Chapter 19: The Hospital Room

BRABRA

I wake to the quiet beep of a machine and the stiff, unfamiliar feel of a hospital bed beneath me.

For a moment I don't know where I am. The ceiling is wrong — too white, too bright — and my arm aches faintly where something is taped against my skin. Then it comes back in pieces, the way the collapse itself came to me in pieces. The office. The static in my head. Andriy's voice, breaking, telling me to stay with him.

"You're awake." A nurse appears beside the bed, adjusting something on the monitor with brisk, practiced hands. "Good. How are you feeling?"

"Tired," I say, my voice scratchy and unfamiliar. My free hand moves instinctively to my stomach, pressing flat against the small curve there, searching for the flutter that's become so precious to me these past weeks. "The babies—"

"Are just fine," she says gently, before I can spiral any further. "Strong heartbeats, both of them. You gave everyone quite a scare, but they handled it better than you did."

Relief moves through me so fast it nearly brings tears, hot and immediate, pooling at the corners of my eyes. "Where's Andriy? Is he here?"

"Talking to the doctor right now. He hasn't left the hallway since you arrived." She checks the IV line taped to my hand, her tone softening. "He was very insistent about that."

I let my head fall back against the pillow, exhaustion pulling at every part of me, though something steadier moves underneath it now — the knowledge that he's close, that I don't have to manage whatever comes next entirely on my own.

ANDRIY

"She's stable," the doctor says, and the words hit me with such force that I have to plant a hand against the wall beside me just to stay upright. "Dehydration, mostly, combined with exhaustion and a drop in blood pressure. The exposure to the cold rain last night didn't help matters."

"And the babies?" My voice comes out rougher than I intend, the question I've been holding since the moment she collapsed in my arms.

"Both heartbeats are strong." The doctor's expression softens slightly, some of the clinical distance easing into something closer to reassurance. "We ran a full check. They handled the stress on her body better than she did, if I'm honest. But she needs rest. Real rest, not the kind she's apparently been getting."

Relief moves through me so fast and so complete that my knees nearly give out the way hers did in that office. "Can I see her?"

"She's asking for you, actually." A small, knowing look crosses his face. "Room 314. She's tired, and she'll likely be tired for the next day or two. Don't let her convince you otherwise."

I don't wait for further instruction. I follow the signs toward Room 314 at a pace just short of running, my heart hammering harder with every step than it did during the entire drive here. I pass a row of vending machines, a nurses' station humming with quiet activity, none of it registering beyond the number on each door as I search for hers.

She's propped up slightly in the hospital bed when I push open the door, an IV taped to the back of one hand, color slowly returning to cheeks that were far too pale an hour ago. Her eyes find mine immediately, and something in my chest loosens at the sight of them open, focused, present.

"Hey," she says softly, a tired, sheepish smile pulling at her mouth.

"Hey." I cross the room in three strides and take the hand without the IV, careful, gentle, needing the contact the way I needed it in the car. "You scared me. You scared me badly, Brabra."

"I scared myself." Her fingers curl weakly around mine. "I didn't think it was that serious. I thought I was just tired."

"You collapsed in the middle of your office." My voice cracks slightly on the words, the memory still too raw to hold steady. "I need you to actually tell me when something's wrong. Not after. Not once you can barely stand. When it starts."

"I know." She looks down at our joined hands, guilt flickering across her face. "I've spent so long convincing myself I have to push through everything alone that I don't always notice I'm doing it anymore. It's not an excuse. I know it isn't."

"It's not entirely your fault either." I sit carefully on the edge of the bed, close enough to keep her hand cradled in both of mine now. "I should have noticed last night. The way you were moving. How cold you got under that awning. I told myself it was nothing because I wanted the evening to keep being good."

"It was good," she says quietly. "Right up until it wasn't."

A soft knock interrupts us, a nurse checking the monitors, adjusting the IV drip with practiced efficiency before offering Brabra a small, encouraging smile. "Everything looks good. Your little ones are troopers. We'll keep you overnight just to be safe, but I don't expect any surprises."

"Thank you," Brabra says, and I watch some of the tension finally drain from her shoulders once the nurse steps back out.

"Overnight," I repeat, once we're alone again. "I'm staying."

"Andriy, you don't have to—"

"I'm staying." I say it simply, without room for negotiation, though I soften the words with a small smile. "I already cleared my week. I have nowhere else I'd rather be."

She studies me for a long moment, something vulnerable moving behind her tired eyes. "You cleared your whole week?"

"Every meeting. Every call. All of it." I bring her hand up, pressing my lips gently to her knuckles the way I did once before, in a different room, under very different circumstances. "You and the twins are the only thing on my schedule right now."

Her eyes fill, tears slipping free before she can stop them, and this time I don't hesitate — I reach up and brush one gently from her cheek, my thumb lingering against her skin.

"I was so scared," she whispers. "Not just for me. For them. I kept thinking, what if I've already lost them, and I didn't even know I was in danger until it was too late."

"They're safe." I keep my voice steady, certain, needing her to hear it as many times as it takes to actually settle. "You're safe. I'm not leaving this room until they release you, and even then, I'm not leaving you to manage the rest of this alone. Not the recovery. Not any of it."

"I believe you," she says, and something in the simplicity of it, the ease with which the words finally arrive without hesitation or old suspicion trailing behind them, feels like its own kind of miracle after everything that's happened today.

"The doctor mentioned cutting back," she says after a moment, her voice small. "Fewer hours. More rest. I don't know how to do that and still feel like myself."

"Then we figure it out together." I squeeze her hand gently. "Talk to your manager. If it helps, I'll talk to them myself. Quietly. Not to control anything — just to make the transition easier."

"Quietly," she repeats, a faint, tired smile tugging at her mouth. "I'm holding you to that."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

I settle into the chair beside her bed, refusing to let go of her hand even as exhaustion visibly pulls at her, her eyelids growing heavy despite the fear still lingering in her expression.

"Sleep," I say softly. "I'll be right here."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

She drifts off slowly, her hand still loosely curled in mine, and I sit there in the quiet hum of the hospital room, watching her chest rise and fall steady and even, watching the monitor track two small, stubborn heartbeats still holding on exactly the way they have from the very beginning.

I don't move from that chair for a long time. I don't want to.

Outside the window, the rain that started this whole frightening chain of events has finally stopped, the evening sky clearing into something calm and quiet, indifferent to how close today came to becoming the worst day of my life instead of simply a frightening one.

I watch her sleep, her hand still curled loosely in mine, and I make myself a quiet, private promise that has nothing to do with the one I already spoke out loud.

Never again. Whatever it takes, whatever she needs, I'm not going to let it come this close again.

Somewhere down the hall, a cart rattles past, quiet voices exchange a shift change, the ordinary machinery of the hospital continuing on around us. But in this room, with her hand curled in mine and two strong heartbeats still holding steady on the monitor beside her bed, nothing about tonight feels ordinary at all.

It feels, instead, like the moment everything between us finally stopped being careful, and started being real.