story, the lines softened by years but never erased. The pain of betrayal, the violation of trust, is not an abstraction to him. It is a living grief.

If he finds out—truly finds out, not just what she did but that she did it, that she sent Pippa’s photo to strangers for money—he will leave. There will be no negotiation, no second chance. He will be done with her, and she will deserve it.

The house is silent, every surface gleaming, every echo a reminder that even here, among the trappings of luxury, she is entirely, crushingly alone. Her phone is a cold weight on the nightstand, messages from agents and friends blinking like warning beacons, none from Gabriel.

Sophia presses her eyes shut, wishing for oblivion, for erasure, for a world where guilt doesn’t gnaw through the golden tissue of her life. But when she opens them again, the morning is unchanged, and she is left with the knowledge of what she has done—and the sharp, impossible hope that, somehow, it might never reach him.

She remembers, with a chill, the last terse call from her agent—a voice so brittle with disappointment that Sophia had almost hung up. The photo was one thing: a scandal, yes, but scandals are currency in her world, traded with knowing shrugs and wry laughter. This, though—this drought of work, three long months of silence in her calendar and an inbox echoing with polite rejections—this is a different kind of rot, one that no apology or clever interview can cure.

Her agent’s last message lingers in her mind, clipped and economical: “I need something, Sophia. Anything.” But Sophia has nothing. No new projects, no inspiration, just a creeping sense of inertia and the knowledge that, soon, her name might slip quietly from the lists—the ones that matter—leaving her untethered, forgotten. It isn’t just Gabriel she’s terrified of losing. It’s her place, her purpose, the scaffolding of her life.

She runs her thumb over the smooth face of her phone, resisting the urge to call, to beg for more time. Instead, she lies still, listening to the city waking beyond the window, and wonders if, when the world finally lets go of her, it will feel like a fall or a mercy.

She looks at her phone again, thumb trembling above the screen, hoping for a text from Casey—just a few words, some small absolution, telling her that it’s all a dream, that they’re ok, that the world hasn’t shifted so irreparably beneath her feet. But nothing new appears. The screen glows blankly, indifferent, casting its cold blue light across the sheets as if it, too, is tired of her longing.

For a moment, she lets herself imagine it: Casey’s message blooming at the top of her notifications, the familiar warmth in those digital syllables, a bridge back to before. Before the lie, before the silence, before the world began to unravel. She imagines Casey’s laughter, low and conspiratorial, the way it used to fold the sharp edges of her days into something softer.

But the silence holds, dense and unyielding, and Sophia is left with her hope—a fragile, flickering thing—and the knowledge that waking dreams are the cruellest kind. The city’s morning din rises, insistent, pressing at the windows, but inside this room time churns in place, each second stretching thin and uncertain as she waits, and waits, for a kindness that may never come.

There is no solace in pretending otherwise. The truth, once fully faced, is a chasm between then and now; Sophia knows there’s no return, not for her and Casey. She has lost her sister, lost the one person who tethered her to something honest and ordinary, a lifeline now frayed beyond mending. It isn’t just Casey, though the ache of that loss is its own small death—she has lost the girls too, the nieces she loves in that bewildering, unconditional way she’d never thought herself capable of.

Mia’s shrieks of delight as Sophia stepped inside, arms flung wide, anticipation shimmering like sunlight on water—gone now to memory. No more tiny hands tugging her toward the kitchen for nail polish, no more fits of giggles as they paraded down the back garden’s makeshift catwalk, Mia’s wild costume concoctions trailing in her wake, Sophia dutifully crouched with her phone, a chorus of clicks and encouragement.

She pictures Felicity, solemn in her play, lining up her baby dolls and pressing one gently into Sophia’s arms. The ritual of naming, wrapping, rocking—Sophia’s presence as much a part of the game as the soft plastic dolls themselves. And Isabelle, earnest and precise, stethoscope hanging lopsided around her neck, diagnosing Sophia’s inventive ailments. Every appointment a performance, Sophia exaggerating a limp, clutching her side, drawing laughter from that serious little face.

And Pippa—dearest Pippa—her sweet, trusting gaze. The child least deserving of any shadow. Sophia’s betrayal is a wound that will not heal, a fact that stains every cherished memory. Pippa, who loved to play at being anyone, anything—a pop star, a vet, a world as wide as her imagination. Sophia, once the co-conspirator, audience, and stagehand, now exiled from the theater.

She tries to imagine a day—weeks, months from now—when the ache will dull, when the longing for those ordinary joys will cease to startle her awake. It seems impossible. What is left, after this? Only absence, only the echo of laughter in rooms she will not enter, milestones she will not witness, lives she is now only allowed to imagine at a distance.

She cannot blame fate or circumstance or anyone but herself. The shape of her loss is her own doing, a solitude earned. And as the world outside surges on—indifferent, unpausing—Sophia remains still, listening to the emptiness she made, grieving not just the past, but the future she forfeited.

@kingliam2019 @tessa-liam @alj4890 @katedrakeohd @potionsprefect @liaromancewriter @silver-rings-and-rabbits

2 notes · View notes

kingliam2019 · 4 days ago

Text

Love In Every Heartbeat – Chapter 169 – Silent Battles and Slow Answers

Silent lines of the monitoring machines draw a rhythm in the sterile hush, each beep a reminder that Pippa is suspended somewhere between presence and absence. Casey’s fingers tremble over Pippa’s blanket, her thumb tracing invisible patterns—anchors to a world where her daughter still breathes, where healing is possible.

Raf sits at the foot of the bed, posture rigid, his knuckles white on the edge of his chair. He whispers words meant only for Pippa to hear, soft hopes, prayers sent sailing through the clinical air. The nurse moves quietly, methodical in extracting the vials, her presence both intrusion and reassurance.

Since that third crash—the one that stilled Pippa’s heart again and sent her spiralling into this deep, unreachable sleep—time has lost its meaning. Day and night blur together for Casey, who has learned to read every flutter of eyelashes, every twitch of limb as a possible signal, a sign. Grief pools in the corners of her eyes and on the stiff fabric of her sleeves, but she remains, vigilant, determined not to miss the moment when Pippa might find her way back.

Ethan, when present, is a steady shoulder, a quiet force who negotiates with doctors and nurses, gathering updates, trying to extract hope from the ebb and flow of numbers and charts. But in the hours between rounds, it’s

Casey and Raf, each holding their silent vigil, each with unspoken battles scrawled on their hearts.

There are no easy answers here. Only the slow, agonizing wait, and the steady thrum of love that persists against the odds—a heartbeat for Pippa when she cannot muster her own.

Casey reaches for Raf, her touch tentative at first, then firmer as her fingers lace with his. She knows the signs—the quiet retreat behind his eyes, the way his shoulders fold in on themselves as if bracing for a storm only he can sense. She won’t let that darkness reclaim him, not now, not when every heartbeat matters.

“Hey,” she murmurs, voice barely louder than the hush of the machines. “Talk to me. I can see the wheels turning. What’s scaring you?”

Raf’s gaze flickers, his jaw working, words resisting the surface. He stares at Pippa, the pale curve of her hand small and impossibly fragile atop the hospital sheet. For a moment, he is silent, the air thick with everything he cannot say.

Then, quietly, “I’m afraid I’ll lose both of you. I keep thinking—what if I fail again? What if I miss something, or I’m not strong enough, and this… this takes you too? I keep remembering that time—when everything got so dark I almost couldn’t come back. I don’t want to be that person again. Not for you. Not for them.”

Casey tightens her hold, her thumb tracing circles over his knuckles. She lets the silence stretch, lets him see that she isn’t turning away. “You came back,” she whispers. “You fought your way back to us. Raf, you are here. That’s what matters. And I need you here—really here—because I can’t do this alone. None of us can.”

His breath shudders out, a brittle exhale. He nods, eyes glistening. “I’m trying,” he admits, voice cracking on the words. “I just… sometimes I’m so scared I’ll disappear before I realize I’ve gone.”

Casey leans in, pressing her forehead gently to his, anchoring them both in the present. “Stay with me,” she says, not as a command but as a plea, heavy with love and the desperate hope that, together, they can hold the dark at bay.

And so, in the stillness of Pippa’s hospital room, their hands remain entwined—two souls battered, but unbroken, holding each other steady in the hush between heartbeats.

It scares her because she knows that if she lost Raf, she wouldn’t have the strength to keep fighting. And then where would that leave Pippa? The thought is a shadow at the edge of every brave face she wears, a cold wind that rattles her resolve. Casey’s grip tightens—not just in comfort, but in need. Raf isn’t only her anchor; he is the tether keeping her from drifting into hopelessness. Without him, the ground beneath her would dissolve, and all her promises to Pippa would be nothing but dust on hospital tiles.

She draws in a trembling breath, daring to meet his eyes, and lets herself be vulnerable. “I need you,” she says, the words fragile but unflinching. “Not just for me, but for her. We’re her whole world, Raf. If you go, I don’t know if I’ll have the strength to stay.” The admission hangs between them—a truth long kept at arm’s length, finally spoken, binding them tighter in the quiet storm of the night.

Somewhere in the tangle of hands and fears, hope kindles. It isn’t bright or certain, but it is enough for now.

A shiver goes through Casey as she hears the terrifying beep of an alarm calling a Code Pink—a child is coding.

Her head instinctively turns to Pippa and her monitors but Pippa’s numbers are steady.

Casey whimpers. “I thought—” The words catch in her throat, raw and aching. “For a second, I thought it was her. I thought we’d—” She can’t finish. The possibility is too sharp, too close. Her hand flies to her mouth, pressing back a sob, and she blinks fast, fighting tears.

Raf’s arm curls around Casey, as if drawing her back from the brink. His voice is rough but steady—a lifeline cast between grief and hope. “I know, Sweetheart. I know.” The words are more than comfort; they are a promise, trembling but true. He brushes a tear from her cheek with the back of his knuckle, holding her gaze so she can see the fierce determination burning there, the vow that he will not leave her to weather this storm alone.

He lets the silence settle again, this time a gentler hush. In the muted light and the uncertain hush of Pippa’s room, Raf grounds them both—reminding Casey, with every touch and every word, that they are still here, still fighting, and still together.

The door opens with a hush of rubber soles and quiet authority; a neurologist enters, flanked by a team of porters whose faces are etched with the practiced calm of those who ferry fragile lives along sterile corridors. He stands at the foot of Pippa’s bed, his presence gentle but commanding.

“We’re going to take Pippa for her MRI scan now,” he says, his tone soft and reassuring, as if the words themselves might buffer the world from harm. “We’ll be as quick and careful as possible.”

Casey swallows, searching his face for certainty, for the assurance she needs in a moment where trust is everything.

A pang of longing tugs at her—how desperately she wishes Ethan were here, with his steady hands and encyclopaedic calm, the only one who ever seemed to know all the answers.

She squares her shoulders and keeps her voice even, but her anxiety glimmers at the edges. “I presume you know of the precautions that must be put in place to keep Pippa stable and comfortable? She must not be disconnected from the ventilator by any means necessary.”

The neurologist meets her gaze, a flicker of empathy softening his eyes. “Absolutely. The transport ventilator is ready—we’ll monitor her closely, every second. I promise you, she will not be disconnected.”

Casey nods. “Ok. And you are aware that Dr. Ramsey must see the images and be present for any consultations? I am prepared to go to the medical board if you discuss my daughter’s condition without Dr. Ramsey present.”

The edge in her voice leaves no room for ambiguity. The neurologist inclines his head, a gesture of respect for the boundaries drawn by desperation and love. “Of course. Dr. Ramsey’s involvement has already been arranged. No decisions, no conversations about Pippa’s care will take place without Dr. Ramsey and your consent. That is my word.”

Something in his certainty steadies Casey, a fragile trust taking tentative root. The porters move with practiced efficiency, prepping Pippa’s bed and lines with reverent care. Raf squeezes Casey’s hand, a silent reminder that she is not alone in this stand for their child.

Casey gently kisses Pippa’s hand, her fragile chest rising and falling with the help from the machine. “Mama and Daddy will be here waiting for you when you get back, baby. We love you so much.”

A final glance between Casey and the medical team—a silent pact, for vigilance and hope—passes before Pippa is wheeled from the room, monitors softly blinking, her world now in gentle, watchful hands.

As the door swings gently shut behind the departing team, Casey’s phone vibrates against her palm, its screen flaring in the dim quiet. She glances at it out of habit, but her brow creases the instant she sees who the message is from: Meredith. It’s rare—almost unheard of—for Ethan’s wife to reach out to her directly, and the unexpected contact brings a fresh ripple of unease.

Her mind spins through the possibilities. Could something have happened to one of Ethan’s girls? Orla, bright-eyed and eight, always brimming with questions; Louisa, just a year old, her world still soft around the edges. Or perhaps it concerns Ethan’s mother, Louise—a woman whose shadowed past once threatened to eclipse everything, yet who had, over the last fourteen years, rebuilt herself with quiet, relentless dignity.

