This was not that.
This was inches away. The light was unsparing, and Elise's skin was damp with sweat and flushed from two and a half periods of hockey, pink along her collarbones and across the tops of her shoulders. The muscles of her upper back and arms were visible in sharp relief, a definition that came from years of training and didn't soften with rest. A bruise was already forming along her left deltoid where the shoulder had taken the impact, a dark bloom spreading beneath the skin. Sienna's medical brain catalogued it. The rest of her brain took in everything else: the way Elise's stomach rose and fell with her breathing, the small scar on her right forearm, the hollow of her throat where a bead of sweat was slowly tracking downward.
She smelled of cold air and exertion and a scent underneath both of those that was warm and clean and entirely unhelpful right now.
Sienna swallowed. Adjusted her glasses. Pulled the professional mask back into place with an effort that took more than it should have.
"I'm going to test your range of motion. Passive first, so I'll be moving your arm. You don't need to do anything. Tell me where the pain starts and where it's worst."
Elise nodded, watching Sienna's hands with an intensity that sent a flutter through Sienna's stomach. Stop it.
She placed one hand on Elise's scapula, warm beneath her fingers even through the gloves, and the other on her upper arm. She began moving the joint through its range. External rotation was limited by pain. Abduction beyond ninety degrees made Elise's breath catch. There was a grinding sensation, subtle but present, that suggested a labral tear. The apprehension test was positive: when Sienna moved Elise's arm into the position of dislocation, Elise's whole body went rigid.
"Okay. That's enough." Sienna released her arm gently and stepped back. She pulled off one glove to make notes on her tablet, recording the findings in the clinical language she'd been trained in. Positive apprehension. Anterior laxity, grade 2. Suspected labral involvement. Imaging required.
The tablet screen glowed in her hands. Behind the clinical words was a simpler truth: this was bad, and Elise knew it was bad, and nothing Sienna said next was going to make it better.
"So?" Elise's voice was tight. The anger had drained, and what was left was worse. Dread.
"I suspect a partial tear to your labrum with some joint instability." Sienna looked up from the tablet. "But I can't confirm the extent without imaging. An MRI will tell us exactly what we're dealing with."
"How long am I out?"
Sienna set the tablet on the counter. "I genuinely don't know yet. That depends entirely on what the scan shows."
The silence that followed was thick and heavy. Elise was staring at the wall behind Sienna's head. Her good hand was gripping the edge of the treatment bed so hard that her knuckles had gone white, and a muscle in her jaw was jumping. The muted roar of the crowd pressed through the walls, the game continuing without them, and she knew Elise could hear it too.
"I need to get back out there."
"You can't." Sienna kept her voice level.
Through the walls, the crowd surged with a burst of noise. A goal or a near miss. Elise's fingers curled tighter on the bed's edge.
"It's still the third period."
"Elise." Sienna set the tablet down and faced her directly. "Your shoulder joint is unstable. If you go back out there and take another hit, or fall on it, or even reach for a puck at the wrong angle, you could turn a partial tear into a complete tear. That's surgery. That's months of recovery. That could end your season."
Elise didn't flinch, but her breathing quickened, three fast breaths before she brought herself back under control. The anger was still there, but it was thinning, and underneath it the fear was surfacing. The real fear. Not of pain, but of time. Of weeks on the sideline. Of watching from the stands while the team played on.
Sienna had felt that fear once. She'd been nineteen, sitting in an orthopaedic surgeon's office in San Diego with a destroyed ankle and a professional tennis career that had just ended, and the panic had been so total that she couldn't hear anything the surgeon said for the first five minutes. She recognised the look. Elise had gone somewhere inward, jaw tight, beautiful green eyes fixed on the wall above Sienna's shoulder.
Elise swung her legs toward the edge of the bed as if she was going to stand. Sienna stepped forward without thinking and put her hand flat against Elise's sternum, pressing gently but firmly. "Don't."
Elise stopped. Sienna's hand was on her chest, over the sports bra, and the heat of Elise's skin seeped through the fabric into her palm. Elise's heartbeat thumped against her fingers, rapid and strong. Elise looked down at the hand, then up at Sienna, and their eyes locked.
Sienna went still. The distant roar of the crowd was muffled to a low hum.
It was a second. Maybe two. Sienna's hand on Elise's chest, Elise looking up at her, and neither of them breathing. The touch had nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with the fact that Sienna was touching her and didn't want to stop.
Then Sienna pulled her hand away. She took a full step back and turned to the counter, putting space between them, reaching for the phone with fingers that weren't quite steady. Her palm was tingling where it had rested against Elise's chest. The rhythm of that heartbeat lingered on her skin, strong and fast.
She was forty-one years old and a licensed physician and she had just touched a patient's chest to prevent her from aggravating an injury. That was a clinical decision. It was appropriate. It was within her scope of practice. The fact that it had also been the most intimate thing Sienna had experienced in years was irrelevant and would be locked in a drawer she never intended to open.
"I'm going to call Phoenix Ridge Hospital and arrange an MRI." Her voice came out steady. Thank God. "Dr. Mars is the department head, and she's a hockey fan, so she may be willing to expedite."
She pressed the hand flat against the counter while she dialled with the other. Behind her, she heard Elise exhale. The fight had gone out of her. The bed creaked as she settled back against the wall.
"Fine."
