Jonah had known about the cancer.
Not the details. Not the charts or stages or percentages. But he'd known there was something growing quietly inside Elias, something that had a habit of overstaying its welcome.
Elias had told him months ago, on a bench outside a closed café, like it was an inconvenient travel delay.
"It's not nothing," Elias had said. "But it's not a goodbye either."
Jonah had believed him. Or maybe he'd chosen to.
Now, sitting beside the ICU bed, Jonah understood the difference between ill and unrecognizable.
This wasn't just cancer.
This was something else.
Elias lay still, swallowed by the hospital gown that hung on him like borrowed fabric. His frame looked wrong - angles sharper than Jonah remembered, collarbones like parentheses closing in on his throat. The oxygen mask darkened half his face, the tint making him look distant, almost anonymous. Even if someone who loved him walked in, Jonah thought, they might hesitate.
His eyes were closed.
That was the strangest part.
Elias had always looked. Watched. Noticed. His eyes had been the place where curiosity lived. Now they were sealed shut, lashes unmoving, as if he'd retreated inward.
Jonah leaned forward. "Hey."
Nothing.
"You don't get to nap through this," Jonah muttered. "You owe me at least one sarcastic comment."
A finger twitched.
Jonah froze. Then exhaled slowly. "There it is. Minimal effort. Very on-brand."
The door opened.
This time it wasn't a nurse.
Dr. Hargreaves stepped in, followed by another physician Jonah hadn't seen before. Younger. Tighter posture. The kind of person who still believed answers existed if you chased them hard enough.
Jonah stood. "So?"
Dr. Hargreaves didn't sit. That told him everything.
"We've reviewed the scans again," she said. "And the neurological panels."
Jonah crossed his arms. "And?"
"And what we're seeing doesn't correlate cleanly with metastatic spread."
Jonah blinked. "You're saying this isn't the cancer?"
"I'm saying," the younger doctor cut in carefully, "that the cancer doesn't fully explain the neurological shutdown."
Jonah's jaw tightened. "Explain that like I'm not a textbook."
Dr. Hargreaves sighed. "Elias' paralysis, the loss of speech, the sensory inconsistencies - they're progressing in a pattern we don't typically see. It's not linear. It's not localized."
Jonah frowned. "So what is it?"
The doctors exchanged a look.
That scared him more than anything else so far.
"We don't know," Dr. Hargreaves said.
Jonah let out a breath that almost turned into a laugh. "That's not comforting."
"No," she agreed. "But it's honest."
The younger doctor stepped closer to the bed. "It's as if his body is… withdrawing."
"Withdrawing?" Jonah repeated.
"Yes," the doctor said. "Not shutting down. Not failing. Choosing."
Jonah stared at Elias.
"That's not a medical term," Jonah said flatly.
"No," Dr. Hargreaves said. "It isn't."
Silence settled in the room, thick and humming with machines.
Jonah rubbed his face. "He can still hear, right?"
"Intermittently," the doctor said.
Jonah leaned down, close to Elias' ear. "You hear that? You're officially a mystery. Maybe they will bring you in for research." He joked softly.
A tear slipped from beneath the edge of the oxygen mask. It tracked sideways, caught against the plastic.
Jonah's throat tightened. "Damn it."
He straightened, anger flashing hot and sharp. "You can't tell me this is just biology. I've seen bodies fail. This isn't that."
Dr. Hargreaves hesitated.
Jonah saw it.
"You're holding something back," he said.
She chose her words carefully. "There are cases. Rare ones. Where severe psychological stress appears to accelerate physical decline."
Jonah laughed once, sharp. "You're saying heartbreak did this?"
"I'm saying," she replied, "that the mind and body don't operate independently."
Jonah's gaze dropped to Elias' still face.
He thought of the notebook. The numbers. The counting. The way Elias had spoken about timing like it was a living thing that could be reasoned with.
"You're telling me," Jonah said quietly, "that he loved someone so much his body gave up first."
The doctors didn't answer.
Because they didn't need to.
After they left, Jonah stayed.
He always stayed.
He sat beside Elias, elbows on the bed this time, hands clasped loosely near Elias' wrist. He didn't squeeze. He didn't want to scare him.
"She's here, I know," Jonah said softly. "You picked a great hospital for avoiding your feelings, by the way."
Elias' eyelid fluttered. Just once.
Jonah smiled weakly. "Yeah. I read the notebook. No choice man, not when you disappeared on us this abruptly. Her name is Mara right?"
He leaned closer. "She doesn't know it's you. And honestly? I don't blame her. You look like hell."
Another tiny twitch. A finger this time.
Jonah huffed. "See? Still got opinions. Well, tough luck buddy, I got a few too."
Outside, the corridor bustled.
Mara walked past the ICU doors with a tray of medication, her steps automatic, her mind elsewhere. She didn't look through the glass. Why would she? ICU rooms were full of strangers and stories she wasn't allowed to carry home.
She passed Elias bed without recognition.
Jonah watched her go, chest aching with the weight of what she didn't know.
Back inside, he spoke again, voice low and serious now.
"You don't get to disappear like this," Jonah said. "Not after all that counting. Not after finally being seen."
Elias' breathing changed slightly. Not enough to alert machines. Enough to matter.
Jonah nodded. "Good. That means you're still in there."
He sat back, eyes burning.
"Science can take its time," Jonah said. "But don't you dare leave before she knows who you are."
Elias didn't open his eyes.
But a tear slipped free again.
And this time, Jonah didn't wipe it away.
He let it stay.
Because some truths, once they surface, refuse to be ignored - even by bodies that no longer listen to medicine.