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Maya is halfway into her jacket when Carina catches her wrist. “Uh-uh, you don’t get to leave like that.”
She glances down at herself. Her uniform is neat, hair pulled back, boots laced. “Like what?”
“Like you don’t have a wife to kiss,” she smiles, stepping closer. Close enough that Maya has to tilt her head back a little. “And like you don’t have plans tonight.”
Her mouth twitches. “I very much have plans. I’m going to a fire.”
Carina hums, a little disapproving, fingers smoothing over the front of Maya’s jacket, slow and deliberate. “And after that,” trying to keep her voice light again, “you’re coming home to a quiet house. No kids. No interruptions. No alarms.” She pauses, eyes looking over her with a small smirk. “Just me.”
Maya exhales a laugh that’s already a little wrecked. “You’re being unfair.”
“Oh, I know,” she leans in just enough to brush her lips against Maya’s jaw. Not a kiss. A suggestion. “You’ve been very busy lately. I thought I’d remind you what you’re missing.”
From the living room, there’s the unmistakable sound of a kid laughing at something on TV. Reality, loud and present.
The blonde groans softly. “You’re evil.”
Carina grins, brushing another kiss on her wife´s jaw. “You love it.”
She steps back, gives Maya space again but not before straightening her collar, fingers lingering. “Be safe,” she says, quieter now. “I expect you back in one piece.”
Maya leans in, steals a quick kiss this time. “Date night,” she promises.
Carina watches her go, already counting the hours.
The smoke is thicker than it should be.
Maya registers it and files it away, like a thought she’ll come back to later. It’s not great, but workable, so she keeps moving.
“Montgomery, Ruiz, left side. Hughes you’re with me.” She calls, voice steady through the mask.
Every step sends a vibration through the floor, and Maya adjusts without thinking, weight shifting, body reading the structure the way it always has.
The warning comes too late.
The floor groans, sharp and ugly. She tries to move out of the way but it’s too late.
The floor gives.
She goes down hard, her shoulder slams first and the impact rips the breath clean out of her chest. There’s a split second of white noise, pressure blooming behind her eyes as her helmet cracks against the wall. Debris drops with her, pinning her awkwardly, not crushing but close enough to steal space, to steal air.
For a moment, she can’t inhale and the world turns into nothing but noise, pressure and the sharp, embarrassing burn of panic as her lungs refuse to cooperate. Yet when she finally drags in a breath, it burns, hot, wrong. Her mask is still on, but smoke finds its way anyway, seeping into her throat, her chest. She coughs once, twice, the sound ugly inside the gear.
“Bishop is down!” someone yells.
“I- I’m good.” she tries to say, but it comes out rough, shredded. She coughs, violent and deep, her chest aching around the sound. Each cough drags more smoke in, sets her lungs on fire.
Hands are on her almost immediately. Lifting debris, steadying her shoulders. The weight eases, just enough for her to twist, to get her knees under her. It doesn’t take long, barely a minute, but it feels longer, it feels like it’s taking ages.
Her head is throbbing. Her chest feels tight. Every breath scratches.
The world tilts. She braces herself on the wall, forcing her breathing into something resembling control. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
It doesn’t help.
Every inhale rasps, shallow and unsatisfying, like she’s breathing through cloth.
“Stay with me.” Vic says, still holding her up, helping her stay steady.
“I am,” Maya insists, even as another cough doubles her over.
“Maya, you’re not good, and you know it.”
She wants to argue, already opens her mouth to do it, but instead she coughs again, deeper this time, bending at the waist despite herself.
They guide her out faster than she wants to admit she needs. The air outside is cold, shocking, and she rips her mask off like it’s betrayed her.
She breathes it in, chest heaving, but the relief doesn’t come. Her lungs are still tight, constricted, like they’ve forgotten what they’re supposed to do.
She straightens despite the dizziness, pulling off her gloves before swiping a hand across her mouth.
There’s soot there.
Of course there is. She wonders, briefly, if she smells like smoke already, if Carina will wrinkle her nose later and tease her about it before sending her to the shower.
Carina.
“Carina’s got plans tonight,” Maya mutters, like that explains anything. Like that changes the fact that her chest feels too tight and her breaths keep coming up short.
“Hospital.” Vic says it like it’s set, not something that is to be considered.
