(Adams's POV)
Hospitals were supposed to be places he despised-cold, echoing monuments to endings, stark reminders of human fragility and the limits of his own control. Yet lately, he found himself lingering within these sterile halls long after his reason for being there had expired, as if the very air had been subtly transformed into a kind of sanctuary. Or perhaps, he was forced to admit, it wasn't the place at all. Perhaps it was her.
Mina sat vigil by her sister's bed, a paperback novel open on her lap but her eyes distant, unseeing. The faint, warm glow of the bedside lamplight brushed against her profile, catching the elegant line of her neck and softening the weary lines of exhaustion that framed her eyes. Her headscarf had slipped slightly, revealing delicate wisps of dark hair that had escaped her efforts to tame them. To anyone else, she might have looked worn down, frayed at the edges by worry and sleepless nights. To Adams, she looked unbreakable. A quiet force of nature in a flimsy chair.
He should have left hours ago. There were contracts on his desk, emails demanding replies, a world of obligations that existed beyond these four walls. But instead, he remained, leaning against the cool metal of the doorframe, content simply to watch her. To admire the steadfast way she held her sister's hand. To want-something so profound and unsettling he couldn't even put a name to it.
Her head lifted suddenly, as though she could feel the specific, weighted intensity of his gaze across the quiet room. Their eyes met in the semi-darkness. The quiet that followed was unhurried, a shared space, but it was undeniably electric, charged with a thousand unspoken words.
"You're staring," she said, her voice low, a hint of gentle teasing threaded through the undeniable fatigue.
Caught, and yet feeling no desire to hide it, he didn't look away. "Maybe I am."
Her lips parted slightly, caught between surprise and a flicker of something else-something warmer, more receptive. She shook her head slightly, a soft, self-conscious gesture, and looked back down at her sister, though the faint, telltale flush that crept up her cheeks betrayed the effect of his admission.
(Mina's POV)
He unsettled her in a way that was entirely new. Not with grand declarations or overt gestures, but with the potent things he left unsaid. With the quiet, unwavering consistency of his presence. With the way his eyes followed her movements around the room, not like other men-with a hunger that felt like taking, or a carelessness that felt like dismissal-but like he was trying to truly see her, to memorize the very essence of her, layer by careful layer.
It should have frightened her, this intense, silent scrutiny from a man who was still, in so many ways, a stranger. Instead, it inexplicably warmed something deep inside her, a place she had thought had gone cold and dormant years ago, sealed off by necessity and disappointment.
"You don't have to stay every night," she murmured later, her eyes fixed on the slow, steady rise and fall of her sister's chest, trying to steady her own voice against the strange tremor he evoked. "You've done more than enough already. More than anyone ever has."
"I want to," Adams said simply, from his post by the door.
Her breath caught softly in her throat. He said it with such unadorned ease, as though caring for her, for Mariam, wasn't a burdensome sacrifice he was making. As though her mere presence in this grim room was reason enough for him to abandon his undoubtedly luxurious world outside.
She turned a page of her utterly untouched book, needing something, anything, to do with her restless hands. "You're... different from what I expected," she ventured, the words leaving her mouth before she could censor them.
"What did you expect?" His tone was genuinely curious, not offended in the slightest.
She risked a glance at him, finding his gaze already fixed on her, patient and open. "A man who would write a cheque to soothe his conscience and then disappear back into his important life. A man too powerful, too busy, for people like us."
A faint, wry smile ghosted over his lips, not quite reaching his eyes. "And instead?"
"Instead..." She hesitated, her throat tightening with an emotion she couldn't name. "You keep showing up."
The air between them thickened again, the silence pressing in with the weight of all the other words neither of them yet dared to voice, a palpable force in the quiet hum of the hospital room.
(Adams's POV)
He wanted to tell her. The words sat on the tip of his tongue, a desperate confession. He wanted to tell her how her quiet strength humbled him, how the rare, bright sound of her laughter lingered in his mind long after the sound had faded, how her presence had become the one unpredictable, invaluable variable in his meticulously controlled life that he didn't want to manage or mitigate. But the words caught in his throat, strangled by a fear he was too proud to name.
He had built his walls too high and too strong, had lived too long in a world where vulnerability was a strategic error and genuine affection was a exploitable weakness. To confess what he was slowly, undeniably feeling would be to shatter those fortifications himself, to open the gates and let her see the hollow, lonely man who resided behind the wealth and the power and the imposing reputation.
So he stayed silent. Watching. Wanting. Admiring the fierce, gentle way she kept her vigil, her resilience as steady and reliable as tempered steel.
And in that heavy, chosen silence, a deep and tender affection continued to grow its roots, winding itself around the bedrock of his being whether he wished it to or not.
(Mina's POV)
She wanted to tell him. The need to explain herself prickled under her skin. She wanted to tell him how his relentless, seemingly effortless selflessness terrified her, how no one in her life had ever given so much without eventually asking for something-anything-in return, how she lived with a low-grade fear of the day he would finally realize she had nothing of equal value to give back. Nothing but a gratitude that was already starting to feel inadequate for what was growing between them.
But she, too, stayed silent. Gratitude was safe. It was a transaction, however uneven. Affection, this quiet, blooming thing, was dangerous. It was a leap into the unknown.
Still, when he moved from the doorframe later that night to hand her a cool bottle of water, their fingers brushed during the exchange. Neither of them pulled away. The touch, simple and accidental, lingered for a moment too long, its message unspoken but crystal clear and utterly undeniable.
Much later, as the deepest hours of the night settled over the ward and exhaustion finally claimed her, Mina drifted into a fitful sleep in the rigid chair. Her body, seeking comfort, listed sideways until her head came to rest gently against the solid warmth of his shoulder.
Adams froze, every muscle tensing-then, slowly, with a care that felt reverent, he relaxed his posture, allowing her to rest there fully, adjusting his own position to better support her weight.
In the dim, silent hospital room, with the rhythm of her breathing steady and soft against him, he allowed himself one forbidden, truthful thought.
"If this is a mistake," he thought, closing his eyes and breathing in the faint scent of her hair, "it's the only one I have ever made that I don't want to undo."
And somewhere deep in the realm of dreams, Mina, half-asleep and anchored by his solid presence, whispered a name-his name-so softly, so tenderly, that he almost believed he had dreamed it. But the echo of it lingered in the quiet air, a promise and a peril all at once.