I didn’t move. Couldn’t.
My arms had gone numb, my back ached from holding him upright, yet I remained rooted to the chair, eyes fixed on Dmitri’s pale face, willing the color to return, willing the shallow rise of his chest to grow stronger.
Then—a subtle twitch.
A faint movement of his fingers against the white sheet caught my attention.
My breath caught, sharp, sudden, like air had been ripped from my lungs.
His eyelids fluttered—once, twice—then slowly opened, revealing gray eyes that seemed to waver between confusion and recognition.
My heart stuttered, relief threatening to tear through me in ragged sobs.
The doctor had called it “just” vasovagal syncope triggered by stress and hypertension, but the word felt meaningless in the shadow of the panic I’d lived through these past hours, imagining him gone.
Stroke, heart failure, something irreversible—I had been ready for every nightmare.
Dmitri’s gaze found me first, sharp and searching through the haze of consciousness.
Confusion clouded those familiar eyes before recognition flared, raw and undeniable.
His attention shifted to the sleeping child nestled in my lap, and something primal flickered across his features—wonder, grief, longing, all tangled into one fleeting expression.
I reached out carefully, resting a hand on Dmitri’s arm, a bridge between us that carried both apology and relief.
“Hey,” I whispered, voice cracking despite my effort to remain composed.
Dmitri’s lips parted, just slightly.
He tried to sit up.
A low, broken groan tore from his chest as he pushed against the mattress, muscles trembling with the effort.
One hand flew to his temple, fingers digging in hard, as if he could physically keep his skull from splitting open.
His breath came uneven, shallow, a man fighting his own body as much as his thoughts.
“You fainted,” I said quietly, keeping my voice steady for Vanya’s sake as much as my own.
He nodded once—careful, restrained, like even that small motion came with consequences.
His jaw clenched, then loosened, and when he spoke, his voice was raw, scraped thin by exhaustion and dehydration.
“I... don’t know what to do anymore, Penelope.”
The words landed heavier than any shouted apology ever could.
“Every waking moment since I got here,” he continued, swallowing hard, “it’s been the past on repeat. No breaks. No mercy. Every mistake. Every word I threw at you like knives. I see your face every time I close my eyes. I hear myself—how I spoke to you. What I did.”
His mouth twisted. “Three days ago I just... stopped eating. Couldn’t swallow. The thought of food made me sick. It all tasted like ash anyway.” A bitter exhale. “If I didn’t already have high blood pressure, starvation would’ve finished what guilt started.”
I studied him then—really looked, without the armor of anger or the shield of distance.
He was thinner than I remembered, cheekbones sharper, the lines around his mouth carved deep by sleepless nights.
Dark shadows bruised the skin beneath his eyes, hollowing out a face that had once looked invincible. His hair stood in disordered spikes, untouched by the meticulous control he used to exert over everything, and rough stubble darkened his jaw.
The hospital gown hung loose on shoulders that used to fill doorways, used to radiate power without effort.