“Got it.” Finn slid the prepared bag onto a tray and clipped the hose to a portable cylinder, then stepped in close enough I felt the thrum of energy under his skin. The baby’s blood pressure ticked up by a margin—a tiny victory. We might actually outrun this.
No, wewould.
The vent alarm flashed again, more urgently, as her color crept from gray to pale pink, the heart line still choppy.Hold on, little one.
Hiss, rise. Hiss, rise. Time flowed like the steady drip of blood.
Hiss, rise.
A sputter.
Then the ventilator shrilled, a yellow exclamation mark beating in time with the static in my ears.
“We switch,” I told Finn, tighter than I’d meant to.
One nod, a second when our eyes held. Then he moved. I stripped off the ventilator’s mask, rubber tugging against the baby’s paper-thin skin. The alarm spiked again just as Finn sealed the new mask over her face with hands that didn’t shake.Good.I reached for the bag, squeezed.
One breath. A tiny rise of her chest—she took it.
Fuck, yes,God. We were live.
I counted under my breath, pulse heavy in my throat. Rhythm, restraint.Don’t overshoot. Don’t flood her lungs. You are her air.
Sixty seconds. Ninety. Finn shifted his weight, crouched slightly over the bed, as I counted breaths. Around us, the hospital flowed like water.
Three minutes. Time to switch—it would keep us fresher, able to go on longer if we had to. I tapped Finn’s elbow, and he stepped back clean. My turn. I took the mask, palm pressing light but sure. He squeezed the bag. Released. Count to six. Again. Her ribcage lifted just enough.
One more. Steady.
Sweat tickled my temple, a distant sensation, barely enough to register. The air in the room was hot and sticky, disinfectant like a cloud. Somewhere, a voice crackled over a handheld radio. Background, all of it. Didn’t even matter when the world had shrunk to a ten-foot radius.
“Bleeding’s stopped,” Choi murmured, her voice dissolving into shadow.
“Keep watching the back.” I wiped my forearm across my brow, slippery with sweat. “Don’t want to miss a trickle.”
Finn’s body brushed mine as we switched again—focused heat still rolling off him but breath steadier now. His grip was steadier, too, the seal tighter as he mirrored me from before. A flash of something hit hard and fast between my ribs. Pride, maybe.
Focus.
Minutes slipped away. I tapped him out again, took over. We’d fallen into a real rhythm now, could do this for a long time if we had to—half an hour or an hour, lungs for rent. And the cost? Everything.
Ten minutes? Twelve? We traded places again, and his eyes caught mine for something that wasn’t doubt, no, more like aquestion crackling with words he didn’t say.We can do this, right? Together—we can do this?
My quiet nod felt like a vow and a confession.Yes.
The tense line of his jaw relaxed by a fraction, one corner of his mouth lifting, and Jesus,this. This was how it could be if the world weren’t a minefield, if timing and hierarchy hadn’t thrown up a wall between us. For one suspended breath, it felt like trust—complete and terrifying.
Together.
I shifted away to press Sloan’s foot, counted one Mississippi, two. Her skin bloomed with color faster than before, and my heart gave a hard, triumphant thump. “Perfusion’s better,” I said. “Choi, hang the second unit. Half-rate.”
She reached for the line clamp, no word wasted.
Another switch. Finn’s shoulder pressed against mine—both of us sweating, gowns sticking and peeling. The blood on my gloves now marked his as well, something about that splintering through my concentration, gone in a flash. His breath was shallow but even, laser-point focus on the baby.
Another rise, another fall of her chest. We kept going, holding on to her through latex and plastic. Somewhere outside the curtain, life still moved—the distant shuffle of another team rushing down the corridor, alarms chirping somewhere further away. But in here, it felt like the world had quieted to nothing but our shared breaths and a baby the size of my hand.
Minutes stretched and contracted like the ebb and swell of waves. No idea how much time had passed—meaningless when everything was rhythm and sweat and shadows, Finn’s hands brushing mine, our bodies moving together like a dance. The baby was still breathing. We were still here.
