Getting the prosthetic off felt like peeling away armor that had fused to my skin. I lowered myself onto the edge of the couch with more care than I would have used in a trauma bay. My hands shook as I reached for the straps. The moment the socket loosened, pain bloomed outward in a deep, throbbing wave that stole the air from my lungs.
I set the temporary aside and just… sat there.
Residual limb swollen. Skin flushed and angry. Phantom sensations flickering like static under my nerves — the ghost of a foot that still believed it existed, still tried to curl and push and stabilize even though it had nothing left to command.
Anya knelt in front of me without asking permission. Her hands hovered for a second before touching me, giving me time to pull away if pride demanded it.
I didn’t pull away.
Her fingers were warm as she checked the skin, light and deliberate. “You pushed too hard,” she murmured, not accusing, just stating a fact the way she would in a chart note.
“I stayed upright,” I said, and it came out rougher than I intended.
“You did,” she agreed. “And you saved his life.”
The words should have sounded like a victory. Instead, they scraped against something raw inside my chest. I leaned back against the couch and let my head fall into my hands, elbows braced on my knees.
“I didn’t even think,” I said quietly. “My body just… moved. And then it didn’t. Not the way it used to.”
She shifted closer, resting her forehead lightly against my shoulder. No grand gestures. No speeches. Just shared gravity. I could feel her breathing slow and steady against me, anchoring me to something solid while the rest of my thoughts threatened to spiral.
“You were brilliant in there,” she said after a while. “You always are.”
“I almost fell in the middle of an airway.”
“But you didn’t. And you adapted. And you let me help.”
That last part landed heavier than everything else. I felt the weight of her words settle in my chest — the memory of her steadying the bedrail, sliding the stool into place, handing me tools before I knew I needed them. The quiet choreography we had built together without ever acknowledging it out loud.
“I hate that you had to compensate for me,” I said.
She pulled back just enough to look at me, eyes tired and soft and unflinchingly honest. “We compensated for each other. That’s what we do. That’s what we’ve always done.”
The house was silent except for the faint hum of the refrigerator and the early morning birds beginning their obnoxious optimism outside the window. The world was moving forward whether I felt ready.
The exhaustion hit me all at once — heavy, bone-deep, impossible to outrun. My shoulders slumped. My spine curved inward. For the first time since the trauma bay, I let myself stop pretending I was fine.
She stood and disappeared into the kitchen for a moment. I heard the kettle click on. Cabinets opening. The quiet domestic sounds that had started to feel more intimate than anything we did in bed. When she came back, she set a glass of water and pain medication on the coffee table without comment, then sat beside me — not touching, just close enough that our knees brushed.
“I thought tonight would prove something,” I admitted, voice barely above a whisper. “That I could just… be him again. If I tried hard enough.”
Her hand slid over mine, lacing our fingers together slowly so I had time to pull away. I didn’t. “You were him,” she said gently. “And you were this version of you too. Both existed in that room.”
I swallowed hard, the words catching somewhere behind my ribs. “This version feels… smaller.”
Her thumb traced the inside of my wrist, a quiet, steady rhythm. “This version is learning. And still saving people. And still stubborn as hell.”
A tired laugh escaped me — rough, cracked, but real. My head tipped sideways until it rested against hers. The silence between us wasn’t empty; it was full of everything we hadn’t figured out yet.
After a while, the pain dulled from a roar to a low, relentless hum. My muscles unclenched one by one. The tension drained out through my fingertips and into hers. I felt wrung out — emotionally, physically — like the night had peeled away every layer of composure I owned.
“Come here,” she murmured.
I let myself lean into her fully, letting my weight rest against her chest, her arms wrapping around me without hesitation. No clinical distance. No professional restraint. Just warmth and shared exhaustion and the quiet truth that we had survived another threshold together.
Morning light crept across the floor in pale stripes, turning the room soft and forgiving. My breathing slowed to match hers. The tremor in my hands finally settled.
“I hate that I needed you to keep me upright,” I said into her shoulder.