Casey’s thoughts drift momentarily to those hard-won battles. Louise Ramsey, once nearly lost to heroin and cocaine, had not touched either since Ethan was eleven—the same year he finally welcomed his mother back into his life. It had been Casey, years ago, who urged him to open his heart, believing that forgiveness could lay the foundation for a new beginning. She had watched Louise, wary but determined, transform herself day by day, until the past became a scar rather than an open wound.

But why now, why this message? Anxiety prickles at the base of her neck. Casey steels herself and opens the text, bracing for whatever new worry this day might bring.

Casey’s thumb hovers for a heartbeat before she swipes the notification open. Please, let it be nothing dire, she thinks, guilt threading through her silent prayer. She knows it isn’t fair—she should wish all well for Meredith and the girls, that nothing in their world has come undone. Yet, in this moment, her need is raw and urgent; she needs Ethan here. She needs his presence, his steady logic and quiet strength, to anchor her through this unthinkable night.

If anything has happened—if he must leave, even briefly—Casey’s fragile composure will not hold. She wants, just this once, for the world to pause, for no other crisis to claim the one person who has always stood up with her for Pippa. As her eyes race over Meredith’s words, Casey aches with the hope that it’s a trivial question, a misplaced item, anything but a summons that would pull Ethan away. Selfish, maybe. Human, certainly. All she can do is hold her breath, waiting for the verdict that will decide whether she faces this vigil alone.

But the words that greet her are neither summons nor tragedy. They’re simple, direct—a message not of alarm, but of care. Hey Casey, just checking in. How is Pippa doing? I’ve been thinking of you all and hoping she’s okay.

Casey blinks, momentarily stunned by the gentleness threading through Meredith’s inquiry. Relief—sharp and dizzying—breaks the tension in her chest, chased swiftly by gratitude. She’d braced herself for a blow, for the familiar weight of bad news or urgent requests; instead, she finds a quiet, unexpected kindness.

Casey’s hands, still trembling with the residue of panic and hope, move over the screen. She types slowly, careful not to let the ache in her chest bleed into her words.

Thanks for checking in, Meredith. Pippa’s been taken for an MRI brain scan. They need to see if the cardiac arrest caused any brain damage. We’re just…waiting now, hoping for the best. I’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything.

She hesitates, then adds: Thank you for reaching out. It means a lot right now.

She sends the message, the silent weight on her heart fractionally lighter for having named the dread aloud. In the hush that follows, Casey finds a fragile comfort in the simple act of being seen.

But even relief is fleeting. The body, indifferent to crises of the heart, reminds her of its own frailties—a familiar sticky wetness makes itself known, a quiet but persistent discomfort. With a weary sigh, Casey registers that her sanitary towel has reached its limit, the tell-tale sensation a nudge toward mundanity amid the hospital’s charged atmosphere.

Her periods, while more regular since Felicity’s birth, remain unpredictable—sometimes skipping months, sometimes arriving with a vengeance, as if punishing her for letting her guard down. When they come now, they are heavier than ever, the pain so fierce it feels as though she’s being torn apart from within.

She often forgets in the days where she sits by Pippa’s side for up to eighteen or twenty hours a day, only snatching hours of sleep when she can take no more.

Casey levers herself up from the rigid hospital chair, her legs stiff and protesting. She leans close to Raf, voice low and careful: “I need to go to the toilet, my sanitary towel needs changing.” There’s no embarrassment in the words—only the blunt necessity of worn-out routines, the practicalities that persist no matter how the world tilts.

She reaches for the canvas bag tucked beneath her seat, fingers brushing over the soft, familiar fabric before curling around the smaller toiletry pouch nestled inside. The quiet rustle of plastic against cotton is almost soothing in its ordinariness. For a moment, she is not watcher or guardian, not poised on the knife-edge of hope and fear, but simply herself—tending to needs so basic, they anchor her to the world.

Raf nods, a silent acknowledgment, his eyes warm with understanding. Casey offers him a faint, grateful smile, then slips from the waiting room, clutching the bag to her chest as she seeks out the small, impersonal sanctuary of the hospital bathroom.

As she navigates the sterile corridor, Casey reflects—almost wryly—on the peculiar gratitude she feels for these ordinary discomforts. Medical training has long banished any vestige of embarrassment from such things; she knows the body's cycles are neither shame nor secret, but simple biology, a testament to rhythms both ancient and essential. If anything, she is thankful for them. Each month’s return, unpredictable as it might be, is a quiet reminder of the fertility that once shaped her life’s course, gifting her three radiant daughters.

And then, as if the universe wasn’t finished weaving blessings through the tangled lines of her family, there was Pippa—drawn into their world as though by some unseen hand, completing the mosaic in a way neither she nor Raf could have foreseen. In this odd, clinical moment—her arms full of cotton and plastic, her mind split by worry and routine—Casey is struck not only by the ache of uncertainty, but by the fullness of what she has been given.

She holds these truths close, letting them steady her as she closes the bathroom door behind her, ready to face both the ordinary and the extraordinary with equal parts courage and grace.

Stepping into the bathroom, Casey closes the door and crosses the tile with practiced precision, the hush of rubber soles barely audible. She places her toiletry bag on the counter, her hands steady, though her body aches with exhaustion and the sharp, insistent cramp that has gnawed at her all day. With mechanical efficiency, she peels back the layers—PPE, black jeans, underwear—until she is confronted by evidence of her body’s struggle: thick clots, slick and dark, more than she has seen in months. They sit in her sanitary towel like small, cruel coins, each one a blunt explanation for the waves of pain that have left her breathless.

She peels the heavily soiled sanitary towel away from her body, the adhesive tearing softly from the cotton of her pants. Wrapping it with methodical care, she drops it into the pedal bin beside the toilet—a small, necessary ritual that feels almost meditative in its focus.

Next, she opens the fresh towel, the crisp rustle of new plastic slicing cleanly through the hush. She presses it into place, smoothing it along the fabric with practiced motions, feeling, as always, the faint comfort of renewal, however fleeting.

It’s only then she notices—the pads of her fingers are streaked with blood, thin lines tracing across the whorls of her skin, vibrant against the pale wash of her knuckles. Weariness thrums through her, heavier than before, but she does not allow herself impatience. She runs her hands under the cold tap, watching as the bright red ribbons swirl and fade, disappearing down the gleaming porcelain. The stains are stubborn, settling into the creases of her palms for a moment before finally, reluctantly, releasing their hold.

She dries her hands slowly, savouring the momentary clarity and the sharp sting of coolness where the water has caught on her skin. The fluorescent lights overhead cast pale halos across the countertop, their glare somehow both antiseptic and reassuring. Casey draws a steadying breath, collecting herself, then reaches for her jeans, pulling them up with a practiced motion, the fabric scraping comfortingly against her skin.

Layer by layer, she reassembles her PPE—each mask loop, each tug at the cuffs of her gloves, another small shield built between the unpredictable world and Pippa’s tenuous safety. The ritual is familiar but never casual; it’s freighted with the knowledge that even her most careful movements are acts of protection, each barrier a silent promise against invisible threats.

Even a simple cold could develop into a major infection which could threaten Pippa’s life.

Casey gathers her things with a careful deliberation, slipping her toiletry bag beneath her arm and casting one last glance at the spotless counter, the empty pedal bin, the silent sentinel of the soap dispenser. She opens the bathroom door, her mind already leaping ahead—out of this sterile sanctuary, back into the humming uncertainty of the hospital corridors.

The walk to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit is both too short and too long: her feet know the route by heart, yet each step is weighted with the anticipation of what she might find. The lights are a harsh, unwavering white as she passes beneath them, the scent of antiseptic clinging to her as if it might seep through her skin. At every turn, the hospital’s quiet orchestration of hope and sorrow presses in—voices hushed behind closed doors, the distant shudder of a trolley, the rhythmic hiss of ventilation.

She pushes open the door to Pippa’s room, feeling the familiar catch of her heart. Raf is waiting, perched on the edge of the small recliner by Pippa’s vacant bed, his posture rigid, his face drawn and pale beneath the bristle of his beard. His ankle is propped up on a makeshift pile of pillows, the swelling unmistakable even through the thin hospital sock. The strain etches deep into the lines around his eyes; his worry is a living thing, shivering in the air between them.

Casey slips inside quietly, setting her bag down beside the chair. She meets Raf’s gaze, offering the smallest, steadiest smile she can muster—an attempt to anchor them both against the undertow of waiting. The room feels suspended in time, each beep and flicker of the monitor a reminder of what hangs in the balance.

She settles next to him, their silence dense with questions and hopes unvoiced, both of them straining to listen for footsteps, for the turning of the door handle, for any sign that Pippa might soon be wheeled back from the Radiology department, bearing answers in the grainy grey shadows of an MRI scan. Until then, all they can do is wait, together.

Casey frowns, “Have you taken your Tramadol today? And have you eaten anything?”

Raf blinks, almost startled by the question, as if the thought of self-care had evaporated in the fluorescent haze of the ward. He glances down at his ankle, the bones blurred beneath swelling, and shrugs—a small gesture, defensive in its uncertainty. “I... I think I took one this morning,” he admits, voice rough with fatigue. “But breakfast—no. Didn’t feel like it.”

Casey’s lips tighten. She rummages in her bag and produces a granola bar, pressing it into his hand with gentle insistence. “You need to keep your strength up. Pippa wouldn’t want you falling apart.”

A silence settles again, softer now. Raf unwraps the bar, the crackle of plastic loud in the hush, and takes a tentative bite. Across the room, the monitor’s green numbers pulse steadily, a fragile metronome of hope. Casey leans back, her eyes flicking to the door, counting heartbeats, quietly measuring time until the next answer arrives.

Casey smiles and gently brushes a stray lock of hair from Raf’s brow, her touch light but lingering. “You need a haircut,” she teases, her voice a balm amid the static of the machines. “You’re starting to give Rafa Nadal a run circa 2008, for his money.”

A ghost of a smile flits across Raf’s face, the tension in his jaw loosening just slightly. Casey’s own mind drifts, carried back by memory’s tide to the first time she’d stumbled across Rafa Nadal— the Spanish footballer, a prodigy then barely nineteen, all messy hair and blazing intensity. At fifteen, Casey had watched him play for RCD Mallorca, his hometown team, before the world beckoned and Real Madrid claimed him at twenty-two. Seventeen years with the giants of Spain, his career a tapestry of triumphs and tribulations before he retired at thirty-nine, his legacy carved into stadium stone.

She remembers vividly the day she’d met Rafa Nadal in person, years later. His career was winding down, body battered by the beautiful game. She’d been the one to diagnose the herniated disc that would force his final bow, her hands gentle as she traced the invisible map of pain along his spine, her words careful and kind as she delivered news no athlete ever wants to hear. There had been a gravity in the room that day—a man poised between past glories and the great unknown, and her, a witness to both his vulnerability and resilience.

But at this stage of his life, Rafa had only one question that mattered—would he be able to play with his then two-year-old son? The trophies, the legendary matches, the roar of the crowd—none of it meant as much to him as the quiet hope of sharing sunlit afternoons on a patch of grass, guiding a small foot to tap a worn leather ball.

Casey had seen that fierce longing in his gaze, the vulnerability that had nothing to do with injury. She’d chosen her words with care, steady and honest, yet gentle as a hand on a fevered brow. Yes, there would be surgery. Yes, the months ahead would be marked by discipline and the slow arithmetic of healing. But she’d promised him, as truly as she could, that he would run again, that the simple joy of kicking a ball with his little boy would not be denied him.

It was not just prognosis—it was hope, and a kind of benediction.

The memory flickers away, replaced by the present—by Raf, here beside her, holding a half-eaten granola bar and blinking tiredly. She wonders at the odd ways the past finds its echoes in the now, a strand of hair, an old name, the ache of bodies refusing to forget. She squeezes Raf’s hand, her smile warm with shared history and hope.

It never bothered Raf—the crushes Casey had nursed for years on both Rafa Nadal and Enrique Iglesias, who she also adored, and who, as it happened, Raf partly resembled. It was a running joke in their marriage, the way Casey would sometimes squint at him and declare he could have been Enrique’s long-lost cousin if he just learned to sing.

Raf played along, rolling his eyes in mock exasperation when she queued up “Hero” or “Bailando” while they cooked dinner, her voice always off-key but her enthusiasm irrepressible.

He’d tease her about her type—fierce, soulful, just a little bit scruffy—and she’d retort that at least she’d married her favourite. These old jokes stitched through their shared history, softening the edges of harder days. In moments like this, with the fluorescent lights and the low hum of machines, the memory of that playful affection felt like a life raft. Raf squeezed her hand back, letting himself settle into the gentle comfort of being known, flaws and all, and loved all the more for it.

Casey’s reverie is interrupted by the soft ping of her phone. She glances down to see Sienna’s name lighting up the screen—a bright punctuation amid the dim quiet of the hospital room. Sienna never texts lightly; her messages arrive with the weight and warmth of a well-loved novel, the sort you reread for comfort.

