“Good,” she says. “Then I need your consent if we lose time and she can’t give it clearly herself.”
I nod. “You have it.”
The nurse steps closer with the clipboard. “Sir, I still need signatures.”
I take the pen. My hand is steady enough to sign. That’s the only steady thing in me.
Sienna is still watching me.
I hand the clipboard back and move to her side again. The doctor is speaking now, explaining the next steps in plain terms, what they’ll do, what they’re watching, what could change. Sienna hears most of it. I can tell some of it is slipping past her anyway. She’s too frightened and in too much pain to hold all of it.
So I say the only part that matters in a way she can use. “I’m here.”
Her eyes fill again, and she gives one small nod.
The bed starts moving. Nurses on both sides now. The doctor walking at the foot of it. Me beside her, one hand on the rail, the other reaching for hers when she lifts it.
She takes my hand at once.
As they wheel her into the corridor, her fingers tighten around mine and she says very quietly, almost like she’s ashamed of needing to ask, “You meant that?”
I look at her. “What I said in there?”
Yes.
That I am.
That I am here.
All of it.
“I meant every word,” I say.
She closes her eyes for a second, and when she opens them again she looks less alone than she did a moment ago.
That’s all I can give her.
For now, it has to be enough.
24
SIENNA
I wake slowly,as if I’m coming back through water.
At first I don’t know where I am. Everything feels heavy. My mouth is dry. My body hurts in a deep, distant way that makes it hard to tell where one pain ends and another begins.
Then memory returns.
The lawn. The blood. The bright lights. The rush of hands and voices.
I turn my head and see Viktor sitting beside the bed. He looks like he hasn’t moved in hours. Shirt sleeves rolled, tie gone, face drawn with exhaustion. The sight of him pulls me all the way awake at once.
“The baby.” My voice is rough enough that I barely recognize it.
He leans forward immediately. “She’s alive.”
The relief is so strong it almost feels painful.