Maya straightens slowly, eyes stinging, lungs burning. “Carina’s got a date night planned,” she mutters again, like that would fix it, fix her.
It didn’t.
Carina doesn’t run in the hospital.
She walks fast, purposeful, controlled. People notice when you run, and Carina does not have the patience to explain herself.
But the page, Dr. DeLuca to the ER, burns in her pocket like it knows something she doesn’t.
The automatic doors slide open and the smell hits her immediately. Smoke. Not strong, not overwhelming, but unmistakable.
Her stomach drops.
She spots Maya before anyone says her name.
She’s on a gurney near the wall, gear gone, hair damp with sweat, soot still smudged along her temple. Oxygen tubing rests under her nose. Her eyes are open, unfocused, like she’s trying to track too many things at once.
“Maya,” Carina says, already moving.
The blonde turns her head at the sound of her voice. Relief flashes across her face, quick, instinctive, gone just as fast. “Hey,” she rasps. “I’m okay, don’t worry, I-”
Carina’s hand finds her wrist, fingers pressing just hard enough to feel the pulse there. Fast. Too fast. She doesn’t comment on it. She doesn’t comment on anything, not yet.
“What happened?” Carina asks, voice steady by sheer force of will.
“Nothing,” Maya says automatically, then winces when the word costs her. “Smoke inhalation. I’m fine.”
Carina exhales through her nose. Of course.
Moments like these still make her want to pretend her wife is some kind of high-paid lawyer fighting injustice instead of fire.
But no.
She looks Maya over as a doctor, eyes she never wanted to use on her wife. The blonde’s voice is hoarse, she notices the way her chest lifts too quickly, the faint tremor in her hands. The scrape on her shoulder and the exhaustion in her blue eyes, hidden behind stubbornness.
Altman steps in beside them, starts explaining. Carina listens, nods, asks the right questions. Her mind absorbs the facts while her heart lags behind, stuck on the image of Maya lying here when she should have been at home, teasing her about date night.
“She’s being admitted.” she finishes.
Maya makes a sound of protest. “Carina, we have-”
“No,” Carina says gently, finally meeting her eyes. “You’re staying.”
She cups Maya’s jaw, thumb brushing soot-stained skin. The touch steadies them both, just a little. And Maya’s gaze softens, edges of defiance giving way to fatigue. “You came fast.”
Carina leans in, forehead resting briefly against Maya’s. “Always.”
Maya looks better once they move her out of the ER.
That’s what Carina tells herself, anyway.
The hallway is quieter, the lights softer. The chaos is thinning. Maya is awake, responding, even cracks a weak joke when the nurse apologizes for the wait.
“Date night’s really going all out.” Maya murmurs, voice rough but trying.
Carina smiles automatically, then notices the way Maya’s breath hitches at the end of the sentence. Just a fraction too shallow. Just enough that Carina doesn’t let go of her hand.
They settle her into the room, monitors reattached with familiar beeps. Oxygen stays in place. The nurse explains it’s precautionary. Just overnight. Smoke inhalation can be sneaky. Better to watch her.
Carina agrees easily. You don’t have to ask her twice if it will keep her wife safer.
At first, it’s nothing dramatic.
Maya coughs now and then, low and tight, like she’s trying to keep it from turning into a whole thing. Her eyes keep drifting closed between questions, exhaustion dragging her under quickly. When Carina asks how her head feels, Maya shrugs.
“Fuzzy,” she admits. “Like I stayed up too late, it’s hard to focus. And I just- I want to get out of here, I know why I have to stay, I'm just… restless?”
Carina brushes her thumb along Maya’s knuckles, grounding herself in the warmth there. “I know, bambina. But you tell me if you start feeling worse, sì?”
Maya hums in acknowledgment, already half gone.
Time stretches. The monitor ticks along steadily, but Carina starts to notice the spaces between breaths. The way Maya’s chest doesn’t always rise as fully as it should. The way her lips are pursed, and it seems like she’s using more muscles than she should to breathe in.
Carina doesn’t like it.
“Maya,” she murmurs softly. “Take a deep breath for me.”
Maya tries.
It turns into a cough that leaves her grimacing, one hand curling weakly into the blanket. When it passes, she looks embarrassed more than anything.
“Sorry,” she rasps. “Lungs feel… tight.”