Tonight’s message is brief, uncertain: Still no sign. Should I be freaking out yet?

Casey’s chest tightens with a mingled surge of joy and worry. She can almost hear Sienna’s voice—half-exasperated, half-hopeful—threading through the words. Sienna, her best friend since university days, who has weathered so many storms with her. Sienna, who only eleven months ago had cradled her newborn son, Alexander, after a gauntlet of three rounds of IVF—a journey so fraught that the third attempt had felt less like a plan and more like a whispered last prayer.

Casey remembers that time keenly: the clinical chill of waiting rooms, Sienna’s brave face set against the bruising uncertainty, Lucas’s hand clasped in hers. The two of them, counting injections and pinching pennies, watching their savings dwindle despite Sienna’s department head salary—so much more than Casey would ever pull in, but never quite enough when hope became a number on a bank statement. She remembers the way Sienna had clung to hope with a grip fierce as any mother’s, even as each failure chipped away at both resolve and resources.

And now, so soon—could it really be happening again? A second child, a surprise, a gift neither planned nor dared dream of? The odds, the timing, the fear and wild, breathless hope—they all swirl together, impossibly delicate.

Casey’s thumb hovers over the keyboard. She wants to say, Wait and see, don’t panic, breathe. She wants to promise everything will be all right, that whatever comes, Sienna won’t face it alone. Instead, she simply writes, Still early. Whatever happens, I’m here. Love you.

She presses send, the words a lifeline tossed across the quiet day, an echo of all the ways women hold each other up when the future is uncertain, and sometimes, impossibly bright.

Raf notices the flicker of emotion across Casey’s face, the way her lips press together before she finally looks up. “Who’s that?” he asks, his voice gentle, a touch of curiosity threading through.

Casey meets Raf’s eyes, warmth flickering in hers. “Sienna,” she says, the name carrying a thousand stories between them. For a heartbeat, she debates letting the rest spill out—the anxiety on the other end of that message, the shadow of hope that is too fragile to name. She bites back the words, settling instead for the comfort of the present, the hospital’s hush wrapping them both in its odd cocoon.

She shrugs, half-smiling. “Probably just on her coffee break. You know her—never lets a crisis get in the way of caffeine.” The lightness in her voice is a deliberate veil, stitched tight over the fretful thrum beneath.

Raf, sensing more than she says, squeezes her hand again. “Let me guess—she’s roping you into another one of her schemes?”

Casey laughs, the sound echoing softly off tile and linoleum. “Not this time. Just… checking in.” She glances down at her phone, thumb brushing the glass as if she could send reassurance through touch alone. “She’s good at that.”

Outside, the afternoon light slants through the window, painting gold across Raf’s hospital blanket. For a moment, Casey allows herself to believe in small mercies: the steadiness of Raf’s hand in hers, Sienna’s persistent hope lighting up her phone, the ordinary magic of women who hold each other up through every storm. She tucks her phone away and leans back, letting silence settle, full of all the things she cannot say, and all the love she quietly offers—unspoken, unwavering, and endless.

Casey checks the time—two o’clock sharp, the hour marked out in her mind like an appointment she cannot afford to miss. She turns to Raf, lowering her voice. “Did you or one of the nurses put Pippa’s Clobetasol Propionate on her arms and shoulders?”

There’s a pause—the kind that says both of them are running down the same list, the same rituals, the same stubborn hopes. Pippa’s rash, that angry constellation of red blooming across her arms and shoulders, had first appeared during the worst days of her chemotherapy, before the T-cell aspiration. Relief had been promised in the little tube of ointment, its instructions simple: three times a day, every day, until the itch and burn gave way to smooth skin. But months had passed, the regimen kept with desperate diligence, and still the rash lingered, feverish and unyielding, as if Pippa’s body refused to forget.

Casey’s mind drifts to those nights—Pippa awake, fretful, unable to express the misery except to cry and wriggle, her small fists trying to scratch through the pain. Casey and Raf would take turns, soothing her, singing, coaxing her hands away, all the while applying the Clobetasol with gentle, circular motions, hoping for a miracle in a pharmacy’s promise.

Now, as the silence stretches, the weight of those months presses in, heavy with worry and memory. Even in her coma, Pippa’s arms bear the story: the stubborn rash, the rawness, the fight still etched on her skin. Casey’s question hangs between them, less an inquiry than a plea—for vigilance, for hope, for the right answer this time.

Raf shakes his head, lips tight. “I’ll check with the nurse on duty,” he murmurs, already half out of his chair, the urgency in his movements matching the quiet panic that thrums in Casey’s chest. She exhales shakily, brushing a hand across her eyes, and watches the sunlight catch on the metal bedrail, tracing silent prayers in the dust.

Casey frowns, her voice gentle but insistent. “Be careful or you’ll trip,” she says, catching Raf’s sleeve before he can dart away. There’s a note in her words—part command, part plea—that betrays the undercurrent of worry she carries for him, too. “This isn’t an emergency, babe. You can go at your normal, comfortable pace.”

The sharpness in her tone softens as she squeezes his arm, grounding them both. In the hush of the ward, urgency is a double-edged sword—sometimes it saves, sometimes it frays. Casey’s eyes linger on Raf, their familiar lines drawn tight with fatigue and devotion. She doesn’t want him swept up in her own anxieties, doesn’t want to watch him stumble just to chase a hope that’s never been simple.

Raf pauses, breathing out some of the haste. For a moment, the world steadies again: two people tethered by their care, holding space for each other’s limits as much as for their shared devotion. He nods, a small, grateful smile flickering across his face.

“I’ll be careful,” he promises, and in that simple vow Casey feels the quiet strength that’s carried them through countless nights and uncertainties—a reminder that, sometimes, the bravest thing is simply moving slowly, together.

When Raf returns, there’s a carefulness to his step—a promise kept. He settles into the chair beside Casey, the quiet hum of the ward folding around them like a blanket. “Spoke to the nurse,” he says, voice low. “Pippa’s ointment hasn’t been put on yet. They’ll apply it as soon as she’s back from her MRI—they’re expecting her any minute.”

At the mention of the scan, Casey’s heart skips. Hope and apprehension coil together, breath catching in her throat. She nods, clutching the reassurance like a talisman, thinking of Pippa in the narrow tunnel, cradled by whirring machines and distant voices. The idea of her small body, still and brave under the great humming arch, is almost too much to hold.

“All right,” Casey manages, her words a quiet truce with anxiety. She finds Raf’s hand again, grounding both of them in the moment—waiting, trusting the slow progression of care, believing in the return of their daughter and the measured, gentle hands that will tend to her skin. Time stretches and contracts as they wait, each second filled with silent wishes: for swift news, for smooth skin, for the smallest evidence that healing is possible.

The truth is, she just wants to see her baby, even if it means being confronted by Pippa on a ventilator.

It’s a longing that cuts through all the clinical reassurances, the polite updates, the parade of careful, competent hands. Casey’s need is elemental—a mother’s ache for proof of breath, for the warmth of a presence she can see and touch, for the simple knowing that Pippa is still here. No sterile corridor, no tangle of wires, not even the starkness of a machine’s rhythm can dull that ache.

Her eyes flick to the doorway, searching for any sign that the wait is over. She tells herself again that she can bear anything as long as she’s beside her child—even the sight of that small body made smaller by tubes and tape, even the air that comes and goes by another means. What she cannot bear is distance: not knowing, not seeing, not holding. The bravest thing, perhaps, is not endurance, not hope, but the simple insistence on being present, however harsh the scene, however fragile the grace.

Casey’s knuckles whiten around Raf’s hand. The world narrows to the possibility of the next moment, to the first glimpse of a nurse in the hall, to the hope that soon—very soon—she will be allowed to enter, to bear witness, to love Pippa in whatever form this day allows.

Tears suddenly spring to Casey’s eyes, her breath faltering. “I’m scared, Raf. What if—” The words tremble and dissolve between them, unfinished but understood. What if Pippa doesn’t wake up? What if all the gentle routines and vigilant hope are not enough? What if the next threshold they cross is one from which there is no returning?

Raf’s hand tightens around hers, his own eyes shining with grief he can barely contain. He doesn’t tell her not to worry, doesn’t try to mend the moment with false certainty. Instead, he lets the question hang in the air, raw and honest—a wound shared.

“If that happens,” his voice is rough, but steady, “then we’ll hold her. Together. However long we’re given, we’ll be with her. She won’t be alone.” He brings her hand to his lips, the gesture as much for him as for her. “I don’t know how we’ll do it. But we will. We’ll love her all the way through.”

Casey’s tears spill over, silent but relentless, tracing the lines of her exhaustion and courage. She folds into Raf, the two of them clinging to one another in the small, humming room. The future is a dark shape just beyond the door, but here, now, in the fragile present, they are together—waiting, hoping, bracing themselves for whatever love demands.

In the space between hope and fear, they draw breath. And in that breath, they hold on.

The door swings open, slicing through the hush with a startle that sends Casey upright in her chair. Ethan enters, the hospital light glinting off his glasses, white coat creased from too many hours and too little rest. In his hands, he holds a slim folder—an object as weighty as a verdict.

He glances at them, and in that brief moment, his expression carries both the gravity of a physician and the empathy of someone who has witnessed too much suffering. “Pippa’s MRI scan is over,” Ethan says, his tone gentle but unflinching. “I’ve looked over her results. There are a few areas we need to be cautious about, but we won’t know how she’s affected until she comes out of the coma.”

The words settle over the small room, not quite heavy enough to crush hope, but not light enough to lift the shadows either. Casey feels Raf’s hand tense in hers, and for a heartbeat, all her strength strains toward deciphering Ethan’s face, searching for some secret reassurance in the lines around his mouth, the furrow of his brow.

She wants to ask a thousand questions and none at all. The future, so recently a silent threat, now wears a new mask—one of waiting, again, but now sharpened by the knowledge of hidden dangers lurking in Pippa’s small, quiet body.

Casey draws a trembling breath. “But she’s… she’s stable? She’s still fighting?”

Ethan nods, stepping closer, his presence steadying. “Yes. She’s stable. The next few hours and days will tell us more. We’ll be with her every step. So will you.”

Casey closes her eyes, clutching that promise, and for a moment, lets herself believe in the slender thread of possibility—enough, perhaps, to keep holding on.

A thought rushes in, unbidden and desperate, before Casey can silence it. She finds her voice—fragile, almost apologetic—yet it trembles with longing. “I know you’ll probably say no, but is it possible for me to hold her? Has it ever been done before?”

Her words spill out in a ragged whisper, “I know…it’s allowed sometimes, when a child is being taken off the ventilator, so they can be in their parents’ arms as they slip away—”

The rest catches in her throat, the fear too raw, too true. The possibility that one day, a single misstep could bring that reality to their door presses hard against her ribs. Raf’s hand tightens in silent solidarity.

Ethan’s gaze softens, something fatherly flickering beneath the physician’s steadiness. He kneels to their level, voice pitched low, careful. “Casey, I wish it were as simple as that. Sometimes, when a child is very fragile, we do allow gentle holding, even while they’re on support. But it depends on a lot—their stability, the lines and wires, what her team judges safe. It isn’t only reserved for goodbyes.” He offers a small, worn smile, a flicker of hope among the clinical caution. “There are moments, sometimes, when touch is healing. If Pippa grows stronger, if her breathing and blood pressure hold steady, we can talk with her team. We want her to feel her parents’ love, not just the machines.”

Casey nods, tears brimming anew, a different kind of ache sharpening inside her. She can almost feel the phantom weight of Pippa’s small body resting against her chest, the impossible hope of warmth and heartbeat and breath.

For now, it remains just out of reach—a promise, not yet broken nor fulfilled.

Raf leans in, pressing his forehead to hers, and together they weather this fresh surge of wanting, of near and not-yet. In this tiny, humming room, their yearning becomes another thread of possibility, weaving through the silence as they wait, loving her all the way through.

Raf swallows tears, “Is there anything we can do? We have been holding her hands and talking to her, and reading her stories.”

Ethan’s answer is gentle, never hurried. “You’re already doing so much. She hears your voices—familiar, loving. She knows you’re here. Even small things help: your touch, the way you speak to her, telling her about the world outside these walls. If you want, bring in her favourite blanket or something that smells like home. Sometimes, we play soft music, or record messages for when you can’t be at her side. All of it matters. Love is woven into the care we give, and she feels it.”

Casey nods, and Raf manages a trembling, grateful breath. The room shifts, just a little: less like a battleground, more like a vigil. The fragile, relentless hope persists—anchored by the quiet, tireless ways they love her, holding on in every way that is left to them.

Casey reaches into the canvas bag resting by her feet, her hands trembling with the weight of so many days and nights spent here. “We’ve got her purple butterfly blanket,” she says softly, as if naming it conjures comfort into the air. “I asked one of the nurses to wash it yesterday. She even took it home with her—didn’t just toss it in the hospital machine. She said she wanted it to smell like real laundry, like home.”

