The hallway slled like antiseptic and cold tal as Zane walked behind the nurse. Every step felt too fast and not fast enough, his pulse throbbing in his throat. The lights above them passed in harsh white bars, each one catching the edges of his panic and sharpening it. His palms were still tacky with dried blood, and every ti he looked down at them, the mory of Willow collapsing replayed like a blow to the chest.
The prep room door opened with a soft hiss, and he froze in the doorway.
Willow lay propped slightly on the surgical gurney, wearing a light-blue gown and a disposable surgical cap that frad her face in trembling shadows. Wires trailed across her chest. The BP cuff squeezed her arm rhythmically. A pulse-ox monitor glowed red at her fingertip. Her lashes fluttered weakly, her breathing uneven.
She looked fragile in a way that shattered him.
"Willow," he breathed, stepping forward.
The room humd with low machinery, the soft hiss of oxygen, the steady rhythm of the monitors, the rustle of nurses moving briskly around her. But none of it mattered. The only thing he could see was her. Her skin was pale, almost translucent under the fluorescent lights, and her lips carried a faint bluish tinge that twisted his stomach into knots.
Her eyes blinked open slowly, and the mont her gaze found him, really found him, sothing inside her softened. There was relief there. And fear. And sothing deeper than both.
He moved to her side, pulling up the rolling stool with clumsy hands. He reached for her hand, and when their fingers touched, he realized he was trembling. Willow’s hand was warm but weak in his, her grip barely closing.
The nurse adjusted the IV. "You have one minute," she murmured gently.
The words stabbed into him. One minute. One minute in a room that slled like endings. One minute before they took her through those double doors where he couldn’t follow. One minute before he had to let go.
Willow turned her head with effort, her lips parting. She tried to smile but couldn’t manage more than a faint upward pull.
"Zane..." Her voice was scratchy, faint.
"Don’t talk," he whispered, leaning in, brushing a strand of hair back under her cap. "You’re going to be fine. They’re going to take good care of you. I’m right here."
Her eyes glistened, not believing him, not reassured by anything except his proximity. A tremor went through her shoulders, a flutter of fear she couldn’t hide.
She shook her head weakly.
"Listen..." she whispered again, her voice cracking. "Whatever happens.."
"Willow... For Heaven’s sake, don’t say anything like that, okay? Don’t... don’t talk like you’re..."
Her hand tightened around his, weak but fierce.
"Zane... please." She swallowed hard, wincing at the pain. "I need to tell you... sothing."
His heart thudded painfully in his chest. Not now. Not like this. Not when she could barely keep her eyes open and every breath looked like it cost her strength she no longer had. The sight of her lying there, pale beneath the harsh surgical lights, made sothing primal inside him recoil in refusal.
"You can tell later," he insisted, brushing her cheek with the back of his fingers, his throat burning as he tried to keep his voice steady. "Right now you focus on breathing. On staying awake. You’re going to co out of this. I promise."
She shook her head again, the movent weak but stubborn. Her eyes filled slowly with a glassy desperation that terrified him more than the machines, more than the rushing nurses, more than the word surgery hanging in the air like a sentence.
"I may not have later," she whispered.
The words knocked the breath from his lungs. It felt as though the room had suddenly lost its air. He leaned closer instinctively, refusing to accept what she was saying, refusing to let her speak like soone preparing to disappear.
"Willow... stop... please... don’t..."
She tightened her grip around his fingers. The strength in it was small but fierce, the grip of soone forcing the mont to hold still long enough to say what mattered.
"The baby..." Her breath hitched painfully before she forced the words out. "Zane, listen to ."
His pulse stuttered violently in his chest. Every muscle in his body went rigid as sothing cold and electric shot through him, warning him that the next words were going to change everything.
"Willow..."
The monitor beside her suddenly beeped faster, the rhythm sharpening in the tense silence of the room.
Her eyes locked onto his, wide and terrified, impossibly earnest despite the exhaustion dragging at every movent she made.
"The baby is yours."
The words struck him with the force of impact. Hard. Clear. Irreversible.
He froze.
For a mont his body simply stopped responding. Breath stalled in his chest. Thought dissolved into a blank, stunned silence. The world seed to narrow to the single fragile figure lying in front of him.
He was not breathing.
He was not thinking.
He was not ready.
Around them the room continued moving, but it felt distant, muffled, unreal. The steady beeping of the monitor faded into a dull background rhythm as her confession detonated through his mind. He felt as if he had been knocked backward even though he had not moved, as if the ground had tilted beneath him while his hands still clung to the edge of the gurney.
But she was not finished.
"I had to tell you," she whispered, tears gathering slowly at the edges of her eyes. "In case... sothing happens in surgery... you needed to know."
Her voice broke on the word happens, the fragile sound of it tearing straight through him.
His voice shook when he answered, rough and unsteady. "Willow... nothing is going to happen to you. Do you hear ? Nothing. You’re going to make it. Both of you."
Her lower lip trembled with exhaustion and fear. The small movent looked fragile enough to break. Her eyelids fluttered heavily, as if the simple act of keeping them open demanded strength she was rapidly losing. Each second of consciousness seed to cost her sothing she did not have left to give, yet her gaze remained fixed on him, clinging to his face as though it were the last steady thing in a world that had suddenly begun to slip away.
The nurse stepped closer. "Sir... ti."
Willow’s eyes drifted, her breathing fluttering in shallow, uneven pulls. Panic surged through Zane so suddenly it felt like a physical force slamming into his chest.
"No... no... stay awake," he whispered urgently, leaning closer over the gurney. "Look at . Willow... look at ."
Her gaze struggled to refocus on him, her pupils fighting through the heavy haze that was pulling her under. She blinked slowly, as if each movent required deliberate effort. For a mont it seed she might slip away entirely, but then her eyes steadied weakly on his face.
"I love..." she started.
Before the sentence could finish, the gurney began to move.
Hands closed around the rails as nurses stepped in with practiced speed, surrounding her and guiding the stretcher toward the doors. The sudden movent broke the fragile stillness of the mont. The wheels rolled sharply against the floor, the tal fra rattling as it accelerated toward the operating room.
The doors opened.
And she was pulled away from him before the words could leave her lips.
Zane stumbled backward instinctively as they wheeled her through the threshold, the montum forcing him to release his hold on the side of the gurney. The cold rush of separation hit him all at once. His palms felt icy, his body hollow as her revelation continued to echo violently through his mind.
The baby is yours.
The sentence repeated over and over inside his skull, louder than the voices around him, louder than the machines, louder than the pounding of his own pulse.
He pressed a shaking hand against his mouth, choking back the sound that tore out of him. It ca out broken and strangled, sothing raw that he barely recognized as his own voice. His knees nearly buckled beneath him, forcing him to catch himself against the wall before he collapsed.
His chest felt too small for the weight inside it. Fear, disbelief, love, and a rising, crushing terror pressed against his ribs until breathing itself felt like an effort.
Through the narrow glass window in the operating room doors he could see only fragnts of movent. Figures in surgical caps moved quickly beneath the harsh surgical lights. Stainless steel trays flashed briefly as instrunts were laid out. The bright white glare of the operating lamps flooded the room.
And in the middle of it all, Willow disappeared beneath that light.
Alone.
For the second ti that night Zane felt the ground vanish beneath him. The world tilted violently in a way that left him grasping for sothing solid that no longer seed to exist.
And this ti, he was not sure he could survive it if she did not.
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