Page 44 of Never Quite Gone

My heart stumbled, but my face remained professionally composed. The small consultation room felt too tight, too warm as they entered – their grief a tangible thing that pressed against the walls, that made the air thick and heavy.

“Thank you for seeing us,” Tommy's father said. His voice cracked on the words. “We just... we need to understand.”

I walked them through it again – every intervention, every attempt, every moment we'd fought to save their son. My voice stayed steady, clinical enough to provide distance but gentle enough to show care. This was what I did. What I'd always done. Professional walls protecting everyone from the raw edges of loss.

But then Tommy's mother reached for my hands.

“These hands,” she whispered, her fingers trembling against mine. “These were the last hands to touch my baby's heart.”

Something inside me fractured. Her grip felt desperate, like she was trying to find some last connection to her son through my touch. My carefully maintained composure wavered as she held on, as her tears fell onto our joined fingers.

“He was so brave,” I heard myself say, my voice rougher than usual. “He fought so hard.”

Sofia materialized beside me, her presence steady and grounding. But I saw the concern in her eyes, felt how she shifted slightly closer as if to catch me if I fell.

“Did he say anything?” Tommy's father asked. “At the end?”

The truth would only hurt them more. “He wasn't in pain,” I said instead. “He wasn't afraid.”

They clung to each other as they left, supporting each other through unimaginable loss. I watched them go, my hands still feeling the ghost of a grieving mother's touch.

The rest of my shift passed in a blur of motion and routine. My hands moved through familiar patterns – suturing lacerations, signing charts, performing procedures that would normally ground me in the present. But my mind kept returning to small hands: Tommy's going slack in my grip, his fingers so cold at the end.

“Dr. Monroe?” Dr. Yang's voice pulled me back to the present. She held out a chart tentatively. “The labs you requested...”

I signed without really seeing the numbers, my signature perfectly legible despite the tremor I couldn't quite suppress. The staff watched me with careful concern, whispering when they thought I couldn't hear.

Even Vale, passing in the corridor, studied me with an expression I'd never seen on him before. Something almost like understanding crossed his features before his usual mask slipped back into place.

Dawn painted my office windows in colors that felt wrong after such loss. I stared at my hands – steady enough to save lives, useless when it mattered most. The knock at my door startled me.

Vale entered without his usual assertive presence. For once, there was no political maneuvering in his stance, no hidden agenda in his approach. Just a cup of coffee placed carefully on my desk, and something in his eyes that looked almost like kindness.

“Sometimes,” he said quietly, “the weight becomes too much to carry alone.”

I stared at the coffee, then at him, trying to reconcile this version of Vale with the man who'd been undermining my department for months. “Why are you here?”

“Because I remember.” He settled into the chair across from me, his usual sharp edges somehow softer. “I remember what it feels like to lose a child under your care. To have all your skill, all your knowledge mean nothing in the end.”

Something in his voice made me look up. His eyes heldshadows I'd never noticed before, grief that felt older than our hospital rivalry.

“It doesn't get easier,” he continued softly. “It shouldn't get easier. But you learn to carry it. To let it remind you why we do this impossible thing.”

“Why are you being kind to me?” The question came out more raw than I intended.

His smile held no calculation for once, just tired understanding. “Because some burdens transcend politics. Some pains deserve recognition, even between... opponents.”

We sat in strange, almost comfortable silence as dawn strengthened outside. The coffee grew cold between us, but its presence felt like an offering, like a momentary truce in whatever game we usually played.

“How do you do it?” I asked finally. “How do you keep going when your best isn't enough?”

“You honor the ones you couldn't save by fighting harder for the next one.” He stood, straightening his perfect suit. “And you remember that even the steadiest hands sometimes need to shake.”

My hands still felt heavy with the weight of Tommy's trust, with the grief of his mother's touch. But somehow Vale's words had helped, had given permission for the tremor I'd been fighting all night.

Sometimes the steadiest hands need to shake.

Sometimes the strongest walls need to crack.

---