Rowan hadn't slept.
Not in the restless, turn-on-the-couch kind of way. No, he had sat in silence for hours, still as stone, a photo clutched between his fingers edges soft and bent from the pressure. His gaze hadn't drifted once. Lily. And there, barely visible behind her, the shadow of a girl. Young. Small. Brown hair falling across her cheek. Eyes wide and distant.
Nora.
She wasn't just part of the past. She was the past. The child in that picture wasn't just someone who had been there she had lived it. Breathed it. Survived it. He should've known sooner. The guarded way she moved. The silences. The way she sometimes looked at the hospital like it was a battlefield she hadn't finished bleeding on.
Now, it wasn't a theory. It wasn't even a suspicion.
It was truth.
And it wrecked him.
That morning, Rowan walked into his father's office without knocking. His steps were deliberate, but something in his chest was already unraveling. Dr. Arthur Brenner looked up slowly, pen in hand, an expression of measured curiosity already forming until he saw the photo.
Rowan didn't sit. He didn't speak at first. He simply placed the photo on the desk, the image between them like a knife waiting to be picked up.
"Who was Lily Keane?" he asked. Not a trap. Not a threat. Just a truth long overdue.
Brenner's eyes flicked to the photo, then back to his son. "Why does it matter?"
"You already know why."
There was a pause calculated, too careful.
"She was a patient," Brenner said. "Years ago."
"She was Nora's sister."
That cracked something.
Brenner didn't flinch, but the air around him changed. He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers like he was preparing for surgery. "Nora Keane has no known family."
"She did," Rowan whispered. "She had Lily."
Silence.
"I know what you did," he added. "The file. The altered logs. The erased names."
Brenner remained still. "I did what was necessary."
"To cover up malpractice? Or to protect your legacy?"
"To protect you."
Rowan froze. The words hit harder than he expected. He wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or scream.
"You didn't protect me," he said. "You used me. You buried the truth and made sure I never knew I was walking through a graveyard."
Brenner finally looked tired. "If you'd known then, you would've destroyed everything."
"Maybe it deserved to be destroyed."
Rowan turned and left without waiting for more. His father didn't call after him. Didn't ask for understanding. And Rowan didn't offer forgiveness.
He couldn't.
Later that day, Rowan found Elias in the observation lounge above OR-2. They didn't speak at first. The silence between them was familiar steady, even comfortable in its weight.
"She was just a kid," Rowan said eventually.
Elias didn't ask who.
"You knew, didn't you?" Rowan asked, looking at him for the first time.
"I knew parts," Elias admitted. "Not all. But I knew she carried something that hurt more than she let on."
"She never said a word."
"That's how you survive," Elias said simply. "You carry the fire quietly."
Rowan leaned against the glass, his reflection ghosted beside the glowing lights of the surgical suite.
"I can't stop thinking about her," he said. "Not just Lily Nora. The way she looks at people. Like she's never sure if they'll stay."
Elias gave him a side glance. "And will you?"
"I already have."
That night, Rowan didn't go home.
He didn't drive. Didn't think. He walked. Miles, maybe. The city blurred around him until he reached her building, his hands shoved in his coat, the photo pressed to his chest like it might disappear if he let go.
He didn't knock.
Through the window, he saw her curled on the edge of her couch, a blanket draped over her legs, her head resting against the armrest. Her eyes were closed, but he knew she wasn't asleep. Nora never really rested. She just paused.
He stood there, heart pounding like it did before he made an incision just one chance to get it right.
And even though she couldn't hear him, he whispered anyway:
"I know who you are."
The next morning, she found him in the stairwell. Same place he always went when things didn't make sense.
He didn't look up when she arrived. She didn't announce herself.
She sat beside him, legs pulled close, shoulders brushing.
"You were at my apartment," she said quietly.
He blinked once. "You saw?"
"You always look up at the window first. Like you're checking if it's safe."
He didn't deny it.
Nora turned her head, watching the empty steps below. "You know now."
"I do."
"And?"
"And I think I knew long before the photo."
She said nothing.
He reached into his coat and handed her the picture. She took it slowly, her hands smaller than he remembered, delicate in a way that contradicted everything about her presence.
"You kept this?" she asked.
"I found it in my mother's old album. Buried behind years of things I never looked at."
Her fingers traced the image. "That day… I remember thinking Lily would be okay. She was laughing. She looked so bright."
"She was," Rowan said softly. "She scared me sometimes. How much she still believed."
Nora turned sharply. "You knew her?"
Rowan nodded. "I was in training. Intern year. She used to wave when I walked past. Once, she asked if I believed in ghosts."
Nora's lips quirked. "She used to say that ghosts were just memories with unfinished stories."
Rowan watched her. "Is that what you are?"
"I used to be," she said. "Now I'm just the ending no one wanted to read."
He shifted, leaned closer. "You're not an ending. You're the reason this story still matters."
Their eyes locked. The kind of stare that says everything and demands nothing.
Rowan didn't reach for her hand.
But he would have, if she had asked.
Instead, she leaned forward, rested her forehead against his shoulder.
Not quite a confession.
But close enough.