Damian
Watching Elara sleep in the hospital bed should have been simple.
She was just a patient.
Someone I had brought in because she was sick and incapable of properly taking care of herself in that moment.
That was all it should have been.
Except it wasn’t.
Because even while she slept, her presence didn’t feel neutral.
It felt personal.
I sat in the chair beside her bed, my eyes occasionally drifting back to her face as if checking whether she was still breathing normally, whether the medication was working, whether she was getting worse instead of better.
None of those thoughts were strictly necessary for a doctor.
They were the kind of thoughts I would have dismissed in any other context.
Yet here I was.
And the most irritating part of it all was that I knew exactly why this felt wrong.
Elara had a boyfriend.
That fact should have been enough to keep me at a distance.
It was a clear boundary, an obvious line that any rational person would respect without hesitation.
My fingers tapped once against the armrest before I stopped myself.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered under my breath.
“I should have left hours ago.”
Instead, I stayed.
And that realization annoyed me more than anything else.
My gaze shifted back to her.
She looked less tense now.
Her breathing was steadier, her face no longer strained the way it had been when I first brought her in.
It made the earlier version of her feel even more distant, as if the version of Elara I usually saw was always slightly braced against the world.
A thought crept in before I could stop it.
Where is that boyfriend when she looks like this?
The question had been circling my mind since yesterday, refusing to settle.
I had asked her about him more than once, and each time she had either avoided the answer or dismissed it in a way that felt intentionally vague.
That alone should have been enough to end my curiosity, but it didn’t.
Instead, it made me think worse thoughts.
If he existed at all, why was he never there when she needed help?
Why was it always me?
I leaned back slightly in my chair, exhaling slowly.
“That’s not your business,” I told myself firmly.
And yet another thought followed immediately after, quieter and more honest than I liked.
If she was mine to take care of, she wouldn’t be alone like this.
I closed my eyes for a moment, irritated at the direction my thoughts were taking.
“Get it together,” I muttered under my breath.
This wasn’t supposed to feel like anything.
But it did.
**
The next morning, I returned with breakfast.
I told myself it was practical.
She needed to eat, and hospital food was not something I trusted for recovery.
That was the logical explanation.
Still, I found myself choosing what I brought more carefully than necessary.
When I entered the room, Elara was already awake.
I placed the bags on the overbed table.
“You need to eat before the medication upsets your stomach.”
”You bought all these food?” she asked, as she watched me opened the container of porridge, stirred it once, then held out a spoonful.
“Dr.
Blackwood…
are you seriously trying to feed me?”
”You’ve been sick since yesterday.
Humor me.”
Her cheeks turned slightly pink.
“This is embarrassing.”
”I’ve seen patients throw scalpels at surgeons.
Trust me, this isn’t embarrassing.”
She let out a reluctant sigh before leaning forward to take the spoonful.
As she reached for the bowl herself, a few loose strands of hair slipped over her shoulder and fell across her face.
She tried to tuck them back, but they immediately fell forward again.
“Hold still,” I said.
Before she could protest, I picked up the hair tie resting beside her phone and gently gathered her hair into a loose ponytail.
She blinked up at me.
“You’re unexpectedly good at that.”
”Thanks for the compliment,” I said.
A few bites later, I noticed a small smear of porridge at the corner of her lips.
Without thinking, I reached over and brushed it away with my thumb.
She froze.
“So…” she said quietly.
“Is this how you treat all your patients?”
I looked at her for a moment before answering.
“I don’t sleep with my patients,” I said.
“You are the only exception.”
Elara’s face burned and she looked away.
Then the door opened.
A nurse stepped in, clipboard in hand, and immediately paused when she saw us.
“Oh,” she said brightly.
“Good morning, Doctor Blackwood.”
”Good morning,” I replied.
Her eyes shifted between me and Elara, then she smiled in a way that suggested she had already formed an opinion.
“I didn’t realize you were visiting your girlfriend today,” she said casually.
The words landed too quickly for me to correct immediately.
Elara choked slightly on her drink.
“I never expected the famously composed Dr.
Damian to be the type to bring breakfast and stay overnight,” the nurse added with a laugh.
Elara’s face turned visibly red.
“It’s a misunderstanding.
We’re not—he’s just helping me because I was sick.
That’s all.”
The nurse tilted her head.
“Sure.
That’s what they all say.”
For a reason I couldn’t immediately identify, I didn’t correct the nurse right away.
And I noticed something I didn’t like.
Elara looked… embarrassed.
The nurse finally smiled and backed toward the door.
“Well, I’ll leave you two to your very professional breakfast date.
Just try not to make the hospital your usual spot, Doctor.
There are nicer places for this kind of thing.”
And then she left.
Silence returned immediately.
Elara set her cup down a little too carefully.
“That was not what it looked like,” she said quickly.
“I noticed,” I replied.
She looked at me, still visibly flustered.
“I’m sorry.
That must have been really uncomfortable for you.”
”It wasn’t,” I said.
It was, I just wasn’t sure why.
She hesitated before speaking again.
“You should probably leave now.
I’m fine.
I can manage from here.”
”I will leave,” I said calmly, “when your boyfriend arrives.”
That made her pause.
“M-My boyfriend?” she repeated.
“Yes,” I said.
“Since he’ll probably want to take over from here.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then she looked away.
“He doesn’t need to come.”
I watched her for a moment longer.
Something in my chest tightened slightly at her words, though I didn’t let it show.
“I’ll wait anyway,” I said.