"I'm sorry. Almost done."
I finish the exam. Then step back and give her space.
"The ribs aren't broken," I say. "But they're badly bruised. You'll need to ice them and rest."
"Okay."
"Can I ask you something?"
Her whole body tenses. "What?"
"Are you safe at home?"
Silence.
"I'm fine," she says finally.
"These bruises—" I start.
"I fell down the stairs." She sounds firmer now. Defensive. "That's what happened."
I recognize this. The shutdown. The wall going up. I've seen it a hundred times.
I follow protocol. Document everything. Order the X-ray. Fill out the OPA referral form with careful precision. She's going to get help whether she wants it or not.
My handwriting is perfect.
I do for this stranger everything I failed to do for Vee.
The realization hits the same way it's been hitting me since she disappeared. Hard, sharp, cold. Devastating.
I step out of the exam room and close the curtain behind me. I just stand there in the hallway my hand still on the fabric.
I'm a doctor. I'm trained to recognize shutdown. Trained to see the signs. Flinching, suppressed scent, a story that doesn't match the injuries.
I've seen it a hundred times before.
And I missed it in my own omega.
Her bruises didn't show on the skin, but they were right there in her expressions. In how she stopped coming to me. How she didn't ask me to purr for her anymore. The bare bed in her room with no nest. How she'd spend hours in the garden outside just to avoid being around us. We were ruining her from the inside out. And I knew it. Deep down I knew. But I still did nothing.
I saw it all and I called it respecting her space, giving her time, letting her adjust… those were Ragon's words. But I listened to them all the same.
The guilt is a precise thing. Itemized. Each failure catalogued with the same clarity I use to read an X-ray.
I remember how it used to be. A specific day plays in my mind as clear as a television screen.
It was her third year with us. Winter. She'd had a bad day. I never asked what happened and she didn't offer. She just appeared in my doorway with a book and those big brown eyes.
"Will you read to me?" she asked.
I put down my medical journal immediately and made space on my bed. She crawled up and snuggled in beside me, her feet tucked under my thigh for warmth.
This was a common thing for her to ask of me. I always read whatever she wanted. That night it was some romance novel she'd picked up at the library. Sappy and predictable and she loved every word of it.
She fell asleep against my shoulder halfway through chapter twelve. I kept reading in a whisper because the vibration of my voice kept her under. Kept her peaceful.
I built my identity on being the one who noticed. The one who saw what others missed. The careful one. The thoughtful one. The one she always ran to for comfort because I never failed to understand what she needed even though we weren't physically bonded or scent matched.
