Celeste wrapped her arm gently beneath his, and Noah rose like a man pulled from water—unsteady, breathless, soaked in red.
He limped with effort, jaw clenched, and Steve stepped in without needing to be asked, his shoulder rising to share the weight.
Together, the three moved swiftly through the underground garage—the scent of oil and concrete thick in the air—then through the staff-only corridor where the world narrowed to sterile walls and humming lights.
When the elevator doors opened, they stepped inside without a word.
The elevator opened with a soft chime.
The doctor met them in silence—young, clean-cut, dressed in black with only a small backpack on his shoulder. There was no panic in his voice. Just precision.
"Where is the wound?"
Celeste led him to the bedroom.
He knelt, scissors already in hand, and sliced open the damp, blood-heavy fabric.
The gash on Noah's thigh had clotted into a rust-dark wound, spreading like ink through water.
"It's deep—but not dangerously so. It's close to a nerve, which could've been far worse. We're lucky. No surgery needed. I'll stitch him up and control the bleeding"
Thread, gauze, antiseptic—the quiet rituals of healing were laid out in a row, like prayer beads whispered through cotton and steel.
Celeste stepped back, but her gaze never left him.
Not once.
Time passed.
Three hours. Maybe more.
The doctor whispered instructions and slipped away with Howard, leaving the door to close with a hush.
Noah slept.
His breath, light as a sigh, brushed past parted lips—barely there, like the hush between waves.
A feverish sheen clung to his skin, and even in sleep, his brow held the delicate tension of a man still bracing for an unseen blow.
Celeste sat beside him, quiet as snowfall on an untouched field, the silence between them both heavy and tender.
The low light traced his features with reverence.
His nose, straight and finely drawn, caught the glow and threw it back in clean, sharp lines.
By his eyes—closed and still—traces of youth lingered.
But it was in the stillness that the depth showed itself: the unspoken steel beneath the softness, the quiet fortitude behind the boyish calm.
His lips—firm, unmoving—spoke of things unsaid.
Lashes curved faintly, resting in still shadow.
And his jaw, gently carved, held a kind of fragile defiance, as if he had learned to be both breakable and brave.
His skin was luminous in its stillness, as though it had been washed in moonlight.
A soft shadow lingered along his cheekbone, and a veil of sweat shimmered at his brow—not the sweat of exertion, but the echo of a day that had asked too much of him.
She reached for a fresh towel.
Dampened it.
Wiped gently across his forehead as though even his sleep might crack beneath too much touch.
And then—her hand hesitated.
His shirt had slipped just enough to reveal the edge of a scar.
Then another. And another.
A thin one over his clavicle.
A deep burn across his ribs.
A wound at his side, perfectly round—too clean to be anything but a bullet.
Tissue like shattered glass melted into flesh.
She lifted the fabric higher, slowly. Almost reverently.
And there, across his chest and back, was a map.
A history written in pain and fire.
Each line a memory.
Each mark a silence that had never found its voice.
Her breath caught.
Not in fear.
But in recognition.
She had seen a body like this before.
Felt this kind of ruin on her own skin.
In another life.
A past blurred by smoke and the iron tang of blood, but some memories never dulled.
They simply lay dormant, like embers waiting for the wind.
She saw it now—sixteen and trembling, a cracked wall pressing against her spine, uniform soaked in mud... and something heavier.
Not water. Not soil.
Her arms had been outstretched, a human shield for the smaller ones behind her,while the sky ripped open—bullets flying like broken stars, screaming across the dark.
And in the stillness that followed, even the bombs held their breath.
But her heart did not.
It thundered, wild and defiant, refusing to stop.
Refusing to die.
That heartbeat—it echoed now.
As she looked down at Noah's battered body, something inside her cracked.
Not because she pitied him.
But because she knew.
"...You carried this,"
she whispered, barely a sound.
"Through all this time. Through everything. You carried this."
Her fingers drifted down—not to trace, not to ask, just to stay.
Just to touch.
He looked so young now.
So unbearably young.
As if in sleep, he'd finally allowed himself to collapse.
She reached for his hand and rested hers lightly atop it.
A warmth passed between them.
A wordless acknowledgment.
You're not alone anymore.