She thought concussion delirium. Traumatic brain injury. Something she could treat with protocol and ice and a call to the ER if it got worse.
She was wrong.
From that day forward Peter Carter walked like he'd stolen someone else's gravity.
Head up. Shoulders loose. Eyes steady. The bruises stopped arriving because the fists stopped swinging. Jack Morrison—king of cruelty, lord of hallway beatdowns—looked at Peter once after that day and suddenly found new hobbies. Like avoiding eye contact.
And Peter started talking to her.
Not nurse-patient script.
Real shit.
About hypovolemic shock protocols not taught until paramedic year. About the cytochrome P450 interactions that could turn acetaminophen into liver failure. About fibrinolytic cascades like he was discussing last night's Netflix. He spoke about human physiology the way old surgeons talk about patients they lost thirty years ago—half grief, half ownership.
She started manufacturing reasons to walk past his classroom.
