Odd phrasing from a resident, but they’re often overwhelmed in situations like this. He might not make it through his residency.
We reach L&D, and the air changes instantly. It’s tighter here, faster. Voices overlap. Monitors pulse in uneven rhythms. Everything hums with urgency, the kind that demands precision, not panic.
A nurse meets me outside the room, already mid-brief. “She’s not stabilizing the way we’d like. OB is prepping the OR, but they want to know how aggressively they can proceed.”
“They don’t have the luxury of waiting,” I say evenly. “We manage her pressure, monitor cardiac response, and move when necessary.”
I scrub in, movements automatic, practiced to the point of instinct. My focus narrows, the rest of the world falling away. Blood pressure. Cardiac load. Risk of failure. That’s it. That’s all that matters.
I push through the door.
The patient is already on the bed, propped slightly upright, monitors attached, IV lines running. The curve of her abdomen is pronounced beneath the thin hospital gown—high and full, unmistakably carrying more than one baby. Triplets. I can’t see her face beyond that belly due to how she lies.
One hand grips the bed rail, knuckles pale from the pressure. I step forward, already assessing the machines she’s hooked up to. Respiratory rate elevated. Circulatory strain visible.
“She’s compensating,” I murmur, more to the room than anyone in particular. “But not indefinitely.”
“Dr. Callahan,” the nurse says, “OB wants to know if her heart can tolerate labor.”
“Not for long. If her pressure continues to climb, they’ll need to move quickly.” I reach for the chart, scanning it quickly. Numbers, trends, escalation. Everything aligns with what I’m seeing. Severe preeclampsia. Escalating.
I set the chart down and step closer to the bed. “Alright,” I say, voice calm, measured. “Let’s take a look at you.”
She turns her head. Just slightly. Just enough.
And I see her.
For a fraction of a second, my mind refuses to process what I’m looking at. It tries to file her away as just another patient, just another case, just another woman in a bed I am responsible for managing.
I must be hallucinating. My obsession has become something more. I’m seeing Sage everywhere.
I blink to clear my sight. Gently shake my head to help.
But she doesn’t disappear.
It’s her. The same lovely face, now marred by sweat and redness. Those sharp green eyes land a spear in my gut. The internal jolt that I don’t allow to show. The room seems to narrow around us, the noise dulling at the edges as everything focuses on the woman in front of me.
In my hospital. In my care.
Her lips part slightly, like she’s about to say something, but nothing comes out. Whatever words she had catch somewhere between thought and breath, lost to the shock of the moment.
I can empathize.
11
SAGE
The pain doesn’t carethat it’s him.
In fact, that might make it worse.
It doesn’t ease or pause or give me a second to process the fact that Ronan Callahan is standing at the side of my bed, calmly taking control of the worst moment of my life. If anything, the pain sharpens, tightening through my body with brutal precision as the next contraction hits, stealing the breath right out of my lungs.
I grip the bed rail hard enough that my fingers go numb the way I wish my body would. My entire body locks as the pressure builds, deep and relentless. It feels like my spine is being crushed inward, my hips forced apart too fast, too wide, too much. A broken sound tears out of me before I can stop it.
“Don’t fight it,” Ronan says, his voice cutting clean through the noise in the room. “Work with it.”
Work with it.