The blanket emerges, vivid and familiar: a tumble of lilac and indigo wings dancing across worn, beloved fleece. It’s the one Tommy found in New York for Pippa—Tommy, who’d crossed half a continent on tour and returned bearing a gift for a little girl barely two, tucked behind a smile that said he’d thought only of her. In the years since, the blanket has wound its way through every hospital stay, every long night, every sharp moment of comfort needed when nothing else would do. It’s become a talisman, as essential as medicine or oxygen, as recognizably hers as the dimple in her chin or the way she crinkles her nose when Raf sings off-key.

Casey’s fingers smooth the fabric almost reverently, tracing butterflies whose edges have faded from so many washes, so many clutched-fisted dreams. “For the last three years, she’s adored it,” she murmurs, voice catching at the memory of all those nights—blanket curled in small arms, a shield against the cold and the strange. “It’s her comfort…through all of this. Hospitals and needles and medicine and fear. This blanket has been the one thing she can always count on.”

She drapes it gently over the edge of the bed, as close as she’s allowed, and suddenly the room feels different—less sterile, less foreign. The scent of home, the softness of old fleece, the flutter of purple wings: they are hope, stitched and worn and carried forward. Raf’s hand finds hers, and together they watch the butterflies settle, bright and brave, ready to keep loving her in every way they still can.

Casey knows Ethan isn’t one for making promises he can’t keep, not when a patient—or a family member’s life is in his hands. That’s part of why she trusts him, even when she’s desperate for certainty and every shadow on the monitors claws at her nerves. He speaks with the careful honesty of someone who’s mapped the edges of hope and knows which ledges will hold, and which will give way beneath the weight of longing.

She can see the gravity in his eyes, the way he never rushes or looks away, holding her gaze with a steadiness that feels like shelter. His reassurances are never platitudes, never the easy comfort of a promise he isn’t sure he can deliver. Instead, he offers the truth—gentle, but unflinching.

In this place, that truth is a rare and precious thing. It means when Ethan says Pippa feels their love, that she hears their voices and knows she is not alone, Casey can believe it. Not because it’s what she wants to hear, but because he would never say it unless he knew, somewhere deep, that it was real.

So, Casey lets herself lean into that truth, holding it close like she holds Raf’s hand, like she drapes Pippa’s blanket across the bed: as an act of faith. In this room, with its measured beeps and its quiet sighs, hope becomes something built on honesty—something fragile, perhaps, but never false.

Casey looks at Raf, “We need to put Pippa’s cream on her arms and shoulders now. Which means we need to open her pyjama top, but we need to be careful of the electrodes and leads and wires that are tracking her heart rhythm.”

She stands up and walks over to where Pippa’s battered blue bag waits, slouched against the foot of the bed—a vessel heavy with vials, syringes, and the tangled lifelines of necessity. It holds every single medication Pippa requires, each bottle and blister pack a silent testament to the relentless vigilance of their days. The bag’s seams are stretched and frayed, worn by constant opening and closing, by the urgency of midnight searches and the hurried packing for ambulance rides.

Casey kneels beside it, deft but weary, fingers brushing past saline flushes, an inhaler, a crumpled packet of wipes, and a meticulously labelled pill organizer. She rummages until she finds the tube of clobetasol propionate, the label beginning to peel at the edges. She isn’t sure if this is the fourth or fifth tube since the rash bloomed across Pippa’s skin three and a half months ago—the weeks run together, measured not in days but in doses and flare-ups, in the slow, stubborn fading of angry red patches.

She squeezes the tube gently, checking there’s still enough left, then glances back at Raf. There’s a rhythm in these small rituals now, a choreography they’ve learned wordlessly: one of them steadies Pippa’s arm, the other unscrews the cap; together, they make their way around the leads and sensors that map the fragile shape of hope, one heartbeat at a time.

The moment hangs—a hush of anticipation—until Casey’s phone, wedged somewhere beneath a folded cardigan and a sheaf of hospital discharge summaries, starts to ring. The sound is sharp against the quiet, startling in this space so carefully composed around gentle beeps and murmured reassurances.

Casey frowns, steroid cream already cool and smooth against her fingertips, the task only half-done. She turns towards Ethan, who stands close by, just as Raf fumbles with the buttons on Pippa’s pyjama top, his hands careful not to disturb the delicate web of wires and sensors.

“Ethan, can you please answer that?” her voice is tight, balancing apology and urgency.

He nods, crossing to the chair where her phone buzzes insistently, the caller ID glowing in the low light. He glances at the screen and lifts his eyes to meet hers. “It’s your mother,” he says quietly, understanding without needing to ask the weight this call might carry.

Casey’s brow furrows a little deeper. “Could you please tell her that I’ll call her back in five minutes, when I’ve finished putting Pippa’s steroid cream on?” Her voice is gentle but decisive, a mother’s priorities in sharp focus.

Ethan gives a reassuring smile and swipes to answer, his tone soft as he speaks into the phone, relaying Casey’s message with the same careful honesty that steadies them all. In the small, crowded room, the ordinary act of answering a call becomes another thread in the tapestry of love and vigilance—a reminder that outside this cocoon of vigilance and small hopes, life presses on, waiting, just for a moment, at the threshold.

Casey turns to Pippa, “Here we go my darling. Your cream for your arms and your shoulders, that should make the itch calm down.”

Although Pippa cannot respond, her eyelids fluttering only in dreams, Casey speaks as she always does—words a lifeline thrown out across uncertain waters. She murmurs gentle reassurances, each syllable a small anchor, as she smooths the cool cream along tender skin, careful not to press too hard, careful not to let any wire slip or lead tug free.

It does not matter that no answer comes. Inside the hush, with the muted beeps and Raf’s steadying presence, Casey finds her own solace in the act. The room, thick with the scent of antiseptic and the low hum of machines, grows softer around the cadence of her voice. To speak to Pippa—her darling, her brave girl, her silent fighter—is to remember she is still here, still tethered by hope and love, no matter how far beneath the surface she drifts.

For Casey, these words are as much a promise as a comfort. She believes that somewhere, in some quiet fold of sleep, Pippa might still feel their warmth, and that love, spoken aloud, can reach even the deepest silence.

When she has washed her hands and put away the cream back in the bag where she is certain it is for the next time she needs it at bedtime—eight o’clock, the same time as Pippa’s final tubal feed of the day—Casey dries her hands and reaches for her phone. She scrolls down her recent calls, past the late-night, terror-filled calls to Ethan and the incoming calls from Sienna, until she finds her mother’s number.

Casey waits as the call rings out, her thumb pressing with unconscious insistence against the cold plastic, until at last Sandy’s voice comes through.

Sandy’s voice, warm but a little frayed at the edges, comes through the line. But before she can muster a greeting, Casey’s words tumble out in a rush—a dam broken by too many held breaths. “Hi Mom, sorry I couldn’t talk. Pippa had to have her steroid cream put on her arms and shoulders. This rash from her chemotherapy just isn’t shifting. It’s been three and a half months.”

The words rattle along, urgent and apologetic, as if Casey could keep the ache and worry at bay through the sheer force of her speech. She fills every pause, layering explanation on explanation, unable to let silence settle or leave room for questions she might not have the strength to answer.

On the other end, Sandy listens—phone pressed tight to her ear, her own news of Isabelle’s recurring night terrors balanced precariously on her tongue. But Casey barrels on, too quick, too full, her voice a shield against the darkness that threatens at the edges.

Sandy waits, patient, holding her burdens close, knowing the rhythm of these calls—how sometimes, love means letting the words spill out unchecked, leaving her own worries for another time.

There is a long, trembling silence, the kind that only comes when pain is too raw for easy words. Through the phone, Sandy’s voice gathers itself, gentle but edged with sorrow: “They are getting worse, Casey. She says she and Pippa are playing in the woods and suddenly Pippa starts to fade away. I think Belle is trying to describe Pippa dying. Her fears that she’ll lose her sister and her best friend.”

The words land with a shuddering finality, and for a moment Casey cannot breathe. The edges of the room blur.

She looks at Raf—his eyes, haunted, never leaving Pippa’s unconscious form—and her own spill over, tears tracking silently. She thinks of Isabelle’s small, trembling body, the way she curls herself tight and cries for her sister, waking up drenched and afraid, the fear so big it spills out in the night and soaks the bed.

She aches to be there, to gather Isabelle up, to press kisses into her tangled hair, to whisper the kind of promises a mother must make even when she’s not sure she can keep them. To tell her girl that Pippa is still here, that the woods are just a dream, that sisters don’t fade, not truly—not if love is fierce enough.

But distance is a wall, and all Casey can do is let her grief pour out, hot and helpless, as Sandy waits on the other end, holding space for both their heartbreaks. The world in this moment is too wide, and every word feels like a thread stretched thin between rooms, between beds, between the ones who fight and the ones who dream.

Casey wipes her cheeks, voice rough. “I’m so sorry, Mom. I wish I could be there. I wish—” She cuts herself off, the wish too familiar, too sharp. In the hush that follows, hope and sorrow live side by side, and the sound of Isabelle’s night terrors lingers, an echo neither mother nor daughter knows how to chase away.

Sandy’s answer is a hush, a rustle of movement—then her voice, thick with tenderness. “She’s right here, sweetheart. Give me a moment.” There’s the muffled sound of Sandy shifting the phone, the distant notes of a cartoon theme song, the static-flutter of a child’s world in the background.

Casey blinks hard, willing herself to be steady as the screen fills with the familiar living room, soft afternoon light filtered through the curtains. There, nestled in a patchwork blanket, Isabelle curls, her small hands wrapped around the beloved polar bear, the faded white fur pressed against reddened cheeks. Her hair tumbles in sleep-mussed spirals, and for a moment, the ache of absence and the balm of love collide in Casey’s chest.

“Belle?” Casey whispers, as if her voice could bridge continents. The child blinks, confusion and hope warring in her eyes, then a tremulous smile cracks the shadows. Raf moves closer behind Casey, his own face unguarded, voice catching: “Hey, little bear. We miss you so much.”

Isabelle’s lower lip wobbles, then she squeezes her polar bear tighter, the cartoon’s colours reflected in her wide, shining eyes. “Mama? Daddy?” Her voice is soft, but it cuts through the miles.

“We’re right here, baby.” Casey’s voice shudders but steadies, gathering up all the warmth she can find. “We love you. So, so much.”

For a moment, time holds its breath; grief and hope twine together, thrumming through the glowing screen. Somewhere, beyond the walls and the monitors and the endless, uncertain waiting, love endures—reaching out in pixelated light, fierce and unbroken.

Isabelle clutches her polar bear and her threadbare blankie, knuckles white, though Mia sometimes teases her—soft and sly—that she’s far too old for such things. But now, the comfort of old softness, the memories stitched into the faded fabric, are all she has. Her eyes, still swollen from sleep and worry, dart between the screen and the doorway as if Mama might walk in, arms open, any moment.

“Mama home soon? Pippa play?” she ventures, her voice thready with hope and longing.

Casey feels the question like a stone in her chest—her daughter’s faith, so fragile, so bright it hurts to hold. The lump rises in her throat, threatening to choke the answer before it comes. She turns the phone away, her hand trembling, stealing a glance at Pippa’s motionless form on the hospital bed, so small and still beneath harsh white sheets. She can’t let Isabelle see, not like this.

“I don’t know, sweetie,” Casey manages, her voice barely above a whisper. “Your sister’s still very poorly.” The words falter, each one a promise she cannot shape, a truth too heavy for a child’s world yet too urgent to hide. For a breathless second, it’s just the hush of static, cartoon melodies mingling with the pulse of worry, and the unspoken wishes stretching between them, thin as gossamer, strong as love.

Isabelle whimpers, her sapphire blue eyes—so achingly like Casey’s—filling with tears. “Bedtime scary without Mama cuddles.” The words tremble in the hush, as if they might shatter under their own fragile weight. Casey’s heart contracts; on the screen, her daughter’s face is a moonlit echo of her own, all vulnerability and longing.

Raf moves to rest a gentle hand on Casey’s shoulder, grounding her as she fights the pull of her own tears. “I know, sweetheart,” Casey murmurs, voice a silken thread. “It’s hard. I wish with all my heart I could be there to tuck you in and hold you close.”

She watches as Isabelle burrows deeper into the patchwork cocoon, the polar bear clutched tight—a talisman against the night. The distance feels wider than ever, but Casey gathers every bit of warmth and steadiness she can muster and pours it into her words. “We’ll imagine I’m right there, okay? I’m sending you the biggest, softest hug in the world. And Daddy too. Can you feel it?”

Isabelle nods, a watery smile flickering through the tears, and for a moment, hope glimmers. The promise of reunion—of comfort returned—hangs tenderly between them, a silent lullaby humming through the wires and the dark, lonely room.

Somewhere in the background, a sharp bark rings out—Maple, their sprightly Maltese poodle, her presence as constant as breath. Casey’s heart twists with bittersweet affection at the sound. Maple, Raf’s impossible, joyous surprise on her thirty-first birthday, has always seemed to know when a soul is splintered. Even now, the little dog’s bark feels like a reminder that the world beyond hospital corridors and sleepless, anxious nights continues to turn.

