Page 57 of Skull

Iceman stepped forward, strong and steady. “Doc,” he said calmly, though tension lay heavy in his voice, “what’s the news?”

The doctor gave a small, reassuring nod. “Your friend is doing remarkably well, all things considered. He has a linear skull fracture, one of the less severe types. From what he told us, or what we could gather, it seems Pincho’s father-in-law took excellent care of him. The fluids were key and he treated him correctly at a critical stage, preventing intracranial bleeding or a depressed fracture.”

A collective exhale passed through the group. Leigh’s eyes brimmed with tears.

“So…he’s going to recover?” Walker asked softly, voice trembling with hope.

The doctor offered a tentative smile. “Yes. He should. He’s stable and responding positively. We’re monitoring him, but from my assessment, he’s likely to make a full recovery, though, it won’t be overnight.”

Leigh let out a ragged sob of relief. Boomer pulled her into a fierce hug, while Anna rubbed comforting circles on Leigh’s back. GQ nodded once, looking down, still fighting the fear that had consumed him.

Skull dropped his head, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Relief washed over him in a heavy wave, followed almost immediately by a different kind of tension. Hazard was going to be okay. The nightmare of losing him, at least, was over. Now came the swirl of other obligations, other fears, and a personal dilemma he could no longer ignore.

He caught Walker’s eye. She looked just as relieved as the rest of them. Despite the exhaustion etched into her face, she radiated a quiet strength. Skull beckoned with a subtle tilt of his head, and she followed him a short distance down the corridor, away from the others.

When they stopped, Skull turned to her. His voice was low and intimate, meant for her ears alone. “We almost lost them,” he began, still breathing heavily from the adrenaline. “I—I don’t want to waste any more time running from what I feel.”

Walker blinked, uncertain, her walls already creeping up. Skull drew a breath and continued, his words tumbling out in a mixture of earnestness and vulnerability, “I can’t do any other type of relationship except me and you together,” he said, meeting her gaze. “I love you. That’s on me. That’s about me. I take full responsibility for that statement, but I’ve learned that being a rock means being stone, and that’s not any way to live.”

He paused, trying to gauge her reaction. Her eyes flickered, widened briefly at his declaration of love, but her expression stayed guarded.

He pushed on, gently but firmly, “I don’t know you well enough to form an argument strong enough to penetrate all those layers you’ve built up over your life to protect yourself from heartache. I wish I knew how to get through to you. But that’s not on me. That’s on you.”

For a moment, the quiet hallway rang with the echo of his confession. Walker’s face was a mixture of tenderness and alarm. She took in his words, then lowered her gaze.

“Cooper…” she said softly, arms instinctively wrapping around herself. “You…you don’t know what you’re asking.”

He moved half a step closer, still giving her space. “I know exactly what I’m asking. I want a future with you.”

Her throat worked around unspoken fears. “I care for you so much,” she whispered, tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. “More than I ever intended to. But do you really see a stable life, a permanent relationship, in all this chaos after what we just went through? I don’t know how to keep that going in the kind of world we live in.”

Skull felt his heart twist. He gently touched her forearm, feeling her tremble beneath his fingertips. “I don’t have all the answers. I just know we might not always get a second chance. This time, we did. Hazard and Leigh did. It could’ve gone another way.”

For a long moment, Walker stayed silent, as though struggling to break open the fortress she’d carefully maintained all her life. Finally, she lifted her gaze to meet his. “You’re right, it could’ve gone another way,” she echoed, voice thick with emotion. “And I want you to know that I hear you. But everything in me is screaming to protect what’s left of my heart. I can’t just drop all the barriers I’ve built, not right now.”

Skull nodded, swallowing hard against the tightness in his chest. “I’m not asking you to drop them all overnight,” he said quietly. “I’m just asking you not to shut me out. To let this be…possible.”

Walker gave a small, trembling nod, blinking away the moisture that threatened to spill from her eyes. “I…don’t know how,” she said. “But I won’t turn my back on you, on us, completely. That’s all I can promise for now.”

Skull exhaled, feeling both relief and heartbreak rolled into one. He wanted to sweep her into his arms but sensed she still needed space. Instead, he placed a hand gently against her cheek, brushing away a single tear with his thumb.

“Then that’s a start,” he said, voice hushed.

Behind them, the rest of the team began to move down the hall, following the doctor’s directions to Hazard’s room. The moment hung between them, fragile but real. As they fell back into stride with the others, anxious to see their friend awake and breathing, Skull felt a small spark of hope flicker to life in his chest.

It wasn’t the grand, definitive solution he’d longed for, but it was an opening, one that just might lead to something deeper if they could both learn to let each other in. And for now, with Hazard safe and their family intact, that hope was enough to keep Skull moving forward.

And he did, enduring through the flight that brought them all home, his heart heavy but hopeful that Walker would find him when she sorted herself out.

The moment his plane touched down, he was on his way to the hospital. His headlong flight there brought him to his father’s floor, the hum of fluorescent lights pressing against his shoulders like a gentle weight.

He scanned the waiting area, searching for his mother among the small huddles of people dressed in mismatched patterns of hope and worry. When he spotted her, she was seated at the far side of the room, arms folded tightly in her lap, eyes darting nervously toward the hallway that led back to the ICU. Despite the tense set of her shoulders, her face brightened when she saw him.

He crossed the room and embraced her gently, mindful of the hours of stress that had worn her down. “Hey, Mom,” he murmured, and she clutched his arms like a lifeline. For a moment, they stood there in a cocoon of relief and exhaustion. He didn’t need to say much. The lines on her face told him everything he needed to know.

A voice at their backs caught their attention. The doctor, wearing slightly wrinkled scrubs and a careful smile, approached them. “Mrs. Sullivan? I have some good news.” His words felt almost too soft for the sterile corridor.

They followed him down the hall, past rows of drawn curtains and rhythmic beeping, each step ringing out like a small countdown. The doctor explained how Skull’s father had come off the ventilator just that morning and was stabilizing rapidly, almost miraculously so, given how sick he had been only days before. Skull’s mother squeezed his hand, her relief radiating in waves. The weight that Skull had been carrying in his chest for days started to lift, replaced by an uncertain, fragile hope.

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