All Chapters of Fell in Love with My Wife Too Late: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

“Something’s wrong.”Claire stood in the lab, watching the centrifuge spin, the serum inside clouding too fast. She adjusted the settings.Edward approached, reading her expression. “What is it?”“The stabilizer’s degrading,” she said. “Too quickly. The molecular bonds are collapsing.”“That shouldn’t be possible. It held for twenty-four hours straight.”“Unless someone tampered with the bio-filters.”Edward’s eyes widened. “You think it’s sabotage?”“I think someone wants the cure to fail.”A nurse burst through the doors. “We have a flare-up. Three patients convulsing in Ward C. One vomiting blood.”Claire grabbed her mask. “Go. Prep isolation.”“I’ll take the eastern flank,” Edward said.Claire ran.---Ward C was chaos.Alarms shrieked. A stretcher slammed into a wall. Nurses shouted. One child lay limp in a mother’s arms, eyes fluttering, skin turning gray.Claire skidded to the cot, snatching her kit open. “Vitals?”“No pulse. Breat

Claire adjusted the surgical lenses, nodding to Leif. “Begin incision. Three millimeters east of the cystic line.”“Yes, Doctor,” he said, hands steady.The patient—a child from the border colony—twitched slightly under sedation.Claire’s voice was calm. “Dilate. Inject. Extract.”One clean move.The cyst ruptured. Toxin pooled into the tray. A perfect retrieval.Leif exhaled. “That’s the last of them.”Claire pulled off her gloves. “We’ll analyze for mutation markers after lunch.”He glanced at her. “You’re eating today?”“Blackwood’s orders.”---In the greenhouse lounge, Edward waited with two trays.Claire entered and raised a brow. “You bribed the kitchen.”“They owed me,” he said, setting down a steaming bowl. “Sit.”She did.They ate in silence for a few minutes. Then he spoke.“I need to say something.”Claire looked up.“I didn’t come here just to help. Or to be noble. I came because I love you.”Her spoon paused.Edw

“She’s gone.”Edward dropped the morning report onto Claire’s desk. “Elodie disappeared from her holding suite just after midnight.”Claire didn’t look up from the microscope. “She was under surveillance.”“Guard was found unconscious. No signs of forced entry.”Claire calmly adjusted the focus. “She was always good at slipping past rules.”“She wasn’t alone.”Claire finally looked up. “Who?”Edward handed her a second sheet. “Beta Graves.”Claire’s eyes darkened. “He was stripped of his title two years ago.”“And bitter ever since.”Edward lowered his voice. “They hit the vault.”Claire stood, voice sharp. “Which vault?”“The plague strain. The unstable batch.”For a moment, neither of them moved.Then Claire said quietly, “They’re going to weaponize it.”---That night, flames erupted near the eastern clinic wing.Sirens howled.Claire ran into the chaos, wind stinging her face, lab coat flaring like a banner.Smoke curled towa

“Festival night. Again.”Claire stood at the edge of the town square, arms folded. The lanterns floated overhead like fireflies caught in suspended time. Children laughed. Vendors passed out candied roots.Edward stepped beside her, holding two cups of spiced tea. “This used to be the plague memorial. Now it’s a harvest celebration.”Claire took the tea. “Funny how quickly people turn grief into tradition.”“Survival demands it,” Edward said. “Pain that lingers too long becomes poison.”She didn’t argue.The fireworks began, streaking gold and green across the sky.In the crowd, Jasper stood alone, hands behind his back, gaze locked on the horizon.Claire noticed. Of course she did.Edward followed her eyes. “Do you want me to disappear for a while?”“No,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to move for him.”“I would,” he said. “But I won’t ask you to choose in a moment like this.”Claire turned to face him. “Why not?”“Because tonight’s about you.

“First stop: Hollow Valley,” Leif said, pointing at the map spread across the worktable. “Last week they didn’t even have clean gauze.”Claire tapped a route. “Send two kits, one apprentice, and moon-vine starter cultures. They’ll need to grow their own supply by winter.”He nodded. “And the old rogue den in Rust Gorge?”“Take guards—but send them,” she said. “If they come to the door wounded, they’re patients first.”“Even if they don’t follow the Code?”Claire looked up. “The Code didn’t follow me when I was dying in a hospital bed.”Leif lowered his voice. “You sound more like a general than a medic.”“I’m both,” she said. “Whether the Council likes it or not.”---A week later, the caravan reached the edge of the former war zone.Claire stepped down from the wagon, cloak dusted with sand. Children watched her from behind rubble—wide-eyed, bone-thin, silent.Edward had written once about this place: *They have bones in their cupboards and blood in th