Casey’s thoughts flicker, searching for another heartbeat—Hope, their golden retriever pup, all oversized paws and tumbling energy. At just fifteen months, Hope’s exuberance is matched only by her knack for disappearing at the quietest moments, trailing off to secret corners with a well-loved toy or, sometimes, curling up beside Isabelle when the dark grows too deep.

For a fleeting instant, Casey’s mind drifts back—beyond these jagged days, to a sorrow even quieter and more private. She remembers the way Maple nestled wordlessly against her after the loss of Oliver, the baby whose heartbeat stilled before his first breath. Maple had seemed to understand, pressing warmth into Casey’s side as she wept, steadfast through the hollow hours when grief was a silent storm.

Now, listening to the sounds of home—Maple’s bright yelp, the hush that hints at Hope’s gentle watch—Casey draws a trembling breath. Love, she realises, is stitched through every corner of their lives, in loyal paws and soft fur and the silent promises of comfort, ready to fill the spaces that sorrow leaves behind.

Soon, Sandy’s gentle voice filtered through the speaker, her tone patient yet purposeful. “Come on, Isa, time to say goodbye now—we need to go and pick up Mia and Felicity from school.” The words, so ordinary in their routine, brushed quietly against the heartache in the room.

Isabelle let out a shaky sigh, eyes flicking to some comfort just offscreen as Sandy hovered beside her, arm wrapped in reassuring promise. “Love you, Mama,” she mumbled, voice small and brave.

Casey pressed her palm to the glassy surface of her phone, wishing it could bridge the ache, could carry her warmth all the way home. “Love you more, sweetpea. I’ll see you soon, I promise.”

With that, the call ended—Isabelle’s face a fading moon, the square of her window shrinking back into silence. For a moment, Casey sat listening to the echoing hush, the distant lilt of Maple’s bark now replaced by the muted soundtrack of the ward. The ache of goodbye was a familiar companion, but in its wake, she felt the small, flickering steadiness of hope—fragile, luminous, and just enough to carry her through another night.

Casey lowers the phone and turns to look at Raf. “I hate this.” She gazes at Pippa, “I just want this Hell to be over. For Pippa to be ok. And for our family to be together again. Worrying about normal things, like forgetting to put Mia’s favourite t shirt in the laundry or running out of Belle’s favourite cereal.”

She gazes at Pippa, “A life that isn’t revolving around cancer and timed medications and staying in hospital for months at a time.”

Her voice cracks. “I want to give Pippa a normal childhood and give Mia and Felicity and Isabelle back their parents. Because they need us too.”

Raf is silent, his face shadowed by exhaustion and something deeper—guilt, maybe, or simply the unnameable ache of helplessness. He reaches for Casey’s hand across the sterile sheets, his grip tight, anchoring. For a few heartbeats, neither speaks; there is only the rhythmic beeping of monitors and the soft, uneven breaths of Pippa asleep in her crib.

“I know,” Raf says finally, his voice rough. “I want that too. I’d give anything for it. For just one day where it’s all noise and chaos and the hardest thing we face is who gets the last pancake.”

Casey manages a hollow laugh, tears glinting. “I’d burn every pancake in the house for that.” She swipes at her eyes, the gesture half angry, half tender. “How do we keep going, Raf?”

He looks at her then, really looks, and the weight of all the days and nights they have survived is there in his gaze. “We keep loving them. We keep showing up. We let Maple and Hope steal socks and bark at the mail. We call home and promise the girls we’ll be there—soon. We keep hoping, even when it’s just a flicker.”

Casey nods, weary but steadied, and glances over at Pippa, her tiny chest rising and falling. “Just a flicker,” she whispers, settling back into the chair, her hand still entwined with Raf’s. And in the hush of the hospital night, surrounded by machines and memories, she holds on to that fragile promise—a thread of hope stretched, but unbroken.

As her phone vibrates again, stubbornly, Casey gives in and picks it up.

For a second, Casey stares at the screen, the name burning against her palm: Sophia. Her twin, her mirror, her oldest friend—now a stranger on the other end of too many unanswered calls. The phone vibrates a second time, insistent, as if the device itself aches with the urgency of Sophia's need to be heard.

Casey wants to let it ring. To hurl it away, to sink it beneath the waves of sterile light and hospital fatigue, to silence the memory of glossy pages smeared with their private hell. The image rises unbidden—a photo she never took, would never have wanted. Pippa’s small bald head, eyelids bruised, mouth slack around the ventilator. That moment, sacred and terrible, meant only for the hush of their family. And now it belonged to everyone, devoured by strangers, dissected by headlines, perhaps even mocked. Would anyone be so cruel as to laugh? Casey’s heart recoils from the thought, yet she knows the world well enough not to answer.

But what gnaws sharper than any stranger’s gaze is the betrayal from within her own blood. Sophia. The aunt who once traced hearts on Pippa’s back, who painted Mia’s face in butterfly swirls, who claimed the title of protector as fiercely as any parent. How could she? How could love twist itself into something sharp and secretive, a weapon wielded not in malice but in desperation—or was it something else? Money? Attention? Or just the ruinous allure of telling the world a story that wasn’t hers to tell?

Casey’s thumb hesitates over the answer icon. She wants to shout, to demand, to beg for a reason that makes sense, a reason that could somehow stitch this fracture closed. But no explanation can unprint the photograph. No apology can return their suffering to the privacy of their own hearts.

She closes her eyes and inhales, feeling Raf’s hand still wrapped around hers—a reminder of everything they are fighting for, of the fragile thread holding them to hope. Then, with a tremor in her voice and a storm behind her ribs, Casey answers at last, bracing herself for the voice she knows as well as her own, and for a conversation that might never bring peace.

Suddenly the door swings open, the hush fractured by the rush of air and footsteps. Dr. Mei Lui enters—her presence composed and gentle, yet commanding in its quiet authority. She is an Infectious Disease specialist, her vowels still touched by the soft inflections of Pingyao, Shanxi Province, though she’s called America home for two decades now. Her monolid eyes are dark brown, nearly black, and luminous with compassion; her smile is small but genuine, as if she knows exactly how fragile hope can be in a room like this.

Sophia is forgotten in an instant—her name a pale echo compared to the reality at the foot of the bed. Casey instinctively clutches Raf’s hand, bracing herself as Dr. Lui closes the door behind her and approaches, folder pressed to her chest.

The badge clipped to the doctor’s coat glints beneath the fluorescent lights. An Infectious Disease specialist. The title alone sends a cold ripple up Casey’s spine, sharper and more immediate than any headline or memory. For a heartbeat, the world stills, the worry in the air stretching like thin glass.

Dr. Lui pauses, reading the room as expertly as she might read a culture slide, her gaze flicking over Casey, Raf, and finally to Pippa—her small form surrounded by machinery and love. She offers her smile again, the kind that says she’s walked through too many hospital nights herself, and sets the folder gently on the bedside table.

“I’m Dr. Mei Lui,” she says, her voice mellow, “and I’m here to help take care of Pippa.” She gives them a moment, letting the words settle, her presence at once reassuring and grave—a harbinger of answers, perhaps, or at the very least, of the truth they’ve been both dreading and desperately needing.

Casey’s hand shakes as Dr. Lui clasps it in her own. “Thank you for coming. I must ask, why are you here? Have Pippa’s blood tests waved up something serious that you were needed? Have you spoken to my colleague Dr Ramsey who has come here to consult on Pippa’s care? I had specifically made it clear that he must be involved in any Diagnostic aspect of Pippa’s care.”

There is a hush—a pause that blooms and stretches, every breath in the room suspended on the cusp of Dr. Lui’s reply. The doctor’s grip is deliberate, neither rushed nor patronizing, but quietly anchoring, as if she knows all too well the way grief can make hands tremble and voices waver.

Dr. Lui’s gaze meets Casey’s, unwavering, her words weighted with calm. “I understand, Dr. Ford. I’ve reviewed the instructions and have been in contact with Dr. Ramsey; he and I have exchanged notes this morning. I’m here because some of Pippa’s most recent panels suggest there’s an emerging infection her body’s unable to fight on her own. Nothing definitive yet, but enough flags for us to be vigilant. I promise, Dr. Ramsey will remain closely looped in on all our decisions.”

Her eyes flicker with empathy, sensing Casey’s need for both reassurance and control. “This isn’t an easy moment. I want you to know that we’re all working together. I’m not here to upend the plan, only to help clarify what’s happening and guide the next steps—side by side.”

A faint shiver passes through the room: the machinery whirs, Raf’s thumb strokes the back of Casey’s hand, and Pippa’s shadowy form lies at the heart of it all. The future remains uncertain, but for now, the circle tightens—a knot of hope and fear drawn closer by the gravity of a child’s need and the fragile alliances forged to protect her.

Casey’s words hang in the hush like a plea and a challenge, the measured cadence of a doctor’s mind tangled in a mother’s raw hope. Dr. Lui inclines her head, understanding etched in the small lines at the corners of her eyes.

“Of course,” she says quietly. She draws the folder closer, thumb pressing the edge as if weighing its contents before the truth. “We haven’t found a single definitive cause—not yet. The patterns we’re seeing in Pippa’s panels are concerning, but they’re not speaking with one clear voice. There are markers for bacterial infection, yes—her white cell count is elevated, and her CRP is climbing. But there are also signs that her immune system is struggling in ways atypical for a simple pneumonia or urinary tract infection.”

She glances at the monitor, at Pippa, then back to Casey. “Sepsis is our gravest worry—an infection overwhelming her body, pushing her heart and organs past their limits. It’s likely that’s what caused her cardiac arrest, though without a single positive culture, we’re chasing shadows. The echo of infection is there in every test result, but it’s not showing itself to us yet. We’re running more advanced panels—fungal, viral, even rare bacteria. We’re not leaving anything to chance.”

Her voice is gentle but unflinching. “I know you understand the language of uncertainty, Dr. Aveiro. I wish I could give you a name, a target. For now, our plan is broad-spectrum antibiotics and close monitoring, while we push the lab for answers. If I see a shift in her symptoms—anything that opens a door—I’ll walk you through it, step by step. And Dr. Ramsey is reviewing every new result as they come in.”

She lets the silence return for a heartbeat, acknowledging the pain it brings but refusing to fill it with false comfort. “You and Raf deserve the truth. I promise you, nothing is being hidden. While we search for what’s hurting Pippa, we are fighting for her as fiercely as you would for any of your own patients. We’re in this together.”

Her gaze lingers on Casey, steady and unwavering. The gravity of uncertainty remains, but so too does a thread of hope—stubborn, fragile, and fiercely alive.

Casey nods, her voice steady but laced with urgency. “Myself and Dr. Ramsey suspected Pippa may have pneumonia, or possibly pleural effusion, as in the days before her T-cell infusion she had a wet cough, as if there was fluid in her lungs. I want the fluid tested.”

Dr. Lui listens intently, her posture attentive, fingertips pressed lightly to the folder as if anchoring herself in the moment. “Absolutely,” she replies. “I share your concern. We’ll order an ultrasound to check for any effusion, and if there’s fluid present, we’ll sample it for analysis—cell count, Gram stain, culture, and cytology if indicated. It’s important we don’t overlook any possibility, especially given the trajectory of her symptoms.”

She meets Casey’s gaze, intent and collaborative. “Thank you for raising this. Sometimes the smallest details—like a change in cough, that feeling of heaviness—are signposts we must follow. I’ll coordinate with radiology and keep you informed of every result as soon as it’s available.”

The soft hiss of the ventilator fills the pause. Raf’s grip tightens imperceptibly, drawing comfort from the clarity of the conversation. Beyond the flicker of monitors, Pippa remains at the centre, their shared hope and worry crystallizing into this latest, vital step.

For a moment, the path through uncertainty feels less like stumbling in the dark, and more like a team—hands joined, eyes open—advancing together toward an answer.

Casey turns to Pippa, her words soft but fierce, “Don’t worry baby, Mama’s fighting for you.”

She gently cups Pippa’s small hand, resting atop the blanket just as she’s always liked, a childhood comfort carried into these stark hospital hours. “Mama and Daddy are right here my darling. Just hold on and come back to us.” Her thumb traces a slow circle over delicate knuckles, memorizing the shape of hope.

The cotton headscarf, patterned with faded blue daisies, frames Pippa’s bare head, a tender attempt to shield her from the clinical chill. Grief wells up in Casey, sharp and helpless, not just for the stillness of her little girl, but for the battles Pippa has never chosen—each needle, each beeping alarm, each quiet, uncertain night.

Raf shifts closer, reaching across to lay his hand over theirs, a silent promise threaded in the warmth of his palm.

Together, they form a circle around Pippa—fragile, unbreakable in its love.

The world narrows to this bedside: the hush of the machines, the soft rise and fall of Pippa’s chest, the ache and defiance in Casey’s voice. Vulnerable, yes, but not alone. Here, love becomes a vigil, a force as determined as any medicine, willing their daughter back across the invisible threshold.