Carina nods, outwardly calm, inwardly cataloging. Tightness. Fatigue. Hoarseness worsening instead of improving. She flags down the nurse, asks for a check, an adjustment. Everyone remains calm.
This is expected.
This is why they’re keeping her.
Still, Carina doesn’t sit back down.
Maya’s skin feels warmer now. Not feverish, but flushed. Her pulse under Carina’s fingers skitters when she checks it again, faster than before. Maya notices and frowns faintly.
“You’re my wife, babe. Stop doctoring me,” she says, without heat.
Carina exhales a soft laugh. “Then stop giving me reasons.”
Maya’s eyes close again. This time, she doesn’t reopen them right away.
Carina straightens, hand tightening instinctively. “Maya.”
A beat. Two.
Maya stirs, lashes fluttering. “I’m here,” she murmurs. “Just tired.”
Carina leans closer, voice dropping. “You stay with me, okay?”
Maya nods, slow and heavy. Her breathing evens out eventually, but it’s shallower now, more work than it should be. The monitor reflects it, numbers not alarming, just… trending the wrong way.
Sneaky, Carina thinks bitterly.
Later, when the nurse dims the lights, she asks if Carina needs anything. But the answer is simple. Would always be simple.
“No, I’m not going anywhere.”
When they’re alone, Carina shifts closer to the bed, tucking the blanket more securely around Maya’s shoulders. Maya reaches for her, fingers weak but determined, finding Carina’s wrist.
“You okay?” Maya whispers.
Carina presses a kiss to her knuckles, lingers there longer than necessary. “I am,” she lies gently. “Rest.”
Maya exhales, eyes closing again. Her breathing stutters once, then settles into a fragile rhythm Carina watches far too closely.
Carina has not moved from the chair in hours.
Her phone sits dark in her hand, battery long since dipped into the red. Maya sleeps in uneven stretches, breathing shallow but steady enough that no one is alarmed. Yet.
She doesn’t have to worry about the kids, not yet, they were at Peggy and Dana’s for the night, plans that were made a week ago so she and Maya could finally have a date night. That turned out great.
Andy shows up first.
She slips into the room quietly, like she knows exactly what she’s walking into.
One look at Carina’s face and she doesn’t joke, doesn’t tease. She just sets a coffee on the bedside table and squeezes Carina’s shoulder.
“How is she?” Andy asks softly.
Carina glances at the monitor before answering. “The same,” she says. “Which I do not like.”
Andy hums, eyes on Maya. “She’s being monitored and nobody is stupid enough to risk the health here of their favourite OB.”
Carina’s mouth tightens. “That does not make me feel better.”
Amelia arrives not long after, hair still damp from a rushed shower, jacket half-zipped. She takes in the scene with a practiced glance, Maya’s pallor, the oxygen, the way Carina hasn’t blinked since she walked in.
“She’s stable,” Amelia says carefully. “But she looks wrecked.”
The Italian snorts under her breath. “She is.”
Amelia turns to her then, voice lowering. “So are you.”
“I am fine.” Her reply is automatic, something all of them know better than to believe.
Andy and Amelia exchange a look and Carina bristles immediately.
“No, I am not leaving.”
“No one said leaving,” The Captain says gently. “We think… stepping out. Ten minutes. Just some fresh clothes.”
Carina looks down at herself like it’s the first time she’s noticed, heels from clinic, wrinkled blouse, smoke clinging faintly to Maya’s side of the bed. She shakes her head.
“I can send someone.” she insists. “Or I can just-”
“And you told me Maya hates hospital gowns.” The surgeon cuts in. “You could get her some new clothes too.”
Carina’s throat tightens. Of course she does.
Andy kneels down next to her. “Your office is two floors up. You grab sweatpants, one of your hoodies, maybe that stupid soft T-shirt she steals from you. You’re back before she even notices.”
Her gaze flicks to her wife, sleeping. Her breathing stutters, then evens out again.
“I do not want to miss anything,” Carina says quietly.
Amelia’s expression softens. “You’re not going to.” she promises. “I’ll stay. Andy will stay. If she so much as sighs wrong, you’ll know.”
Andy nods immediately. “I swear. I will tackle a resident if I have to.”
That almost earns a smile.
Almost.
She reaches out, brushes her wife’s hair back from her forehead. The skin there feels warm. Sweaty. She presses a kiss there without thinking, a silent apology already forming in her chest.
