Elias drifted in and out of awareness like someone swimming just beneath the surface of a lake.
Sound reached him first. Always sound; sometimes only that.
Voices blurred together, but he could pick out intention. Concern. Efficiency. The careful neutrality people used when they didn't want to scare you.
He couldn't move.
That was the strangest part. Not the fear. Not even the frustration.
It was the stillness.
His body felt like a house he'd been locked out of while the lights stayed on inside. Couldn't get inside, no matter how hard he tried.
He tried to focus on small things. The hum of machines. The distant squeak of shoes. The memory of Mara's voice, which he replayed like a talisman.
He just...disappeared.
He wondered if she thought he was ignoring her.
The idea hurt more than the IV line.
If he could have smiled, he would have at the irony. Months of orchestrated almost-encounters. Careful timing. A hundred chances built on intention and restraint. How much self-control.
And now, when he wanted nothing more than to simply answer a message, his body had staged a full-scale rebellion.
He would have called it bad timing, but that felt like letting fate off too easily.
No, this was something else.
This was the universe committing to the bit. It's showing that he will not get the chance.
Daniel arrived that evening.
Elias sensed him before he spoke. Familiar weight. Familiar pacing.
"Hey," Daniel said, voice rough. "You always did take things too far, you know that?"
Elias listened. Only thing he can do.
"I swear," Daniel continued, pulling up a chair. "If this is some elaborate excuse to avoid talking about your feelings, I'm gonna be pissed."
A weak laugh escaped Daniel's throat. "Okay. Bad joke. Too soon."
He leaned forward. "You scared the hell out of us."
Us.
Plural.
Elias felt something loosen in his chest. He hadn't meant to disappear like this. Hadn't meant to make anyone worry. Especially not her. Not his friends.
Daniel kept talking. About mundane things. About work. About a café they used to frequent. He talked the way people did when they were trying to build a bridge across silence.
At one point, he said, "I remember you said there's someone, isn't there?"
Elias's pulse quickened.
Daniel sighed. "I knew it. You get this look when there's someone. Like you're finally late for something you actually want to attend."
If Elias could have rolled his eyes, he would have. "This guy..." He thought.
"She texted you this morning, didn't she?" Daniel guessed. "The doctor said you were smiling at your phone like an idiot."
Elias focused on the sound of his voice. Tried to will some signal through.
Daniel's tone softened. "Hey. We'll figure out how to tell her. When you're ready."
Elias screamed silently.
No, he wanted to say. Don't.
He didn't want her here. Didn't want her memories of him rewritten in beeps and tubes and helplessness. He wanted to stay the man in the bookstore. The one who walked by the river. The one who made terrible puns and held her hand like it was a promise, not a plea.
Dr. Hargreaves watched the interaction from the doorway.
She noted the spike in his heart rate at certain words. Certain names Daniel never quite said out loud.
Interesting, she thought.
Very interesting.
Later that night, after Daniel left, Dr. Hargreaves returned.
"We're going to run more tests," she told Elias. "There are things we can try. Things that might slow this down."
She paused, choosing her words carefully.
"I can't promise outcomes. But I can promise we won't stop paying attention."
She studied his face. "You were trying to reach someone this morning."
His eyes flickered.
"That matters," she said quietly. "Not medically. But humanly. You will need all the emotional support you can get."
She adjusted his blanket, an almost maternal gesture.
"Rest," she said. "We'll do the hard thinking for you tonight."
As she turned to leave, she added, almost as an afterthought, "By the way, your nurse tomorrow is very good. Observant. Kind. Patients trust her."
Elias felt a strange tightening in his chest.
He didn't know her name.
But something about the way the doctor said it made him listen harder.
Outside the room, the hospital settled into its nocturnal rhythm. Machines hummed. Lights dimmed.
Somewhere else in the building, Mara lay in her rest bed, staring at her phone, wondering how something that felt so real could disappear so completely.
Between them, walls. Glass. Timing.
And a body that refused to speak when it mattered most.