I'd done what I could. Maybe it would help her get the promotion she deserved. Maybe it would make some small difference in a system that seemed determined to overlook her qualifications.
And maybe, when she found someone who could give her everything she wanted — the marriage, the children, the future I was too broken to provide — she'd remember that I'd tried to fight for her in the only way I knew how.
Outside my kitchen window, the city was waking up. People were starting their days, heading to jobs where they'd make decisions and solve problems and build things that mattered. Normal people with normal lives, who didn't carry the weight of everyone they'd failed to save.
I closed the laptop and headed for my bedroom, exhaustion finally winning over the adrenaline that had kept me awake all night. In a few hours, I'd have to go back to work, put on my scrubs and my professional smile, and pretend I was still the competent, caring nurse everyone thought I was.
But for now, I could sleep. And maybe, if I was lucky, I wouldn't dream about Lisa Harris or little Amelia Patterson or the look in Izzy's eyes when she'd asked me to stay and I'd known I was the wrong answer to every question she'd ever have about the future.
chapter
twenty-nine
I woketo the cold shock of an empty bed and the immediate, crushing awareness that something fundamental had shifted in the night. The space where Jimmy had been lying was cool to the touch, the indentation in the pillow the only evidence he'd been there at all. I rolled over, squinting at the clock. He'd left sometime early, slipping away while I slept.
The memory of last night hit me in fragments — my desperate plea for him to stay, the careful way we'd held each other without really connecting, the hollow feeling that we were going through the motions of intimacy without any of its substance. I stared at the ceiling, trying to decide if I was relieved or devastated that he'd left.
My phone buzzed with a text message:
Jimmy
Had to leave for shift prep. Didn't want to wake you. I love you.
I stared at the message for a long moment, my thumb hovering over the keyboard. What was I supposed to say? That I loved him too, but I wasn't sure love was enough anymore? That his careful distance felt like another kind of abandonment?
Ok. Have a good shift.
Safe. Neutral. The kind of response that said nothing while saying everything.
I was still holding my phone when it rang, Margaret's name on the screen sending ice through my veins.
"Izzy?" Her voice was thin, stretched tight with panic. "You need to come. Now. The doctor said... oh God, Izzy, it's time."
I went numb. For a moment, I couldn’t even move. Pancreatic cancer was notorious for this — long periods of relative stability followed by a rapid, irreversible decline. I'd known this call would come eventually, but knowing and being ready were two entirely different things.
"I'm on my way," I said, already throwing off the covers. "Twenty minutes. Is he...?"
"He's still here. But Izzy, hurry."
I was dressed and out the door in under five minutes, my mind shifting into the tactical mode that had carried me through every crisis of my adult life. Traffic patterns. Fastest route. Parking at Metro General. The practical details that kept me from thinking about what waited at the end of the drive.
The ICU at Metro General was quiet in the way that intensive care units were quiet — not peaceful, but hushed with the weight of lives hanging in the balance. I found Margaret outside Cap's room, looking smaller and more fragile than I'd ever seen her. She fell into my arms the moment she saw me, and I held her while she cried, my own grief a tight knot in my chest that I couldn't afford to untangle. Not yet.
"He's been waiting for you," she whispered against my shoulder. "I think... I think he's been holding on."
Cap's room was dim, lit only by the soft glow of monitorsand the early morning light filtering through the window. He looked impossibly small in the hospital bed, his skin the waxy yellow that spoke of liver failure, his breathing shallow and labored. But his eyes were open when I approached, those sharp, intelligent eyes that had seen me through every crisis of the past twelve years.
"Hey, Cap," I whispered, taking his hand. His grip was weak but present, his fingers curling around mine with the ghost of his former strength.
He couldn't speak — the effort of breathing was taking everything he had — but his eyes held mine with the same intensity that had always made him such a good commander. I saw recognition there, and love, and something that might have been pride.
"I'm here," I said, settling into the chair beside his bed. "I'm right here."
Margaret took his other hand, and the three of us existed in a bubble of quiet intensity, listening to the steady rhythm of the monitors, the soft sounds of the hospital carrying on around us. I found myself talking to him in low whispers, telling him about the crew, about station politics, about the mundane details of daily life that suddenly felt precious because I was sharing them with him for the last time.
"Please," I heard myself whisper, my voice breaking for the first time. "Please don't go. I'm not ready. I don't know how to do this without you."
His hand tightened slightly around mine, and with tremendous effort, he lifted his other hand to my face, his thumb brushing away a tear I hadn't realized I'd shed. His touch was gentle, final, a last blessing from the man who'd been more of a father to me than my own.