In that hush, Casey leans low and whispers again—words meant only for Pippa, words she trusts will carry through the haze of fever and dreams: “We’re right here, sweetheart. We’re not letting go. Come back. Come home.”

Casey looks at Raf, her eyes searching his for a reassurance they can’t quite share, just as the door opens and Ethan steps quietly into the room. His presence brings a fleeting sense of steadiness, a reminder of the broader team encircling their fragile hope.

She glances up, exhaustion held at bay by determination. “Dr. Liǔ is ordering an ultrasound to check for fluid on Pippa’s lungs,” Casey says, her voice clear but laced with worry. “I told her what we suspected—that it could be pneumonia or pleural effusion. She said if there’s fluid, they’ll extract it and run tests.”

Casey’s gaze flickers from Ethan to Pippa’s frail figure, then back. “Should I ask for Pippa to be placed on antibiotics immediately? There’s an infection her body is struggling to fight. We just don’t know what it is yet.”

The question hangs in the air, heavy with urgency and love—a mother’s plea for certainty amid a storm of unknowns.

Raf’s hand remains on hers, grounding them both as they await Ethan’s answer, the room holding its breath with them.

Ethan remains motionless for a beat, the gravity of Casey’s words settling over him.

His gaze flickers to Pippa, then back to Casey, his own worry etched in the faint creases at the corners of his eyes. “Let’s get her temperature first,” he murmurs, his voice low and steady—the same timbre that has steadied Casey through the chaos of so many long nights across years of shared wards and whispered reassurances.

Raf’s crutches make a soft thunk as he navigates to the foot of the bed, retrieving the thermometer with practiced care. He hands it to Ethan, who kneels beside Pippa’s pillow, brushing a stray strand of her hair back before tucking the thermometer gently beneath her tongue.

The seconds drag. Each digital beep pulses through the silence—a metronome for the anxiety that fills the room. Casey reaches to squeeze Pippa’s foot through the thin blanket, desperate for any sign that her presence can anchor her daughter in this world just a little longer.

Ethan checks the display. “104.4°,” he announces quietly—fever, relentless, mounting. He glances at Casey, then at Raf, and the decision forms behind his eyes before the words follow.

“We shouldn’t wait. I’ll put in the order for broad-spectrum antibiotics now. If the cultures give us something more specific later, we can adjust, but she needs cover—immediately.”

Casey turns to Ethan, her eyes searching his face for something more than clinical certainty. “I think we are dealing with a case of hospital-acquired pneumonia,” she says, voice tight with a mixture of accusation and anguish. “Is there grounds for an official complaint? Or am I just going to be wasting precious time and energy?”

The words hang, sharp and restless, in the hush. Ethan meets her gaze, compassion and caution warring in his expression. He draws a slow breath before answering, weighing every syllable. “If this truly is hospital-acquired, there are protocols—we’d need to confirm onset after forty-eight hours and document the risk factors. It’s not wasting time if you want to pursue it, Casey. But right now, Pippa comes first. Let’s stabilise her; then, if you still want to file, I’ll help you with the paperwork myself.”

Raf shifts his stance, silent but attentive, the room once more banding together around the fragile hope lying feverish in the bed. For a moment, the question fades, replaced by the singular, urgent purpose of saving Pippa—complaints and formalities left for another dawn.

Casey turns to Raf, wanting, but also needing his input on this, “What do you think? This is a huge decision and I’m not going to do anything unless you agree we should.”

They had always sworn that anything serious that involved their daughters required both to agree before anything was set in motion.

Raf’s brow furrows as he shifts his crutches aside and settles on the edge of the chair, close enough to see the fear glittering behind Casey’s resolve. He takes a moment, breath coming in and out, slow and steady. “We promised,” he says quietly, his own voice rough with sleeplessness and the weight of too many nights like this. “Nothing big without both of us choosing it.”

His gaze drops briefly to Pippa, her cheeks flushed with fever, then lifts again. “I don’t want to waste time chasing blame when she’s still fighting, but I also… I don’t want to let it slide if something went wrong that shouldn’t have.” His hand finds Casey’s, squeezing it with as much strength as he has left. “Let’s get her through this first—really through it. Then I’ll stand with you, whatever we have to do. But right now, she needs every bit of us. Agreed?”

His words settle between them—an anchor, a reminder, and a promise all at once. For now, action narrows to the next moment, the next breath, the three of them holding fast to each other until the fever breaks.

Casey reaches out, gently smoothing a wrinkle from the scarf, her fingertips lingering for a heartbeat longer than needed. The hiss and sigh of the ventilator fill the quiet, a mechanical lullaby for a child who dreams behind closed, fever-bright eyes.

Somehow the headscarf covering her bare head makes her look more vulnerable than if she wasn’t wearing it, at least in Casey’s eyes.

It is tied at the nape of Pippa’s neck, just covering her scalp—a thin barrier between delicate skin and the cool air, the print bright but powerless to shield her from the gaze of the world or the ache of her own fragility. Casey’s fingers ache to smooth it again, to do something, anything, that might protect Pippa from what even antibiotics and vigilance cannot banish. The scarf seems to amplify her daughter’s smallness, her vulnerability writ large in the contrast between patterned cloth and the pale, fevered skin beneath.

And as the machines whisper and the hospital light pools against the sheets, Casey holds on—not only to Pippa’s hand, but to hope, and to Raf, and to that fragile, shared promise that nothing, not fear or anger or the sharpness of grief, will move them from her side.

The hours drift with slow, treacherous certainty. In the fluorescent hush of the ward, a nurse gently adjusts the lines at Pippa’s wrist, second-guessing nothing, her hands practiced and kind. The dual IV—piperacillin and tazobactam—spools into the vein beneath the translucent skin of Pippa’s arm, each drop a measured hope against the threat coiled in her chest. Hospital-acquired pneumonia: the words ring, too clinical for the terror they carry. Here, resistance isn’t just a medical term, but the silent enemy working against the medicine, against time.

Casey sits beside Raf, shoulders hunched forward, fingers tracing restless patterns in her lap. The longer they wait, the sharper the edge of possibility grows: that antibiotics may not be enough, that the infection might slip past every defence. Raf, usually so solid, watches the monitor as if willing the numbers to obey. They both know—too well—how quickly things can turn from hopeful to dire.

When the porter arrives to wheel Pippa downstairs, the sudden movement of staff jars the quiet vigil. Raf rises, adjusting his crutches with a wince, and Casey stands, smoothing Pippa’s headscarf one last time.

The ventilator hums along, trailing behind the bed like an anxious shadow as the nurse carefully monitors the IV lines and monitors. “Mama and Daddy will be waiting for you when you get back baby.”

As the doors swing closed behind Pippa’s bed and the staff’s footsteps fade down the corridor, Casey sinks back into the hard plastic chair. For a moment, her hands hover uncertainly, then reach for Flopsy—the stuffed rabbit left behind in the rush, its faded fur dulled by hospital air and the steady wear of Pippa’s small, determined hands.

Casey pulls the battered rabbit close, pressing her face briefly into the once-silky ears, now matted and thin. A faint scent clings to Flopsy, not quite Pippa’s anymore; it’s the sharp, sterile tang of the ward, layered with the ghost of childhood sweetness and the ache of long days spent waiting for improvement that sometimes never arrives. Another four months, nearly, that Pippa has kept Flopsy near—four months of whispered stories, dampened tears, and hope clung to as tightly as the toy itself.

Casey holds Flopsy in her lap, her thumbs worrying at the stitching in the rabbit’s paw, tracing the small places where the thread is loosening, where love has worn through fabric to memory. She cradles the soft toy in the hollow of her arms, as if channeling something steady and gentle back towards Pippa, wherever she is now in the labyrinth of the hospital. It’s not much, but it’s something to hold onto—a small, palpable comfort as the minutes grind forward, each one a pulse of longing, love, and hope.

Frowning, she looks at the thread. “I’m worried about the day we might need to replace her. Kids aren’t stupid, least of all Pippa.” The thought weighs heavier than the rabbit itself, settling beside the ache in her chest. There’s a certain honesty in the way Flopsy is falling apart, a testament to every night spent clutching, every comfort sought and found.

Casey runs her thumb over the loosened seam, imagining—dreading—the conversation she may someday have when Flopsy’s ear finally detaches or the stuffing spills, irretrievable, onto these grey linoleum floors. She wonders if it would matter, really, if the rabbit is gently mended or quietly replaced. Pippa, with her fierce clarity, would surely know the difference; she would see through any patchwork subterfuge.

Maybe, Casey thinks, that’s what love is: choosing to keep holding on, threadbare and imperfect, rather than pretending loss hasn’t happened. She presses her lips to Flopsy’s worn head, breathing in that mixture of hospital and child, and wills herself to believe that the small, battered rabbit—and the faith that binds them all—might last just a little longer.

Raf reaches for her hand, “Maybe we can find a way to get her mended?”

Casey startles at the gentle touch, warmth blooming despite the chill of the air and the tension coiled in her muscles.

She glances at Raf, searching his face for something steady, something possible. For a moment, there is only the hush of machines and the long shadow of uncertainty.

“Maybe,” she says, voice scraping up from somewhere brittle. “But not so new she wouldn’t recognise her. It has to be… Flopsy, still.” She squeezes Raf’s fingers, grateful for the pressure, the shared worry. “We can’t just patch her up and pretend nothing’s changed.”

Raf nods, a faint, sad smile flickering. “We’ll keep her story in the seams. Make sure every stitch remembers. Like a quilt—old loves, new threads.” His gaze drifts to the open door, where Pippa disappeared moments before, then back to the faded rabbit in Casey’s lap. “She’ll know. But maybe that’s okay.”

Casey exhales, uncertain and hopeful at once. She imagines sitting with a needle and thread, hands joined, mending Flopsy together—Pippa’s laughter echoing in the memory, the rabbit’s patched ear a tiny testament to endurance. If love is anything, it’s this: refusing to give up on what’s worn, what’s fragile, what’s needed most.

“Yeah,” she whispers, “we’ll try.”

Gazing at Flopsy in her hands, Casey feels the question tremble inside her: how much more can Pippa take? How much further can her body go before it—she—frays beyond mending? The rabbit’s threadbare ears feel like a metaphor, too close, too true. “What if I’m right?” she whispers, barely trusting her own voice to carry the words. “ICANS can be fatal, Raf. We keep hoping, but there are days I think—what if we’re just…darning holes in something we can’t save?”

Raf’s hand tightens around hers, silent for a long, heavy moment. The machines tick on in the background, indifferent. Casey thinks of all the ways she’s learned to count hope: in lab results, in pale smiles, in the way Pippa clings to Flopsy even now. But the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Nor do the experts, or even the gentle lies she tells herself at night.

“Maybe all we can do is keep going,” Raf says softly, his words the faint outline of a promise. “Hold on to her story—theirs, ours—even if it gets smaller, even if it hurts.”

Casey nods, her eyes prickling. She strokes Flopsy’s battered fur, letting the ache seep through her bones. “We’ll mend what we can,” she says. “And love her as long as there’s loving left to do.”

The minutes have stretched thin by the time Ethan finally appears, the hospital’s institutional hush broken only by the creak of the door and his tired footsteps. He looks older than he did that morning—his tie loosened, hair mussed, the skin beneath his eyes shadowed and bruised by worry.

Casey sits up, hope and dread tangled in her chest. Raf, still holding her hand, straightens with her.

Casey meets Ethan’s gaze. “Any news? What did the MRI say? Are the other tests back for the ICANS?”

Ethan hesitates in the doorway, his lips parting, then pressing shut again as if he’s searching for the gentlest version of the truth. For a moment, the silence feels cavernous, filled with the hum of machines and the distant shuffle of hospital life.

He slides into the room, weary but careful. “There’s something on the MRI,” he says at last, voice low, steady for their sake. “It’s not worse, but it’s not better either. The swelling hasn’t gone down. They’re still watching her closely.” He glances at Raf, then back at Casey, as if trying to anchor himself in their hope.

“As for the bloodwork—some of it’s back. The markers are up a little, but we don’t know yet if that’s temporary. They’re running more tests tonight, just to be sure.” Ethan’s hand curls around the back of a chair, knuckles white. “We’re not out of options. The team’s meeting in the morning to talk through next steps.”

Casey swallows. The words land somewhere between relief and fear—another day of not losing, but not winning either. She squeezes Raf’s hand tighter, feeling the weight of waiting settle around them all.

“We’ll stay with her,” she manages, voice a thread. “We’ll keep stitching hope together, one hour at a time.”

Casey bites her lip, gripping Raf’s hand more tightly, the ache in her chest sharpening as memory and fear collide.

She barely recognises her own voice when it emerges—small, hoarse, edged with dread. “Dr. Liǔ mentioned sepsis,” she manages. “Is that… is that something they’re looking at? It can’t be. Can it? Not again?”