“I will be fast,” she says, like saying it out loud will make it true.
“Go. Get some fresh clothes. We’ve got her.” Amelia says, squeezing her arm.
Carina hesitates one last time, fingers curled around Maya’s hand, reluctant to let go. When she finally stands, it feels like she’s stepping off something solid and into the open air.
“Do not let her wake up alone.” Carina says firmly.
If they so much as consider leaving her…
Andy meets her eyes, her expression open but serious. “She won’t.”
The OB leaves the room with her heart still inside it, the monitors’ soft beeping echoing in her ears as she walks away, already counting the minutes.
Already wishing she hadn’t agreed.
She walks back faster than she should. The clothes are folded over her arm, Maya’s sweatshirt, soft from too many washes, the one she always steals neatly on top of the pile.
It should have taken ten minutes.
It did take ten minutes.
Still, dread climbs her spine with every step back down the hall, irrational and sharp.
She hears it before she sees it.
Not alarms, those come later, but voices.
Too many.
Urgent.
Wrong.
“No, no, no,” Carina breathes, breaking into a run.
The door to Maya’s room is open.
There are people everywhere.
Someone is on the bed, hands locked together, pressing down on Maya’s chest in a steady, brutal rhythm. Someone is counting, voice flat and practiced, like this is just another thing to get through.
“One, two, three-”
Carina stops so hard it feels like hitting a wall, she barely registers dropping the clothes.
Maya.
For a split second, her mind refuses to make sense of the image. Maya’s body looks wrong like this. She’s so still, unresponsive, chest rising only because someone is forcing it to.
The bag at the head of the bed compresses.
Andrew’s face flashes in her mind, unbidden.
A different room.
A different bed.
The same awful certainty that she has arrived too late.
“What happened?” she demands, voice tearing itself out of her chest.
No one answers her. They’re focused, locked in, counting, calling out orders. The sound fills the room, pounds in her ears until she can’t hear anything else.
“This is your fault.” her brain tells her, cruel and immediate. “You left. You always leave.”
“Maya-” Carina pleads uselessly. Desperately.
Dr. Altman’s voice cuts cleanly through the chaos. “Continue compressions. Prep to intubate.”
The words land like ice in Carina’s veins.
Someone shifts at the head of the bed. Equipment appears as if conjured. Carina can’t seem to breathe.
“No,” she whispers, to the universe more than anyone in the room.
“Tube’s in,” someone says. “Resume.”
The bag compresses. Maya’s body moves with it, passive, wrong.
Carina feels untethered, like she’s watching through glass. Andy’s hand finds her elbow, solid and grounding, but she barely registers it. Amelia is on her other side, murmuring something clinical and calm, but the words slide past without meaning.
“Check pulse.”
The compressions stop.
Silence crashes down, thick and suffocating.
Carina’s heart is pounding so loudly she’s sure everyone can hear it.
A beat.
Another.
“Pulse.”
The word breaks the spell.
The monitor shifts, settling into a rhythm that is fragile but unmistakably there.
Carina sways.
She doesn’t remember crossing the room, only that suddenly she’s at the bedside, fingers hovering over Maya’s cheek, afraid to touch too hard, as if she might disappear again.
Maya doesn’t gasp this time. She doesn’t wake. She just lies there, chest rising with the machine, skin pale under hospital lights.
Alive.
“She has a pulse,” someone is saying. “We got her back quickly. Likely hypoxic arrest, she’ll need ICU.”
Carina nods automatically, because that’s what she does when information is given to her. Hypoxic. Arrest. ICU. The words clang against the inside of her skull without anchoring.
Yet all she can see is the faint flutter at Maya’s throat where life has returned.
Andy steps closer. “She’s here,” she says quietly, voice thick. “She’s here, Carina.”
Amelia’s hand squeezes her shoulder. “They moved fast. This is good. This is really good.”
Carina finally lets her fingers settle against Maya’s face, thumb brushing along her jaw. The skin is warm. Not memory-warm. Present-warm.
“I was gone for ten minutes.” she whispers, the guilt immediate and irrational and impossible to push away.
Andy shakes her head. “Don’t do that.”
But her chest is caving in on itself, relief and terror colliding so violently she can’t separate them. Her knees feel weak. Her hands won’t stop trembling.
