Overwhelmed by emotion he could no longer suppress, Damian grabbed his journal with trembling hands and began tearing out pages with violent desperation. His normally careful handwriting became erratic, words sprawling across the textured paper in jagged lines that reflected his internal chaos.
I am breaking for something I was never allowed to have, he wrote, his hand moving so quickly the words barely formed properly. I am drowning in love for someone who might not exist tomorrow. How do I heal this wound when the medicine is the poison?
“Damian,” Corrin said gently, but he couldn't stop writing. The words poured out of him like blood from a severed artery—twenty years of accumulated loneliness and desperate hope finally finding voice on pages that would never be sent, never be read by anyone except himself.
I have spent my entire adult life making myself useful to others because I was afraid that usefulness was the only reason anyone would tolerate my presence. I absorbed their pain because I was terrified that without their need, I would have no purpose. And now I've found someone who sees me, really sees me, and I'm so fucking scared that he'll realize I'm not worth the cosmic consequences of loving me.
The admission tasted like ash in his mouth, but he couldn't stop writing. The words came faster now, desperate and raw and absolutely honest.
What if I'm just another project to him? Another broken thing that needs fixing? What if when I'm healed, when I'm whole, he'll lose interest and move on to something more cosmically significant? What if I'm confusing gratitude for love, need for want, dependency for devotion?
“Damian, stop.” Corrin's voice was firmer now, cutting through his emotional spiral. “Look at me.”
He set down his pen with shaking hands and turned toward them, his enhanced senses picking up the complex mixture of concern and exhaustion that surrounded them like a cloud.
“I know what this is,” Corrin said quietly. “I've seen it before in other healers who pushed themselves too far. You'reabsorbing everyone's trauma and letting it ferment inside you instead of processing it properly.”
“I don't know how to process it properly,” Damian admitted, the words coming out raw and broken. “I don't know how to feel my own pain when everyone else's is so much louder.”
Corrin was quiet for a moment, their breathing careful and controlled in the way that meant they were choosing their words with deliberate precision. “When was the last time you let someone take care of you? Really take care of you, not just patch you up after magical exhaustion.”
The question hit deeper than Damian expected. When was the last time? He could count on one hand the moments of genuine comfort he'd received in the past twenty years—most of them recent, most of them connected to Cael in ways that made his chest tight with longing and terror.
“That's what I thought,” Corrin said when he didn't answer. “You've spent so long being the strong one, the reliable one, the one who fixes everyone else's problems, that you've forgotten how to be vulnerable.”
“Being vulnerable gets you hurt,” Damian replied automatically.
“Being closed off gets you isolated. There's a difference.” Corrin reached out and touched his hand, their fingers warm against his cold skin. “You've found someone who makes you feel seen. That's terrifying, but it's also miraculous. Don't let fear talk you out of the best thing that's ever happened to you.”
Before Damian could respond, before he could process the full weight of Corrin's words, their conversation was interrupted by urgent knocking at the clinic door. Not the polite pattern of a patient seeking help, but the sharp, demanding rhythm of someone with official authority.
“Time Exchange Authority,” called a voice that carried the crisp consonants of someone used to being obeyed immediately. “Open this door for mandatory inspection.”
Damian's blood turned to ice. He'd been expecting this moment for weeks, but the reality of it hit him like a landslide. His protective wards, his careful anonymity, his years of flying under the Exchange's radar—all of it was about to be stripped away.
Corrin was already moving, gathering the most incriminating evidence of illegal healing practice with the swift economy of someone who'd prepared for this contingency. “Back exit,” they whispered. “The tunnels. You can disappear into the Underspine before they?—”
“No.” The word came out harder than Damian had intended. “I'm done running. I'm done hiding from who I am and what I do.”
“Damian, they'll arrest you. They'll Hollow you or worse.”
“Maybe. But if I run now, I'll never stop running. And I'm tired of being afraid of my own shadow.”
The knocking came again, more insistent this time. “This is your final warning. Open the door or we will breach the premises by force.”
Damian walked to the door with steady steps, his white cane tapping against the floor with the calm rhythm of someone who'd finally made peace with an inevitable choice. Behind him, he could hear Corrin's sharp intake of breath, could sense their terror and admiration warring in the charged air of the clinic.
“I'm opening the door,” Damian called out, his voice carrying clearly through the thick wood. “Give me a moment to secure my medical supplies.”
He used the time to center himself, to find the calm core of strength that had sustained him through twenty years of healing others' wounds.
When he opened the door, three Exchange officials stood on his threshold, their uniforms crisp and their expressions carefully neutral. The lead officer’s presence filled the room—her footsteps measured, her voice sharp and precise, every word weighted to pin people in place. Damian had heard the rumors about her: a woman whose reputation for reading people and finding their weaknesses was nearly legendary. He could feel her scrutiny, like a scalpel searching for the softest spot.
“Damian Vale,” she said, though it wasn't really a question. “You are under suspicion of practicing unlicensed temporal medicine, harboring fugitives from Exchange justice, and conspiracy to undermine civic temporal stability.”
“Those are serious charges,” Damian replied mildly. “Do you have evidence to support them?”
The woman smiled, and the expression was sharp enough to cut glass. “We have testimony from multiple sources placing you at the center of an underground healing network. We have records of your magical signature at sites where illegal temporal manipulation was performed. And we have this.”
