The door hissed open like it had been holding its breath, and in walked Dr. Lys Marrow, sharp uniform and sharper eyes cutting through the sterile light of the medbay.
"Hell froze over, huh?" she said, not missing a step as she crossed the room. "Riven in a medbay."
She didn't sound amused. She sounded tired. The kind of tired you didn't sleep off — the kind that comes from seeing too many people flatline in places like this.
Cal gave a soft grunt, barely lifting his head from the propped pillow. "Figured I'd change up the routine."
"You did that," she muttered, already reaching for the diagnostic panel beside his bed. The screen flickered under her fingers as she dismissed the automated charts and pulled up manual vitals. "You also managed to spike your BP, tear abdominal muscle, and somehow avoid organ puncture while being turned into a human shish kebab. You never half-ass anything, huh?"
He offered a twitch of a smirk, then winced. Smiling hurt more than it should've.
She didn't laugh. Just started pulling on a fresh pair of gloves. "I don't trust the field readouts. You don't go down easy, but when you do? You do it right."
Lys leaned in, pressed two fingers gently against the side of his neck, then moved to his wrist. Her touch was clinical, quick — but her eyes flicked up once, held his gaze just long enough to say: You scared the hell out of me.
Then they were gone again, back on the numbers.
"Can't say I missed this," he muttered.
"No one does." Her voice was low, neutral, as she adjusted the monitors. "But most people don't wait until they're almost dead to check in."
Cal didn't respond. He didn't need to. She knew him well enough to know that this — being in a bed, hooked to monitors, unable to move without gritting his teeth — was as humiliating as it was painful.
He watched her work. Lys didn't hesitate, didn't stall, didn't lecture. She moved like someone who didn't just know her job — she lived it. Everything was routine, from the way she pulled a small sealed injector from her coat to the way she brushed his arm before pressing the patch into place.
"You're lucky," she said. "The rebar missed your spine by a couple inches. A little deeper and we'd be running your funeral paperwork."
"I'd like a closed casket," Cal said dryly.
"You'll get a shut mouth if you keep cracking jokes while your ribs are still knitting."
He let that one sit.
She stepped back, pulling off her gloves with a snap, and turned to the small cart beside the bed. Rolled it an inch closer. "I'm doing a sync."
He raised an eyebrow. "You don't have to."
"You're still bleeding internally, and the patchwork job they did before I got here's already failing. So yeah, I do."
He didn't argue.
Lys sat on the edge of the bed beside him, setting both feet flat on the floor. Her posture straightened, focused. She rolled her shoulders back, took a breath, and pressed her hand, warm, steady, to his sternum.
Her other hand slid to his neck again.
Her eyes fluttered once. Not closed. Just dulled — inward-facing.
"Just breathe," she said softly.
He did.
Her chest rose in sync with his. Then again. Then again.
He felt it — not the warmth people associated with healing. This was different. Not magical, not divine. It was pressure. Pulsing. Internal. A shift in the rhythm of his blood, a tug on his nervous system that forced him to match hers.
His fingers twitched.
Lys let out a slow breath through her nose. Her brow furrowed.
And Cal's pain dulled. Not gone — never gone — but like it had stepped back into a corner of the room instead of standing on his chest.
He exhaled.
She stayed there another five seconds.
Then her hand slipped away.
She leaned back and braced herself on the edge of the bed, blinking hard. A thin sheen of sweat coated her forehead. She grabbed a water bottle from the tray, cracked the seal, and drank like she'd been holding her breath for ten minutes.
"You good?" Cal asked.
"I've been better."
He gave her a look.
She held up the bottle. "Don't get sentimental. It was a light sync. You're not worth the heavy stuff."
He smirked. "Nice to know you still care."
"I care about not having to scrape you off a morgue slab, that's all."
She tossed him the water. He caught it — barely. His hands still weren't steady.
Silence fell between them for a moment. Not awkward. Just the kind of quiet you only share with people who've had to sit through worse.
Then, as she logged a few things onto her datapad, Cal spoke — calm, even, measured.
"That report… about the collapse?"
"Yeah?"
"It's wrong."
Lys didn't look up.
Didn't blink.
Didn't ask how.
Just paused for half a second, then said, "File an official report, first thing tomorrow."
Lys didn't linger.
She tapped her pad once more, sent off whatever she needed to send, then stood and rolled her shoulders like she was trying to shake the weight of the room off her spine.
"You've got clearance for overnight," she said, heading for the door. "Get some actual sleep. Not the half-dead, adrenaline-shock kind. The real thing."
"I'll think about it."
"Don't. Just do it."
She paused at the threshold, hand hovering near the panel. "And no more solo runs for a while. I mean it."
Cal raised a hand in mock salute, fingers barely lifting off the blanket. "Doctor's orders?"
"Something like that."
Then she was gone. The door shut with a soft hiss, and the medbay went still.
The light above buzzed faintly, casting sterile white across the walls. A tray clinked in the quiet — something settling after being nudged earlier.
Cal sat for a long minute, just breathing.
His chest still ached, but the edge was gone. The kind of pain you could ignore, if you had something else to focus on.
But there wasn't anything right now.
No briefing to prep. No data to run. No voices demanding his attention.
He let out a slow breath, shifted back on the bed, and lowered himself onto the mattress. It wasn't comfortable — medbay beds never were — but it was enough. Enough for his body to surrender the tension it had been holding onto since the substation.
The ceiling swam slightly above him. His fingers twitched once. Then stilled.
He closed his eyes.
The ache in his side pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
The room felt… colder now.
Maybe the air system kicked on.
Maybe not.
Sleep crept in slow.
His body was ready to shut down. It needed it. He needed it.
But just before he slipped under—
A voice.
Soft. Ragged.
Right beside his ear.
"Secret…"
Cal's eyes snapped open.
The room was empty.
Silent.
He stared at the ceiling for a long time before finally letting his eyes close again.
This time, no whispers followed.