She left her wife and came back to find her dying.
The ventilator breathes for Maya in steady intervals.
Carina leans forward, pressing her forehead gently to Maya’s temple, careful of the tube, the lines, the new fragility of everything.
“You are not allowed,” she breathes shakily. “Do you hear me? You are not allowed to leave me like that.”
Maya doesn’t respond. She can’t.
But her heart keeps beating.
And for now, that has to be enough.
Carina sits in the chair pulled tight against Maya’s bed. She has one hand wrapped around Maya’s, thumb resting over the faint pulse at her wrist, as if she needs to confirm it every few seconds. The other arm is folded on the mattress, her head bowed against it.
Time stretches strangely here.
Hours dissolve into the rhythm of the machine. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
Maya looks smaller like this. Pale against white sheets, hair pushed back from her face, tube secured carefully in place. The rise and fall of her chest belongs to something else for now.
Carina watches everything.
Someone explains things at some point, but she doesn’t hear them, not really. Just nods at the right times.
None of it settles.
Andy and Amelia take turns sitting with her. Coffee appears and goes cold. At some point Andy drapes a blanket over Carina’s shoulders. Amelia squeezes her hand before stepping out to take a call.
The night moves on whether Carina notices or not.
Eventually, sleep takes over her without permission. Her head slips sideways, resting against the mattress near Maya’s hip. Her fingers never let go.
When she wakes, it’s with a violent jolt. For one horrifying second, she doesn’t hear the ventilator.
Her heart slams into her ribs. She’s on her feet before she’s fully conscious, eyes wild, searching. But the machine is still there.
Breathing.
Maya’s chest rises.
The monitor ticks steadily.
Carina presses a trembling hand to her own sternum, forcing air into lungs that feel suddenly too small.
“It’s okay.” a nurse says gently from the doorway. “She’s stable.”
Carina nods, swallowing hard, embarrassment and lingering terror mixing in her throat. She brushes her fingers through Maya’s hair, grounding herself again.
“How long?” she asks quietly.
“Just a few hours.” the nurse replies. “And… they’re actually thinking about extubating soon. Her numbers look good.”
The word lands softly.
Extubating.
Carina looks down at Maya, really looks at her this time. There’s more color in her cheeks now. Less tension in her brow. The ventilator still breathes, but it suddenly feels less like a lifeline and more like a bridge.
“She’s ready?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper.
“We’re going to try.”
Carina nods again, this time with something fragile and dangerous blooming in her chest.
Hope.
She slides back into the chair, fingers tightening around Maya’s hand, leaning close enough that her forehead brushes the mattress.
“Okay.” she murmurs softly, for Maya more than anyone else. “Okay, amore. Come back to me.”
The machine continues its steady rhythm for just a little while longer.
And this time, when Carina counts the breaths, she can almost imagine them being Maya’s again.
The change is subtle at first.
Carina is mid-sentence, something soft and useless about how stubborn Maya is, when she feels it.
A shift.
Maya’s fingers tighten weakly around hers.
Her eyelids flutter.
“Maya?”
A nurse glances at the monitor. “Sedation’s wearing off,” she says gently. “That’s good.”
Good.
It doesn’t feel good.
Maya’s brow furrows. A small, distressed sound escapes her, muffled and wrong around the tube in her throat. Her body tenses, shoulders straining faintly against the sheets.
Her eyes open.
They’re unfocused at first. Glassy. Searching without understanding.
Then awareness hits.
Panic floods them instantly.
Her hands move shakily toward her face.
“No, no, no.” Carina catches her wrists gently but firmly. “Amore, it’s okay. You’re intubated. You’re safe.”
Maya shakes her head weakly, gag reflex kicking in. Her chest heaves against the ventilator’s rhythm, trying to breathe on her own and fighting the machine at the same time. The sound that comes out of her is pure instinct, trapped and terrified.
Carina leans close enough that her forehead almost touches Maya’s.
“Maya. Look at me,” she urges, her voice firm now, grounding. “You’re in the ICU. You stopped breathing. We are helping you. Do not fight the tube.”
Maya’s eyes lock onto hers.
They’re wide. Frantic. Wet.
She tries to speak.
It comes out as a desperate, voiceless push of air around plastic.
Carina’s heart cracks down the center.
