Somewhere down the hall, a door opens. A familiar voice threads through the noise: “Riley? I’m Dr. Hassan—sorry for the wait.” Relief surges like clean ice under fresh blades.
I don’t let go of her hand.
A woman in navy scrubs parts the curtain with the practiced grace of someone who’s done it fifteen thousand times and still remembers every face. Dr. Hassan. Her gaze goes to Riley first, then to the monitor, then to Riley again, weighting the human more than the numbers. “Hi, Riley. I’ve got you,” she says, calm as an elevator that never jerks. She sanitizes, checks the belt placement, presses two fingers lightly where the muscle jumps under Riley’s skin. “I’m seeing intermittent tightening, not a rhythm yet. We’ll keep you on, run fluids. We’re going to be conservative and careful.”
My lungs release a millimeter. Conservative and careful I can do.
A shadow flickers at the edge of the curtain; the air shifts in that way it does when attention walks into a room uninvited. Dr. Hassan flicks a look toward the opening at the same moment I hear it—the soft, insectile click of a phone camera faking silence.
I pivot before I think. Outside our square of light, a man in a puffer vest pretends to be lost in the geography of triage and definitely is not. His phone lifts chest-level, lens barely peeking past the curtain seam. The angle is bad and deliberate. He wants blurry. Blurry sells rumor.
Something cold detonates behind my ribs. I take a step for the gap, every tendon up my forearms lighting like I’m about to drop gloves.
Security beats me there. A woman in a badge and a jacket that saysPROTECTwithout shouting it steps into the man’s space like she grew the floor under him. “Sir,” she says, already reaching for the phone, “you can’t be here. This is patient care. Delete the photo.”
He tries a smirk that expects complicity. “Public figure,” he says, almost sing-song.
“Not in here,” she returns, and the velvet comes off her tone. “Now.”
He hesitates, still holding the phone, still showing me the half-reflection of my own face in the dark screen. I can see the next three minutes: me closing the distance, the phone snapping, the headline writing itself. Heat spikes up my neck and flares in my jaw.
A hand closes around my wrist. Small. Certain. Riley.
“Stay,” she says, not loud, not pleading. Command voice. “With me.”
The two words yank me back into the square of the curtain like a rope cut the right length. I let the heat flash and go. I turn my palm up under hers, let her fingers settle into the notch between mine like a key in a lock.
Security’s partner arrives, and between the two of them the puffer vest man loses his confidence. There’s a quiet exchange—delete, verify, escorted back to the lobby with a warning about credentials he probably borrowed. A nurse from two bays down mutters something that sounds like “people are feral” without looking up from an IV pump.
Dr. Hassan doesn’t waste the adrenaline spike; she turns it into action. “We’re going to start fluids,” she says, already clicking the saline onto the IV pole the phlebotomist left behind. “Sometimes stress is gasoline. We turn the engine off.” She glances at me, not unkind. “You okay to be hands and calm while I’m hands and medicine?”
“Yes,” I say, voice lower than my usual. I fit my hip to the rail and frame my other hand over Riley’s where it rests on the blanket. She exhales like someone added an inch to the room. I track every movement Dr. Hassan makes like a penalty kill, not to second-guess—so I have a job that isn’t raging at the door.
Security pauses at the curtain on their sweep back and meets my eye. “We’ve got the hall,” the woman says. “You’ve got her.”
“I do,” I answer, and it feels like a promise to both of us.
Riley squeezes twice—I’m here—and I squeeze back the way she taught me, the way I’ve watched her teach rookies who thought toughness meant clenching their teeth.I know.
The saline drips. The monitor ticks. The ER’s noise recedes to a distant rink roar. In the space where the blurry angle tried to live, we draw a line and stand on it, together.
Dr. Hassan moves with the kind of economy that makes trust easy. She checks the drip, glances at the monitor readout, then rests two fingers along the inside of Riley’s wrist, counting beats I can feel under my palm too.
“Okay,” she says, voice a level plane. “Here’s where we are. You’re having minor, irregular contractions—what we sometimes call uterine irritability. No bleeding, cervix is closed, vitals are stable. Your labs look reassuring. This reads as stress-induced and dehydration-assisted.” She flicks a look at the saline. “We’re addressing both.”
The wordreassuringgoes through me like warm water. I don’t realize I’ve been braced for a different sentence until my shoulders drop and my knees consider not holding. I lean into the rail instead.
Riley breathes out, something unspooling in the sound. “So not…not labor.”
“Not labor,” Dr. Hassan confirms. “Your body is telling us it needs a quieter lane for a bit.” She turns to me without turning Riley into scenery. “Both of you had a week that would melt steel. Adrenaline is useful on the ice; it’s less useful here.”
Adrenaline has been my second bloodstream since I was twelve. I nod like I understand because tonight I do. “What do you need from us?”
“Rest,” she says first, like it’s a prescription with dosage. “Hydration. Fewer spikes—news, cameras, late-night strategizing. You can walk, you can work, but you set a ceilingand you honor it. If cramps return like this—hydration, heat, lying on your left side, then call me. If there’s any bleeding, fluid, a fever, or pain that patterns—straight back in.” She meets Riley’s eyes. “You don’t try to be clever. You let us help.”
Riley nods, chastened and relieved in the same breath. “Yes, doctor.”
Dr. Hassan softens. “You’re doing well. Tonight was smart. You listened early.” She squeezes Riley’s shoulder, then mine with a professional’s brief, grounding pressure. “I’ll check back after you finish this bag. If all remains calm, I’ll send you home with instructions. Questions?”