Ethan’s shoulders slope, the question carving new lines into his brow. He moves closer, lowering himself into the chair he’d gripped, as if the answer itself requires steadiness. “They’re watching for it,” he admits, the words careful. “They’re checking every hour—cultures, vitals, all of it. With the swelling, the immune response, it’s something they have to rule out. But right now, there’s no definite sign. Nothing conclusive. We’re not at that bridge.”

Raf rubs his thumb over Casey’s knuckles, silent but solid. The fluorescent hospital light shimmers on his lashes as he watches her, waiting for her to breathe.

Casey nods, a little too quickly, the air tight in her lungs. “Okay. Thank you. I just—needed to know.”

Ethan’s gaze lingers, softening. “We’re not giving up on her,” he says quietly, as much for his own sake as for theirs. “Not for a second.”

Casey nods, “Any idea of what time they’ll be bringing her back upstairs?”

Ethan shakes his head, the smallest frown flickering. “They said maybe in an hour, if her numbers stay steady. They don’t want to rush moving her until they’re sure.” His gaze drifts to the clock on the wall—each minute measured, heavy with its own uncertainty. “I’ll check again before then, see if there’s an update. I know it feels endless.”

Raf shifts, hands still cradling Casey’s, his voice quiet but resolute. “We can wait. We’ll be right here.”

Ethan manages a tired smile—thin, but real. “I’ll make sure you know the minute she’s on her way up.” The words hover between them, a fragile promise, enough to steady the air for now.

Casey’s shoulders slump. “It’s already been two hours. And her next tubal feed is due soon and her antibiotics too.”

A silence settles, thick and restless. Ethan glances at his phone, the screen dark, as if searching for an answer in its reflection.

“I know,” he says, voice low, almost apologetic. “They’re tracking the schedule downstairs—she won’t miss her dose or her feed. I’ll double-check with the nurses, make sure they’re ready the moment she’s back.”

Casey nods, swallowing down the knot rising in her throat. The clinical regularity of tubes and medications is somehow both a comfort and a terror; she clings to it, the measured certainty of times and doses, as if it’s a lifeline.

Raf squeezes her hand again, anchoring them both. “We trust you,” he says, steady and sure, directing the words at Ethan but meaning them for everyone in the room.

Ethan stands, rolling back his shoulders as if he can shake off the weight of waiting. “Give me five minutes. I’ll bring you news—good or bad.”

He leaves, the hush closing in behind him, and Casey finally lets herself exhale, chest still tight but her grip on hope refusing to loosen.

Five minutes slip by, slow and thick, before the door clicks open—a nurse, crisp and careful, steps inside holding a folded sheet of results.

She pauses at the threshold, catching sight of Casey curled in the armchair by the window, phone clutched tight.

On the flickering screen, a much-younger Pippa giggles as Hope, all oversized paws and eager eyes, bounds clumsily after a chew toy. Casey’s shoulders tremble with silent tears; her gaze never leaves the luminous image of her daughter, bright and unburdened, a halo of resilience framing her thin smile even amidst the shadows of those first rounds of chemotherapy. Back then, even as Peripheral Neuropathy tethered her legs, Pippa’s spirit ran wild—her laughter ringing out, undimmed.

The nurse softens, steps forward with a gentle hush of shoes. “Casey?” Her voice is quiet, but it lands like a lifeline. “I have Pippa’s latest blood work—for the T-cell infusion.” She hesitates, glancing around. “Is Raf—?”

“He just stepped out,” Casey manages, pressing the edge of her thumb beneath her eye. Her voice is raw, but she forces a grateful smile. “You can tell me.”

The nurse nods, unfolding the paper, and draws up a chair. For a moment, beside the quiet glow of the video, they both wait—hope and dread suspended between numbers and memory.

Casey swallows a lump of fear in her throat. “How do they look?” She reaches for a box of tissues. “Any signs of her cancer markers going down?”

The nurse’s eyes flicker to the page, scanning the columns and curves, then settle on Casey with a measured, cautious hope. “There’s improvement,” she says, voice gentle but clear. “Her LDH levels are lower than last week, and the blasts—their numbers have dropped, too. The T-cell counts are holding steady, which is what we want. It’s not a miracle overnight, but it’s progress.”

Relief rushes through Casey in a trembling sigh, mingling with the ache that never truly leaves. She presses a tissue to her eyes, not caring if the nurse sees. On her phone, Pippa’s laughter plays on, soft and bright—a reminder that for today, hope is something more than just a word.

Casey nods. “Thank you. We’re still carrying on the daily blood tests, or is it ok to switch to weekly blood work?”

The nurse’s lips tilt into a thoughtful line, glancing back at the numbers. “Given how stable things are looking, the team will probably discuss moving to less frequent draws—maybe every few days, stepping down to weekly if she keeps trending well.” Her words are careful, but carry a certain hope—a promise that the worst may be receding, even if only inch by inch.

She meets Casey’s eyes, reassuring. “I’ll check with Dr. Menon right after this and let you know, but it’s a good sign we can even ask that question.”

Casey feels the tension in her body start to ebb, just a little. For the first time in what feels like forever, tomorrow holds the possibility of gentler routines.

She smiles gratefully, “Thank you.” The nurse’s answering smile is soft, the kind reserved for those who have weathered too many storms. For a moment, the room grows quiet—filled with the hush of machines, the low loop of Pippa’s laughter, and something newly fragile but determined: hope. Casey folds the tissue in her hand, feeling the weight of possibility settle gently inside her chest.

The nurse stands, tucking the report away. “I’ll be back soon with an update,” she promises, her voice a gentle tether in the dim. As the door swings shut behind her, Casey allows herself a single, steadying breath. In the half-light, she closes her eyes and listens—not just to Pippa’s bright voice on the video, but to the subtle, persistent beat of better days edging closer, one slow, brave step at a time.

Casey goes back to watching the video on her phone, letting the gentle cadence of Pippa’s laughter seep through the ache that still lingers in the corners of her mind. The images flicker over her face—Pippa’s hands waving, a bright, toothy grin, the faint squeak of a plastic toy in the background. For a moment, she lets herself believe that things might finally be shifting.

The door opens with a soft click. Raf limps in, shaking off the chill of the corridor, bracing himself as if he expects the same old weight to be waiting. Casey looks up, offering a small, tremulous smile that holds more hope than she’s dared show in days.

“We’ve got some good news,” she says, voice gentle but edged with a new kind of energy. “Pippa’s LDH levels and the blasts have dropped. Her T-cell counts are steady too.”

For a long heartbeat, Raf simply stands there, the words hovering in the air as if he’s afraid they might shatter. His shoulders sag, just a little, tension leaking away. “Are you serious?” he asks, voice rough with disbelief and relief.

Casey nods, her hands trembling around the phone. She wants to laugh, to cry, to do both at once. “It’s not a miracle yet, but…it’s something. The nurse thinks they might let us space out the blood work soon. Maybe even switch to weekly if things keep trending up.”

Raf exhales, a breath he’s been holding for too long. He crosses the space between them and sits, their knees almost touching. Together, they watch Pippa’s video, letting the sound of her laughter fill the gaps left by fear.

After the last few days, they’ve needed any good news they can get to grab on to. This—these numbers, these tiny changes—feel like lifelines.

They sit there in the hush, the phone cradled between them, and let hope take root, quiet and persistent, in the soft glow of the screen and the steadier rhythm of their hearts.

Casey glances at the clock, her mind drifting to Ethan. What’s keeping him? For a fleeting second, she wonders if he’s been caught up in the ongoing confusion—mistaken for one of the doctors again, as had happened, much to her amusement, during her own intern year. Back then, it was an inside joke, something to laugh about in the break room. Now, with every minute stretching taut, it’s just another knot of frustration in her chest.

She tries to picture him now, maybe cornered by a harried nurse with a chart or an anxious family in the hallway, nodding apologetically and explaining, no, he isn’t on call. Back then, Casey would have found it hilarious. Now, she just wants him here, beside her, where the world feels a little more navigable.

She sighs, letting the thought slide away, focusing instead on the warmth of Raf’s presence and the fragile hope blooming in the room. But beneath it all, a small thread of impatience tugs at her, waiting for Ethan’s familiar face to round the corner, for their small world to feel whole again.

Just then, the door opens and Ethan steps in, his hair windblown and his expression brightening as he takes in the room—Raf, Casey, the hush that feels less heavy than before. Casey looks up, arching an eyebrow. “You haven’t been mistaken for a doctor working here again, were you?” she says, her face surprisingly straight, though he can almost sense the ghost of the laughter she would have let loose in another lifetime—a different set of days, a different kind of exhaustion.

Ethan smirks, dropping his backpack by the door. “Only twice,” he replies, slipping into the familiar banter. “I set a new personal record for redirecting lost families. I think I should get a badge.”

Something eases in Casey’s face, the lines of worry softening, and Raf lets out a low, grateful chuckle. The room feels a touch lighter, as if Ethan’s arrival has nudged the axis of things. He moves closer, settling in beside them, the easy camaraderie knitting itself back together.

“Next time, wear a clown nose,” Raf suggests, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Ethan grins. “Tempting. But you know, I’m not sure that would help my credibility—or the hospital’s.”

Casey smirks, “It’s fine—you don’t work here, so the hospital’s credibility shouldn’t be something you worry about.”

Ethan laughs, the sound loosening the last bit of tension in the room. “You say that now, but wait until they put up my picture at reception,” he teases.

Raf feigns horror. “Not unless they let you sign autographs. Or at least give you a mug.”

The banter bounces between them, easy and familiar, drawing smiles that feel remarkably effortless after so many fretful hours. Casey leans back, letting the moment linger, the warmth of their gathered voices weaving an invisible thread that ties them all together.

For a moment, they are all together, the three of them, in this small, hopeful space. The silence that follows is different now—not anxious, but companionable. It is threaded with the memory of inside jokes and the newness of good news, with the possibility that, for tonight at least, hope outweighs fear.

Casey sighs, “Pippa’s T-cells are steady and her LDH levels have dropped, her blasts too.”

She says it softly, almost as if she’s afraid to break the spell of comfort that’s settled over them. But the relief in her voice is unmistakable—a fragile hope, perhaps, but hope all the same. Raf’s eyebrows shoot up, his posture straightening as the weight he’s been carrying for days seems, at last, to shift.

Ethan lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “That’s… that’s really good, Case.” His words are quiet, reverent, as if acknowledging the preciousness of good news in a place so often haunted by uncertainty.

Casey gives a small, wry smile, running a hand through her hair. “Yeah. For once, the numbers are on our side.”

A hush settles again, but it’s a softer one—full of gratitude, possibility, and the tentative shape of tomorrow. Raf grins, nudging Casey’s shoulder. “I think that calls for a celebration. Or at least some really bad vending machine coffee.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Casey says, her voice lighter than it’s been in days. And for the first time in a long while, the laughter that follows isn’t just a memory—it’s real, and it fills the room, bright and buoyant, carrying them forward into whatever comes next.

She stands up, “Why don’t I go and get it?” Turning to Ethan she frowns, “If only you’d brought your beloved Jura coffee machine, it’d actually be drinkable and not taste like watered down rain water.”

Raf looks at Casey but thinks better of asking how she could possibly know the difference.

Ethan grins, mock-wounded. “You wound me, Case. I thought I masked my snobbery well enough to fly under the radar.”

Casey just arches an eyebrow, already halfway to the door. “You underestimate my powers of observation. Besides, you talk about that machine like it’s your firstborn.”

“Only because it’s the only thing that gets me through double shifts,” Ethan calls after her, laughter threading through his words.

There’s a comfortable pause, the kind that follows well-worn routines and the unspoken promise of more good moments to come. For a fleeting instant, the world outside the break room walls fades away, replaced by the simple, ordinary magic of shared company and hope’s quiet return.

Giggling to herself, Casey rummages in her handbag for coins—clattering a few onto her palm, the familiar metallic weight oddly reassuring—and slips quietly out of Pippa’s room. She hopes, with a silent wish, that by the time she returns with the—well, “coffee”—her little girl will be back, and perhaps the world will feel just a bit lighter.

The corridor’s fluorescent lights hum above as Casey walks towards the doors leading out of the PICU. She’s halfway down the hall when a nurse intercepts her, gentle and bright-eyed. “On a coffee run?” the nurse asks, a knowing smile curving her lips.

Casey nods, letting her coins jingle. “Yes. If you can call that rain water from the vending machine coffee.”

The nurse’s smile widens, full of the easy camaraderie that forms in hospital corridors. “I can go and get you proper coffee from the nurses’ break room. We have a new coffee machine installed. Just tell me your order and I’ll get it for you.”

Casey blinks, momentarily disarmed by the small kindness—a ray of warmth on a day already turning for the better. “If you’re sure, two Espresso Romanos and an Espresso Doppio, please. I really appreciate your kindness.”

The nurse’s nod is brisk and reassuring. “You got it. I’ll be back in a minute.”

As the nurse disappears around the corner, Casey leans against the wall, letting gratitude sink in. Sometimes hope arrives in unexpected forms—a good number, a shared laugh, or a stranger’s offer of decent coffee. For now, that’s enough.