“I know,” she whispers. “I know. I hate it too. Listen to me,” she says, voice low and unwavering despite the tremor in her chest. “You are breathing. The machine is helping. In a few minutes, they will take it out. But you must be still.”
Maya’s gaze searches her face like she’s memorizing it.
Fear.
Confusion.
And beneath it, trust.
Her movements slow, just slightly.
Her chest begins to fall back into rhythm with the machine. Mechanical inhale. Mechanical exhale.
Carina doesn’t let go of her.
“You’re okay,” she repeats, softer now. “You came back to me. Just one more step, sì?”
Maya blinks slowly, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes into her hairline.
She squeezes Carina’s hand.
It’s weak.
But deliberate.
And Carina feels something inside her unclench, not fully, not yet, but enough to breathe through the next few minutes.
“Good,” the respiratory therapist says gently. “She’s ready.”
Carina nods, even though her pulse is hammering.
She stays exactly where she is.
“Okay, Maya,” someone says gently. “We’re going to take the tube out. Coughing is normal.”
A few seconds later, the tube slides free in one smooth, practiced motion.
Her body jerks, a violent cough tearing out of her, chest spasming as air finally forces its way back in. It sounds wrong at first, raw and scraped, but Carina’s heart clenches like she’s falling.
Someone turns Maya’s head to the side. More coughing. Wet. Painful. But necessary.
“Good, that’s good,” a nurse encourages. “Clear it out.”
“Maya.” she says again, this time breaking. Her hands shake as she cups Maya’s face, grounding herself in the warmth there, the flushed skin, the unmistakable heat of life. “I’m here. I’m here.”
Maya blinks, unfocused, disoriented. Her throat works painfully. “Car-” she rasps, the sound shredded. Another cough racks through her and she winces, hand twitching toward her ribs.
Alive.
Carina’s knees feel weak, like they might fold now that she’s allowed to stop holding herself together.
“I left for ten minutes,” Carina whispers, voice cracking. “Ten.”
Maya’s fingers twitch, searching blindly. Carina grabs her hand immediately, squeezing too tight.
“Hey,” Maya murmurs hoarsely, barely audible. She tries to focus on Carina’s face. “You’re… shaking.”
Carina lets out a broken sound that might be a laugh if it weren’t so close to a sob. “Yes,” she admits. “Yes, I am.”
She leans closer, voice low, urgent, meant only for Maya. “Do not ever do that again.” she says, half plea, half command. “Do you understand me?”
Maya’s eyes soften immediately, guilt creeping up on her face even through the fog of sedation and pain. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, each word scraping her throat raw. “Didn’t mean to… scare you.”
Carina closes her eyes and presses a kiss to Maya’s knuckles like a prayer.
“I know you didn’t, bambina.” she says honestly. “But you’re still here, that’s what matters.”
The staff begin to step back, satisfied with her breathing. Explaining the final details and instructions before checking the nasal cannula one last time. Monitors steady. Crisis passed.
When it’s just them, mostly, Carina climbs carefully onto the edge of the bed without asking permission. She moves slowly, mindful of wires, IV lines, sore ribs. She curls around Maya as much as she can without hurting her, one arm across her waist, the other bracing near her shoulder.
Protective.
They stay like that, breathing together, until the tightness in Carina’s chest eases just a fraction.
After a while, Maya huffs a weak, almost amused breath. “You know.” She starts slowly. “This is… not how I pictured tonight ending.”
Carina smiles despite herself. “Mm. Less candles. More monitors.”
“You’re wearing a lot more clothes.” Maya adds.
Carina laughs quietly, the sound careful but real. “A tragedy, truly.”
Maya tilts her head up just enough to look at her, wide blue eyes. “Still counts, though. Right?”
Carina brushes her thumb along her wife’s jaw, eyes soft. “Of course it does.”
She tucks the blanket more securely around them both, presses a lingering kiss to Maya’s temple. “We said date night.” she murmurs. “We did not say where.”
The blonde’s lips curve into a tired smile as her eyes slide shut again. “Best worst date ever.”
“Just bad timing, bambina.” The brunette smiles, holding her a little tighter, listening to the steady rhythm beneath her hand, and lets the room fade to background noise.
The night didn’t go as planned, not in the slightest.
But they are together, and that’s all she truly hoped for.