The sun had only just begun to rise, casting a soft golden hue across the windows when Rayleigh received the emergency call. It's Sunday, quiet, unhurried, and beautiful, but duty never slept, especially not for a famous surgeon like her.
With urgency, Rayleigh quickly prepared to leave. In contrast, the apartment still carried the lingering warmth of a lazy weekend morning, filled with the scent of jasmine from the candle Isabelle had lit the night before.
Isabelle didn't protest when Rayleigh pulled away from their shared bed and didn't sigh or complain as her wife shuffled quickly toward the bathroom. She's already used to this rhythm.
After being together for almost three years now, she knew well the life she had chosen, one filled with sudden emergency calls, sleepless nights, and long, aching silences interrupted by a pager's shrill cry. But she also knew the weight Rayleigh carried, the way she poured every part of herself into saving strangers.