Demi hands over the steaming cups, her hands steady despite the faint tremor of a long shift. The aroma, rich and dark, curls up toward Casey’s face—so much more inviting than the metallic tang of vending-machine brew. “You’re welcome,” Demi replies, her tone soft but unwavering. “If you ever need a real coffee fix again, you know where to find me.”

Casey’s fingers wrap gratefully around the warmth, the paper cups pressed gently to her chest as if cradling something precious. “You’re a lifesaver. I owe you one.”

Demi shrugs, an easy smile lingering. “We all help each other out. That’s how we get through the long days.”

For a moment, the sterile corridor feels transformed—less like a place of waiting and worry, more like the inside of a friendly kitchen, where small gestures matter and kindness multiplies. Casey watches as Demi slips away, her footsteps light and sure, leaving behind the comforting scent and the reminder that sometimes, the smallest acts can lift the greatest weight.

With renewed spirit, Casey pushes off the wall and heads back toward Pippa’s room, balancing hope in both hands, ready for whatever comes next.

She slips quietly into the hospital room, balancing the trio of coffees, her heart buoyed by the small grace of the moment. Pippa’s bed is empty—just as expected—but her favourite blanket is bunched at the foot, a telltale sign that she’s still off with the doctors.

Casey clears her throat, drawing Raf and Ethan’s attention. The two men glance up from their quietly murmured conversation, concern etched into their faces.

“I’ve got good news—no rainwater coffee,” she announces with a conspiratorial smile, lifting the cups. “I bumped into a really kind nurse who went to the nurse’s break room and made proper coffee.”

Raf lets out a low, appreciative whistle. “Now that’s service. I think we all needed a little luck today.”

Ethan grins, reaching to take his steaming cup. “You’re a legend, Case. Thanks.” He inhales deeply, the rich scent of fresh espresso seeming to chase away, just for a moment, the edge of worry that hangs in the air.

Casey hands Raf the other cup. “It’s not much, but it’s something real. Demi—nurse with a superhero streak—sorted us out.”

There’s a brief silence as they each take a first sip, the heat and flavour grounding them, drawing everyone a little closer. Beyond the window, the city slips into late afternoon, the sterile room softening, just a little, under the weight of shared gratitude.

Ethan’s voice breaks the quiet. “Any word on Pippa?”

Casey shakes her head gently, her smile growing more tender, more fragile. “Still with the doctors. Finishing up the tests after her MRI. I’ll check in again soon.”

Raf places a steady hand on her shoulder. “She’s in the best hands. And so are we, thanks to you.”

Casey’s laugh is light—unexpected, but welcome. “Let’s hope the coffee’s magic, for all our sakes.”

Together, they settle in to wait, the simple comfort of good coffee and good company keeping hope alive, one small, steady moment at a time.

Casey lifts her cup and lets the lemony brightness of her Espresso Romano cut through the tension, its bittersweetness matching the hope and fear twisting in her chest. She tries to focus on the warmth settling in her hands, grounding her in the moment, while outside the window, shadows stretch across the city’s concrete bones.

Soon, she tells herself. Soon Pippa will be back, and she and Raf will finally know what they’re up against—what their daughter, impossibly small and brave, is fighting. For now, Casey clings to this one small certainty: the quiet strength of waiting, and the fragile comfort of not waiting alone.

Ethan looks at the magazine Casey got days ago, the magazine with that God damn photo of Pippa on the front. “What the fuck is this? Who took this and how did it get into the tabloids?”

Casey puts her half-drunk coffee down. “My sister took the photo but I still don’t know if she is responsible for it getting into the hands of the tabloids.”

She looks at Raf and takes his hand. “I know one thing, if she did sell it there’s no going back. It’s unforgivable.”

Her hands shake. “I need to confront her properly over it but I just don’t have the energy or head space for it now. Not when Pippa’s—not to use the sick verbiage they have, at death’s door. She needs me to fight for her.”

The silence that follows is brittle, sharp-edged. The magazine sits between them on the hospital table, an accusation inked in glossy colour, impossible to ignore. Raf’s thumb traces slow circles over Casey’s knuckles, as if he could smooth the tremor from her bones with his touch.

Ethan’s jaw works, anger and sympathy tangling in his eyes. “We’ll figure it out,” he says, voice low. “Right now, Pippa comes first. Everything else...we deal with when we have to.”

Casey nods, blinking hard. There are too many battles and only so much strength; she gathers herself, every breath an act of defiance against the fear and betrayal pressing in. For now, there is coffee and company, and the steady, stubborn pulse of hope. The magazine’s headline glares up at her, but she wills herself to look away, holding on instead to Raf’s hand and the silent promise that, whatever truth waits in her sister’s answer, she isn’t facing it alone.

Casey exhales, a thin, wavering thread of a laugh escaping her. “Thank you, Ethan. I know you’re trying to help. I just…” She rubs her brow, the pressure of her fingertips grounding her. “It’s already everywhere. Even if you pulled every copy out of every newsagent, it wouldn’t erase it. The internet doesn’t forget, does it?”

Raf squeezes her hand, gentle but insistent. “Still, maybe it’s worth fighting. If only so they know you’re not just going to let it go.”

Ethan nods, expression tightening with a kind of protective resolve. “Doesn’t have to be today. But whenever you’re ready, just say the word.”

Casey nods, almost imperceptibly. “It’s not just the headlines, or the shelf space, or the hashtags.” Her voice is soft, almost lost in the hush of the hospital room. “It’s Pippa’s life. Her story. And someone just took it from her.”

They sit with it—the ache, the impossible tangle of anger and helplessness, the knowledge that some things can never be undone. For a long moment, the room is silent but for the distant thrum of hospital machinery and the occasional clink of a coffee cup. Outside, the city is indifferent, shadows lengthening, the world spinning forward whether or not they’re ready to keep pace.

Finally, Casey looks up, resolve flickering in her eyes. “Maybe we can’t put the genie back in the bottle. But we can decide what happens next. For Pippa.”

Ethan manages a small, fierce grin. “That’s all we can do. And whatever you choose, I’ve got your back.”

The doors swing wide with a mechanical sigh, and suddenly the gravity in the room shifts. Nurses wheel Pippa in, her small frame half-lost beneath the blankets, the ventilator trailing beside her like a ghostly companion. The hum and click of medical machinery fill the doorway, a procession of wires and hope.

Casey is on her feet before she remembers standing, the chair scraping softly behind her. “Welcome back, baby girl,” she breathes, her voice tremulous but steady enough for Pippa’s sake. She moves to the bedside, brushing a stray curl from Pippa’s forehead with a tenderness that aches all the way down to her marrow.

Raf and Ethan fall into place behind her, quiet sentinels. Raf’s arm finds Casey’s waist, anchoring her as she reaches for Pippa’s hand—small, warm, impossibly alive. For a moment, the beeping monitors become the only music they need, a cadence of possibility.

Pippa’s eyes flutter beneath heavy lids, her lashes trembling as if straining to catch the sound of Casey’s greeting.

There’s no guarantee she can hear, not yet, but Casey leans in anyway, her whisper fierce as a promise. “We’re here, Pip. We’re all right here.”

Outside, the city blinks on its neon lights. Inside, hope glimmers—fragile, stubborn, refusing to be extinguished.

A nurse appears at the threshold, her mask creasing with kindness. “Dr. Liǔ wants to speak to you both. And Dr. Hargrove too.” Her words hang in the air, delicate as spun glass.

Casey’s heart jolts. Dr. Liǔ—infectious disease. She glances at Ethan, scanning his face for reassurance or foreboding, but finds only the same taut uncertainty she feels threading through her veins. Does this mean there’s finally an answer? Relief and dread collide, a silent tempest in her chest.

For a beat, she can’t move, torn between the hope that someone has named the beast haunting Pippa’s body and the fear of what that name might mean. She squeezes Pippa’s hand once, gently, grounding herself in the warmth of her daughter’s skin. “We’ll be right back, Pip,” she murmurs.

Ethan’s hand finds her shoulder as they step into the fluorescent-lit corridor. The hush of the room gives way to the quiet urgency of hospital life—the swift footsteps, the muted voices, the sense that at any moment, everything can change.

Casey steels herself. If the specialists want to talk, maybe answers are close. Maybe, at last, a path forward begins to take shape out of the fog.

Raf nods, determination in the set of his jaw as he shifts his weight, balanced awkwardly but resolute. With every deliberate movement, Casey feels his presence steady her, a silent signal that she’s not facing the unknown alone.

She threads her fingers through his for a heartbeat, drawing a breath she didn’t know she needed. The corridor’s sterile light seems less harsh with him beside her.

Casey turns to Ethan, her voice ragged at the edges. “Can you stay here? I don’t want Pippa to be alone.” She tries for composure, but the words hitch, grief and love tangling in her throat. “I know she’s in a coma, I know it’s silly, but she hates to be alone.”

Ethan’s eyes soften, and he nods with gentle certainty. “I’ll be right here. Promise.” He settles into the chair by Pippa’s bedside, his presence a quiet buffer against the emptiness.

Casey manages a grateful, watery smile before squaring her shoulders and stepping into the hallway, Raf’s crutch clicking softly beside her. Together, they move toward whatever truth waits—terrified, hopeful, and, above all else, united.

The conference room is cold in that administrative way, all beige chairs and a table too large for comfort. Casey and Raf slide into seats opposite Dr. Liǔ and Dr. Hargrove, who are framed by the pale rectangles of hospital windows and the buzz of the fluorescent ceiling.

Dr. Hargrove’s face is grave, lips pressed thin, concern radiating in the lines etched beside their eyes. Dr. Liǔ’s gaze is steady, clinical but not unkind. For a heartbeat, Casey feels the world slow, the air thick as syrup.

“Thank you for coming,” Dr. Liǔ begins, voice low and precise. “I’m afraid it’s not good news. Pippa is showing signs of ICANS—Immune Effector Cell-Associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome.” They pause, letting the gravity settle. “I’m sure you’re aware of what it is in your role as a Diagnostician, Casey.”

The word alone—ICANS—drops between them like a stone. Casey’s mind reels, clinical knowledge sparking alongside maternal terror. She knows the symptoms, the risks, the razor-edge path they’re now forced to walk. The air feels thinner, the hum of the hospital distant and cold.

“I… Yes,” Casey manages, voice almost a whisper. “Encephalopathy. Seizures. Sometimes cerebral edema.” Her hands knot together, nails digging crescents into her palms. “Is it—how severe?”

Dr. Hargrove glances at Dr. Liǔ, then lays a chart gently on the tabletop. “It’s early, but the neurological changes are there. She’s not seizing, but her EEG shows slowing, and her reflexes are… concerning. We’re running immunosuppression and neuroprotective protocols, but we wanted to prepare you.”

Raf shifts beside her, the rubber tip of his crutch squeaking against the linoleum. “What does this mean—what happens now?”

Dr. Liǔ’s voice is soft but unyielding. “We’ll monitor closely, adjust her treatment as needed. Most patients respond, but there are risks—swelling, complications. The team is here, around the clock.”

Casey feels the room tilt, facts and fear colliding, but she holds fast to Raf’s hand beneath the table. “Thank you,” she says, voice trembling but resolute. “Please—do everything. She’s… she’s so loved.”

Outside, somewhere down the hallway, a monitor beeps steadily—a fragile thread of hope pulling them on.

The door clicks shut behind them, and the corridor yawns, too wide, the waxed floor spilling pale reflections. Casey’s hand finds the wall, steadying herself as though the gravity of the news might tip her right through the linoleum. Raf is at her side, his crutch a measured metronome against the hush.

Her steps falter, a hesitant choreography that matches the uneven rhythm of Raf’s gait. The fluorescent light throws harsh shadows across the corridor, and Casey’s breath hitches—ragged, catching on the sharp edge of fear.

She wants to ask a thousand questions—about cytokines, about steroids, about what else they can do—but the words knot uselessly in her throat. They walk, silent, letting the sterile corridor swallow their grief. The hospital is a place of protocols and illumination, but right now, its certainty feels like a distant shore.

Raf squeezes her hand, his own expression carved from worry and stubborn hope. “We’ll get through it,” he says, more to fill the void than to reassure. The phrase hangs in the air, exhausted and unconvincing, but Casey squeezes back anyway.

They reach the family waiting room, where the chairs are arranged in neat, apologetic rows beneath posters promising compassion. Casey collapses into the nearest seat, elbows on knees, head in trembling hands. She tries to summon her diagnostic mind, to compartmentalise, but Pippa’s face—a tangle of curls, a crooked grin—rises before her, and all the neat partitions topple.

As Casey walks out of the room, her balance as bad as Raf’s as she processes the news. “It’s potentially fatal,” she whispers, tears already spilling.

@kingliam2019 @tessa-liam @alj4890 @katedrakeohd @liaromancewriter @texaskitten30 @silver-rings-and-rabbits

2 notes · View notes